Age of Adepts

The adept forces and subordinate armies that had just been fighting valorously were now all retreating as fast as they could into the distance.

Neither the Third Grades of the Crimson Clan nor the Fabres Clan dared to remain on the battlefield for a moment longer. They quickly commanded the retreat of their armies, leaving ample space for the two terrifying Fourth Grade powerhouses.

The Fourth Grade magical golem dragon could not be considered a true force to be reckoned with in the eyes of the Fabres adepts in any regard. However, it clearly exhibited tremendous power beyond its actual grade under the mysterious control of that legendary fire adept.

As both Declan and the magical golem dragon’s preferred style of combat was direct confrontation, waves of dust storms, blown up by the terrifying shockwaves, engulfed the retreating forces before they managed to complete their retreat.

Standing in front of the sixty-meter-tall and hundred-meter-long golem dragon, Body-Refining Adept Declan looked like a sesame seed beside a watermelon. It was hard to see him if one didn’t look carefully.

Even though he was several dozen times smaller than the magical golem dragon, it was clear that the dragon was the one at a disadvantage through the fists and blows they exchanged.

Greem now stood above the golem dragon’s head, already taking over all control authority over the dragon from Magical Goblin Gonga. He did not hide within the golem dragon’s body; Greem chose to fight alongside it, lashing at Declan wildly and furiously.

One of the dragon’s monstrously large metal leg smashed and stomped towards the enemy, inciting howling winds as it did so. Hundreds of magic energy cannons loaded on its back bombed without stop, steadily wearing away at Declan’s defensive forcefield.

Of course, Declan was not so foolish as to clash with such a massive metal golem head-on. Instead, he stepped into the air and started to weave between the thick metal legs with his much more agile body. He occasionally stopped here and there, launching a few blows at specific areas of the golem.

Every time Declan’s outline paused was when he traded blows with the golem dragon!

Declan’s incredibly vicious compressed-wind shots allowed him to knock the golem dragon around without even touching the machine. Meanwhile, the golem dragon would take the opportunity to drown Declan in a torrent of magic energy beams.

After a few exchanges, Greem figured out that Declan’s elemental affinity was for the wind elementium. However, instead of becoming an elementium adept, he had chosen to use some unique magical technique to combine wind elementium with his body-refining magic.

Other elementium adepts needed handsigns, chants, and suitable magical materials when they cast spells. However, every single move from Declan was basically a tremendously powerful single-target spell. His attacks didn’t just possess incomparably powerful physical force. They possessed terrifying elementium damage as well.

More importantly, where and when he put his mind and will was where and when the attack landed. He did not require a buffer time to gather magic and shape spells as elementium adepts did.

As such, Declan would be able to instantly close-in on an ordinary elementium adept if they did not have any means of creating distance. When that happened, they would probably die before they could even cast a single large-scale spell!

Declan might not have muscles as large or well-shaped as the low-grade body refining adepts, but every single punch and kick he used carried horrifying might in them.

Greem’s scan revealed that even a basic attack from Declan, unenhanced by any magic, could achieve damage of over a 1,000 points. The battle techniques that required a brief period of activation would reach 1,600-1,700 points of power. Greem couldn’t endure a single one of these attacks.

Under Greem’s command, the hundreds of magic energy cannons tracked Declan as best as they could and constantly unleashing their firepower. The two giant magic energy cannons and the golem dragon’s beam were on standby, prepared to unleash a violent blast whenever the enemy was to pause for even a moment.

Even Declan’s forcefield would shatter on the spot if the two giant magic energy cannons hit it. Thus, after experiencing the shocking might of the giant cannon once, Declan became incredibly careful. He was scared that he might be hit by all three of the golem dragon’s most powerful beams and end up badly injured. After a few tries, Declan resentfully realized that the reason Greem was hiding on the platform on the dragon’s head was to bait him into attacking.

If he wanted to attack Greem, then he would unavoidably have to expose himself above the magical golem dragon. When that happened, he would be well within the range of fire for both the giant magic energy cannons and the dragon’s energy beam. One slight misstep and even he would be buried beneath the concentrated fire.

Having understood Greem’s plan, Declan gave up on all thoughts of ending the battle swiftly. Instead, he focused on circling the golem dragon to look for weak spots on its metal body. In particular, he was paying great attention to select regions on the mechanical dragon’s form: the exhaust ports, the ventilators, and other similar places.

The dragon’s shell was truly very hard, but Declan did not believe that its insides were as firmly solid and without weakness.

For the sake of discovering these places, Declan swept every single part of the golem dragon’s body with shockwaves from his punches. Plenty of fist-marked dents appeared all over the golem dragon’s body. Declan also destroyed many of its magic energy cannons.

Soon, Declan discovered an entryway in the abdomen of the golem dragon. The entryway was covered in five layers of special metal plates, for a total thickness of two meters.

Without any hesitation, Declan endured the rain of cannon fire and the fire adept’s powerful spells to charge up to the metal plates. He then started pummelling it with punch after punch.

Even the super-alloy that had been refined multiple times with secret arcane techniques could not endure the force of Declan’s fist. The first plate was quickly smashed and twisted, revealing the second plate beneath.

Naturally, Greem would not allow the enemy to so easily break into the dragon’s body. As such, the dragon’s head curved. It opened its mouth, and a frighteningly thick pillar of energy swept towards Declan. Greem also took this opportunity to chant and cast his spells, sending a massive ball of fire crashing towards the body-refining adept.

Faced with the enemy’s coordinated attacks, Declan quickly reacted. He dodged the dragon’s energy attack and chose to simply endure Greem’s Lava Spray, such that he could continue attacking the metal plate. Yet, to his surprise, strange light energy was mixed within Greem’s vicious fire attack. The light energy penetrated his defensive forcefield and left a small scorch mark the size of an egg on the left hand he had used to block with.

Even Declan was surprised at this unexpected situation!

Having decided to start a war against the Crimson Clan, Declan had naturally conducted a very detailed investigation on this legendary fire adept.

To be extremely safe, Declan had even made the extra effort to purchase a Pendant of Fire Resistance along with Potions of Fire Resistance. With such preparations, he was confident that the Third Grade fire adept would not be able to inflict any damage on him through his fire resistance, no matter what spells he had cast.

However, the situation here was simply too strange. The Lava Spray he had cast was a reasonably powerful spell even among Third Grade spells. However, that was only relative to Third Grade adepts. That amount of fire damage should not have broken through Declan’s defensive forcefield.

Declan dodged the barrage of energy beams and looked down at his hand to examine the scorch mark. He couldn’t help but frown.

Light-attribute energy damage!

Moreover, the energy was extraordinarily pure and possessed a strange penetration effect not possessed by other elementium magic.

Declan frowned and thought about the situation as he quickly circulated the magical energy in his body.

As magic flowed through his left hand, the strange burn mark began to heal and quickly disappeared without a trace.

For a body-refining adept like himself, his control and refinement over his body had already reached a peak. He did not require any healing spells. All he needed was to expend a little bit of energy, and he could recover most damage sustained by his body.

Of course, energy healing of this manner could not help with lost limbs. It could only heal lighter surface wounds. As such, Declan had also prepared plenty of healing wands and potions.

Metallic creaking rang out as the sound of spinning gears could be heard from the entryway where Declan had attempted to break into. The exposed second layer was quickly shrinking, covered by metal walls sliding in from both sides.

In Declan’s moment of hesitation, the entryway had vanished completely.

The Fourth Grade body-refining adept let out a roar of anger. He evaded most of the attacks from the cannons and arrived at the dragon’s thick metal leg, upon which he started attacking aggressively.

His fists left twenty-centimeter-deep craters on the metal. Even the super-alloy could not defend against Declan’s fists of flesh. They collapsed inwards, the shape of Declan’s fist left in the metal.

Declan spun around the leg and attacked it wildly, intent on disposing of the dragon’s mobility first.

Unfortunately, despite trying for a long time, he had no choice but to give up in the end.

The golem dragon’s body was simply too tough. Even if he were to punch it a hundred times, the best he could do was wear off a thin layer of metal. It was a seven-meter-thick leg. He would need at least an hour of continuous attacks to be able to break it.

The enemy would not give him such plentiful time to do as he wished!

From the moment he approached the golem dragon, his defensive forcefield had been trembling unstoppably from the constant barrage of the cannons. These attacks might not be able to break through his forcefield, but they drained his stamina quite substantially.

Declan had to back away every so often after fighting the golem dragon at close range so that his forcefield had a buffer time to recover.