Age of Adepts

Inkdeep Valley.

The commotion in the valley was still ongoing.

After many rounds of extermination, the intruders residing in the depths of Inkdeep Valley’s abyss had been mostly wiped out. However, the resulting planar law turbulence had turned the place into a land of death.

Ordinary creatures could no longer survive at the bottom of Inkdeep Valley for a single second. The environment and planar laws there were so harsh that they could no longer sustain the presence of organic lifeforms.

The consequence of this was the gradual degradation of the World of Adept’s planar laws within Inkdeep Valley as control was slowly handed over to the chaos laws. Chaos was the axis here now, and disorder the orthodox. Everything that the adepts were familiar with was now warped and distorted.

The adepts no longer had the advantage in such an environment. In fact, they even had to actively resist the suppression of the chaos laws. It was difficult for them to take a single step here. Danger lurked in every shadow.

In contrast, the otherworldly monsters who were already versed in the chaos laws were like fish in the water. They became even more ferocious and brazen in their actions.

Ever since the chaos laws claimed dominion over Inkdeep Valley, the Adept’s Association stopped sending sorties of adepts down there. Instead, they guarded the adept towers that firmly stood at the entrances to the valley, preventing any powerful otherworldly monsters from breaking into Association territory.

Every day, dozens–even hundreds–of magical creatures crawled out of the valley, attempting to break into the World of Adepts and feast upon its inhabitants. Battles broke out constantly at every single entrance.

A barrage of magical attacks easily dealt with the more reckless creatures that only knew how to charge forward. The only concern was the enemies with unusual magical abilities.

They had speed as fast as the wind, capable of breaking through the adept’s defense line of voodoo beast before anyone could respond. Or they had strange stealth abilities that allowed them to brazenly walk past the adepts unnoticed. Some even had the ability of flight and easily bypassed the adept towers.

Any of these possibilities presented problems for the Adept’s Association. They could only do their best to intercept and hunt down these anomalies to reduce the pressure on the defensive line.

Of course, no defense line could be absolutely impenetrable!

That was why the Adept’s Association principle was to prioritize the larger threats. The Third and Fourth Grade monsters were not allowed to leave Inkdeep Valley. As for the innumerable, smaller enemies? They could only turn a blind eye and let them go if they didn’t have the manpower to deal with them.

The Adept’s Association had a comprehensive and tight regional defense system in every one of their territories anyway. If these invaders showed themselves, the regional adept forces would deal with them.

The collateral losses and casualties inflicted before these creatures were apprehended were the unavoidable costs of dealing with the magic surge.

It was a once-in-ten-thousand-year calamity, after all!

…………

The forty-eighth day of the magic surge.

It was an ordinary day, with everything going as usual!

Saguri sat inside the main control array of War Tower 107, just like any other day, using the numerous arrays around him to monitor all movements from the nearby entrance to Inkdeep Valley.

Array of Life Detection, Array of Elementium Detection, Array of Heat Detection, Array of Warning, Array of Motion Detection. With over a dozen arrays, the wondrous arrangement continually scanned for motion at the entrance through their own means.

Suddenly, one of the dozens of arrays flickered with a bright red light.

“Mm? That’s the Earth Amplitude Detection Array. It should have the longest range of detection,” Saguri looked over and couldn’t help but mumble to himself, “Could something have happened at the bottom of the valley?”

He pondered the matter to himself as he pressed the third crystal button to his left.

“Mast, there’s movement at the bottom of the valley. Go check it out with your magical eye!”

“Understood!”

The instruction was quickly relayed to a magical room on the third floor of the war tower.

First Grade Adept Mast hastily got up from his crude bed and stood inside a complicated array drawn on the floor.

He started chanting, and a magical eye the size of a human head appeared close to War Tower 107. Under his conscious control, the eye slowly cut through the dense mist and flew toward the bottom of the valley.

The mist parted to either side within view of the magical mirror as the magical eye arrived, revealing the terrifying scenes below.

The ground was littered with the corpses and remains of all sorts of vicious creatures, forming a bloody carpet that led to the depths of the valley.

The air was thick with the scent of blood, and the howls of resentful spirits never stopped.

The magical eye cut through the mist and followed the bloody path downward, silently moving toward the bottom of the valley.

Initially, the eye’s image was extremely clear, and the eye could detect movements up to a hundred meters around it.

However, as it moved deeper into the valley, the planar law aura began to thin and become distorted. The magical mirror images grew increasingly unclear, and the eye’s sensing radius was suppressed to within a dozen meters.

Meanwhile, the corpses they saw belonged to increasingly monstrous beings. That much was evident from the size and appearance of the bodies.

While the magical eye was heading toward the bottom of the valley, the walls on both sides began to tremble rhythmically.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

It was almost as if a vicious and violent beast was slowly climbing upward, and the entire valley was trembling due to its actions.

It wasn’t just the ground itself. Even the mist and the air appeared to tremble with the quakes. The image transmitted from the magical eye grew blurry and out of focus.

All of a sudden, the mist parted as an exceptionally gigantic monster entered within view. The magical eye exploded and shattered to pieces.

First Grade Adept Mast, who had been controlling the magical eye far away in War Tower 107, shivered in fright. He hastily contacted his superior, the Second Grade Adept Saguri.

“Prepare…prepare the defensive barriers immediately. A war beast…it is a war beast that’s coming for us!”

Blaring alarms rang out throughout the war towers almost instantly.

The war towers commenced powering up, countless complicated runic arrays lighting up in order from the tower’s base to the top. Dome-shaped energy barriers appeared one after another, engulfing the war towers and isolating them from the outside world.

A ferocious tide of energy then started to gather within the towers, lingering around them and preparing to turn into violent offensive spells that blasted at their enemies.

However, just as they finished their preparations, an earthshaking cry could be heard from the valley.

A fifty-meter-tall colossal berserk ape with thick black hair sprinted out of the mist.

It was enormous, with four powerful limbs. Its body was covered in black hair. The creature looked around it with a pair of crimson eyes on its ferocious face.

A thunderous growl came from its mouth, and hot, steaming air shot out of its nostrils as it breathed.

Fourth Grade. That was a Fourth Grade colossal berserk ape.

The instant the enemy’s identity was clear, bolts of ferocious lightning cut across the sky toward it.

A fierce light glinted in the ape’s eyes. It covered its head with its hands and crouched while dirt-yellow smoke gathered around it and concealed it.

The next second, the battlefield was filled with the blinding light of lightning!

Lightning rumbled, and electricity crackled across the ground.

The battlefield’s center was engulfed by a white storm of electricity. Countless plasma balls extended from the center of the explosion and sizzling the ground where they landed.

The entire place was filled with the scorched smell of electrified flesh!

The raging storm of lightning lasted for a dozen seconds before dissipating. When the blinding white light faded away, the humongous mountain of scorched flesh was revealed.

Finally, it moved.

Large pieces of burnt flesh sloughed off, and a black rain descended upon the ground.

All of a sudden, a pair of red eyes opened on the black mountain of flesh. The creature glared at the closest War Tower 107 with burning eyes.

“Insufficient offensive power,” Adept Saguri, who was hosting War Tower 107, felt his heart beat uncontrollably. He screamed wildly into the communication crystal, “Continue to attack…continue to attack!”

The twelve war towers within range immediately started to gather energy, albeit with much difficulty. Bolts of electricity began to crackle throughout their walls. In just a few more seconds, the next wave of lightning attacks would descend and drown this fearsome enemy in electricity once more.

Unfortunately, the colossal berserk ape would not give them this opportunity again!

It let out a loud cry and shook its body, casting off the burnt and dead flesh. It ignored its terrible injuries and lunged wildly at War Tower 107.

When the colossal berserk ape stood straight, the twenty-seven-meter-tall war towers only reached its belly. With this fierce rampage, its giant fists screeched through the air, crushing the war tower’s energy barrier in a single blow and landing on the tower itself.

Crack! A horrible sound could be heard.

The fist snapped War Tower 107 right in half.

The upper half was blown a few hundred meters away, rolling across the ground until it disappeared from view. The remaining half of the tower was in shambles. The magical arrays inside exploded, one after another. With a sharp eye, you could see the few human adepts scrambling about in the ruins of the tower.

They lifted their heads and looked at this ferocious monster with horror on their faces. They took out scrolls and attempted to flee to the other war towers. The blinding light of teleportation flashed all over the war tower.

However, there were always a few slow individuals. By the time they realized something was wrong and attempted to flee, their entire world turned black.

The terrifying iron fist of the colossal ape crashed down again.

Dong!

The rest of the war tower was crushed into dust along with its base!

The battlefield fell utterly silent!