Age of Adepts

A lich radiating a sinister and malicious aura was silently observing the battle between the two outsiders from a dark tunnel nearby.

The lich’s Abyssal Darkness ability made it hard for the outsiders to notice its existence through the pitch-black darkness, even when they walked past it. The lich opened and shut its lower jaw as it observed the battle in the cavern as if it was silently communicating with some powerful existence that wasn’t present at the scene.

As a lich raised from an elf, most of the flesh on its body had already dried and rotted away. Only a thin and wrinkled layer of skin clung to its bony skeleton; all of its past beauty and youth had vanished. No one could deduce its original race based on its wicked and horrifying appearance.

A black magician’s robe sewn from human skin draped over its body, vaguely radiating a light Halo of Fear into the surroundings. All sorts of magical rings of various sizes sat upon its bony fingers. That said, there was only one piece of equipment that satisfied the lich’s standards– the bonewicca staff resting at his waist.

Its master had mentioned that this bonewicca staff had been taken from the spine of a high-grade adept. Moreover, the spine had been extracted while the adept was alive. As such, the item possessed not only immense powers of death but also the intense aura of resentment from that necromancer.

Any offensive spells cast with this bonewicca staff would carry with them their own curses and would be able to ignore the opponent’s magical resistance and defenses. It was this staff’s rare trait that allowed Lich Anders to carve a name for itself under its master’s rule.

This bonewicca staff had, thus, became one of its favorite possessions!

Lich Anders had been the one guarding this underground space over the past hundred years.

Sadly, after several hundred years of peace, these accursed intruders had still disrupted the silence and order in this place.

The first group of intruders was a group of vampires from the World of Adepts. After Lich Anders sent troops and captured them, the scouts and spies he stationed on the outer rim of the underground world alerted him once more, before he could figure out what to do to the vampires.

The ones that had broken into the underground space this time were two different groups of individuals.

The first group consisted of only a single individual, and that was the fearsome thunder roc that the Third Grade druid had transformed into. The other group included three otherworld adepts. In particular, a Third Grade witch was hiding among their ranks.

Lich Anders had no choice but to summon the undead legions from the depths of the underground to deal with such powerful intruders. The lich itself led its personal guards to ambush and exterminate the isolated Third Grade druid.

Unfortunately, a druid that had mastered multiple Wild Transformation forms was still too tough to be brought down. He endured the charge of the death knights and escaped under Anders’ eyes. Nearly one-third of the Second Grade death knights that Lich Anders had spent almost five hundred years to raise had been destroyed at the hands of the druid.

This pained Anders’ heart immensely!

Of course, that was if he still had one.

In its fury, Lich Anders had led its subordinates and pursued the druid all the way here, where it had been surprised to find the two intruders engaged in combat within its territory.

While the lich hid in the shadows and prepared for the best opportunity to ambush the two Third Grades, its murky eyeballs coincidentally swept across two other mid and low-grade adepts in the cave– one male, and one female.

For some reason, its evil and sinister gaze managed to cause the puny First Grade witch to raise her head in surprise and look over.

Indeed, the opponent was assiduously assessing Anders’ existence.

Lich Anders couldn’t help but be astounded!

Disregarding the fact that she was no more than a First Grade witch, how was she even able to sense its faint and well-hidden spiritual scans? Just the Abyssal Darkness that it had applied on itself alone wasn’t something that ordinary inspection spells should be capable of bypassing.

Moreover, she hadn’t been able to sense it until its own gaze had fallen upon her!

Even the two Third Grades hadn’t been able to sense his gaze, let alone the Second Grade male adept beside the little witch. How was it possible that its spell had been seen through by a First Grade witch?!

Perhaps because she had been disturbed by Lich Anders’ odd spiritual flux, a subtle yet immensely power spiritual consciousness descended upon the lich’s body.

"Hm? To think I could run into one blessed by Fate here. Hehehe, it seems like my luck today is pretty decent," The master of Third Grade Lich Anders saw Alice through its ’eyes’ and couldn’t help but chuckle, "Anders, I need that little witch; bring her to me. As for her companions, imprison them and don’t let any of them get away."

"Master, there are two Second Grades present here. I...I’m afraid I can’t take down both of them." Lich Anders couldn’t help but stutter.

"Hmph, useless fool! You’ve been with me for so long, yet you still can’t beat two individuals of the same grade. You are truly useless!" The consciousness possessing Anders’ body cursed furiously. Still, it seemed to be genuinely concerned that the lich would let these amusing toys escape and ordered chillingly, "Keep an eye on them. I will send Luke over immediately!"

Lich Anders felt a sense of relief upon hearing Luke’s name.

As one of its master’s many Third Grade servants, Anders knew very well that Luke was one of its master’s trusted subordinates. He was also a terrifying undead lich of the Fourth Grade!

............

While Lich Anders was silently zoning out in the dark tunnel, Alice couldn’t help but betray a frown on her beautiful forehead.

"What’s the matter?" Greem looked into the distance and observed the battle between the two Third Grades with much fascination.

In all honesty, the battle between the two Third Grades wasn’t nearly as flashy as when Greem and the Flame Fiend fought.

Every move by Greem would either be a downpour of meteors, earthshaking pillars of magma or roiling and bubbling pools of lava. Setting aside the lethality of these attacks, just the visual effects alone were immensely enjoyable and astounding.

Yet, when these Third Grade powerhouses fought, it was rare to see them unleash such large-area spells with flashy effects. They were rapidly teleporting and leaping from place to place as they silently exchanged instant-cast spells.

The visuals were bland, but the feedback from the Chip revealed that every single instant-cast spell had over five hundred points of power.

Spells of this intensity could most definitely pierce through Greem’s Lava Shield and layers of Inferno Shield with a single blow.

It also meant that if Greem were to fight with any of the two Third Grades, he might as well be running about naked. Even if he were to keep up his defensive spells and magical protections, the enemy would instantly destroy these constructs.

There had never been a time where the difference between Second Grade and Third Grade was so clear and direct! It was nearly impossible to compensate for this difference in power through combat techniques and casting methods!

Even though Greem couldn’t enter the battle to inspect and scan the combat statistics of both parties directly, the Chip’s long-range sensors and recordings still allowed Greem to do an approximate organization and categorization of the fighting style and methods of Third Grade powerhouses.

That had indescribably immense benefits for his research toward Third Grade!

That said, even with all his attention focused on the battlefield, he still kept an eye on Alice. He immediately asked her the question upon noticing her abnormality.

"There’s a Third Grade lich spying on us." Alice hesitated, unsure of how she should describe what she had felt through her Fate senses.

A Third Grade lich?

Greem’s attention was instantly drawn back to Alice.

"Is there any danger? If there is, I can retreat with you first!" Greem silently asked Alice through a mental connection.

"I don’t know!" Alice was confused by something she had sensed, "I can see an immensely overwhelming darkness behind the lich, but I can’t sense what it is. My divining magic tells me that we will run into tremendous risk, but...but my Fate sense hasn’t sent me any warnings!"

"Could it be the abnormal spatial structure here distorting your ability to sense Fate?" Greem couldn’t help but offer a conjecture.

"The power of Fate is one of the most mysterious powers in the world! No power could possibly distort or omit it!" Alice shook her head and said.

"Or could it be a powerful existence that stands behind the lich whose power is beyond the range of your Fate senses?"

Alice hesitated for a moment and replied uncertainly, "I might only be First Grade, but I am the leader of the Fate Witches after all. I am blessed by the powers of Fate. If the enemy wants to obstruct my Fate senses, they would have to be an ultra-powerhouse that has ascended beyond the planar threshold of Fourth Grade!"

"An ultra-powerhouse!" Greem was speechless.

In truth, Fourth Grade powerhouses were already terrifying existences in his eyes. Those ultra-powerhouses that had ascended beyond the planar threshold and could freely traverse between the void of the planes were just too far beyond his reality.

They were so distant that Greem didn’t even want to imagine their power!

Greem wondered wide-mouthed about such ultra-powerhouses for quite a while after Alice mentioned them, but he still had no idea what one of them would look like. Perhaps, maybe, possibly, they would be the same as the Sixth Grade Great Adept Sarubo!

Just as Greem used all his focus to imagine what an ultra-powerhouse would be like, the superiority in the battle had finally been decided.

The Dark Witch had won, and the druid had lost!

As Third Grade creatures that were only second to the strongest individuals of the plane, both parties possessed severely destructive powers. That was why Dark Witch Uzzah would have a difficult time trying to detain Antoril, even with his grievous injuries and weakened Spirit.

After being repeatedly snubbed at the hands of the Third Grade lich and the Third Grade Dark Witch, Antoril had finally quenched his desire for revenge and started thinking of a way to escape.

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