Age of Adepts

Tracking the ogres without sufficient stamina was challenging.

The ogre warriors never stopped after they surged out of their camp. They started running towards the woods in the distance.

Over the past six months of hunting, they were no longer find any large beings that could fill their bellies within a ten to fifteen-kilometer radius of Maulhill. That was why the ogres had no choice but to venture even further out if they wanted to bring back enough prey.

Billis, who knew nothing of the daily habits of the ogres, hadn’t expected this to happen. He brought the seven young sting scorpions with him as they sprinted for over twenty kilometers. It was only then that they found the messy remains of the ogres’ battles.

The first victims were a den of razor boars.

Razor Boars could be considered one of the most common forest beasts in the Black Forest.

They had no elementium powers. They only possessed bulky and muscular bodies and those large, razor-like fangs. Adolescent razor boars were at least a hundred kilograms heavy. The mixture of amber-like tree sap, sand, and stone on their bodies also made it as if they had a thick layer of armor around them.

A berserk razor boar in the Black Forest could forcefully knock down a massive tree that would usually require two people to embrace its trunk fully.

Sadly, they had run into an ogre hunting squad, who were both stronger and more well-versed in hunting. Thus, this den of two adolescent boars and three piglets became the prey of three ogres.

The ogres also loved to eat cooked food. However, they didn’t know how to start fires. The ogres would often just eat what they have on hand while they were out hunting.

As the warriors who went out hunting, they naturally possessed the right to fill their bellies first.

After the successful hunt, the three ogres used vines to tie up the adolescent pigs that they had knocked out. They then sat down on the ground, and each one picked a piglet. They opened the bellies of the piglets, then dug out the intestines and other organs before taking out the hearts and biting into them.

In the savage and straightforward minds of the ogres, the source of all life form’s power sprang from the heart. That was why eating the heart first to strengthen themselves became a tradition of the ogres.

While they were tearing at the flesh and sending blood splashing everywhere, a pair of pale green compound-eyes had already trained upon them from the woods nearby.

Under Billis’ remote command, the seven sting scorpions had tunneled through the ground with their unique talent. They bit through the tree roots, dug through the dirt, and silently snuck below the three ogres.

As expected of magical creatures of this nature, the ogres managed to detect the strangeness in the ground through the slight trembling of the earth, even though they hadn’t heard anything.

As they halted their feeding session in suspicion, the dirt beneath them suddenly broke apart. A desolate pillar of dust swept through the air and quickly consumed the figures of the ogres.

Enemy assault!

The ogres instantly understood the situation. They cast aside the food in their hands and leaped away. They bent down and picked up the weapons they had set at their sides.

Eh?

What perplexed them was the fact that their hands came up empty.

The target of the sting scorpion’s assault actually wasn’t the ogres. Instead, it was the crude weapons that had been placed against the tree by the side. Three sting scorpion larvae used their massive claws to grab the wooden bats and stone sticks before diving back underground.

While the ogres were frantically searching for their weapons, the second group of three sting scorpions emerged from the ground and dug their sharp claws into the thick calves of the ogres.

The ogres had lost their weapons and could only use their massive fists to repeatedly bash the shells on the heads of the sting scorpions. The ogres’ seven points of Strength forcefully smashed through the solid earth elementium around the scorpions and beat the bugs so hard that blood went flying everywhere. However, the spikes on the shell of the scorpions also caused the ogres’ fists to bleed without stopping. The claws that had cut into their calves also continued to inject earth elementium energies into the ogres.

Several earth spikes shot towards the ogres under the magic of the sting scorpions. Even though most of the spikes were deflected by the ogres’ tough and dense hides, some of them still managed to break through and inflict tremendous wounds on the bodies of the ogres.

If one were to assess the ogres and the sting scorpions individually, the ogre warriors would be far stronger. In a one-on-one duel, a newborn sting scorpion would never be able to beat an ogre warrior. However, ogre warriors were only ordinary magic-infused creatures, while the young sting scorpions were pure-bred magical creatures.

The ogre warriors were met with two sting scorpions each. The battle was intense, and the situation was chaotic. However, while both sides were enduring grievous wounds, the seventh sting scorpion that abruptly emerged from the ground became the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Half an hour later, the battlefield regained its peace.

The three ogres had been injected with too much earth elementium; they finally lost control of their bodies and fell to the ground. They could no longer resist the scorpions.

A strange wave of chittering and scratching sounds rang out.

The three ogres, who had the nerves of their four limbs bitten off, had lost all ability to fight back. They were shocked to find a terrifying black swarm of bugs surging towards them. Just as the ogres were about to scream out of fear, the poison stingers of the sting scorpions immediately stabbed their necks.

The three ogres fell utterly unconscious.

The bug swarm billowed forth and picked up the three ogres and two boars. The horde quickly vanished into the depths of the woods under the escort of the seven sting scorpions.

…………

Maulhill.

The ogres that had gone out hunting didn’t start returning to the camp until night had fallen.

They brought back plenty of spoils with them.

The large ones included bulls and massive salamanders, while the smaller catches included boars and rabbits. They had caught all sorts of prey.

The ogres happily gathered together and started a campfire in the middle of the camp, using massive stone pots to cook the delicious meat.

It was probably the only cooking technique that all the ogres in the universe knew.

As the ogres were all muscular yet brainless individuals, they didn’t discover the loss of six of their companions from the camp on the first night.

The second day. The same hunt, the same departure from the camp.

This time, they lost nine comrades.

At this point, even the ogres knew something was off, regardless of how dumb they were.

Sometimes there were cases of ogres who went out hunting that only returned after two or three days due to traveling too far away. However, these were rare and unusual events.

But now…

There were about that many ogres who had never returned to camp. No matter how they looked at it, this seemed like a conspiracy and assault designed against them.

The number of ogre warriors that had gone missing was far too many. They had exceeded the number of fingers and toes that an ogre squad leader had. That made it impossible for them to calculate how many had gone missing. That was why the ogre squad leaders could only use the term very very many to describe the loss of their numbers when reporting to Two-Headed Ogre Mage Zac.

Zac was also furious at the disappearance of his subordinate warriors and was unusually violent and angry.

The few ogre squad leaders quickly ’came up with a brilliant plan’ in response to Zac’s enraged shouting. They all pointed their fingers at the Aba Beemen.

The mad expansion of the Aba Beemen had caused their hunting areas to start overlapping with those of the ogres. Conflicts had erupted between both parties numerous times over the contentious areas. They had already fought several battles. Consequently, the ogres first thought of the Aba Beemen after encountering this unknown wave of assaults.

The Two-Headed Ogre Mage Zac also went berserk in a flash under the influence of those squad leaders.

The moment the sun had gone up on the second day, a large group of ogres charged down Maulhill with Zac in the lead. They boisterously marched towards the territory of the Aba Beemen.

…………

In a damp and dark underground cave.

A dozen bug’s nests forged of blood, wooden splinters, and dirt had been erected in the middle of the cave. Holes the size of a fist could be seen everywhere in these holes. One could very clearly see the crawling sting scorpion larvae in these bug’s nest through these openings. Of course, they could also see the pile of bloody corpses.

Billis had returned to his human form and was standing in the middle of all the bug’s nests. His eyes continually assessed these larvae that were about to become his subordinates.

As the blood in the air thickened, Billis’ body hidden beneath his robe was also undergoing subtle changes.

His human skin was now entirely replaced by a layer of black shell. His human hands had also become a pair of giant claws gleaming with a metallic shine. Three scythe-like limbs were curled up on his chest.

What was even more shocking was Billis’ head.

The continuously swelling bug’s head had split the original face apart. The nose, mouth, and eyes were all slanted to a side, revealing the black and wicked face beneath.

Ghostly green compound-eyes, wicked and frightening mouthparts, two external antennae…

It was evident that Billis was committed and determined to his evolution into a bug person.

There wasn’t much more about his body that was still human!

Moreover, with the increasing extent of his bug transformation, Billis had also silently progressed to an advanced apprentice. He had caught up to the height that Acteon spent sixty to seventy years to reach in a matter of two months.

In fact, an advanced apprentice wasn’t the endpoint of his evolution this time. As the sting scorpions in the bug’s nests continued devouring copious amounts of flesh, Billis’ aura started growing even further.

Twelve bug’s nests. Once the sting scorpion larvae within them had successfully grown into young sting scorpions, they didn’t choose to break out of the nest. Instead, they started tearing at each other.

Young sting scorpions were still too frail for Billis. They were not suitable as a bug army that waged war alongside him. That was why Billis set the goal of this evolution of his bug swarm to be mature sting scorpions after wiping out the few nearby magical creature dens!

The bloody and cruel devouring and evolution process started in each of the twelve nests under his mad and excited gaze.

Each young sting scorpion possessed individual consciousnesses and instincts. Naturally, they were unwilling to allow their barely awakened being to become someone else’s stepping stone to evolution just like that. Consequently, the fight in each of the nest was fierce and bloody. It had even reached a level of insanity.

Under Billis’ strict orders, only the strongest young scorpion that survived in each nest had the chance to grow and evolve. That was why the scorpions used each part of their bodies to attack every single thing around them that could move insanely.

This battle for evolution that occurred in an unseen corner of the world took two hours to conclude.

As the bug’s nests started collapsing, twelve bloody adolescent sting scorpions with incomplete and damaged shells climbed out of the dirt and gathered around Billis.

Billis looked down upon these subordinates of his and finally let out a wild and sharp bug’s screech towards the sky!