Age of Adepts

If it were anyone else, they might have fallen prey to the fox girl’s Natural Charm.

However, since Adept Holly had the courage to participate in this mission, he naturally had the skills to back it up as well.

Moreover, defending one’s mental consciousness was a priority for all adepts!

Adept Holly let out a grunt and endured the fox girl’s Natural Charm with the aid of his Soul Brooch. His mental consciousness swept around him as he picked up the opponent’s subtle movement.

Adept Holly raised his arm and covered his face.

Pupupu!

A series of strange sounds rang out. The dozen seemingly soft and weightless fox hairs had pierced straight into the astral armor, embedding themselves deep inside.

Adept Holly was horrified.

It was important to note that his astral armor was composed of concentrated, solidified astral substance, gathered by his will. Astral substance excelled at magic disruption, to begin with. It was not exceptional when it came to physical defense. However, as a substance from space, the structural toughness of the material was still far superior to that of most metals that could be found in the material planes.

The fact that the opponent’s fox hairs could penetrate the exceedingly hard astral armor was more than enough proof that the hairs were incredibly powerful. Their penetrative effect was equal to high-grade enchanted weapons.

Adept Holly slowly shifted positions, even as he kept his guard up. He was trying to avoid being caught in a pincer attack between the two beastmen. He raised his right arm and waved it over his left arm that had been hit by the fox hairs.

The fox hairs instantly turned to dust under the corrosion of silver starlight, falling to the ground and drifting to the wind.

At the same moment, the werewolf accelerated his regeneration and was eager to fight again.

“Please…the two of you, slow down.” Adept Holly hurriedly gathered starlight to protect himself when he saw his opponents’ movements. He shouted loudly, “There’s no resentment between us, is there? There’s no need to fight with our lives on the line!”

“Kehkehkeh. There are two of us and one of you. We are all Fourth Grade. You sure you can escape from us?” The werewolf cackled coldly. Judging from his tone, not only was he not ashamed that they were relying on numbers, he was, in fact, proud of it.

“Hmph! Don’t get too arrogant. I did not come here alone, either. I have companions here, as well. Once I call my companions over, the battle will only grow in scale and proportion, to absolutely no one’s benefit!” Adept Holly continued speaking, still cautious of his two opponents, “We are all here to loot resources and treasures. There’s no need to engage in a deathmatch while there’s still so much lying around for us to pick up.”

“There is some truth to what you said.” The foxgirl lifted her head, seemingly moved by the suggestion.

“Indeed, indeed. This is the biggest golem factory on the floating city. I have already dealt with the arcane guards inside, and I can offer it to you two. That should be enough, isn’t it?!” Upon seeing the werewolf continue approaching as viciously as before, Adept Holly gritted his teeth and threatened, “Don’t you forget, I am still a Fourth Grade adept. Force me into a corner, and I will still have the ability to drag one of you along with me. Neither of you would want that, will you?”

“True, true. What you say is very true, indeed. You may leave now!” The foxgirl continued nodding with a smile on her face, but her eyes were filled with disdain and mockery.

“What do you mean? Don’t you force me.” Adept Holly became even more vigilant when he saw the hostility in the foxgirl’s eyes. Endless starlight surged around his armor, causing it to become even thicker than before.

However, while he was controlling the starlight, unexpected dizziness overtook him. His vision faded to black for a moment, and he almost fell to the ground.

“I’m hit? When did they get me? Right, the wolf’s claws from earlier.” Adept Holly instantly understood everything. He looked up at the werewolf’s claws and fangs.

As expected, traces of black mist coiled around his claws and fangs. It was obvious that they were poisoned.

“Hehe. Now you know why we were willing to talk with you all this while! We were waiting for the poison to take effect! Now, collapse.”

As the foxgirl gave the signal, the werewolf lunged ferociously. He turned into a flash of black lightning and instantly appeared beside Adept Holly.

He had learned his lesson this time. He did not try to clash with Adept Holly directly and instead started running circles around him. He avoided the starlight fired from Holly’s palm and those crashing from above, all while leaving deep claw marks on Holly’s armor with his sharp claws.

Meanwhile, the foxgirl flickered in and out of the battlefield around them.

Every time she appeared, she would seductively throw a kiss or a wink at Adept Holly. Then, she would giggle and disappear before Holly could retaliate.

It wasn’t her being flirtatious on the battlefield. Rather, it was merely the innate ability of a foxgirl.

The constant use of Charm Human and her own Natural Charm put Adept Holly at a decent risk of being charmed, even with his Soul Brooch. With Adept Holly’s mental resilience, the foxgirl could only charm him for two to three seconds at any time, even with all her power.

Two to three seconds might seem insignificant, but they could also be lethal to him.

After all, he was fighting against a werewolf right now. Every time he was charmed, the starlight he had gathered would disperse, and the thickness of his astral armor would be affected. It naturally affected his performance in battle.

Disrupted by the foxgirl, Adept Holly’s few attempts at a ferocious retaliation were all interrupted before he could commit to them!

Seeing as death and defeat were right in front of him, Adept Holly did not dare to hang in any longer. He turned and tried to flee.

Unfortunately, before he could even take two steps, the werewolf appeared in front of him in a flash, firmly cutting off his path of escape. Meanwhile, the foxgirl showed up behind him, still giggling to herself. A scarlet mist appeared with a wave of her tail and sealed off that path as well.

“Screw you then!”

Adept Holly did not hesitate now that death was staring him in the face. He roared, raised his arms, and lunged at the werewolf.

Boom!

There was a loud explosion. The astral armor, which contained such intense starlight, shot out in every direction, causing a mushroom cloud to appear.

The violent force of the explosion left a bottomless, hundred-meter-wide pit in the stone ground of the floating city. The endless starlight instantly filled the air, destroying all the dirt, stone, grass, and metal pieces in the surrounding area.

The golem factory, which was closest to the explosion, had almost entirely collapsed. The arcanists and arcane apprentices hiding within were also killed instantly by the falling starlight.

A short moment later, when the starlight’s power had weakened, the werewolf and the foxgirl appeared at the edge of the pit. They started whispering to each other.

“Is he dead?”

“No!”

“Dammit! I knew he wouldn’t be so valiant as to sacrifice himself. Where did he run off to?”

“Don’t worry; my wolf poison is still circulating in his body. I know exactly where he is. Come. Follow me!”

The two figures quickly vanished from the spot.

…………

Adept Holly burst out of thin air at the back of a building a kilometer away, covered in blood.

He rolled across the ground when he appeared, desperately taking out all sorts of potions from his pouch and drinking them as he did so.

He coughed violently as he drank them.

Purple pieces of flesh and broken organs flew out as he coughed.

Two clear black bite marks could be seen on his neck.

The flesh around the wounds had festered and swollen.

If it weren’t for his silver adept’s robe, it would have been easy to mistake him for the two-headed adept.

“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Those two bastards! They could’ve gone after anyone! Why me? Cough! Cough! Cough! Greem, Cherisha, you all deserve to die! Not a single one of you showed yourself even after I sent out a help signal. Dammit! With even just one of you arriving, those two bastards wouldn’t so arrogantly encircle me. Bastards, you all deserve to die.”

The werewolf’s poison was unusual. Ordinary antidotes were ineffective against it.

If this was a safe place, Adept Holly could set down a laboratory, and he just might be able to concoct a potion that could temporarily neutralize the poison. Unfortunately, this was an otherworldly battlefield where the killing did not stop. There was not a single quiet place around him, no matter how he looked.

Taking his time to analyze the wolf poison in such an environment and finding a way to neutralize it was impossible!

Moreover, two familiar energy auras were quickly approaching him in his faint spiritual senses. They would catch up in another seven or eight seconds.

Just as Adept Holly’s heart turned cold, and despair overtook his mind, a large shadow engulfed him.

By the time the foxgirl and the werewolf arrived, they saw no signs of the human adept except for all the blood on the ground.

“Dammit! Where’s the adept?” The foxgirl’s eyes were slightly red. She looked around with careful and vicious eyes.

“He was still here earlier. I do not sense the aura of spatial teleportation!” The werewolf landed on the ground and lifted his snout to sniff, “Hang on. I smell the strange stench of shadow power. The adept was taken away by a shadow creature!”

“Dammit! Which bastard dares to snatch the prey from our jaws? Chase them. We will catch them at all costs!”

The next second, the two beastmen vanished from the spot.