Age of Adepts

Theoretically the vampire adept and the spellbreaker knight were fairly even in power.

However, the racial advantage was evident when the two started fighting with all their strength.

On one hand, you had a terrifying vampire whose race could be found in all high-magic planes, while on the other you had a normal human who had only strengthened his physical strength and comprehended some special uses of Elementium crystals. The spellbreaker knight might be able to force a stalemate against Mary by using his skilled and potent knight battle-techniques.

However, once the battle had turned into a critical fight on the edge of life and death, the terrifying traits of Mary’s race became the deciding factor. Her resilient Physique and regenerative ability far outclassed her opponent and gave her the edge. After three rounds of battle, Mary had the advantage on the battlefield and was slowly turning the advantage into a complete beatdown.

Mary, being a vampire adept, did not need to suck the blood directly out of her opponents to regenerate. As long as she did a substantial amount of damage, she could gain an endless stream of blood energy from her opponent’s blood that splashed everywhere.

An opponent that became stronger as the fight went on, whose strength did not decrease as their wounds increased, was the scariest nightmare for the spellbreaker knight. It didn’t matter how severe a wound he dealt to Mary. As long as Mary was able to deal an equally severe wound to him, he would never have a chance of defeating her!

For that one moment, the spellbreaker knight thought he was fighting against himself...no, fighting against his own blood! Every slash he made wasn’t making his opponent bleed, it was making him bleed. His opponent only needed to trade him blow-for-blow, and she would go unscathed in this fight.

He would only continue to weaken!

The angered shouts and cries of many witcher-knights could be heard from the nearby battlefield. They must have met the same problem as he did! If this had been a normal situation, he would have broken through the opponent’s blockade, gathered with his companions, and fought together against this powerful enemy.

However, he couldn’t do that today.

The demon before his eyes was clearly the that terrifying group’s leader and had strength far above them. If he led her to his companions...there would probably not be a single one of them who could escape from her mysterious shadow that was as fleeting as a phantom and constantly flickering about.

He was still hanging on with all his might, waiting for reinforcements and help from his companions.

The knights in front would most definitely realize that thirty witcher-knights had fallen behind and send people to look for them. As long as he join up with one or two of his spellbreaker knights, defeating this terrifying blood demon was not an issue with their cooperation and teamwork.

As expected, the unique sound of magic colts sprinting rang out in the woods far away.

The spellbreaker knight, who was completely exhausted and pale in the face, instantly got his energy back and continued to fight with vigor. Sadly, as he waved about his flame longsword and sent out two flame blades to push away the demon, she charged forward instead of retreating as he predicted. She cancelled the protection of her crimson armor, allowing the flame blades to slice through her body and explode like fireworks behind her.

Using the opportunity she bought with her severe injuries, she dodged past the knight’s sword and shield and leapt onto his body. She wrestled with him using all her savage might.

The spellbreaker knight might be wearing a complete set of knight’s armor, but there were gaps in between each individual piece. This doomed him to the fate of being torn at by Mary’s cruel bites and rending claws.

Thus, the witcher-knight reinforcements watched bleakly as a spellbreaker knight, who they hailed to be strong and valiant, was tossed off his horse like an emptied waterskin. The magic colt whinnied in pain before also falling, a bloody hole on the back of its head spurting blood out in a fountain.

The terrifying person bathing in blood had a voluptuous figure, but in the eyes of everyone present, she was no different than a demon merely wearing the skin of a seductive beauty.

Mary extended her wide bat wings, floating in the sky with blood covering her body. She raised her chin and using her lithe tongue to swallow the blood slowly dripping from her bloody hand.

Behind her, a dozen witcher-knights had been tackled off their colts by the vampires flying in the sky. The knights screamed in terror with all their strength as the vampires swarmed them. As for the other witcher-knights, only their corpses remained, strewn about the woods. The magic colts that had lost their owners stomped, sprinted about, and ran away in a panicked frenzy, soon disappearing in the miserable morning mist……

Ninther, who had led the reinforcements back, let out an angered howl that spread throughout the battlefield. He waved his runic sword, thick as a pillar of flame, and drove his colt forward in a frenzy.

Mary grinned wickedly before turning around, beating her leathery bat wings and flying up into the canopy. Her blood servants, that just had a feast of their own, let out howls as they followed her away from the battlefield.

With the vampire’s phantom-like flying speed, the witcher-knights would have no chance of catching up with them in the woods.

Ninther rode his horse slowly around the terrible battlefield within the woods, having chased away the vampires. The grotesque appearance of each corpse was shocking, but Ninther forced himself to look at each corpse, one by one. Ninther got off his horse and kneeled before the spellbreaker knight’s shrivelled corpse, and silently chanted the knights’ motto, sacred in the hearts of every witcher-knight.

Slowly, the knights got off their horses and recovered the bodies of their companions who fell in battle.

The entire woods were filled with a dense sorrow.

”This is a kind of heretic we have never seen before! They should be the group of people our superiors were looking for.” The calm and steady Edward rode his horse to Ninther’s side and asked softly, ”What do we do next?”

”Why did they suddenly attack us?” Ninther slowly asked softly as he stood up.

”Er……” Edward couldn’t help but be stunned, ”We’re enemies. Isn’t it natural that they came to attack us?”

”No!” Ninther raised his face, a brilliant gleam shining in his light brown eyes, ”Based on their coordination in both their baiting and their attack, they are beings with extremely high intelligence. Currently, only two heretics have shown their faces, but there are fifteen spellbreaker knights on our side. In a situation with such a huge difference in numbers, they still chose to show their faces and set a trap. All this just because they hate us?”

”You are saying……”

”If they revealed themselves here, then there must be a reason- they had no choice but to reveal themselves! And if I’m not wrong……”

”Their den is nearby, so they have no choice but to find a way to draw us away!”

The two spellbreaker knights, Ninther and Edward, looked at each other and instantly understood what the other was thinking. They didn’t continue to speak, instead turning around and carefully recovering the body of their companion.

…………

Greem was sitting crossed-legged on the crest of a far-off hill, but his Spirits had extended all the way to the battlefield fifteen kilometers away.

He didn’t personally participate in this battle, but thirty of his wind critters were spread over the entirety of the wide battlefield, giving him perfect vision over every action taken his allies and enemies.

Mary had led her numerous blood servants and vampire spawn in an ambush, killing one spellbreaker knight and twenty-three witcher-knights. This could have been said to be a perfect result. Unfortunately, Ninther was a decisive man. He gave up on pursuing Acteon, and turned back to drive away the vampires, saving the remaining eleven witcher-knights.

This tiny blemish might not be much! As long as Acteon and Mary had enough time, as well as enough space to battle in, they could slowly chip away at this hundred man witcher-knight army. There wouldn’t be any problem. Even the fifteen-wait, no- fourteen spellbreaker knights would no longer be able to disrupt or prevent this from happening.

When the adepts who possessed all kinds of odd techniques were pit against the spellbreaker knights who only had powerful melee attacks, their advantage in battle wasn’t just a little. It was an overwhelming and complete advantage. If they were taking turns to fight on an arena, just Mary alone could wipe out all fourteen men from the squad of spellbreaker knights.

But if they all swarmed simultaneously, Mary could possibly only deal with two people at the same time with her current power. She would probably have a hard time if she faced three spellbreaker knights at the same time. Any more than that, and Mary would have to run.

Acteon was about the same as Mary. The limit to the number of people he could battle at once was three spellbreaker knights.

Greem, on the other hand, could deal with five spellbreaker knights at once if he coordinated well with the Fire Lord. Of course, if that happened, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to successfully retrieve the Fire Lord after the battle.

Regardless of how they calculated, as long as the opponent managed to join together, their advantage over the three was extremely obvious. To have only killed a single spellbreaker knight in that battle, this was way too innefficient!

Just as Greem was spacing out and thinking, the witcher-knights in the distance started to move.

They split into twelve squads, keeping a distance of less than thirty meters between each other, slowly riding their horses in a fan formation as they moved towards the location of the adepts’ base.

Now it was Greem’s turn to curse and swear!

With no choice left to him, Greem could only cast a spell to signal Acteon and Mary to return to his side.

”What’s the matter? Why are we not continuing?” Mary had just consumed all the blood in the body of a spellbreaker knight. She was in an agitated state, with energy flowing all through her body. It was obvious that she was unhappy that they had abandoned the plan of baiting the opponent.

Acteon who was standing alone by the side, didn’t go close to the two. He silently waited for Greem’s reply, his ghostly green eyes hidden under the shadow of his hood.

”I’m afraid the plan will no longer work!” Greem smiled bitterly and helplessly, ”The enemy’s leader is also a perceptive man. Their actions are very decisive. It seems they’ve seen through our plans. Now we can only fight them head on.”

Mary was obviously skeptical about this. Silently, she commanded a squad of vampires to flank and tackle witcher-knights at the edge of the formation- only to find that the squad of witcher-knights were led by two spellbreaker knights.

Moreover, as the vampires were occupied with the witcher-knights, the other squads of witcher-knights had quickly come to their aid. Under the two-fold attack of runic bows and blades, the group of twelve vampire spawn were decimated before they could even kill a single witcher-knight.

Acteon was equally skeptical, and sent a clone made of scorpions to bait the enemy, only to have it be destroyed by a terrifying volley of flame arrows from the witcher-knights.

The direction of the army’s search still did not change!

Only then did the two finally believe that the plan had failed and agreed with Greem’s proposal of a head on battle.

The three immediately split up and began to prepare!