Age of Adepts

While Antoril and Uzzah were engaged in their battle of pursuit and escape, a new enemy had appeared on the battlefield.

In all seriousness, it wasn’t a complete ’enemy’ that had appeared. Rather, it was a single strange head!

It was the head of a lich carved out of semi-translucent magical crystal.

This crystal head wasn’t very large, but it was extremely clear and crystalline.

Prismatic lines shone from a delicate and gorgeous magical crown upon the head, while two odd rubies were inlaid within its empty eye sockets, hiding the glow of its crimson soulfire.

When the jaw of this head started moving up and down to speak, Greem could very clearly see its teeth were not actual teeth. Instead, they were teeth that had been individually carved out of magical gemstones with ferocious might.

It was through the use of these powerful magical gemstones that the lich’s head was capable of fighting its enemies without the use of any chants. It only needed to click its jaws, and the magical gemstones that had been set into a magical sequencer would rapidly activate, launching a ferocious barrage of spells to exterminate the enemy.

According to Greem’s understanding, even the weakest liches of the multiverse were Third Grade creatures.

Once they had accumulated enough resources and magical equipment to forge an immortal body, they would instantly advance to Fourth Grade. The lich before him seemed to have been able to produce an immortal head, barely. As such, its fundamental strength should only be around beginner Fourth Grade.

Of course, if it was capable of forging its body within a thousand years, it still had the chance of rising to advanced Fourth Grade.

However, a beginner Fourth Grade lich was already more than terrifying for this battlefield!

Greem spared no words upon seeing the crystal head sealing off the exit of the two Third Grades. He grabbed Alice’s waist and turned to leave with his Fire Teleportation.

Yet, his entire body stalled the moment he turned.

A sinister lich had already sealed off the exit behind him and was tapping its left hand with the bonewicca staff in its right. A crisp and frightening knock rang out when the white bone staff hit against the lich’s bony hand.

Greem’s heart instantly sank to the depths when he saw the lich’s strange black robe and that blinding magical radiance on its body.

He narrowed his eyes slightly to cover the blue light given off when the Chip was running at full capacity. Greem started to analyze the battlefield with all his strength in hopes of finding an opportunity to escape.

The Chip quickly provided Greem with five methods of escape after a series of intense calculations. However, three of these methods required Greem to abandon Alice in order to execute them perfectly. Thus, Greem had no choice but to give up on them. The remaining two escape operations were gradually merged into one after rapid analysis and organization from the Chip. They were put together to form a plan of action that allowed for the highest chance of escape.

27%.

No matter how much the Chip calculated and analyzed, the chances of Greem and Alice successfully escaping were no more than twenty-seven percent. Acting with such a low probability of success was undoubtedly taking an immense risk.

That said, and given the circumstances, Greem had no choice but to go ahead with it. Otherwise, if he were to wait until the Fourth Grade lich had dealt with Uzzah and Antoril, he would probably lose even this last twenty-seven percent of his.

The self-destruction of the Flame Fiend of Terror!

It didn’t matter which plan he chose; the best method of interrupting the enemy was to order the Second Grade Flame Fiend to self-destruct.

That beginner Fourth Grade lich was currently focused on the two Third Grades. That made it such that Greem’s only opponent was this Third Grade lich. Despite being a Second Grade fire adept, however, there were hardly any spells amongst Greem’s repertoire that could directly threaten the Third Grade lich.

The self-destruction of the Flame Fiend of Terror was perhaps his only method to stall the Third Grade lich!

As Greem gritted his teeth and prepared to execute his plan, Alice, who had been leaning against his shoulder, tugged at his sleeve and shook her head.

This one instance of hesitation passed by, and the entire situation on the battlefield had been entirely upset.

The two Third Grades had been defeated!

The already injured Druid Antoril had been beaten within an inch of death at the very moment he attempted to strike. The barrage of spells from the lich’s head had been too much, and the druid was completely unconscious now. Meanwhile, the relatively unharmed Dark Witch Uzzah chose to escape alone at the very first instance.

Sadly, Uzzah was incapable of escaping against a Fourth Grade lich, even with all her abilities unleashed to their fullest potential.

Shadow Movement?

Uzzah’s frail and skinny body was struck by a soulfire the moment she turned into her shadow form. She didn’t even have the chance to dive into the shadows. That brilliant silver soulfire that burned on her head illuminated everything around Uzzah and dispersed the gathering shadows and darkness.

With the short-distance Shadow Movement being obstructed, Uzzah could only open up a spatial rift and attempt to flee into the shadow plane through it. With the unobstructed movements of the shadow plane, she could rapidly put distance between herself and this lich’s head to allow her to get away easily.

Sadly, while her plan was ideal in theory, the reality was much harsher.

A strange spell was shot out toward the spatial rift from the giant rubies inlaid within the lich’s head which actually caused the rift to heal at a visible rate. Uzzah, who was halfway inside it, was ejected from the space. The other half of her body that had been stuck in the shadow plane vanished abruptly.

Uzzah let out a tragic howl!

Anyone would be in immense pain like herself if half of their body had been devoured.

If it weren’t for her transforming into her shadow form, this injury would have been enough to place her at death’s door.

The increasing pressure from the lich’s head drove Uzzah insane. She raised her head and let out a desolate howl. Several shadow spears appeared from thin air and shot toward the hovering crystal head.

The lich’s head didn’t even respond to the retaliation of a fearsome Third Grade Dark Witch. It didn’t fortify itself with the most basic of magical shields or elementium defenses, allowing its head to simply be consumed by the tide of shadow spears.

Haha, that Fourth Grade lich slipped up.

Such thoughts had just surface in Uzzah’s mind when the lich’s head casually emerged from the explosive zone of the shadow spears. Not a single scratch was on its crystalline head. It was just as smooth and shiny as before; in perfect condition.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

It was only at this moment that Uzzah experienced the terror of a lich’s immortal body!

Did undead like liches have any weaknesses?

They did– their soulfires!

One could even say that all undead had only one fatal weakness and that was the soulfire hidden deep within their skulls. Many undead had evolved durable skulls that rivaled even the finest of steel to protect this soulfire and avoid themselves being killed with a single strike.

The liches that stood at the very top of undead creatures undoubtedly went the furthest on this route.

They used the most precious and sturdy magical crystals in the world to create a perfect home for their soulfires. This crystal skull might seem like it was forged from thin crystal glass and was immensely frail, but its magic and physical resistance was shockingly high.

Take the beginner Fourth Grade Lich Luke for instance. The crystal skull it had crafted for itself was immune to all magical and physical attacks below Third Grade. Even attacks above Third Grade had to be concentrated to a single point and repeated multiple times to have any hopes of breaking through its head.

The lich did not fear large-scale elementium attacks such as the one Uzzah had just unleashed upon him!

Lich Luke drove its crystal skull toward Uzzah’s side, enduring her mad retaliations as it did so, before using an instant-cast Horrid Wilting to render the Dark Witch unconscious.

It was then that rows of death knights stomped out of the few tunnels behind Third Grade Lich Anders. Judging from their intimidating presence, they were all Second Grade undead.

Greem had utterly given up now!

Even without Alice stopping him, he would have run into this army of death knights after he forced the Third Grade lich away from him with his Flame Fiend of Terror.

Greem had great confidence in exterminating a single death knight in under fifteen minutes if it was a duel. After all, casters could use teleportation spells in a fight against enemies with brute strength, then proceed to wear away at their defenses with offensive spells.

Even if he was dealing two death knights, Greem had a reasonably high chance of winning with all his aces put into play. If there were three death knights, Greem would have no choice but to turn and flee.

However, judging by the situation before him and the squads of death knights that continued to march out of the tunnels, they numbered a total of twenty-one.

An army like this wasn’t something that a mere Second Grade fire adept like Greem could deal with!

Under Alice’s hinting, Greem had no choice but to unsummon the Flame Fiend and surrender.

After they were caught, these undead slowly marched Alice and Greem them toward the depths of the underground after they had been caught.

Greem could sense that, for some reason, these undead treated Alice with more priority and emphasis than they did Uzzah and Antoril. The Fourth Grade lich grabbed Alice after binding her with Hold Person, then flew ahead of the rest of the undead into the underground.

Meanwhile, Greem, Uzzah, and Antoril were personally brought to a temporary camp by Lich Anders and its undead army. Greem saw countless intermediate and high-grade undead there, along with massive undead armies.

If these undead were allowed to swarm to the surface, the forest elves might not be able to keep their positions as the masters of Garan!