Age of Adepts

Inside a forest somewhere near the troll capital.

A voodoo ritual was being held in a hidden underground cave.

The host of the ritual was Remi’s old witch subordinate. Remi himself stood to the side and watched the entire process with Mary.

The cave wasn’t very large, the ground was uneven, and there were some ashes left on the ground from a burnt-out bonfire.

It might have been the den of a giant carnivorous magical beast in the past. Unfortunately, its home was far too close to the troll capital. Consequently, this place had obviously been turned into a crude camp for the trolls.

There were public living areas, rest areas, armories, and many small storerooms below the cave. A party of seven trolls had been stationed here. However, they were now part of the voodoo ritual and could never return to their homes.

An area had been cleared in the camp, and the bones and skulls of countless beasts and trolls had been piled together as fuel. Their souls and flesh were stripped by the array beneath them and had been reduced to a single sickly-green ghost fire. The flame silently licked at an unusual crystal hovering in the air.

There were far too many tragic souls bound up in the ghost flame. They cried and howled and cursed. The array gathered their powerful hatred and resentment and turned it into a terrifying voodoo curse that was directed at the power crystal.

The power crystal called to something somewhere within the troll capital due to the resonance between the origin of its powers. This incredibly powerful voodoo curse followed the crystal’s unbreakable connection to its source and slowly corrupted it.

Through the voodoo ritual, Remi could even hear a furious screech reverberating through the principle layers.

Clearly, the origin of the power had discovered the curse and was expressing its fury.

Sadly, its anger was not only unable to incite any fear on Remi’s part but even made him increasingly excited.

Cursing a god–no, cursing a divine creature–was a profound experience. Any curse adept would be more than proud to talk about such an adventure!

That was why Remi had accepted this ‘scary’ task without any hesitation when Mary produced the power crystal in front of him. This task was scary because there was no doubt that this ritual would deeply infuriate the Feathered Serpent.

When she went on a berserk rampage and exacted reckless revenge, nothing would stand in her way. Only a few of the vampire expedition army could escape alive.

“How is it working? Are you able to spread the plague to that beast?” Mary knew nothing about voodoo rituals. She did not understand anything, even after watching for the entire day. She had no choice but to ask patiently.

Remi rolled his eyes when he heard Mary’s question.

“Lady Mary, you overestimate our abilities! The opponent is a divine creature! We can’t even cast a mere Weakening Curse on it, let alone a plague. A slight mistake, and this place just might—”

Just as he spoke, Remi shuddered and turned to look in the direction of the voodoo ritual.

The dark space above the ritual abruptly distorted and shattered. A blinding bolt of golden lightning shot out from the rift in space.

The old witch hosting the ritual was caught unaware. She screamed out loud as the blast of lightning struck her.

The clothes on her body instantly turned to ash. Her dirty, messy, short hair stood on end, and her skin was scorched black. There was even black smoke rising out of her open mouth.

Fortunately, the old witch had already been turned into a Third Grade plague creature. A bolt of ‘divine’ lightning wasn’t enough to kill her.

As she struggled to get up from the ground, Remi opened his mouth and blew a thick cloud of yellow poison mist at her.

The poison smoke quickly seeped into the witch’s body, rapidly healing her and undoing the damage done by the lightning strike.

However, the divine energy left behind by the lightning was not so easily dispelled. The old witch’s aura was unavoidably weakened.

At the sight of this, there was something different in Mary’s eyes when she once again looked at Remi.

“You are very smart!” Mary calmly said.

“Thank you for your praise!” Remi still had a playful smile on his face, just like always.

“Earlier, you said that you couldn’t even transmit a curse onto the serpent. What’s the point of continuing this voodoo ritual, then?”

“Lady Mary, the voodoo ritual might not be able to curse the Feathered Serpent, but it can corrupt and affect its mind. Between a smart and sly Feathered God, and a Feathered God driven mad by her own emotions of anger and fury, which would you choose?”

“Obviously, the second one. That creature possesses absolute power against us; we cannot face her head-on. However, should she ever lose control of her power, our chance will have arrived! Are you…sure you have a way to make her lose her rationality?” Mary asked doubtfully.

“If her mind were truly impenetrable, I wouldn’t be wasting time here.” An expression of thought appeared on Remi’s face. “Ever since we built a connection to the Feathered Serpent’s origin through the ritual, I have been somewhat confused. She…doesn’t seem to be as powerful as the trolls describe her to be.”

“Oh? What have you discovered?”

“Either the information was incorrect, or the serpent is currently in a weakened state. Either way, the Feathered Serpent is certainly not at Fifth Grade. It is only a Fourth Grade creature at the moment! Otherwise, the divine punishment from earlier would not have been so trivial!”

“Not Fifth Grade, but Fourth?” Mary was pleasantly surprised.

She did not have Alice’s ability to see through an enemy’s secret with just a tiny hammer and a little piece of bone. Every piece of information about the enemy had to be obtained with blood and life on the battlefield.

That was why Mary was both happy and surprised to hear Remi’s deduction. She wasn’t sure what to do now.

If the enemy was indeed Fourth Grade as Remi claimed her to be, then Mary and her vampires did have a chance at victory. As a vampire adept from the World of Adepts, she felt no fear in her heart when fighting against an opponent of a lesser plane, even if that opponent was a grade higher than her.

It was for a simple reason. Mary held the absolute advantage in knowledge, technique, equipment, and experience!

The planar natives might not know anything about the adepts, but adepts could obtain plenty of information about them through tomes or knowledge crystals. Do away with the effects of planar suppression, and adepts from the World of Adepts were superior to these primitive, lesser-plane natives in every regard.

In combat power alone, Mary’s vampire army might not be able to fight against the troll warriors that numbered in the thousands. However, with a ‘tiny’ plague, Mary had managed to force back that terrifying army of trolls without drawing a single drop of blood.

Mary and her vampires still felt no fear even as they faced the capital and its thirty thousand trolls. Instead, she was planning with all her might to capture every last troll. Moreover, their schemes included the totem god hiding behind the scenes– the Feathered God.

What gave her the confidence to do so was the difference in their homeworlds and worldviews.

As an adept from a major plane, Mary thought of herself as the predator, even if she was weaker than the opponent. It didn’t matter how strong or how ferocious the enemy was; in the end, they were no more than a slightly fatter boar.

However, while she was scheming the downfall of the Feathered Serpent, Soros stepped into the cave. He had been standing guard outside.

“Master, there is movement from the capital. A vast army of troll warriors is heading this way. It seems like they are searching for us!”

“Hmph! That damned snake must be in a hurry if she’s sending those trolls after us. Notify all the vampires. Move out. Draw them into the forest and kill every last one of them!” Excitement overtook Mary’s face. “I don’t believe that damned snake can remain peacefully in her den when she loses all these believers!”

“If she can tolerate a loss like this, that would only mean that something serious has truly happened to her. If that happens, then we will fight our away into her den. Let’s go.”

A sharp, whistling gale blew across the cave as Mary left their hiding spot with her vampires in tow.

Meanwhile, the Third Grade poison witch was still hosting the voodoo ritual. Remi would remain here as well. Any trolls that managed to make it here past the vampire’s defensive line would not be lucky, but incredibly unfortunate.

After all, they were basically walking into the jaws of death!

…………

Seawoods Plane. Somewhere in the Degu Forest.

No one knew when, but a large patch of dark substance had appeared in the skies above a clearing.

This substance bubbled in the air as if it were liquid, seemingly very active and impatient.

Finally, the planar space tore open, and pitch-black shadow substance surged out of the rift, instantly turning the clearing into a realm of darkness.

Two ghostly lights lit up in the murky shadows of the endless darkness.

Shadow Demon was a magical machine and was hardly affected by the planar powers. It had broken free of the planar suppression almost instantly.

“Searching for Lady Mary. Protect her.”

Shadow Demon mumbled to itself in an odd, robotic tone. It quickly locked onto Mary’s position.

“Northeast. 1350 kilometers.”

With this information in mind, Shadow Demon promptly moved out.

Unlike other magical machines that either marched on the ground or flew through the air, Shadow Demon traveled in an unusual fashion.

With its Shadowstalking ability, Shadow Demon would flicker every once in a while, reappearing in a massive shadow cast by a tree in the distance. After half a second, it would disappear once more and appear in a shadow another hundred meters away.

Through this silent Shadowstalking, Shadow Demon was able to cut across the thousands of kilometers of forest rapidly and approach Mary’s location.