Age of Adepts

When he returned to Boulder Fortress, Greem could clearly sense that the battle’s pace had hastened compared to before.

The atmosphere in the circular hall was unusually tense.

The frequency at which Great Adepts were deployed increased more and more.

White lights flashed every so often from the various halls, the spatial fluctuations in the air never ceasing for even a moment. Casualties also started to appear among the Great Adepts who were deployed. Even within Greem’s Hall Cloud, two familiar faces had vanished entirely.

Over a hundred faith worlds had been conquered or destroyed. Even a major pantheon like the Orc Pantheon would fly into a rage at such an affront. They had launched all sorts of retaliation against the adepts.

The Orc Pantheon had as many as eighteen official gods that were known to the rest of the world alone. Over half of these gods possessed powerful divinities like Slaughter, War, Conquest, Power, and Destruction. Meanwhile, the other half had unusual and unique divinities such as Hunt, Chaos, and Tracking.

It indirectly demonstrated that the Orc Pantheon was a formidable force. It was very difficult to defeat them.

They were rash, impulsive, and would often fall into chaos and disorder due to their faction’s nature. However, their tremendous individual prowess allowed them to pull the situation together, constantly putting the human adepts in grave danger while fighting against the orcs.

The orc gods were powerful and dangerous but poor at strategic planning and tactical maneuvers. They often rushed forward boldly into battle in a valiant show of their strength. The frustrating thing was that these orc gods were utterly fearless. They frequently chose to rush into conflict using their true selves in a moment’s rage.

That was something that rarely occurred in the adept faction’s battles against the other pantheons of the World of Gods!

The Orc Pantheon did not show weakness in the face of the adepts’ unyielding offense. They sent out countless orc armies into the adepts’ lesser planes and slaughtered every living being in those worlds.

They also used their faith worlds as strongholds and beat back the adepts’ invasion over and over.

For a while, the flames of war raged across a hundred planar worlds.

Both sides made advances and suffered defeats in a constant back and forth, with the planar worlds as their battlefields and the universe as their stage. Entire systems of galaxies were thrust into chaos and restlessness as the flames of war spread everywhere.

Greem sat in Hall Cloud, quietly reading the Tome of Corruption in his hand. Even though the odds of the Tome of Corruption providing him with high-grade knowledge were very low, his extended reading and analysis efforts had allowed him to accumulate quite a lot of mystic knowledge.

Meanwhile, reports of the situation on the frontlines were getting increasingly bloody and urgent.

“Urgent report! Orcs have appeared at Millefleur Front. They have invaded Plane Utha and are currently slaughtering the natives to hold a blood ritual. It appears they are summoning starbeasts.”

Plane Utha was a mid-sized planar world of the adept faction. If the orcs succeeded in their blood ritual, the entire planar world would be devastated and ravaged by the time they managed to kill the starbeast.

“Enemy reported on Cloudclear Front. One orc-god clone has been spotted. Grade unknown.”

“Urgent report from Cloudclear Front. Seventh Grade God of Slaughter Garon has suddenly appeared in his true form. The frontlines have collapsed. The specific number of losses is yet to be known.”

“Urgent report from Earthwind Front. Horr, Sixth Grade God of the Hunt of the Orc Pantheon, has been spotted. Sixth Grade Great Adept Housseau has requested reinforcements from headquarters.”

“Urgent report from System Eleven. Fifth Grade God of Tyranny Haistoc and God of Hatred Enus have joined the battle in space. The frontline is in danger.”

For some reason, the orc gods were attacking everywhere as if they had gone insane. They immediately pounced onto a new target after they were done with a previous one and gave the adepts no chance to lay traps or to surround them.

Most of the time, they fought alone with their true forms, but their ferocious combat style and tremendous power allowed them to smash through one adept army after the next. Moreover, there seemed to be no pattern to where they chose to appear. It all seemed like they were just doing whatever they pleased.

You could risk running into one of these rogue orc gods even if you were just stationed in a small, remote planar world. If that were the case, then even the Great Adepts were reasonably likely to die on their missions.

For a moment, the adept faction was thrown into a panic. It seemed like the enemy was everywhere and would appear around every corner. All the Great Adepts began to feel nervous and anxious when they heard they had been assigned a mission, even if it was just a simple, low-risk task.

Boulder Fortress correspondingly increased the frequency of Sixth and even Seventh Grade adept deployment in response to this situation. They finally managed to hold off the Orc Pantheon’s retaliation through their plentiful number of Great Adepts.

Meanwhile, as one of the many ‘fodder’ among the Great Adepts, Greem also saw more and more combat!

The combat light of Hall Cloud suddenly lit up.

Adept Gerritsen, who was seated at the very front, tilted his head slightly as he listened to the report. His expression suddenly turned ugly.

“Greem, Antuso, Bibi. Go to System Eleven and provide reinforcement…now!”

Greem’s heart pounded when he heard his name called out.

System Eleven was not a good place. This was a hazardous mission!

Greem was thinking a lot in his mind, but he showed nothing on his face. Instead, he simply stood up alongside his two Fifth Grade companions and walked to the teleportation corner in the corner of the hall.

White light flashed. Greem and the others appeared inside the exceedingly busy command hall. They were quickly led by magical golems to a teleportation array engulfed in silver light.

There were hundreds of these teleportation arrays, each one leading to a different system or planar world!

A Fifth Grade adept who was responsible for coordinating things was already waiting in front of the array. Upon seeing Greem and the two adepts, he hastily reminded them in a hushed voice, “Be careful when you get there. They are already fighting there, and it is all quite chaotic. Your mission is to stabilize the situation and make sure the adept army isn’t routed. Of course, you must not let System Eleven fall into the hands of the orcs!”

“We can’t guarantee that, can we? After all, the orcs are going off the rails,” Great Adept Antuso grumbled in dissatisfaction. He was obviously very unhappy at being deployed to such a dangerous place.

“Don’t worry! The superiors will reward you properly. The reward for this mission will be double the usual!” The Fifth Grade adept smiled and consoled them.

Greem and the other adepts finally felt a hint of joy.

They knew there was no way they could disobey the orders anyway. Since they had to do this dangerous mission either way, being able to obtain double the reward was compensation enough to dispel most of their resentment.

After they stepped into the teleportation array, the Fifth Grade adept waved a silver token in his hand. White, pulsating light flickered from beneath them and quickly engulfed the entire space.

A short moment later, a blinding white light flashed as the space around the array trembled violently. However, everything was contained within the silver barrier.

By the time that space returned to normal, the array was already empty!

…………

The system they were traveling to this time was even further away than Plane Gere.

Even as resilient as Greem’s Spirit was, he felt waves of nausea and displacement. After enduring the spatial distortion with his tough Physique, all the pressure was suddenly relieved as he appeared at their destination.

Greem had not even opened his eyes before the sounds of loud elementium explosions and bestial roars filled his ears.

Greem calmed himself and opened his eyes, only to realize he was standing inside a large cave.

The teleportation array was beneath their feet. Greem’s two companions were still swaying lightly, the bright glow of magic shining around them. Soon, they also recovered from their long-range teleportation and regained full control of their faculties. They opened their eyes and vigilantly evaluated their surroundings.

The individuals waiting outside the array were only a group of Second Grade adepts. Joy couldn’t help but spread over their faces when they saw the three Great Adepts appear. They quickly stepped forward and paid their respects.

Meanwhile, the waves of explosions and rumbling that could be heard and felt from outside showed how intense the fighting really was. The three Great Adepts frowned.

Ultra-long-range teleportation arrays were some of the most valuable mobility tools of the adept faction. Under most circumstances, the adepts would only set up these arrays in the backlines or somewhere highly secure. It should not have been so crude and rough.

The fact that they could hear the sounds of fighting while they were inside the teleportation array could only mean that the orcs had broken through the adepts’ defensive line. The fires of war had extended into this ‘safe zone!’

This was not good!

The three of them exchanged looks and stepped out of the cave in unison.

They had not appeared inside a planar world this time. Instead, they were in a fortress drifting through space.

This fortress wasn’t small. It was a thousand meters tall and at least one and a half kilometers wide.

A stone fortress stood at the top, while a three-hundred-meter-thick rock foundation lay at the bottom. Every inch of space inside the fortress glowed with a strange magical light. A giant barrier protected it.

At this moment, the barrier was no longer intact. A hundred-meter-wide hole had been blasted into the top of the barrier. Hordes of orc warriors were rushing and charging at the fortress defenses on ugly, vicious wyverns.

Meanwhile, two ten-meter-tall orc gods with bulging muscles and pointed fangs stood behind the orc army.

God of Tyranny Haistoc and God of Hatred Enus!

Judging from their appearance, both gods had descended with their true forms; they could unleash a hundred percent of their violently berserk physical power.

The arrival of Greem and his companions undoubtedly attracted the attention of the two orc gods as well.

Their savage gazes cut across the six kilometers of distance and landed on the three Great Adepts.

Since their reinforcements had arrived, the two Great Adepts who had been holed up in the fortress also showed themselves.

Five against two…the scales of victory appeared to be tilting toward the adepts!