Age of Adepts

There was a stretch of boundless darkness behind the wooden door.

If Greem hadn’t known very clearly that he was standing at the entrance to an ordinary bedroom in an ordinary wooden house in an ordinary town, he might have suspected that he had arrived in the vast and wide Shadow World.

A massive cluster of shadows squirmed ferociously in the darkness.

An instinctual disgust came from the very depths of Greem’s heart when he set his sights upon this shadow.

Hostility. Brazen hostility!

When Greem’s aura appeared in this unusual space, glaring hostility emanated from the depths of the shadow. Moreover, the shadow had etched that hostility directly in Greem’s mind.

An ordinary adept would have trouble seeing what truly lay within the shadow through all the distorted space and darkness.

However, blue flickered in Greem’s eyes, and he saw everything in just mere seconds.

The Chip’s powerful abilities of Elementium Sight, Distant Sight, Remote Sensing, and Dynamic Movement Capture allowed Greem to see through the defensive forcefield. He could see everything happening within the shadow.

Dark Witch Shani was standing within the shadow, completely naked. A strange black stone floated in front of her, spewing out a tremendous amount of shadow energy.

A portion of this shadow energy was absorbed by Shani and turned into profound and mysterious patterns that appeared on her body. The various strange arrays around her consumed the remaining portion before being converted into powerful shadow energy used to sustain the pseudo-shadow domain.

Greem’s eyes swept across Shani’s naked body. He ignored the bountiful bosom and her panicked, furious gaze. Instead, his eyes landed on the magical patterns that were manifesting on her body.

Shani’s body was white and smooth. She had a thin waist, a prominent chest, and full hips. She was everything that a beautiful woman should be. However, at this moment, strange, twisted black patterns had appeared on her toes and were extending upwards as more shadow energy merged with her body.

These patterns looked roughly like vines at a glance. However, Greem’s eyes focused on the patterns. As the Chip scanned, extracted, and magnified the image, the details of the designs were revealed.

They were not patterns at all, but unusual runes formed of complicated strands of magical lines.

The large number of runes that the Chip had managed to identify revealed the intent behind these lines. Using the endless shadow energy in this strange black stone, and her own body as a medium, Shani was risking her life to project the entirety of the Dark Witch’s origin tower.

Should she succeed in her projection, she would temporarily possess offensive and defensive power equal to the origin tower while she remained in the pseudo-shadow domain. It would all be over when that happened. There would be nothing Greem could do. Even if he were to join hands with the other two Fourth Grade adepts, they still wouldn’t be able to fight against an adept with the might of an origin tower!

That might seem like an insane idea, but judging from the magical patterns that had already reached to Shani’s chest, she might have succeeded if she only had a few more minutes.

Greem was pleasantly surprised upon learning all this, but also somewhat terrified at the possibility at what could have come to pass!

It was fortunate that he knew the urgency of the situation during the fight in the corridor earlier. It was precisely because of how urgent he believed the situation to be that he had given up on a more conventional method of fighting and instead used himself as bait to lure the shadow assassin towards him. At the cost of injuring himself, he had quickly exterminated the Fourth Grade shadow assassin while it was restrained.

Otherwise, given how sly and bothersome the Fourth Grade shadow assassin was, it just might have been able to delay until the origin tower had been projected in its entirety.

Dark Witch Shani might seem vulnerable at the moment, having lost the protection of her Fourth Grade shadow assassin. However, she was still protected by a powerful defensive forcefield.

This forcefield wasn’t formed from her own power. It was created by the stone that was churning out a tremendous amount of shadow energy.

In Greem’s memory, items that could naturally form a defensive forcefield were all of a very high-grade and quality. At the very least, they would be one or two grades higher than Sodden’s Holy Ring.

Combined with the strange black stone’s unique appearance and attribute, a name immediately appeared in Greem’s mind.

Orb of Shadows!

The reason Greem remembered this name was because the Orb of Shadows was a famous Fifth Grade treasure!

A Fifth Grade treasure that served a purely auxiliary purpose!

It was just an ordinary Fifth Grade material for adepts of other attributes, but for most shadow creatures, it was a genuine artifact.

The owner of the Orb of Shadows could establish a connection with the Shadow World at any time and use the Orb as a conduit to the Shadow World to summon endless shadow energy. The owner of the orb could ignore all restrictions of dark magic and freely manipulate shadow energy.

The simplest example was the most common shadow technique– Shadow Teleportation. This ability required the target creature to be near a shadow to be able to be used. It was impossible to use Shadow Teleportation without a shadow.

As such, most adepts would rapidly release multiple illumination spells around them when confronting a shadow creature. It would dispel the darkness around them and prevent the shadow creatures from emerging from the shadows below.

However, that strategy would be utterly useless against someone in possession of an Orb of Shadows!

The owner of the Orb of Shadows could freely traverse anywhere, unaffected by external conditions, even if it was bright as day and there were no shadows to be seen at all.

In addition, the cooldown of most shadow abilities would also be greatly shortened. Having the Orb of Shadows was equivalent to having the ability to be continuously hidden in the shadows. It was the perfect treasure for most shadow creatures!

When Greem saw the magical patterns on Shani’s body slowly reach past her breasts and extend towards her neck, he knew he could delay no longer. Should Shani truly be able to call down the power of the origin tower upon herself, he would not stand a chance.

Greem transformed without hesitation.

His body swelled and increased in size, and his mental consciousness roared ferociously. An endless amount of golden fire surged out of the Heart of Principles, melding with the red lava that was rising out of thin air, transforming him into a ten-meter-tall fire giant.

The magical equipment that Greem possessed also manifested in semi-energy form, one by one, as the golden fire poured into them.

The Fire Throne set was Third Grade magical equipment that Greem had tailored for his own use. It might not be able to keep up with him now, but it still had its applications when manifested in this manner. The only equipment that could genuinely help Greem was the Fourth Grade Sodden’s Holy Ring and the fire coral staff.

All the other magical equipment would melt from the excessive infusion of power from the golden fire before they could even manifest as energy equipment.

Greem was a Fourth Grade legendary fire adept now, after all. Second Grade and Third Grade equipment could be used as a plaything occasionally, but they would not survive Greem’s destructive powers on an actual battlefield.

“You…you can see me?”

It was at this moment that Dark Witch Shani seemed to have realized this fact. She clamped her legs shut in embarrassment, one hand moving to cover her chest and the other to cover her crotch. Two red blushes appeared on her pretty face.

Sadly, her hands were far too small compared to the area she was trying to cover.

This state of semi-exposure and her expression of embarrassment and anger only made her all the more enchanting!

Greem laughed wildly with his booming voice, “Save the theatrics! An old witch like yourself putting on a show like a maiden when you’re hundreds of years old? Are you trying to make me die of disgust, or are you just trying to buy yourself time? Didn’t you want my life so badly? Let’s see who will be taking whose life now!”

The deafening roar of blazing fire rang out as Greem pointed with his staff. A massive hundred-meter-wide pillar of golden fire erupted with the dark core at the center of the explosion.

The violent and vicious golden flames clashed with the dark shadow energy, causing an energy explosion that ravaged the entire space. The two energies of different attributes fought, tussled, devoured, and destroyed each other.

A wall of fire rose in front of Greem, barely blocking the energy waves that washed towards him.

Meanwhile, Dark Witch Shani was obviously occupied with the ritual and unable to act in any manner. She could only watch as the golden fires forcefully clashed against the Orb of Shadow’s barrier. Ripples ran across the semi-translucent shadow barrier, causing some of the energy within to go on a rampage.

Shani’s facade of purity immediately vanished. All embarrassment and shyness faded from her face as her eyes glowed with a cold and sinister light.

“How is this possible? You…you are just a newly advanced Fourth Grade. How could you possibly threaten the defenses of the Orb of Shadows with your power?” Shani screamed wildly, a trace of madness and viciousness in her expression.

It was no wonder that she was bewildered. The might of Greem’s attack was truly abnormal!

Shani’s calculations had been inaccurate, and she had made two irredeemable mistakes in a row.

Firstly, she had believed that the Fourth Grade shadow assassin summoned with the aid of the Orb of Shadows could buy her enough time to complete her ritual. That was why she had not canceled the ceremony when she sensed Greem’s arrival.

Secondly, she believed that she could have lasted until the ritual’s completion with the forcefield of the Orb of Shadows after the shadow assassin had been defeated. After all, the ritual only took three minutes to complete.

Unfortunately, Greem did not give her that opportunity at all.