Age of Adepts

Cherkes felt like he was at the brink of death!

His flexible body was covered with layers of wind barriers that helped dissipate the damage of the energy beams as he dodged and retaliated with short bursts of dragon’s breaths.

Even so, his lean body still had to endure the corrosion of the powerful energy ripples.

A rain of one hundred energy attacks, each above a hundred points in power.

The collision and refraction of the energy pillars in mid-air made it increasingly harder for Cherkes to dodge. There were many times when such chaotic ricochets and refractions hit him.

The wind barrier around his body could effectively disrupt the trajectory of most of the attacks. If there were only two or three such energy attacks, the wind dragon’s swift figure would allow him to escape the line of fire with a single beat of his wings.

Sadly, Cherkes now faced the barrage of a hundred energy light pillars. The opponent clearly intended to use this area bombardment to leave him with no space to dodge or run.

The wind barrier refracted part of the attack, and his scales defended against another part of it. However, the remaining energy shockwaves were still far beyond the limits of what a Second Grade dragon could endure.

The flesh beneath his scales was severely corroded, and the scales themselves started to shed, revealing the charred flesh underneath. His veins had been burned, his flesh decayed, his bones embrittled, and his blood splashed everywhere.

When Wind Dragon Cherkes emerged from the sea of light, shrieking and howling, his lithe body had already been riddled with holes. Blood and wounds were everywhere while his scales scattered across the ground. Dragon blood rained down from above, filling the air with a pungent odor.

Large holes had also appeared on his unfurled dragon wings, making him incapable of commanding the winds in flight as he had before.

The simultaneous firing of a hundred magic energy cannons was no weaker than the simultaneous casting of spells by a hundred First Grade adepts.

Wind Dragon Cherkes was Second Grade, with a dragon’s body and Physique that possessed exceptional magic resistance. However, he was still reduced to this terrible state after being caught unaware by the enemy’s barrage.

He had only escaped the death trap because of the powerful abilities of the dragons. Any creature with slightly weaker magic resistance would probably have been torn apart and left without a complete corpse.

Cherkes dragged his broken body, howling as he flew even higher upward, trying his best to escape the area engulfed by the energy beams. However, he rose a little too fast, and his slightly withered tail smashed against the wall of the cliff, sending boulders tumbling down.

A single round!

In just a single round, Gazlowe had used his fantastic display of fireworks to almost cripple the wind dragon lord, forcing the dragon to escape into the distance while crying and screaming.

Cherkes’ dragonborn army had only made it through the forest at this moment. They appeared within Gazlowe’s vision.

Even though their dragon lord had already been defeated, the dragonborn army still charged toward that massive metal wall under the lead of the Second Grade dragonborn. The earth trembled under their heavy footsteps.

The loud blast of arcanite rifles rang out in the battlefield. A storm of metal bullets cut through the two hundred meter distance and crashed against the metal armor and fine scales of the dragonborn.

Metal bullets the size of thumbs crashed against the bodies of the dragonborn, sending sparks flying into the air. Blood splashed from the unprotected arms, face, and waists of the dragonborn. The grunting of agonizing dragonborn never ceased!

Gazlowe stopped the dragonborn warriors from pushing another inch forward with just the barrage of bullets. By the time the dragonborn took out their metal shields and prepared for their second charge, Gazlowe’s magic energy cannons had already cooled down.

A hundred fearsome cannons adjusted their angle slightly. The next second, one hundred horrifying energy beams enveloped the dragonborn army.

The dragonborn warriors did indeed possess the strong bodies and exceptional magic resistance of the dragons. However, the level of their resistances couldn’t compare to pureblooded dragons.

Cherkes had managed to endure over a hundred of those energy beams without dying, but these dragonborn warriors weren’t capable of such a feat.

Only one barrage of the magic energy cannons, and already half of the one hundred and two First Grade dragonborn warriors, and the one Second Grade dragon commander, had died. It was a tragedy.

However, the determination and loyalty within their nature drove them forward. The dragonborn continued their assault under the lead of their heavily wounded commander.

The successive firing of the magic energy cannons had caused severe damage to the energy circuits within the body of the metal monster. It quickly repaired these conduits as it opened walls to send out two hundred magical machines in a single go.

Two hundred magical machines clashed with the remnants of the dragonborn army under cover of a barrage of bullets.

There was no need for cheering or battle cries. Both sides engaged in a battle of life and death upon contact.

The dragonborn were individually much stronger than the magical machines. However, they weighed almost about the same.

On the one hand, you had muscular monsters. On the other, you had robust steel creations. Both sides were fearless and were not afraid of death.

That was why the battle immediately reached its climax the moment they clashed.

Second Grade Dragonborn Commander Bino had already gone berserk from the fighting, and his eyes were bloody red. He waved his heavy war axe, splitting apart two magical machines at the start of the battle while ignoring the multiple bleeding wounds on his body.

The strong robotic bodies of the magical machines exploded into countless components and sparking parts, but there were no signs of flesh or bone.

This discovery caused Bino’s heart to sank.

No intelligent lifeforms piloted the metal monsters they were fighting with; it was no wonder that they were so fearless in battle.

As the commander, Bino couldn’t help but hesitate in this situation. He couldn’t, in good conscience, allow his companions to trade their lives for the destruction of these insentient metal monsters.

These dragonborn were all the mixed-blood descendant of wind dragons. They could all cast Windwalk and Tornado Vortex. The battle was well underway now. One could occasionally see the speed of the dragonborn suddenly increasing with a flash of white light before they split apart yet another magical machine and sent components flying everywhere.

However, these magical machines were all complicated to deal with. They would drag their smoldering and sparking bodies to fight the enemy as long as their remains weren’t completely disintegrated or rendered incapable of combat. In fact, the damaged machines would even lunge at the dragonborn, slowing them down or distracting them with what remained of their arms and feet and creating opportunities for the other magical devices to attack.

It didn’t matter whether it was the arcanite rifles firing from a distance, the blazing flamethrowers, or even the buzzing chainsaws. All of these weapons could deal severe damage to the dragonborn, who were equipped with only rudimentary metal armor.

There weren’t that many dragonborn in the first place, and most of them were already wounded. Even the dragonborn army, known for their ferocity in battle, could no longer hold on for much longer against the superior numbers of the magical machines.

Dragonborn Commander Bino let out a furious roar, and the last surviving thirty dragonborn roared along with him as they let out their most powerful attack– Tornado Vortex. Several small vortices merged and stopped the enemy from advancing. It was only now that the dragonborn dragged their battered bodies off of the battlefield, quickly vanishing into the distant forest.

When the last dragonborn’s desolate silhouette disappeared, the bloody battlefield instantly fell silent again. Only the moans of dying dragonborn remained.

The magical machines quickly changed roles as well, turning into an army of servants and janitors as they cleaned up the battlefield.

They were incredibly detailed and serious in their work. The machines not only sent their damaged companions back into the body of the metal monster, but they also retrieved lost parts and components. Gazlowe even sent out construction machines to shovel up the blood, flesh, and corpses of the dragonborn in the end.

Apart from the basic magical machine factory, Gazlowe had also brought with him the smelting factory this time. The severely damaged magical machines could all be sent into the furnace and reforged. At the very least, he would be able to recycle large amounts of metal and some rare resources.

Gazlowe also made sure to retrieve all of the dragonborn, dead or alive.

He had unexpectedly obtained some techniques from Billis with which to create flesh golems. If Gazlowe cooperated with the bug adept in combining the corpses of the dragonborn with the robotic bodies of the magical machines, there was a high possibility they could create a unique flesh magical machine.

Even though the combat power of a flesh magical-machine couldn’t possibly compare to a magical machine made of pure metal, it could significantly alleviate the lack of metal ores that they were currently dealing with.

The dragonborn had been routed after fifteen minutes of battle, leaving behind seventy of their companions as they did so. Over a hundred magical machines had been destroyed in exchange.

The ratio of casualties was fair evidence that the dragonborn were still individually much more powerful than the magical machines.

However, it took a lot to cultivate the dragonborn, from birth to their growth into eligible warriors. On the other hand, magical machines could walk off the assembly line as long as there were sufficient metal resources.

If one were to look at it from this perspective, the magical machines were far more cost-effective compared to the dragonborn.

Still, it was probably time to put some thought into the weapons used by the magical machines!

With the dragon lord and his dragonborn army expelled, there was no longer anything stopping the metal monster from obtaining the metal veins it sought.

The metal monster continued digging downward, only stopping once it was two hundred meters away from the veins of ore.

It then used its own unique methods to dig out an underground space of one square kilometer.

The metal monster could finally spread out its body with this space. It transformed into the foundations, walls, and ceilings of the new metal base, turning into a vague framework for what was to come.

Then it formed the ore crushing workshop, the ore filtering workshop, smelting workshop, the construction and repairs workshop, and the magical machine factory. All sorts of individual factories and workshops were haphazardly placed all over the new fortress, taking up every corner of the underground area.

Several construction machines charged out of the fortress, like busy bees. They immediately started mining. Large amounts of unscreened metal ores were removed from the mineral deposits with the use of the drills and alchemical explosives before being transported into the factories.

The magic generator furnace that Gazlowe lived in also turned into the power core of the new metal fortress. It continually sent magic energy to every facility and supported their constant activity through a thick energy pipe.

The loud clanging of the work echoed throughout every corner of this underground world.