Age of Adepts

How terrifying was the sight of a massive floating city crashing to the ground?

It was hard to imagine such a thing with the mind alone!

The floating city was like a small, flying continent. Its foundation was tens of thousands of tons of dense, solid rock etched with a countless number of arcane arrays and anti-gravity barriers. There was also a layer of black dirt above the stone, over thirty meters thick. Built upon this earth were the arcane buildings of the floating city.

When the energy core of the floating city was destroyed, the arcane arrays and anti-gravity barriers on the stone foundation lost their functions. The entire floating city then slowly crashed down towards the plains below at a tilted angle, like a sinking ship in the middle of the sea.

A continuous series of rumbling explosions rang out.

The entire floating city quaked and trembled.

An incomparably violent force spread out from the point of impact, causing most of the foundation–now unprotected by any arcane power–to shatter and disintegrate into debris.

Without any resistance, the floating city started to disintegrate the moment it hit the ground!

The plain beneath it suffered an unprecedented calamity. All the ground within twenty-five kilometers had been smashed into a crater. Even the broad and beautiful lake nearby had been wiped away by the rain of dirt, stone, and indiscernible debris pouring from the sky.

The earth sank, and the ground split apart. Countless pillars of dust rose to the air, engulfing every piece of land within fifty kilometers in a sea of dust and ashes.

Most of the arcane buildings on the floating city had already been reduced to rubble and ruins by the invaders. Now, with the shattering of the city’s foundation and the ceaseless explosions, all of the debris broke down into smaller pieces of waste, scattering in every direction.

An ordinary person could not even survive in such a destructive disaster. However, these otherworldly invaders from all these different planes were still fighting ferociously amidst the apocalypse.

Mietzel despaired!

He put up a divine shield with what power he had left, protecting himself from the barrage of stone and dirt, and quickly escaped in the screen of dust created by the crash.

The fearsome lich pursued closely after him, shrouded in a dense layer of death energy. Meanwhile, the terrifying fire adept had vanished from sight for a while now. It was likely he had been stalled by the savage and harsh conditions of the environment.

Though there was one less enemy now, Mietzel still had no confidence in fighting against the lich.

However, just as he gritted his teeth and fled with all his power, bright crimson light glowed from the dust in front of him. A scorching wave of heat then pressed towards his face.

Dammit! That fire adept caught up as well.

Mietzel turned without any hesitation, switching to a different direction where the energy flux was most intense.

Death was almost inevitable in his current circumstances. His only way out was to reach the radiation zone created by the massive explosion of the floating city. He could rely on the intense radiation there to veil him from his enemy’s spiritual senses, then proceed to find a way to flee.

This path of escape was most definitely incredibly dangerous, but Mietzel had no other choice for the sake of survival!

A fierce wind whistled.

A piece of the city the size of a soccer field whizzed by before Mietzel’s eyes, fragments of buildings still attached to the earth along with a group of horrified arcane apprentices.

The piece didn’t fly very far before it was shattered by a series of flying rocks and broken up into many smaller pieces. The few surviving apprentices on that rock were shredded to blood mist by the energy shockwaves before they could even cry out in surprise.

A series of explosions could be heard emanating from deep underground.

Those were the large-scale explosions resulting from the energy core’s destruction. These bursts happened throughout the entire foundation, blowing up the floating city into countless shattered zones of chaos. In fact, some secrets rooms and treasuries usually hidden underground had been revealed by these explosions, causing large-scale looting and fighting to begin once more.

Mietzel ran away desperately.

After casting all sorts of divine halos on himself, he became light as a swallow and agile as a fox. He sprinted through the flying rocks and broken buildings as if he had wings, constantly changing directions as he ran.

He kicked against a shattered piece of ground, avoided several massive boulders shooting towards him, and leaped right into a massive rift in the earth.

Five minutes later, he appeared from another rift several kilometers away from he had vanished. He looked around him and hastily turned invisible before walking into a gray pillar of dust and fleeing as far away as he could.

However, just as he reached the edge of the ruins, his footsteps stopped. He looked silently ahead of him.

A towering figure clad in bright red flames was sitting, crossed-legged, on the only patch of green left in the area. He had been silently waiting for Mietzel’s arrival.

The flames burned and swayed softly, but the patch of green beneath the flame giant remained completely intact. It had not been ignited or scorched. It was almost as if the rustling flames did not exist at all.

“Hand over the Libram of Wisdom, and you can leave alive! Otherwise…die!”

Greem opened his eyes, a terrifying red light glaring from his blazing eyes.

A twisted smile appeared on Mietzel’s young and handsome face. With a severe tone, he replied, “Do you think I will believe you? You bunch of shameless, despicable, evil, and cunning adepts. I will never believe a single word spoken by you people.”

“You don’t have to believe me. You just have to believe in your own judgment!” Greem smiled casually. “Leave the Libram of Wisdom behind, and you can leave from either my right or my left. I will most certainly not stop you. In fact, I will even offer you valuable information for free: there’s a lich on the left and none on the right.”

Mietzel, who was already exhausted and whose divine power was at its limits, looked around him with feigned toughness. He could see very clearly that the only thing standing between him and safety was this fire adept. As long as he could escape the ruins of the floating city, his survival was basically guaranteed.

He might not be able to beat the lich, but he was slightly faster than the undead. His chances of successfully escaping would increase tremendously when he got out into the open field.

After proper consideration, Mietzel stepped away and lightly placed the Libram of Wisdom on the ground. He then set a simple seal upon the Libram before carefully walking around Greem and escaping into the distance.

The direction he chose to head in was the left!

Greem’s expression did not change. It wasn’t until Mietzel’s figure had completely vanished into the dust cloud that he stood up and walked towards the Libram.

The Libram of Wisdom lay silently on the scorched earth. A rune hovered above the copper cover of the book, still glowing with a faint, sacred light.

“Hmph! Playing these tricks even when death is imminent.” Greem exhaled air from his nose in disdain. Blue light flickered in his eyes, instantly analyzing the magic that Mietzel had left on the book.

The Libram of Wisdom had an owner. It was the origin artifact that the God of Wisdom had made for himself. The Libram was still branded with his divine rune. Naturally, he had handed the artifact to his son, hoping that the might of the Fifth Grade artifact could further protect Mietzel.

Meanwhile, as the temporary owner of the artifact, Mietzel had the means to bind the object to his soul. This way, even if he was billions of kilometers away, he needed only trigger the divine rune, and the Libram of Wisdom would instantly return to him.

It seemed like Mietzel had been trying to trick Greem into an empty deal by taking advantage of Greem’s unfamiliarity with the artifact.

Moreover, Greem discovered a terrifying, activated, and primed divine spell within the Libram of Wisdom with the help of the Chip’s scan. Should Greem undo the seal, the Libram of Wisdom would instantly attack him.

When that happened, he would have to focus on defending himself, and would not be able to stop the Libram of Wisdom from leaving.

Greem chuckled at this setup as he reached for the Libram of Wisdom.

However, at that moment, a black figure rushed out from the dust cloud. Two human, yet beast-like, claws cut through the air, manifesting as a series of green claws that slashed at Greem like a violent storm.

A red figure swayed mysteriously beside the black figure, blowing a pungent, purple breath of poison at Greem.

Greem seemed to have detected their presence a while ago. His body erupted immediately and flickered a few dozen meters away, where he rematerialized in his human form. When he finally stood firm on the ground, two figures, one black and one red, replaced him at his former position.

The black figure was the werewolf from earlier, and the red figure was the foxgirl.

It was obvious that the two of them had not had a successful hunt inside the city. All sorts of wounds and scars could be seen on their bodies. The fact that they could not use their energy to rapidly heal their bodies despite their power was evidence of the severity of their wounds.

However, they were two against one. Both of them stared at Greem with fierce eyes, as if they could easily take him down at any moment.

The werewolf with the short, bristly black hair bent down slightly, inch-long claws protruding from his hands. He waved and growled at Greem, revealing his sharp teeth inside his jaw.

Meanwhile, the foxgirl narrowed her eyes, looking curiously at the Libram of Wisdom close to her feet.

She might not recognize the Libram of Wisdom, but the unique law flux of a Fifth Grade artifact and its unusual energy aura informed her of its nature.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You naughty fellow. To think you wouldn’t know how to treasure an artifact and leave it lying on the ground like that. Why don’t I keep it safe for you?”

Rose, the foxgirl, giggled as she reached for the Libram of Wisdom with her slender hand without any hesitation whatsoever.