Age of Adepts

However, unlike the holy knight, the elementium magical machine wasn’t backed by an army of subordinates.

While the machine was struggling to extract its legs from the ground, the holy knights had already surrounded it. They were slashing rapidly against its metal body with their longswords, causing sparks and energy to spill everywhere.

Meanwhile, the Gold Knight readjusted himself within seven seconds. The few Second Grade Silver Knights that gathered around him pressed their longswords against their heads and chanted some incantations. Beams of Holy Recovery and Light’s Illumination were cast upon the Gold Knight.

The beams of holy light instantly negated the small bit of damage that he had sustained, and the Gold Knight completely recovered.

Even more holy knights wrapped around the elementium magical machine and lunged at Greem as they shouted the name of the Holy Knight.

Goddammit! As expected of the peak fighting force that rules over the Henvic Plane! They have their moments of brilliance!

Greem coldly assessed their abilities as he grunted and started his own transformation.

Vicious and violent magical flames surged out of his orifices, instantly engulfing him and turning him into a terrifying flame humanoid. His originally two-meter-tall body started to swell like a balloon. The stone path beneath his feet rapidly softened and melted from the intense heat of the flames, turning into red lava that flowed upward along Greem’s thick legs.

In the blink of an eye, Greem had turned into a six-meter-tall Flame Fiend of Terror wrapped in dark-red magma. Crimson lava surged within his body, along with fires of extreme temperatures.

Greem was a giant after his transformation. The shops and buildings beside him only reached up to his shoulder, while the holy knights could only barely reach his waist.

A massive Burning Domain extended outward and enveloped most of the street and the buildings at his sides.

Fearsome fires ignited without a single sound!

The ordinary people hiding in the houses nearby did not even have the time to scream. They were instantly turned into human torches and collapsed into piles of ashes. The wooden homes and everything within them burned, transforming the entire street into a sea of fire.

The holy knights were wrapped by fires that had abruptly kindled on them before they could even get close to Greem. A brilliant Aegis of Light emerged from their bodies and kept the magical flames away from them, but there was no stopping the raging sea of fire from crackling and burning away at the shield.

Still, the courageous holy knights remained unfazed by this scene of terror. They bravely charged the Flame Fiend and slashed at its magma legs with their longswords coated in holy power.

The retaliatory fire damage from the magma caused the Aegis of Light to tremble with every slash. Lava flowed out of the cracks in the magma, adding yet another constant source of damage against the sacred blessing protecting them.

It was difficult for Greem to bend down and fight these tin cans with his transformed size. As such, he stomped his feet and waved his hands, summoning pillars of blazing flames from the ground around him.

The First Grade Iron Knights could not endure such powerful fire magic regardless of how many holy blessings they had been empowered with. When the flame pillars engulfed them, they were blown into the air along with their warhorses. By the time they landed, they would have become a pile of black ashes and smoldering bones.

“A contest of numbers is it? Haha, I’ll let you see what I can do!”

Greem laughed arrogantly and summoned a massive Flamegate while under the attack of two dozen holy knights. A short moment later, intense flames spewed forth from the Flamegate as strange creatures formed purely of elementium flames charged out from within in all shapes and sizes.

“Go, citizens of fire, turn this place into a sea of flames!”

Under Greem’s summoning and manipulation, a massive horde of fire creatures broke into the Henvic Plane, charged down the street, and clashed with the charging holy knights. A portion of them had their own wills and intentions. They left the battlefield and swarmed toward the surrounding streets and alleys.

As pure fire creatures, the greatest joy in their life was turning everything in the world into their personal playground. Even without intent, flames rose as fires spread where they went. Surging flames quickly devoured the city buildings outside of the battlefield.

Of the four basic elemental creatures, the earth elementals were known for their sturdy defenses and ferocious attacks, the wind elementals for their agile movements and vicious assaults, and the water elementals for their gentle flexibility and permeating ability. Meanwhile, the fire elementals were known for their pure destructive ability.

When such a horde of fire elementium creatures invaded a city, it was practically a declaration of that city’s death sentence!

Of course, struggling was a necessary process before anything truly approached death.

The holy knights formed two distinct groups, surrounding the elementium magical machine and the transformed Greem as they fought with all they had.

The elementium magical machine, now Greem’s strongest helper, had finally sustained visible damage beneath the repeated attacks of the holy knights. It was the first time it had sustained such severe damage since its activation. However, it had also kept the Gold Knight occupied and incapable of approaching Greem.

Meanwhile, the transformed Greem did not fear these swarming holy knights. With the protection of the magma armor and the Inferno Shields, he could boldly unleash all sorts of powerful fire magic upon them.

Numerous holy blessings might protect these holy knights, but even that couldn’t shield them from powerful magical attacks of such frequency and intensity. Moreover, the Burning Domain still continually burned away at their defenses. In just fifteen minutes, over three dozen Iron Knights had died to Greem’s magical flames.

Greem had also attempted to release the Spirit of Pestilence. Unfortunately, most of its attacks were countered and nullified by these holy knights and incapable of demonstrating its actual might. In its fury, the Spirit of Pestilence turned to leave the battlefield and started spreading plague spores throughout the city.

These past few days of continued slaughter had allowed the Spirit of Pestilence to gather sufficient life energy to approach the threshold of Third Grade. Now that they had arrived in an area with such a dense population, it would not give up on this perfect opportunity for slaughter.

With the Spirit of Pestilence’s plague and the fire creatures wreaking havoc throughout the city, the seventy thousand civilians of Hakans quickly descended into the shadow of panic and death.

Greem was also starting a tide of slaughter of his own on the main battlefield!

After wearing down all the layers of the knights’ defenses, Greem’s fire spells could deal significant damage to every one of them. These abruptly collapsing figures and bodies burned to a crisp immediately incited the utmost wrath of the Gold Knight.

As he shouted out his commands, most of the Silver Knights retreated and surrounded the elementium magical machine. That provided the Gold Knight with the time and space to charge at Greem.

Greem smiled faintly.

He had no interest in clashing head-to-head with an iron can wrapped in layers of holy blessings. When the Gold Knight approached him, he kept him at a distance with a Flame Halo of Repulsion. He then squatted down leisurely as his massive body vanished in a giant pillar of flames.

An equally massive pillar of fire appeared on the other side of the street, where the knights’ formation was the densest, and Greem walked out of the flames with his gigantic stature.

The flame shockwave and the devouring Burning Domain instantly engulfed the holy knights. Greem grabbed with both his hands, and several Magma Fireballs formed within them before he threw the balls in every direction.

These Magma Fireballs exploded into a giant twenty-meter large cluster of flames wherever they land, washing everything in their radius with a fearsome rain of lava.

How could these First Grade Iron Knights endure such a violent offense!? They were knocked off their feet by the vicious flames as the boiling lava ate through their armor and caused them to roll about the ground and scream in agony.

The brutality and cruelty of the battlefield called to mind the horrors of hell itself!

The unsuccessful Gold Knight shouted in anger. He then turned his horse around and charged at Greem once more.

Greem played the same trick again, sealing off the knight’s path with a Demonic Wall of Fire as he approached before vanishing with a Fire Teleportation.

It was the natural result of a battle between a caster and a magical warrior!

As long as the magical warrior had no means of rapidly closing the gap and dragging the fight into a melee, there was no meaning to their pursuit.

Every successful caster would preserve their mobility spells as best as they could to put distance between themselves and the enemy. That was why proper utilization of mobility spells was a fundamental that all experienced casters needed to master in the combat manual of the adepts!

It was clear that this was a tremendous weakness for the holy knights.

Their lack of mobility was an unforgivable reason for defeat!

The Gold Knight also started to shown signs of injury after several rounds of this meaningless kiting due to Greem’s incessant fire spells. Most of those impenetrable holy blessings on him had been worn away.

The last few Second Grade Silver Knights that were still empowering him and healing his wounds were also quickly dying to Greem’s ferocious attacks.

Two hours after the start of this wild battle, the scales slowly began tipping toward Greem.

Yet, just as Greem evaded another one of the Gold Knight’s attacks with a Fire Teleportation, the debris beside him erupted. A quick silhouette charged out from beneath and arrived behind his back.

Blade Princess Katherine. It was the Blade Princess, Katherine!