Age of Adepts

Accidents always occurred on a planar battlefield!

Just as they had desired, the adepts had managed to hunt down all four of the minor Scourge Lords. However, the adepts also paid a heavy price for this. The Central Lands and the Association each lost a Fourth Grade adept.

Ariza was the one who died on the side of the Central Lands. He was killed by the final retaliation of the serpentdrake before its death. Meanwhile, it was Schreiber, the somewhat famous Fourth Grade fire adept, who had died on the Association’s side.

It was unexpected that Fourth Grade adepts had died in battle, but all things considered, it wasn’t all that surprising. After all, Scourge Lords were powerful creatures who could travel throughout the universe uncontested. In many aspects, their combat power was enough to crush human adepts of the same grade.

Moreover, three of the five minor Scourge Lords that invaded Inkdeep Valley were Fifth Grade creatures. The fact that the adepts managed to catch all of them for the low price of two lives was already unimaginable.

It was important to know that individuals like Fiveface, Mugus, and Zagu were truly apocalyptic creatures. If they broke into any other ordinary planar world, the natives would not have been able to kill them even if they mustered all their forces.

The more common occurrences were how these ultra-grade starbeasts and Scourge Lords broke into planar worlds and turned them upside down. The majority of resources and lifeforms inside were devoured before they were driven back by native powerhouses at a high cost.

Banishing such tremendously horrifying creatures often cost at least the lives of half the native powerhouses. That was a terrible, terrible cost.

Moreover, these were only the cases where banishment was actually successful. Those who could not expel these creatures would see their world torn apart and countless lives lost to the void of space. The tattered remains of giant continents could occasionally be seen in space. It was the ultimate fate of these defeated planar worlds.

This universe was one of great conflict and strife!

The weak planar worlds that had yet to fully develop had to hide from the eyes of powerful predators such as the World of Disasters and the Abyssal World. Alternatively, they had to strengthen themselves urgently and keep these greedy predators at bay with overwhelming force.

Of course, the only way to allow a plane to develop further and quicker was raiding other planar worlds to steal their resources, population, knowledge, and souls. Only through such a method could they exponentially grow past their weak phase and earn a place for themselves among the numerous powerful factions of the universe.

In truth, there were only a few factions that truly reigned supreme in the multiverse.

The World of Disasters, the Abyssal World, and the Titans.

These three factions were the strongest in every regard. Their forces were also spread all over the universe; none dared to provoke them.

Meanwhile, the adept civilization could only be considered second-tier. Moreover, they were slightly below average among the second tier civilizations. In this tier, you could find the World of Gods, the Elementium Planes, the Dragon Kingdom, the Elven Empire, the Spirit World, and the Shadow World.

Among them, the Elementium Planes were an exception. In sheer power alone, they were worthy of being considered a first-tier civilization, along with the World of Disasters and the Titans. However, the elementium kings and monarchs were too free-spirited. They had no ambition or desire for outward conquest and expansion.

Consequently, many planar worlds considered elementium creatures to be harmless beings. As long as you didn’t provoke them, they were utterly unwilling to step out of their Elementium Plane to find trouble.

The Arcane Empire originally had the qualifications to reside within the second tier. Unfortunately, they failed to fend off the invasion of the numerous enemy factions. Their planar world fell into enemy hands, and the survivors scattered across space.

After the second tier was the so-called third tier. There were countless numbers of these factions in the universe. Even the Alliance of Liches that Greem had associated with were a third-tier faction.

They might have a few tremendously powerful lich kings within their ranks, but there were just far too few liches. It was the fundamental reason they could not grow to the same size and influence as other major factions.

Similarly, there were the starbeasts.

There were billions upon billions of different types of starbeasts. They made for a shocking population, though they were scattered all over the boundless galaxy. Moreover, the starbeasts even fought amongst themselves frequently. They were a type of powerful creatures that moved and acted according to their instincts. They might be shockingly powerful, but they did not have the higher intelligence to match their might.

They were like the ever-present vultures of the universe, continually roaming space and feeding on planar creatures. There were many of them, but they could not be organized and bound together into a singular, powerful faction.

That was why the starbeasts were never considered an intelligent species, even though they were incredibly powerful!

Only when you understood the might of the disaster creatures could you understand how amazing a victory this was for the adepts. Of course, this also had to do with the fact that the magic surge had only just begun. The true monsters of the World of Disasters–the Dominions–had yet to awake from their long slumber.

Once the Dominions of Seventh Grade and above awakened, none of this conquest would be the business of the Fifth and Sixth Grade Scourge Lords anymore. When that happened, the Great Adepts in space would also start interfering.

In all seriousness, the battle of Inkdeep Valley could not be considered an official fight between the adept civilization and the World of Disasters. It was merely the whim of an individual Sixth Grade Scourge Lord to invade the World of Adepts.

These skirmishes were inconsequential. Naturally, the Great Adepts had no interest in being involved. At any rate, a Sixth Grade Scourge Lord would not be able to devour the entirety of the World of Adepts. It was the perfect opportunity to throw the young adepts into the wringer and give them a chance to prove themselves.

They didn’t care if numerous Fourth Grade adepts died in the process, anyway. Their only concern was whether any Fourth Grade adept would be able to seize this opportunity and rise to Fifth Grade. Only such an individual would deserve some of their attention.

After all, the adepts had their own factions and organizations in space as well. Attracting fresh blood to their organization wasn’t a bad idea!

A powerful adept like Greem, who was already halfway into Fifth Grade, would soon find himself being recruited by several adept organizations in space.

…………

The process of harvesting spoils after a battle was always exciting.

The Central adepts gathered together and held a simple mourning ceremony for Ariza. They then put away his body and the things he had left behind.

These things would be returned untouched to Ariza’s clan members once they had returned to the Central Lands. As for how Ariza’s properties and assets would be divided within his clan? That was up to the Mansour Clan to decide for themselves.

As the ruler of the Central Lands, Greem had to make a gesture of sorts, seeing as Ariza had died for the Central Lands. Thus, he promised the Mansour Clan a protection period of a hundred years.

The Mansour Clan would still enjoy the privileges of a Fourth Grade organization within these hundred years. They would be protected by the Crimson Clan and would not be attacked by any adept clans.

If the Mansour Clan was fortunate enough to give rise to a Fourth Grade within these hundred years, they could continue ruling over their vast territories. If no Fourth Grade adept appeared, then they would be demoted to an ordinary Third Grade organization.

When that happened, their former territories would become delicious food in the surrounding clans’ eyes, and war would soon break out.

This survival of the fittest was appropriate for the Central Lands’ development. That was why Greem would not intervene in it.

After dealing with Ariza’s affairs, the only thing left was the division of the spoils.

Through this battle, Greem and the Central Lands had obtained the corpse of a Fifth Grade many-armed giant and a peak Fourth Grade serpentdrake. Greem had taken down the many-armed giant all by himself. Naturally, he got to keep all of the spoils for himself. Meanwhile, the serpentdrake would be split up between the other six adepts.

As the most powerful individual of the Central Lands, Greem had the right to pick an item of his choice before splitting the spoils. It was a form of offering and a show of loyalty from Kerala and the others!

After taking the corpses of two Fifth Grade minor Scourge Lords for himself, Greem couldn’t be happier; he didn’t make things any harder for Kerala and the others.

He simply took most of the serpentdrake’s blood in a symbolic gesture and left the rest to the Central adepts.

Greem had taken the blood for Mary’s sake.

The other six Fourth Grades of the Central Lands excitedly stepped aside and began arguing. After ten hours, they finally decided on a proper means of division.

Declan, who had put in the most effort, naturally obtained the largest share. He got most of the serpentdrake’s skeleton and a few hundred kilograms of its meat. Meanwhile, Kerala and Alfred combined got the wings and some of the meat. How they would divide the share between them was their own matter.

Matthew got the damaged soul of the serpentdrake. With this as an offering, he should have no trouble signing a contract with another Fourth Grade creature from another world.

Nicolas got the dragon crystal. Judging from the broad smile on his face, it seemed like he had great plans for the crystal.

Roderick got the scales and front claws. These were excellent materials to forge powerful magical equipment that were hard to find anywhere else.

If Kerala and the others were thoroughly satisfied, then Greem’s purse was basically bursting at the seams.

The Fifth Grade Reptile Fiveface had provided him with four top-class elementium crystals and a Fifth Grade poison principal crystal. Remi had already devoured the principal crystal. One could expect Remi to become an ultra-grade artifact spirit once he had fully digested this treasure.

When that happened, Remi would possess the power needed to truly unleash the might of the Fifth Grade Tome of Corruption.

When Greem killed Fiveface, he had borrowed the might of the Fifth Grade divine fire spell, Scorched Earth. The overwhelming power of the spell had damaged the reptile’s corpse. Meanwhile, Many-Armed Giant Zagu had been killed quickly with a single decisive strike. That was why Greem was able to harvest even more treasures and materials from his relatively untouched body.

While Kerala and the others were excitedly dividing the spoils, Greem also used the Chip’s scanning abilities to quickly obtain a list of all the materials and spoils he had obtained!