Age of Adepts

On the distant horizon, three hippogryphs were desperately fleeing.

They flew up and down, turning, tossing, and performing all sorts of evasive maneuvers.

The elven archers on their backs were also fruitlessly drawing their bows and loosing arrows at the massive metal ship chasing behind them.

Sadly, the metal ship continued to fly above the cloud layers. The arrows of the elven archers were whisked to the side by the powerful wind vortices outside the ship before they could hit their target. The plates at the bottom of the vessel opened up, revealing several black cannon barrels. Over twenty to thirty purple energy lasers the width of bowls fired in a single volley.

Energy lasers of this level could envelop a space of over a hundred square meters with every volley. No aerial unit within the area could rely on their agility to avoid such a dense concentration of an energy barrage.

Two of the three hippogryphs failed to escape in time and were riddled with holes before the horrified gazes of Hegus and Cidaris, the bodies of the beasts exploding into flesh and blood. The elven archers on their backs didn’t escape their ill fate either; they died along with their steeds.

”It’s that metal demon!” Cidaris roared furiously and pulled out an elven saber from his waist.

”Cidaris, don’t be reckless. You go and notify the battleships to leave as soon as possible. I will hold the enemy back.” Hegus gave orders to his companions at the fastest possible speed. He then patted his silver pegasus, and the steed that had accompanied him for a dozen years beat its wings quickly and soared up toward the metal ship with dancing hooves.

The terrifying cannons seemed to be everywhere on the sides and bottom of the metal ship. Trying to charge up to the enemy’s deck while enduring the cannon fire was a pipe dream. That was why Hegus gave up on directly attacking the enemy from the very start. Instead, he chose to rise as high as he could and find a suitable breaching point from the firing blind spot above the enemy.

However, the metal ship’s altitude was shocking. It was practically flying parallel to the cloud layers. The towering hull of the ship would crush and shred the white clouds wherever it went, leaving a choppy path of clouds in its wake.

Hegus had to fly higher than the ship if he wanted to find a point of entrance from above. That was far, far, far too difficult for a silver pegasus that ordinarily lived within the Great Fantasy Forest and usually only needed to patrol for long periods at an altitude of one to two hundred meters.

Still, no one could factor this into consideration anymore at this point. Even Hegus crouched down by the side of the silver pegasus’ ears to encourage it, while rapidly tossing all the satchels of throwing spears and arrows on the silver pegasus off into the air.

Hegus even removed his metal armor to lighten the load for the silver pegasus, allowing it to freefall from his body. Apart from the throwing spears, Hegus tossed away two of the three quivers of arrows used for long-ranged attacks. There were still thirty arrows in the remaining quiver. These were enough for him to attack freely upon boarding the metal ship.

As the silver pegasus continued to climb upward, their altitude slowly pulled equal with the metal ship. Hegus could now clearly see the towering figures moving around on the deck.

Dammit! The deck was filled with fearsome metal golems. Their tall and ferocious bodies flashed with blinding metallic gleams under the shine of the proud sun.

The enemy seemed to have discovered his actions. Metal golems had their arms raised on the side of the ship he was close to. Black gun barrels extended out of those arms.

What was this they were preparing to do? Could they be preparing for long-ranged attacks? Didn’t most metal golems only possess melee combat abilities?

A series of strange thoughts arose within Hegus’ heart.

Before he could find his answers to those questions, small black dots shot out of the outstretched gun barrels of those metal golems. These black dots raged toward Hegus and his silver pegasus like an unrelenting storm.

As a high-grade elven warrior, Hegus naturally possessed enviably sharp vision. Despite the fired black dots being tiny and concentrated, Hegus still managed to use his superhuman dynamic vision to see the real face of these black dots.

They were metal bullets the size of a small finger bone. They were shooting toward him with an unstoppable momentum under the propulsion of a surge of powerful magical energy.

An intense sense of imminent danger and death instantly crept through Hegus’ heart.

He abruptly flipped backward, his entire body leaving the back of the horse. He rapidly waved the saber in his hand as he crashed downward.

The silver pegasus that had previously been trying to climb upward was instantly turned into swiss cheese by the dense barrage of bullets. The fountain of blood that splashed everywhere formed a rain of blood on the very spot.

Most of the bullets had been blocked by the large body of the silver pegasus. Hegus’ flashing saber had also parried more than half of the remaining shots. However, there were still plenty of bullets that had made it past the flashing glimpses of the blade. They embedded themselves in his body.

Hegus’ lithe and fit body trembled wildly in the air. He was kept suspended in the air for a moment as large clusters of blood exploded into a bloody mist in the air alongside shards of flesh and skin.

The metal bullets might not be large, but the kinetic energy contained within them was extraordinarily great. These bullets the size of finger bones would even pierce straight through the body of a mortal, leaving a large gaping wound in the part of the body that had been hit.

Hegus was indeed an elite elven knight. His Physique and Strength were far above an ordinary person, allowing him to be a hundred times more resilient.

Four bullets passed through his left shoulder, leaving a massive wound there. One pierced his right leg, practically blasting away the majority of the flesh on his calf. Another slashed past the left of his stomach, leaving a deep gash behind, while another embedded itself somewhere slightly beneath his right chest, snapping and shattering most of the surrounding bones.

A mortal would have already died from such horrendous wounds. Yet, Hegus was still alive and quickly plummeting from high up in the skies. With his current injuries and his current altitude, he would die to the tremendous impact of landing, even if it was sea water beneath him.

A light whinny.

The familiar sound of hooves clopping in air rang out by his ear.

Hegus felt his body tighten. Cidaris had successfully caught him and help avoid the fate of falling to his death.

Cidaris’ eyes swelled with tears as he held his bloody companion in one hand and drove the silver pegasus to the best of his abilities with the other. He dodged left and right, barely avoiding a dozen lasers shooting down from the metal ship above.

The metal ship high in the sky didn’t seem to be bothered by these two silver pegasus knights. They didn’t change their course to continue pursuing the knights, despite seeing that their two rounds of barraging had failed to kill them. Instead, the boat turned slightly and pushed toward the two elven battleships in the distance.

The elven battleships were already in disarray at this point. They turned around with much difficulty under the loud commands of the elven commanders and were desperately escaping toward Garan. A swarm of flying creatures rose from the battleships and charged in the direction of the metal battleship.

These were the two hundred odd flower fairies that came to sea alongside the elven battleships.

They weren’t large, but they numbered many and had claws coated in plant poison. Moreover, their flight speed was remarkably swift. These fairies were perfectly qualified to be the short-ranged flying squad of the battleships.

Sadly, their wings were too thin. They had plenty of speed, but insufficient strength.

Consequently, they started to falter when they rose to a height of about a hundred meters.

Over half of the previously intimidating swarm of flower fairies was instantly shot down by the metal ship’s bombardment. The remaining fairies let out screeches and quickly scattered.

Those flower fairies that turned around and tried in vain to return to the battleships were quickly caught up by the metal ship and easily exterminated. Only the slightly smarter flower fairies turned and flew toward the sea. That was the only way they managed to avoid the next round of energy attacks.

After all, those who cruised along the sea couldn’t possibly outrun that which flew in the sky!

Seven minutes later, the flying ship caught up with the two battleships. Both ships were sunk amidst much creaking and groaning from three rounds of concentrated fire.

For a moment, large amounts of debris and countless struggling elven warriors floated in the sea.

The flying ship didn’t seem to be concerned about these weak elves. Its large hull adjusted itself once again, giving up on exterminating these capsized elves, and turned around to fly toward the Echo Isles.

There, the Dark Witches and Pale Witches had emerged from their stronghold and were standing before the main fortress of the main island. They were looking upon this massacre above the sea from a distance!

”Disregarding the magical crystal exhaustion and cost, such metal fortresses that can fly in the skies would truly be undefeatable and powerful existences within all lesser planes.” The Third Grade Dark Witch Uzzah couldn’t help but nod and give her praise.

Alice might only be of First Grade, but if she could offer up this flying ship, then she just barely had the right to cooperate with her.

Uzzah, who had still been holding some doubts about this partnership, immediately became all smiles.

The Fate Witches might have plenty of magical crystals and were extravagantly using the flying ship. However, in the end, they couldn’t produce someone who could hold down the fort. Thus, Uzzah just might be able to obtain the dominant position in this operation and make Alice bow to her every whim and fancy!

On the other hand, the Third Grade Pale Witch in charge of guarding this island didn’t directly show herself. Instead, she hid within the strong fortress and used her Spirit to assess this strange flying ship silently.

Even she couldn’t help but treat it as the flying ships of the Silver Union when she first saw it– transportation vehicles that could only ferry passengers and goods. However, her Spirit was immediately arrested outside the ship by a peculiar energy field layer when she extended it toward the ship.

Hmm? An energy field?

The Third Grade Pale Witch was surprised once again.

Could the Fate Witches be so wasteful as to put on an energy field for such a massive battleship?! How many magical crystals had this cost them!

These unpredictable Fate Witches.

The Third Grade Pale Witch sighed helplessly.