Age of Adepts

Katherine finally knew how terrifying a rabbit’s retaliation could be when it was backed into a corner!

She had always maintained the absolute initiative in her battle against Greem.

As a mechanical adept, all of her combat techniques required next to no incantations or handsigns; all of her magical abilities were used to enhance her combat abilities and offensive options. As such, she was most capable of countering elementium adepts in melee combat, where their powerful elementium spells required more space to unleash.

Greem might be a deviant even amongst elementium adepts with melee combat abilities that were nearly on par with his fire spells, but he was still no more than a rookie when compared to Katherine.

Without the elementium magical machine’s assistance, Greem would have long since died to her compound, three-dimensional attacks. She would only need to suffer some heavy losses in return.

Of course, this had only been Katherine’s understanding of the situation!

Now that she had ambushed Greem and destroyed the wisp of holy light as she did so, she had incited Greem’s wrath.

The typically calm and composed fire adept exploded with anger. Greem pursued Katherine unrelentingly with the elementium magical machine.

It didn’t matter how quickly Katherine scaled the mountains, crossed the rivers, and traversed the woods. Greem might be momentarily lost, but the horde of low-grade wind spirits in the air allowed him to catch up quickly.

The Blade Princess finally realized the severity of the situation after spending most of the night fleeing from Greem.

That damned male adept had plenty of elementium golems as his mounts. He only needed to sit upon them and order them to charge ahead. Meanwhile, Katherine had to run on her own two feet with her strength.

If she were in perfect condition, her Physique would allow her to easily persist in this chase for three days and three nights. However, she was currently covered in wounds and gravely in need of rest and treatment, not the reckless pursuit of a fire adept.

Healing would exhaust her stamina and fleeing even more so. Yet, rest was the only thing she had no time for. Moreover, she had also taken the poison attack of the Spirit of Pestilence head-on during the battle earlier. Though most of the poison damage had been rendered immune by her tremendous Physique, the remaining poison continued to destroy and wreck her body.

Katherine had taken some potent antidotes along the way, but the poison that the Spirit of Pestilence had planted in her was a compound curse of the most complex sort. The poison would never be completely cleansed unless she first lifted the curse.

However, Katherine could not even spare five minutes to do so. She had no choice but to continue running while enduring the suffering of curse and poison!

Of course, Katherine had also been plotting retaliation as she escaped. Unfortunately, the male adept seemed to have learned his lesson. He never let the elementium magical machine leave him, constantly keeping it at his side as his guardian.

Even Katherine didn’t dare to turn and fight under such circumstances. Her only option was to grit her teeth, keep her head down, and continue running away!

Thus, the two adepts continued in this pursuit and unknowingly traversed over three hundred kilometers of land. Meanwhile, their reckless pursuit and escape had naturally attracted the intervention of the Zambez Empire’s standing army.

Hakans.

A peaceful city sat upon a vast and wide plain.

As the capital of the Northern Regions of the Empire, Hakans was famously known as a military stronghold.

Thousands of merchants and travelers moved through her daily. The number of carts and carriages was innumerable and kept the path to Hakans congested continuously.

However, as the long line of traffic slowly moved forward, dust clouds arose on the distant plains, followed by an immensely tragic howling. An intangible commotion spread from a distance toward the city, slowly affecting every individual in the traffic.

The travelers and merchants all felt an ill omen within their hearts. They lifted their heads and looked toward the source of the disruption. Some more crafty people had already left the line and were starting to flee into the surrounding plains.

While the crowd was confused and started to break into a panic, an indescribably terrifying spiritual pressure washed across them, accompanied by howling winds.

No one could discern the identity of the golden silhouette that had flashed past them. They didn’t even have any idea if it was a person or an item. However, the sharp sound caused by the howling winds in the shape’s passing forced everyone to clasp their ears and let out agonized moans as their bodies shivered and trembled.

Blood was streaming from everyone’s ears and eyes while the winds passed by. Their faces were stricken with horror, totally clueless about what had happened.

While everyone was caught in fear and panic, some individuals that had recovered from the scream suddenly pointed into the distance and let out a heartrending yell.

The crowd turned and looked, only to see two giant creatures charging toward them, one large and one small.

The larger creature appeared to be a massive serpent formed purely of stone. It crushed countless carriages and carts along the way and continued forward without delay. Beside the stone serpent was a towering metallic giant whose body spewed forth blinding red light. It was also striding with rumbling steps.

Any man or vehicle in their way would be instantly crushed like insignificant earthworms upon the ground. Horses whinnied and collapsed where they went, the cargo in their carts knocked down onto the road as their owners screamed in terror as they fled.

Those with sharper eyes could even see a red-robed figure sitting upon the serpent’s head, his eyes fixed in the distance blazing with fire and lightning, completely ignoring the chaos happening beneath.

Adepts.

Adepts from another world.

Naturally, some more knowledgeable people in the crowd immediately understood the identities of the pursuer and the pursued.

However, what could they do against a Third Grade adept from another world with their measly power?

When some unintelligent fellows picked up rocks and wooden planks to bash the slithering stone serpent, the crowd finally attracted the adept’s attention.

The next second, a faint-red barrier of flames quickly engulfed the entire area.

Almost at the same instant that the Ring of Fire enveloped the surroundings, the entire place transformed into a sea of flames.

Terrifying magical fires instantly ignited every substance within the barrier: carts, cargo, bags, planks, humans, grass. Even the black earth beneath their feet quickly started melting before the raging fires.

It was almost as if a dome-shaped furnace had been erected in the area. All life and substance were rapidly melted and turned into ash as the stone serpent charged forward.

All the people in the way of the Ring of Fire quickly escaped from their carts and ran as far away from the road as they could.

Frantic alarms also went off in Hakans in the distance.

As the most prosperous and vital central city of the northern regions of Zambez, Hakans was stationed with plenty of holy knights.

A group of holy knights had just reached the closest city gate on warhorses when they ran into the fleeing Katherine.

After attempting to flee in every direction and still being unable to escape from the berserk fire adept, Katherine had no choice but to draw him toward the most heavily guarded stronghold– Hakans.

Perhaps the dense crowd and the legions of ferocious hoy knights would allow her to escape the fire adept’s mad pursuit.

The most powerful of the holy knights that had hurried to the gates was also a Second Grade Silver Knight.

He had just arrived at the city gate and stopped his horse. He had not even identified the disorder in the distance when Katherine set her sights upon him.

The Blade Princess had already made contact with these holy knights. She had a perfect grasp of their strengths and weaknesses.

With sufficient time to bless themselves with holy light, every holy knight would become an iron can protected by layers of halos. All sorts of magical resistances and physical resistances would be present, making it exceptionally difficult to kill them. However, if they were caught by surprise and without the protection of the holy light, their divine armor would be fragile.

As such, Katherine struck to kill without any hesitation the moment she discovered these holy knights.

Her silhouette flickered as she instantly crossed the ten-meter-long iron gates of the city, appearing in the middle of the ranks of holy knights. Five metal disc-blades shot out of nowhere, turning into a formation of death that completely engulfed the nearby knights.

Katherine herself charged at the Silver Knight, first immobilizing him with her spiritual pressure before passing through his body and shredding him and his warhorse into pieces of flesh.

This one moment of delay had allowed Greem to approach the city. He let out a furious warcry and pointed with his finger. A massive cloud of fire appeared above the heads of the holy knights and pressed down upon them.

Naturally, a long-ranged attack like that could not possibly hit Katherine. She simply accelerated and charged out of the cloud before heading straight into the city. The flames devoured the knights that had been scattered by the metal blades after a single cry.

A short moment later, only indistinguishable carbonized ash remained on the spot. Greem had already ravaged through the battlefield on the stone serpent, continuing his chase after Katherine.

The gate of Hakans might be tall, but it was still too small for this enhanced stone serpent.

The stone serpent’s giant body and tail swept against the city walls, causing dust to scatter everywhere and pieces of rock to collapse from the structure.

Seeing that the serpent was ill-suited for battle in the city, Greem unsummoned it and rushed into the city with the elementium magical machine.

A dozen wind spirits floated in the sky, acting as Greem’s ears and eyes while helping him track down the Blade Princess Katherine while cautiously watching for changes within the city.

If the lack of Third Grade natives he had encountered in the battles before this had been due to the enemy’s slow information system and rigid means of transmitting orders, then the chances of him running into one now would be much greater. After all, he had now broken into their city.

Greem might be confident in his power, but even he didn’t dare become surrounded by multiple Third Grade natives.

As such, Greem pursued Katherine tightly and charged into the massive city of Hakans, both nervous and expectant of the Third Grade natives.