Age of Adepts

“You ants.”

“Don’t even dream of resisting the might of a god…scram!”

Fire God Sinai’s clone tore the rift apart with much difficulty and tried to wiggle his way in. He had to resist the terrifying power of repulsion from the World of Adepts while also defending against the wild bombardment of the numerous ultra-powerhouses.

The colossal flame humanoid lifted his head, revealing an expression of wild fury and anger as he roared as loud as he could. Unfortunately, his body was still stuck in the planar barrier’s rift. He could only draw upon a limited amount of his actual power.

Against the increasingly ferocious attacks coming from inside the planar world, there was nothing he could do but endure. Every time the rain of spells landed on the thin layer of red light around his body, the barrier trembled and quaked. Sinai’s clone couldn’t help but become even more enraged.

“Get away from me.”

The series of attacks incredibly frustrated Sinai’s clone. He lifted the right arm that he had just barely managed to wriggle into this world and instantly created a roaring sea of fire that engulfed all the ultra-powerhouses.

The offensive might of a Sixth Grade Fire God’s clone was exceedingly terrifying!

The sea of fire was over ten thousand meters wide. Moreover, the energy intensity of the flames was a uniform ten thousand points across the entire area.

This one attack alone would have been enough to exterminate most planar creatures.

The appearance of the sea of fire instantly put the ultra-powerhouses at risk of defeat.

Greem had already elementiumized his body; fire could no longer hurt him. That was why he was the only one who was able to stand quietly within the flames without a scratch on him.

Upon seeing his ‘companions’ struggle in the fire, Greem lifted his hand and cast out several fire halos at them.

It was the fire immunity provided by these halos, as well as the resistances of the ultra-powerhouses themselves, that allowed them to barely survive the threat of death.

Ainley let out a battlecry and turned into a cloud of white smoke. He dashed through the flames and quickly escaped. By the time he reformed his body at the edge of the sea of flames, there were scorch marks all over his intricate robe. It was quite a disturbing sight to behold.

However, he had managed to come out of it unscathed!

The purple light around Gloria glowed brighter than ever before, making it seem like she had been encased in a purple gemstone. She fled the fire while under its protection as fast as she could. The purple light had significantly dimmed by the time she escaped. Moreover, small clusters of fire the size of a fingernail pulsed inside the purple light. It seemed as if the fire principle power had managed to seep into her equipment’s principle core.

Gloria’s face turned dark as ink when she saw this. She almost couldn’t stop herself from cursing out loud.

Of the three Association adepts, Curse Adept Cerveris was undoubtedly the worst off.

He did not have powerful equipment to protect himself as the others did. How was he supposed to defend himself against a powerful Fire God’s clone who was two entire grades above him with his curse principles alone?

He howled in agony all the way out of the sea of fire. By the time he was out, his body was already black as coal. Numerous parts of his body had been burned into black sludge that continued dripping as he fled.

The mighty fire principles rampaged within his body, and all he could do was muster his curse principles in an attempt to fight back. The result of such resistance was his body slowly melting down, bit by bit.

“Someone, help me! Gloria, save me, quick…I won’t last much longer!” Cerveris hovered in the air after escaping the flames. He looked around with his scorched head, trying to look for his companions. His face was black and burnt, every inch of his skin cracking to reveal the roasted flesh beneath.

Steam rose from every crack and hole of his body. Cerveris’ eyes had already exploded. The black blood had dried up into a gray, glue-like substance before it managed to run down his cheek.

He turned his bloody and empty eye sockets around. He sensed Gloria’s aura and immediately reached out with his burnt, cracked right hand. He had only just reached out with his hand when his nails were blasted away. Pieces of his flesh peeled off like leaves in the wind, scattered as ash to the sky.

In the blink of an eye, all the flesh had peeled off of Cerveris’ right hand, leaving behind only the scorched bones.

Gloria might be filled with disdain for the sinister and underhanded Cerveris, but she could not just sit by and watch as he burned to death. She let out a battlecry and split off part of her purple light to engulf the burned-up curse adept.

The moment the purple light appeared, it cut off the connection between Sinai’s clone and the fire principles in Cerveris’ body. The power of the flames was instantly reduced dramatically.

However, it wasn’t so easy to dispel Sixth Grade fire power!

Having escaped the jaws of death, Cerveris hastily expressed his gratitude and vanished from the battlefield.

From the looks of it, he had returned directly to his adept tower using some secret spell. He then hid within an alternate dimension and used the spatial power to isolate himself further from the fire principles’ damage. Given his injuries, he probably wouldn’t come out of that alternate dimension for another ten years!

The only one among the ultra-powerhouses who responded in a composed manner was Death Witch Leader Khesuna.

The moment the flames appeared, Artest, the Fourth Grade corpse dragon she was riding, let out a breath of dense, white death-energy with all its power. The death energy protected it and Khesuna as they rushed out of the flames.

Khesuna was perfectly unharmed when she emerged from the fire. Artest, who had kept them both safe, was severely injured by the ordeal. Small fires had ignited all over its black body. No amount of death energy managed to put them out.

Sinai’s clone was truly Sixth Grade. With just a single move, he had managed to push the ultra-powerhouses to the edge of death and forced them to flee.

However, this attack obviously also caused Sinai’s clone to suffer even greater repulsion from the World of Adepts. The right arm he had managed to wiggle through was forced back out by the power of the plane. Only half his head was left stuck in the rift now.

It also caused all his efforts up till now to be in vain!

However, after the terrible shock from earlier, the ultra-powerhouses were now incredibly wary of Sinai’s clone. They no longer dared to approach him.

Just as Sinai’s clone roared furiously and began to tear at the rift once again, the war towers in the distance finally unleashed the lightning blast that they had been mustering in unison. Numerous lightning bolts, each three meters thick, descended from the skies. They struck at Sinai’s undefended clone like an apocalyptic smite from the god of lightning himself.

With every bolt of lightning, flames blasted away from the head of Sinai’s clone. He was incredibly furious, but there was nothing he could do.

After all, more than half of his body was stuck in the rift. Sinai’s clone could only draw upon a limited amount of power. Naturally, there was no way he could conjure an effective retaliation against the adepts.

His eyes blazed with fire as two golden beams containing mighty fire principles swept across the horizon like lasers. Where the beams crossed, the sky was rent apart, and the ground split. The earth, dirt, plants, and the insects…everything was vaporized and made to disappear without a trace.

Even the ultra-powerhouses hiding in the distance couldn’t help but retreat even further away in horror. They did not dare take even a single step closer to the battlefield.

Fortunately, Sinai’s clone was mostly pushed out of the world by the plane’s power at this point. Even his head was almost entirely out now. This caused his attacks to have barely any accuracy; they were only an act of venting his anger.

Moreover, the use of his divine-fire power only caused the World of Adept to reject him even more!

A short moment later, the last bit of his head was pushed out. Only the dark distorted rift remained at the bottom of the valley.

At this point, the so-called Inkdeep Valley had been marred beyond recognition!

The numerous battles, along with the rampant destruction of Sinai’s clone, had left no piece of greenery or life within fifty kilometers of Inkdeep Valley. The earth was black and scorched, steam and smoke occasionally rising from underground.

The further in you walked through the scorched earth, the more devastated the environment.

The air was no longer breathable, while hot air and poison that could melt bones drifted everywhere. You couldn’t even find dirt on the ground, let alone plants. The only thing within sight was the black bedrock.

The ground was uneven and filled with ditches, and the ditches themselves were filled with lava.

Within fifteen kilometers of Inkdeep Valley, you wouldn’t even be able to find the tough bedrock any longer. The only thing that remained was an area filled with chaotic ribbons of light.

These light ribbons were not ordinary magical light. They were planar laws that had been forced to manifest after all the material substance had been melted away. Each light ribbon represented a law chain. They seemed to be chaotic and unsequenced, but they wove together in accordance with some profound and mysterious principle, forming a strange yet incredibly majestic sight.

The countless law chains twisted together in a complicated fashion, making it impossible to see where they came from and where they were headed. It was almost as if they were branches of the world that simply reached out from empty air.

They might only represent the very tip of the world’s principle system, but the strange and beautiful sight they presented was truly enchanting. Moreover, the more sensitive individuals were even able to sense the functioning of the world through these law chains.

What was the truth of the world?

This! This was the truth of the plane world!

Planar creatures were only distracted and tricked by the material substance. They could not see past the illusory material to the true face of the world- the essence of the world. Now, with all the substance around the spatial rift thoroughly destroyed, the principles shaken, and the laws thrown into chaos, the true face of the world was finally presented to everyone’s eyes.

However, the price that everyone paid to witness this scene might have been a little too much!