Age of Adepts

The appearance of the Fourth Grade colossal berserk ape was like a prelude to something more.

Ever since then, the intrusion of otherworldly creatures toward the World of Adepts escalated, gradually sliding toward a complete loss of control.

Given the might of the adept civilization, scattered intruders like these were still no problem. If they were only trying to sneak into the World of Adepts to steal some rare resources not found elsewhere, they were still likely to succeed.

After all, the World of Adepts was far too large. To completely defend such vast territories without fail was impossible.

The native adepts were more than willing to turn a blind eye when the intruder was powerful and possessed strange abilities, as long as they kept a low profile. They had no reason to put their lives on the line to hunt down such intruders.

Most of the time, they were willing to just let them by!

However, while a few individual ‘smugglers’ could be ignored, the organized intruders who were attempting to colonize the World of Adepts were intolerable by any adept organization.

Since the magic surge erupted, all these powerful organizations of the World of Adepts had experienced large-scale invasions of otherworldly creatures. They were fighting everywhere without pause, buried knee-deep in monster corpses.

Among the major organizations, the most unfortunate one had to be the Adept’s Association.

Their spatial rift was the largest, allowing the strongest otherworldly forces to enter. Consequently, they drew the attention of the troublesome disaster creatures!

It was said that three infamous Disaster Lords had simultaneously set their sights on their spatial rift. They had specially constructed a planar gate and were herding high-grade enslaved creatures to assault the Association towers.

Meanwhile, the more powerful disaster creatures lurked at the bottom of the valley. It appeared they were amassing in number, waiting for the moment to blow past the defensive line in one fell swoop and rush into the World of Adept’s fertile lands.

All sorts of signs indicated that the Adept’s Association was in a bad spot!

If even the most powerful organization in the World of Adepts was in such a situation, it wasn’t hard to imagine how the other organizations were faring.

Putting aside everything else, the Central Lands alone were in enormous trouble!

If the Adept’s Association faced invasion by the disaster creatures, then the Central Lands were almost as unfortunate in dealing with a severe demonic invasion.

The Abyssal World was undoubtedly a civilization larger and more terrifying than the World of Adepts.

That was a boundless and suffocating land of terror.

The environment there was harsh- harsh enough that no life could hope to survive.

There was no sense of morals there. It was a kingdom of endless slaughter.

There were no such concepts as friendship, family, or love. It was a place of evil with only betrayal, murder, and destruction.

The Abyssal World was also known as the Bowels of the Universe or the Lower Plane. It was the place where the junk and garbage of the multiverse settled and sedimented in.

If one were to think of the universe as a gigantic lifeform, its tremendous age would have caused an unimaginable amount of toxins to accumulate and gather within the body. All this poison had gathered together and settled down, forming what was now known as the Abyssal Plane.

It could be said that everything negative, evil, chaotic, and corrupt was gathered in the Abyssal Plane. Though the place was barren and unpopulated, over time, exceptionally unusual magical creatures were born there.

Those were the abyssal demons!

The Abyssal Plane might be vast in territory, but it was inferior in resources.

The demons born there engaged in constant fighting and murder over what few resources they were. They sustained themselves on flesh by killing their brethren and strengthened themselves through the energy they had managed to rip from their victim’s corpses.

They grew through murder and improved through slaughter, slowly walking down the path of planar incursions.

Once an abyssal demon had developed fully, the Abyssal Plane’s limited resources were no longer enough to sustain their evolution. For their sake and that of the Abyssal Plane, they roamed the universe, searching everywhere for weak worlds they could invade and raid.

They recklessly charged into any material plane, all for a bite of warm flesh and a sip of delicious soul. They harvested and took away everything that could be taken with their might and fearlessness.

They did not fear death!

Even if they died in another world, they could revive in the Abyssal Plane through their demon brands. Moreover, the more they killed and the more souls they stole, the greater the feedback from the abyssal consciousness of the Abyssal Plane.

To be absolutely honest, a low-grade demon relied entirely on murder and planar feedback to evolve into a high-grade demon.

It could be said that there was no planar consciousness as wild, chaotic, and evil as the abyssal consciousness. Not only did the abyssal consciousness not forbid internal disputes and murder, it actually enjoyed these pointless conflicts.

The abyssal consciousness was not just savage and chaotic itself. It had implanted this worldview deep inside the demonic creatures of the Abyssal Plane.

There were no such things as loyalty or faith within the Abyssal Plane. On the contrary- chaos, evil, and destruction became the main themes of the plane to be upheld.

It wasn’t hard to imagine how terrifying the individuals that emerged from such wanton destruction, murder, and violence would be!

There were instances of major planar worlds espousing order and justice who had invaded the Abyssal Plane in the name of purifying evil throughout history. They were overconfident and intent on turning a land of evil into paradise.

Unfortunately, before they could even conquer one ten-thousandth of the Abyssal Plane, their homeworlds were conquered by the abyssal demons.

Their planes were destroyed, and all lives were reaped.

Their homeworld was then dragged back to the Abyssal Plane by the demons and assimilated by the Abyssal World.

In all seriousness, the Abyssal World was the scavenger of the universe.

The material planes that had been defeated in interplanar conflict had their planar origins dissipate, their principles shattered, and their lives cast to the wind. The remnants of a plane would drift across the galaxy until it merged with the Abyssal World and became part of the Bowels of the Universe.

The existence of the Abyssal World was only a natural course of the multiverse!

However, should the Abyssal World grow too powerful, it would be able to corrode the universe and adversely affect its development.

Many theories, including radical ideas from ancient adepts, posited that the magic surges were the universe’s attempts to ‘self-purify!’

When too many toxins and poisons had accumulated in its body, it was time for a magic surge. It provoked cancerous civilizations such as the Abyssal World and the World of Disasters to clash with the major planes, relying on the might of the major civilizations to limit the growth of these tumors.

These theories were largely supported and acknowledged by most adepts!

At the very least, this had been the course of the universe’s development in the understanding of the World of Adepts. However, everything they knew about the past was obtained from books. The calamity they were facing now was something they had to endure with their own lives on the line.

That was because……

The demons had truly come!

…………

The Ahlden Mega-Rift.

This place that had brought the Ahlden Clan endless wealth and glory had now become their persistent nightmare!

Much like the disaster lords, several demon lords from the Abyssal World had concurrently set their sights on the rich resources and bountiful population of the World of Adepts. They couldn’t wait to intrude and reap the souls of its inhabitants.

No matter how powerful the civilization, they were still several levels inferior to the Abyssal World.

Fortunately, the disaster creatures, who were far more powerful, had their sights set on Inkdeep Valley as their point of entrance. The inferior demons didn’t dare compete with the disaster creatures. Their only option was the smaller mega-rift in the Central Lands.

They opened a planar gate in the Abyssal World and connected it with this mega-rift. They then herded endless legions of low-grade demons into the World of Adepts, using their flesh and bodies to corrupt the planar space here. In doing so, they created a Chaos Domain around the mega-rift.

With the Chaos Domain, the abyssal demons no longer had to endure planar suppression from the World of Adepts. If the native adepts of the World of Adepts dared show themselves outside their towers, they would face an army of demons at their full force.

Several Fourth Grade adepts were staring at a magical mirror in front of them in a tall tower just three kilometers away from the mega-rift. They felt their hearts tremble at everything they were witnessing.

What was shown in the magical mirror was an image of the surroundings of the mega-rift.

Everything they were familiar with there had vanished.

The sky was black and red.

Waves of heat surged through the air, hot enough to turn a person dizzy and unconscious.

The land was scorched, and the bedrock was exposed. There were no longer any signs of dirt or plants. There were countless cracks in the ground, red-hot lava spewing forth from below and running across the ground like serpents of fire.

Abyssal demons of all shapes and sizes had gathered beneath these crimson skies. They chattered, argued, and pushed each other around. If it weren’t for the few demon lords standing at the mega-rift intimidating them with their auras, the demons would have slaughtered each other before the adepts even attacked.

From a distance, you could see the black and red figures of the demons everywhere across the earth.

Most of them were a sort of tiny demon only a hundred and twenty centimeters tall, but muscular and sporting crimson scales. They had sharp horns on their heads, fangs, a pair of flapping wings, and a long bony tail. They also held little silver forks in their hands.

These were the weakest cannon fodder in the army of the abyssal demons– the imps.

When needed, they would be the cannon fodder charging at the very front. When not required for combat, imps were food reserves that the higher-grade demons had prepared for themselves.