Age of Adepts

The battle in the sky continued to intensify.

The Explosive Fireballs, Magma Fireballs, and Meteor Showers fell like rain pouring down from above. Craters blasted into the earth, and molten lava flowed everywhere.

Soros carefully dodged through the Meteor Showers, occasionally performing a frantic dodge to avoid an Explosive Fireball coming from above. A single moment’s carelessness could send him flying to the ground in such a harsh battle environment. An attack could quickly turn him into part of that scorched landscape.

Soros beat his wings and made a broad circling motion across the sky. Inside the area he circled was a blinding sea of fire.

However, while most of the fields of fire were usually on the ground, this particular sea of fire was thirty meters in midair.

The fire elementium within was far too dense and active. It severely affected Soros’ field of vision and spiritual senses. Consequently, Soros had no idea what was happening inside the sea of fire.

He would only grit his teeth and dive in once his wings had healed under the influence of blood energy. He would try to launch another wave of attacks at that monstrous Flame Fiend standing atop the wind dragon.

He only had a short window of two to three seconds to attack. If Soros lingered too long within the fire, his bat wings would burn and become riddled with holes. If that happened, he would fall from the air and turn into a grounded blood knight.

Only one of his two knight companions was still flying in the air alongside him. The other blood knight had been hit in the wing by the Flame Fiend’s flame whip and was grounded entirely now.

This was the battlefield of two powerful adepts. Without wings, one didn’t even have the qualification to participate in it. Soros cautiously protected his wings as he weaved in and out of the battlefield, launching powerful midrange attacks at the Flame Fiend by throwing crimson spears at him.

Inside the fiery battlefield, Greem remained towering on the back of the wind dragon. He was trying his best to maintain the Ring of Fire to continuously damage Mary while shooting out Scalding Rays from his eyes. Greem was closely chasing after the agile vampire.

The thirty minutes of battle had inflicted relatively severe wounds on both Greem and Mary.

The incredibly agile Mary dodged and weaved in a small area; she was an annoying assassin. There was no point in casting any spell that required more than three seconds of chanting.

Trying to cast a large-scale spell was a suicidal act unless you were sure that your defenses could hold out that long!

On the other hand, those powerful single-target spells weren’t practical either. The chances of these spells hitting Mary were just too low. Even if Greem managed to lock on to her position using his Spirit, his spell would only manage to destroy the realistic afterimage she had left behind.

When necessary, Mary even used her strange blood magic to swap positions with one of her knights. It might temporarily cripple one of her subordinates, but it ensured that her personal safety was guaranteed and that her combat ability was not compromised.

Still, despite all her advantages, Mary had been injured.

The most alarming thing was still that accursed Ring of Fire. As long as she was in this zone of fire, her body had to endure the continuous burning of the destructive flames.

Mary would not have taken much damage with her elite-level resistances if this were common fire. However, what currently engulfed her was an elementium fire that was sixty points in power. Moreover, the flames themselves seemed to possess a trace of soul-burning effect.

That forced Mary to continuously protect her wings with her blood energies as she flitted around within the sea of fire. However, the depths of her soul would occasionally sting, regardless of how tight her defenses were. It was as if someone were constantly stabbing her soul with an invisible needle.

It wasn’t a very powerful or crippling attack, but it was extremely annoying!

Mary’s wings were in tatters now, covered with burn marks and punctures. Signs of being burned had also appeared all over her slim and slender body. There were gaping wounds on her shoulders and legs where the Scalding Rays had pierced through.

It was no longer the start of the battle. Mary could no longer afford to use her blood energy to recover her wounds continuously. For the sake of better preserving her strength, Mary couldn’t waste her blood energy on the recovery of these insignificant wounds.

She would only indulge herself when struck in a crucial part of her body.

After all, she couldn’t find any blood treats here that could help her regenerate blood energy. Without the nourishment of blood, a vampire would not be able to employ their signature suicidal combat style.

This substantially limited Mary’s abilities in the fight!

Of course, as her loyal servant, old fox Vanlier had already gone hunting in the surroundings. He had brought back a goat. Sadly, he couldn’t even send these spoils into the sea of fire. The moment Vanlier returned, an Explosive Fireball shot out from within the battlefield and blasted the goat into smithereens.

Greem had perfectly controlled the strength of the fireball; it hadn’t hurt Vanlier at all.

Thus, the battle reached a stalemate!

In truth, the pressure Greem had been facing was no less than Mary all this time.

The extended period of maintaining the Ring of Fire had caused Greem’s fire energy to continuously dwindling. If it weren’t for the sporadic surges of fire energy sent out from the Flame Fiend’s Heart, Greem would probably have had to shrink his defensive line and fully commit to defending.

He was hiding deep in the sea of fire and relied on the wind dragon’s Wind Barriers to defend against Mary’s ambushes. His defenses had all been taken apart in the battle up until now. Currently, only a single battered Lava Shield and an energy barrier remained.

Three large and visible wounds were visible on Greem’s massive body. Traces of blood energy could be observed fighting and clashing with the fire energy inside these wounds. They would not heal before the blood energy was neutralized.

Despite the difficulty of the battle, Greem didn’t make the wind dragon unleash its aura of might. He didn’t complete his second phase transformation either.

Greem had a feeling that Mary was hiding some of her powers and trump cards while looking for a chance to flip the tables on him. To avoid being caught by surprise, Greem had to keep his own trump cards tightly in his grasp. He waited silently for the moment she would strike.

Two of the three blood knights had been grounded. They weren’t dead, but they had lost the ability to participate in the ensuing fight. The only remaining knight seemed to be reasonably intelligent. He wasn’t as ’straightforward’ as the others. As a result, every time Greem tried to cripple him, Greem would fail.

Moreover, this blood knight had a perfect grasp of the timing of his attacks. There were several times where his knight battle-techniques didn’t connect, but they created the perfect opportunity for Mary to attack. One time, Greem even had to exhaust half of his Scroll of Voodoo’s instant-cast spells to force Mary away.

Powerful area-of-effect spells couldn’t be launched against an agile and difficult to target assassin. Single target spells, on the other hand, were easily dodged. Consequently, Greem couldn’t hurt Mary at all, apart from his Ring of Fire and the multitude of small instant-cast fire spells he had on hand.

Not to mention there was still a blood knight looking in from the edges of the sea of fire, waiting for a chance to push. If Greem showed any weakness, this fearless and reckless man would definitely use his own life to tear open a path of attack for Mary.

That was why Greem couldn’t focus all of his Spirit on Mary.

That said, while the battle was intense and unpredictable, the chances of Greem winning were still steadily rising.

The main reason for that was the Chip completing its data collection on Bloody Mary. She was no longer a cloud of blood mist whose actions he couldn’t predict. Her true form and abilities had been exposed to him.

Mary.

Vampire. First Grade Bloodline Adept.

Bodily attributes: Strength 7 | Agility 16 | Physique 11 | Spirit 7.

Combat magic: Blood Arrow, Rapid Advance, Shackles of Blood, Life Drain, Vampiric Touch, Blood Mist, Blood Frenzy, Rending Bloodclaw, Transfusion, Crimson Pact.

Greem’s head hurt when he saw all of Mary’s combat magic projected in his mind. Mary had already repeatedly cast dozens of blood spells from the start of the battle until now. It was a clear demonstration of Mary’s talent for battle. It was so impressive that Greem was at a loss for words.

Melee adepts were not the same as elementium adepts.

Elementium adepts often functioned as glass cannons, firing off powerful spells while remaining fixed on the same location. While they did have mobility spells, most of their combat consisted of long-range elementium attacks. While melee adepts also possessed a lot of spells, most of these were auxiliary and enhancement spells meant to boost their strength at a close range. They were rarely intended to be long-ranged attacks.

Therefore, Greem had to use quick and consecutive instant spells to force back an agile assassin like Mary, who was continuously striking from every direction. That was especially the case after he lost his Lava Shields that provided him with physical protection.

When the battle finally reached a standstill, Mary gave up on her strategy of harassing and dodging. She finally revealed her ace, the Shackles of Blood.

She let out a strange screech, and several shackles of blood immediately connected her with her four blood servants. She then stormed at Greem with no regard for her own body.

Even though Greem had prepared himself for this, he was still shocked by Mary’s ferociousness and determination.

The next second, a storm of fire spells crashed towards Mary. The wind dragon started beating its wings as well. The dragon threw a massive tornado at Mary, obstructing her path forward.

The climax of this battle for dominance had broken out just like that!