Age of Adepts

At this moment, Greem really felt a bit of pity for Evil Bugs, as he had been right in the center of that area, hence he had probably been killed. Also, Greem would have to immediately run for his life if Evil Bugs was dead.

Right when Greem was about to give up on Evil Bugs, his eyes suddenly saw something near the battlefield.

Dirt was being pushed up at that place, revealed a big hole underneath. A swarm of black scorpions burst out from it, quickly forming together and becoming Evil Bugs.

Fortunately, Evil Bugs was still alive!

But, just as a wild joy had begun to surge up in Greem’s mind, he forced himself to push it back down.

Something was not right. It seemed that this Evil Bugs had really suffered from that destructive space spell.

At this moment, Evil Bugs had lost all his arrogance and high-spirits, which he shown at the beginning of the fight. The army of thousands of horrifying scorpions had shrunk to a mere hundred, which was barely enough to form up his body. The newly formed body was shorter than before, and his Elementium Aura could hardly be sensed. Clearly showing that he had lost much in that last clash.

On the other side, Alice, who had just lashed out with that deadly attack, had lost her calm and indifferent attitude as well. Although those scorpions had only been able to attack her body for a few seconds, but during that short period of time, she had been fully covered by more than a thousand scorpions, crawling and biting on every inch of her skin. This..., it simply made her rage with extreme anger.

As her floating body returned to the ground, Greem finally saw how miserable her appearance had become.

The cute little Lolita had disappeared. The right side of Alice’s eye had turned into a huge and bloody hole, with blood dripping down on her silky smooth skin. The dreadful poison of scorpion had made numerous black and purple patches all over her body. All of that together with her nearly insane and eerie grin... She looked like she was about to go berserk.

Run!

Greem was no idiot. When he saw Alice was staring straight at him with her remaining evil looking eye, without giving it a second thought, he turned and ran away.

With his ability, there was no way he could fight this Alice. Also, Evil Bugs was half-crippled and had no way to stop this Lolita who was about to rampage. Therefore, without saying anything, Greem fled the scene.

Initially, Acteon was waiting, hoping the scorpion poison would be able to kill this formidable Lolita. But when he saw the enemy slowly turn her remaining eye toward him, he immediately dispersed his scorpion body, transforming back into a swarm of scorpions and squeezing underground, disappearing without a trace.

Soon, a furious little girl was the only one left at the scene.

The rampage started.

She floated up into the air, and began to soar like a bird, flying in the direction that Greem had run, and quickly disappeared into the thick fog.

When everything had been quiet for a moment, the dirt under a skinny Killer Tree was pushed up, revealing Evil Bugs, who had been hiding while waiting for the little girl to leave.

He looked off towards where Alice had disappeared and hesitated for a moment, but, in the end, he just couldn’t gather his courage to chase after the terrifying girl. Although that little Lolita was badly injured as well, she still looked like she had energy spare. He just didn’t have the confidence to face such a frightening enemy again.

After a long moment, he clenched his teeth, turned around, and ran off in the direction that Hawkeye had gone. As for that Alice... it would be better to let someone else deal with her.

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

Meanwhile, Greem was having a hard time.

Unexpectedly, that Lolita who went rampage hadn’t chased after Evil Bugs, but had her eyes on him, who had only said a few words in the earlier battle.

He covered his head and scurried away from her, like a rat to its hole. Behind him, the little Lolita was floating up thirty meters in the air, holding the bizarre birdcage and continually waving it in Greem’s direction.

However, something was really puzzling Alice. It seems like this rascal had a pair of eyes the back of his head. Whenever her spatial attacks approached him, he would speed up and turn in another direction, making her attempts at targeting him come to nothing.

If it was only one to two times, perhaps he was just having a lot of luck today. But with her continuously failing, Alice was certain that this Beginner Apprentice could sense the existence her spatial energy, hence, she wished, even more, to kill him.

It appeared that him finding the weakness of her Protection Barrier was not a freak accident, but he could really see the entire structure of her Barrier by seeing through her spatial energy.

In fact, this was a weakness of Alice’s innate Spatial abilities.

Although her Protection Barrier was nigh invulnerable, it had a huge disadvantage. Once she used spatial energy to warp the fabric of space around her into a barrier, she became trapped in a relatively small space. Although that would spare her from suffering any damage from an enemy, she couldn’t launch any attacks while the barrier was intact.

Therefore, in order to allow her to attack, she had to leave a ‘hole’ in her Protection Barrier, so she could manipulate her Spirit Energy to target an enemy. To avoid this hole being noticed, she purposely used invisible Wind Elementium and created a weaker barrier at that spot.

The full covered, invisible Air Barrier with about fist-sized, and, as long as an enemy knew nothing about it, no one would ever think that there was actually a hole on this Protection Barrier.

No ordinary enemy could defend themselves from Alice’s bizarre and frightening long-ranged attacks while probing the Protection Barrier inch by inch. That’s why she was able to keep this big of a secret, and had earned herself the aplomb of being nearly invincible.

But today, unfortunately, she had met with two special Apprentice Adepts at the same time.

One was an Advanced Apprentice who had completely modified his body and was able to transform into countless scorpions. He also possessed a nasty and weird attack method. In the end, he was simply a cockroach who was nearly impossible to kill. The other one was just a weirdo. Although he was just a Beginner Apprentice, he was still able to expose her biggest secret... Also, it seemed like he could really see her spatial energy.

In order to capture this weirdo, Alice had drawn on the highest energy she could use and, in the shortest amount of time possible, she had placed an invisible Space Trap in his path. But, seconds before this rascal ran into this invisible trap, he suddenly changed directions and dodged her ambush.

Now, Alice had no doubts about his ability.

Thus, her drive to catch him increased even more!

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

After running for so long, Greem had become extremely tired.

Due to his lack of training and cultivation, his Agility and Physique were very low. If he had not covered his body with Wind Elementium to increase his speed, perhaps he would have long since been captured by that terrifying Lolita. He had a feeling that, if he really was captured by her, something extremely horrifying would happen to him.

Thus, even though he was gasping for breath, he still clenched his teeth tightly and kept running for his life.

The graceful Wind Elementium carried his body, reducing his weight by half, and allowing him to move through the muddy swamp at a relatively high speed. Sensing his Physique was dropping fast, Greem’s face kept twitching as he began to panic. In his panic, he came up with a dangerous plan. Making up his mind, he turned to the right and sprinted into the depths of the swamp.

He would never be able to escape by running, so Greem decided to lure Alice to the habitat of Ghost Nanny.

This area of the swamp was a bit different from the others.

The rotten, stinking sludge and the slow moving muddy water mixed together, and clumps of messily growing grass and other dirty waste were floating all over the place. The water in this muddy and filthy pond was not completely still but was flowing at an extremely slow pace. From time to time, bubbles and half rotten tree branches would come to the surface.

Indistinct wailing and moans of doom were sung above this misty pond, resembling the cries of the damned, and causing ice to go down the spine of any who heard this hallowing tune.

There was trail went across this swampy area, but the dark trail and the muddy water had mixed together, so, for those outsiders, it was really tough to find the ruined trail in the midst of the filthy swamp.

Within this swampy area, which covered nearly thirty square miles, there lived many different groups of Ghost Nannies. The smaller groups only consisted of seven to eight members and normally lived in the more remote regions this area. Meanwhile, bigger groups could have up to a hundred members, and they occupied the largest region right in the center of this part of the swamp.

As demons, Ghost Nanny only had basic intelligence. Usually, they were transformed from those humans who had accidentally drowned in the swamp. Although they had previously been humans, their minds were filled with an intense hatred and resentment towards all of humanity.

For months, or even years, they would lie in ambush at the banks of the swamp. Once a living human came nearby, they would jump out, biting the flesh of their target, and dragging them to the bottom of the swamp, in order to drown them. With this method, they ensured their population kept growing.

Their appearance closely resembled a skinny human lady. However, most of their muscle was missing and their skin became pale as the result of constantly soaking in muddy water. Add this together with their wrinkled and moldy bones, and they looked like a living corpse. While most were naked, those who had lived better lives as humans might be wearing a broken dress, though it was always so faded that it was impossible to tell what the dress had fully looked like, or even what color it had been.