Age of Adepts

Jintha’Alor Camp.

The large, bright moon was already hanging high in the sky. The beautiful faint silver moonlight turned the Fantasy Forest even more silent and mysterious than it already was.

The adepts scattered around the perimeter of the battlefield had returned. The work of cleaning up Jintha’Alor was also about to conclude. All the captured forest elves were escorted into the flying ship. Only thirty construction robots were left on the hill, diligently moving the large number of resources in the warehouses onto the ship.

It had been four hours since the start of the battle. Even if the surrounding villages had come to reinforce their allies after receiving news of the fight, they would be scattered and divided forces. They would have no chance of fighting back against such powerful witches.

To be brutally honest, Jintha’Alor was already the largest elven training camp within a radius of five hundred kilometers. Now that even they had been defeated, the only way to deal with these witches was to run to Astranaar City for help six hundred kilometers away from here.

The elves of Astrannar would require a minimum of fourteen hours to traverse such a tremendous distance, even if Jintha’Alor had managed to send word for help at the very first moment they were attacked. Moreover, this was a speed that was only possible if all the elven reinforcements were flying units.

If they were land units, it would be impossible for them to reach Jintha’Alor without at least two days and three nights of marching!

It was this sort of extreme control of the enemy’s information that allowed the witches to so casually scour Jintha’Alor and its surroundings for resources after a significant victory like this. By the time the elven reinforcements arrived, the only thing they would see would be an empty ruin of a battlefield.

By that time, the witches would have gone to who-knows-where to celebrate their victory.

This battle of Jintha’Alor had greatly boosted everyone’s morale. It was an exhilarating experience.

Apart from some metal golem casualties on the side of the Crimson Clan and the dragonborn warrior being severely wounded, the losses of the witches were practically negligible. It was a glorious victory that far surpassed everyone’s expectations!

The witches could already foresee the interesting expressions on the faces of the Pale Witches if they could successfully transport these elven slaves and resources back to the Echo Isles.

Perhaps because they had obtained many spoils without losing anything, or maybe because she wanted to improve their relationship with Greem and the others, Uzzah, the leader of these Dark Witches, took the initiative to approach Alice. She wished to give away some of the elven slaves to the Crimson Clan as compensation for the losses they had suffered in this battle.

Witch Uzzah had only one request. She hoped the Fate Witches could help the Dark Witches launch an assault on the pegasus magic spring in the central mountains of Garan when the opportunity presented itself.

Of course, this operation was a personal mission of the Dark Witches. That was why Uzzah was willing to engage in full collaboration with the Fate Witches for the remaining six months in Faen as long as they were willing to help her. They would become firm and unbreakable allies.

Of course, the trustworthiness of Uzzah’s words would require more time and collaboration to verify. Still, being able to make a Third Grade witch lower herself to say offer such a proposal was already proof of Alice and Greem’s power. They had demonstrated sufficient competence to win the right to speak for themselves.

Just as Alice and Witch Uzzah were discussing the issue within the flying ship, a subtle abnormality appeared in the round moon above Jintha’Alor.

A Dark Witch dashed across the sky upon her flying broom. She incidentally raised her head and immediately stopped her flight in shock.

Chilling yet beautiful moonlight projected from the moon like gentle water, draping a silver cloak over the woods where the fires of war had just been extinguished. The forest, trees, rivers, the grass, and the bushes; everything within sight had been enveloped in a cluster of fantastical starry radiance.

The Dark Witch lowered her head and was shocked to find her own body dusted with plenty of this strange radiance as well. This starry light blinked soundlessly, almost breathing as if it had a life of its own.

The Dark Witch was no ignorant and ordinary mortal. She wouldn’t be deceived by such pretty and dreamlike scenery.

Her powerful and sensitive senses informed her that this breathing radiance flowed.

It circulated with a strange energy that was utterly foreign to her. Moreover, the longer she spent bathing in the moonlight, the thicker and more intense the energy aura within the light.

Dammit, something’s wrong. This isn’t the power of adepts.

The suddenly enlightened First Grade Dark Witch immediately turned and flew toward the flying ship. As she darted back to the vessel, she used Thundersound to let out a deafening roar.

”Careful! Enemy assault!”

Unfortunately, this tiny spell that she casually cast was like a spark thrown into a sealed oil barrel. It instantly triggered a backlash from the moonlight.

Sla!

A strange explosive sound rang out. The initially calm, peaceful, and mysterious starry radiance suddenly transformed into horrifying Starfire, igniting the entirety of the witch’s body from top to bottom and inside out.

The next second, all lifeforms and substances that were not of nature within the forest, the skies, and the earth started to burn furiously under the caress of the moonlight. This blazing wave of starfire seemed to have a strange life of its own. Even though it covered the entire area, it did nothing to the forest, trees, vegetation, flowers, or the streams. It only enveloped and burned the witches, the flying ship, and the magical machines.

When Uzzah and Alice rushed out of the flying ship in their shock, all they saw was a silver sea of starfire!

If you disregarded their identities, being able to silently sit down and observe this beautiful starfire sea would undoubtedly be a treat. It was a remarkable scene that one could hardly come across in a hundred years. However, Uzzah’s mood was agitated when she discovered her witches trapped within the sea of starfire, howling and crying in agony.

”Something’s wrong with the moonlight. Everyone, prepare your defenses.” Alice was undoubtedly the most alert of them all. She was the first to discover the source of the problem.

As she shouted, all the witches that emerged from the flying ship erected their defensive spells and elementium protections.

The witches stood upon the deck of the flying ship and looked around them. They saw absolutely no signs of the enemy. They only saw the sky full of silver starfire and their companions writhing within the flames.

Down in the Jintha’Alor camp, the two dozen engineering machines that had been busy transporting the resources had also started burning. They were quickly reduced to smoldering piles of metal.

Uzzah furiously stepped forward. She made a grabbing motion with her withered, talon-like hand at a struggling witch two hundred meters away from her.

The empty air sizzled, and a massive black and ghostly hand appeared. The hand reached for the dark witch.

Sadly, before the hand of darkness could shield the dark witch, she turned into a cloud of ashes, incapable of withstanding the burning of the starfire any longer.

A gale blew across the air. The hand of darkness swiped past the air, but only managed to catch flying ashes in its grasp.

Uzzah frowned and turned to glare at the Second Grade dark witch following behind her.

”How is it? Has Ganna returned?”

The Second Grade dark witch took out a strange black geomantic compass and looked at it. She then nodded happily.

”It returned…it returned. Ganna’s soul has already returned to the soul energy pool. Her soul has been badly wounded. It will take approximately two months for her to revive completely.”

The faces of all the dark witches present lightened up slightly upon hearing this.

The soul energy pool was a rare building unique to the Dark Witches.

The first thing that the Dark Witches had to do upon arriving in a new plane was to construct a special soul energy pool in a safe place of their choice. They would then leave the soul brands of all the Dark Witches in that pool.

This way, even if they died in battle–and as long as the opponent had no means of restricting or destroying souls–their souls would automatically return to the soul energy pool. Their souls could then use the energy in the pool to revive once again.

For the trip to Faen this time, the Dark Witches had already left the soul energy pool in the safest place, Shadow Island, on the very first week. This way they would no longer need to worry about dying on the battlefield.

The Fate Witches were truly dead if they were to die. The Dark Witches, on the other hand, had plenty of lives.

That was the main reason why all Dark Witches were such recklessly ferocious fighters!

The witches stood at the bow of the ship. It hadn’t been long since the fire started, but sparks of flame had also begun appearing on the defensive spells around them. Their elementium shields crackled and sizzled from the fire.

Of all the witches present, Uzzah was the strongest. As such, everyone else cast their gaze at her.

”This isn’t magic; this is divine magic. Dammit, how did we attract the attention of an elven spiritualist? Move. We can’t think of the resources below anymore. Leave now. Otherwise, once the spiritualist arrives, we…”

Before Uzzah’s orders could be executed, a blinding beam of silver light shot out from the holy and bright moon in the sky. A massive portal had opened in the skies of Jintha’Alor.

The next moment, a hundred or so silhouettes of various sizes emerged from the portal and appeared before the witches.

The portal vanished.

The moonlight faded.

The place had returned to how it was before.

However, a hundred furious elven powerhouses had appeared in the skies above Jintha’Alor.

The leader was a beautiful female elf. She wore delicate elven armor, with scimitars at her waist and a longbow on her back. Her facial features were as delicate and elegant as a painting, while her ears were sharp and cute. However, a bright full-moon brand could be seen on her forehead.

She stood in the air while the cascading moonlight behind her gathered into a mysterious cape that constantly let out beautiful, celestial radiance.

She opened her pretty, starry eyes and swept them across the ruined Jintha’Alor. It was only then that she looked at the witches standing on the flying ship and furiously exclaimed, ”Blasphemers. Today, this will be your final resting ground!”

”In the name of the moon, I will punish you!”