Age of Adepts c1-1513

by Zhen De Lao Lang, 真的老狼

  “I’ll go this way!” Hawkeyes said coolly, pulling up his cap and dashing towards the West.

  For some unknown reasons, the caws of Scavenger Crows were heard from the sky, though they were hidden by the thick fog. The noise immediately followed behind Hawkeyes. Apprentice Leader Ellen rolled his eyes and murmured, “I’ll go and help him!” After saying that, he simply followed behind Hawkeyes and left.

  In the end, only Evil Bugs, Greem, and the strange, unpredictable little girl were left at the scene.

  “Are you going to fight me?” The little girl tilted her head and stared at the remaining two men. “Before we fight, don’t you guys want to know where we came from?”

  “There is no reason to ask you anything. You have caused mayhem here, and you shall be punished for it. If I capture you, you’ll have to tell me everything. If I can’t defeat you, I’ll bear all the losses here. Now, show me what you can do!”

  It was rather rare to hear Evil Bugs say so much.

  But, right as he finished speaking, the black soil underneath the little girl’s feet exploded, and a huge amount of black scorpions burst from the ground. Each of these scorpions was the size of a human palm, had a pure black body and a pair of claws, and on their backs was a tail with a poison needle. The stinking smell of poison filled the air near these scorpions.

  Although there was a distance of twenty meters between them, it was impossible to tell when Evil Bugs had sent these scorpions out, sneaking their way underground to hide near the little girl.

  This little girl shouldn’t have a strong Physique. Thus, as long as she was poisoned, she should quickly lose the ability to cast any of her bizarre spells.

  Before they had come here, Greem had emphasized the strange abilities of this little girl, therefore, Evil Bugs had no plans of experiencing it himself. He just wanted to knock her out as quick as possible.

  But what happened probably made Evil Bug’s mouth drop.

  An invisible barrier was created between the little girl’s feet and those scorpions. No matter how they slammed into it or pricked it with their tails, there was no way they could get past it. Slowly, when more and more scorpions gathered together, a wall of bugs was built up against the invisible wall.

  One after another, scorpions stacked on top of each other, crazily attacked the invisible barrier in front of them, but, no matter how they tried, they just couldn’t break through it.

  Chapter 19

  “Protection Barrier!”

  Evil Bugs kept repeating this phrase in a hoarse voice, as he was struck dumb with amazement by what he saw in front of his eyes.

  Protection Barrier was a spell which could divide space and was considered one of the sturdiest shields in the world. Even an official Adept would have a hard time breaking through this paper-thin barrier.

  “Impossible! Absolutely impossible!” Evil Bugs lost control and let out an angry roar, “Your barrier must be fake! Else that would mean you are as strong as an Adept! March, my children! Use your numbers and overwhelm our enemy’s defenses!”

  Under the control of Evil Bugs, thousands of scorpions immediately burst out from underneath his cloak, forming into scorpion armies that marched toward the little girl who was standing in front of them. At the same time, Evil Bugs opened up his mouth, spitting out countless flies, which looked like clumps of dark clouds, quickly blotting out the sky and the land as they flew towards the little girl.

  No beginner Apprentice could interfere in a battle between two Advanced Apprentices. So, from the time the battle began, Greem had been slowly backing away, doing his best to get out of the way, so as not to get hit with a wayward spell.

  Judging from the current situation, Evil Bugs had established a dominant position, as the little girl was trapped under a mound of his scorpions. As soon as he could find a way past the Protection Barrier, this battle would be over.

  Unfortunately for Evil Bugs, the situation was overturned in the next second by a seemingly unintentional counter-attack from the little girl.

  The Little girl, who was seemingly trapped by countless scorpion, still wore the same sweet smile on her face, as if she had nothing to fear from those crawling scorpions around her. Looking Evil Bugs through the rising wall of scorpions, she raised the birdcage in her hand and shook it in Evil Bug’s direction.

  At this moment, Evil Bugs felt his heart go cold.

  Greem had told him about how bizarre was this little girl was, so Evil Bugs had been paying extra attention to any movements the girl made. When he saw little girl shake the cage, although he didn’t notice any attacks falling on his body, Evil Bugs still dodged to one side as fast as he could.

  A pained cry came from Evil Bug’s mouth.

  His body had, indeed, moved away from where he had previously stood, but, for some reason, he nearly fell down after dodging movement. Then he noticed that his right leg had mysteriously disappeared. In next second, his missing right leg appeared in the birdcage, looked extremely tiny.

  The little girl stared at him in astonishment. She never expected that her enemy would be able to dodge so fast.

  Before the enemy could do anything to his limb, Evil Bugs let out a furious cry, causing the tiny leg trapped in the birdcage to explode into countless scorpions. The scorpions transformed into a thread of dark smoke and disappeared. At the same time, his black robe started to ripple and flow. This was caused by the movement of scorpions, which had started to cling to each other to form a brand new leg.

  “Biological modification?” For the first time, the little girl’s smile disappeared. Her grim-looking little face had a somber expression that didn’t match her appearance. “What a surprise, so you have given up your human body and modified yourself to be entirely made of bugs. Hmm! Don’t assume you can be immortal like this. I, Alice, will let you taste real terror today!”

  After that, the little girl stretched her cute little hands and performed a grabbing gesture toward Evil Bugs. In next second, Evil Bug let out an angry roar, pressed his hand against his chest, and staggered back, almost falling to the ground. At the same time, out of nowhere, a beating heart appeared in the little girl’s hand.

  If it was any other person, perhaps this would have killed them. But, obviously, Evil Bugs had gone through thorough body modifications and had gotten rid of several organs which were vital for normal human beings. When he saw his heart had been stolen by the little girl, he simply let out a shrill cry.

  Following this cry, just like his right leg, the heart in little girl’s hand exploded into countless scorpions, quickly turning to ash.

  “It seems you were quite thorough with your modifications!” The little girl spoke savagely. With a reedy, grating voice, she continued, “I don’t believe you have replaced all of your organs. I’ll definitely find the core that maintains your bug infested body!”

  Finished speaking, the little girl began to recklessly attack with both hands, continually grabbing at Evil Bugs’ body. Although some of her attacks were dodged, under her continuous attacks, she would still successfully hit her target every few attacks. And whenever she succeeded, some weird object would appear in her palms. Bloodily, sloppy, and sticky, no one would be able to identify where these organs came from in his body.

  But no matter what kind of organs appeared in little girl’s palm, in the end, they always exploded into scorpions and then faded to ashes.

  While she was happily pulling his organs out, Evil Bugs was filled with a raging inferno of anger.

  While moving at high speed and continuously dodging the bizarre, mysterious, long ranged attacks from the enemy, Evil Bugs kept attacking little girl with his scorpions. However, no matter how carefully he tried, he still couldn’t completely dodge the bizarre spell attacks, which gave no warning and put off no Elementium ripples.

  At the same time, when faced with the indestructible Protection Barrier, he actually felt a sense of helplessness, as he couldn’t find the opportunity to attack the little girl. If
this kept going on, even if he had a high confident on his own modified bugs body, perhaps he would have to admit defeat to this little girl.

  Right when the thought of retreating was growing in Evil Bugs’ mind, Greem suddenly shouted out to him.

  “Sir Evil Bugs, attack the back of her head…”

  Eh? Attack the back of her head?

  Evil Bugs groaned in his mind. He had already tried the back of her head. In fact, he had tried attacking from all possible angles and positions, even from underground. But no matter what he did, the paper-think Protection Barrier had dissolved all of his attacks. No matter how he tried, he just couldn’t find any weak spots in her invisible Protection Barrier.

  But something surprised him, as when Greem’s shout was heard by Alice, she unconsciously turned rigid for a second. At the same time, her pair of big, purple eyes glared at Greem, who was hiding in a far distance, and she started secretly gnashing her teeth in anger. Although no much emotions could be seen on Alice’s rigid face, Evil Bugs still noticed a small bit of panic in her eyes.

  Could that really be her weak spot?

  Though he was still skeptical about what Greem had said, Evil Bugs’ heart was filled with anger, as he had most of his internal organs plucked out by this little girl. Hence, without giving it a second thought, he initiated a close ranged attack.

  Without making any noise, Evil Bug’s body collapsed. His black cloak fell to the ground after losing its support, revealed nothing but emptiness underneath it.

  At the same time, a dark figure suddenly appeared at Alice’s back.

  It was a dark figure completely formed from countless scorpions, an amorphous bug body which had been assembled into a human form. A face could be barely seen on the head of this figure.

  Right after it stood up, the humanoid figure immediately leaped forward, pressing its body into the invisible barrier that he had been having a hard time in breaking through. In the next instant, the scorpions around them turned into a black tidal wave, crazily slamming themselves against the regions behind Alice’s head.

  Somehow, a fist size ripple finally appeared on the Protection Barrier, right at the position where all those scorpions were slamming into.

  In fact, that region was not a Protection Barrier, but a mini size Air Barrier, which had perfectly connected with the Protection Barrier.

  Evil Bugs instantly widened his eyes, and his heart was filled with an unspeakably wild joy. Indeed, there was a flaw in the enemy’s defense, and the flaw was this Air Barrier.

  Although they were both Barriers, there was a vast difference between their magical characteristics!

  Protection Barrier was a Space Type Spell, the top Principle among all Adept Principles. It was also referred to as the strongest defense within the Planes. On the other side, Air Barrier was formed from a variant usage of Wind Elementium.

  If no one spotted this weakness, perhaps it would be extremely difficult for anyone to discover this small ‘backdoor’ that was hidden in the Protection Barrier. But when Evil Bugs used all his effort and hit on this particular spot, the only unstable part of the Protection Barrier instantly exploded.

  After a heart-stirringly loud crash, the scorpion army broke the ‘mirror’ and swarm into the Protection Barrier like a black tidal wave. In an instant, the small cute body of Alice had been covered by the rolling and creeping tide of scorpions.

  Unexpectedly, a sharp grating cry resounded throughout the scene, and a ground shaking explosion suddenly rippled from within the scorpion army, which had piled up like a small black hill of scorpions.

  Broken pieces of black scorpions flew in all directions, as terrifying looking cracks of space stretched out in a spider web pattern. Whenever a scorpion touched by these space cracks, its body part would immediately disintegrate without making any sound. No matter how thick their shell was, none could escape from the devastating attack. This perfectly showed the matchless ability of space spells.

  A raging shockwave repelled all the scorpions that had piled up on her body. Then the ‘space cracks’ swept the area, violently crushing and disintegrating any scorpions which got in their path, revealing Alice’s small form within the mound of bugs.

  Right in the center of suddenly the web of space cracks, Alice was floating in mid-air, her long waving hair flowing out from her head. She let out a terrifying and extremely angry roar into the sky.

  Using space as her weapon, disintegrated all the scorpions around her. Once this little girl, who possessed a great innate talent of space, became angry, she was capable of launching such terrifying and deadly attacks. This made Greem, who was hiding a few hundred meters away, feel his heart tremble with fright.

  Was the gap between Beginner Apprentice and Advanced Apprentice this huge? Although he kept reminding himself that this Alice belonged to the top tier of Advanced Apprentices, he couldn’t hold down the fear and shock growing in his heart. This group of people was simply too powerful!

  Even though they were still not official Adepts, or even Pseudo-Adepts, they possessed terrifying abilities which were beyond belief!

  Chapter 20

  With just one single terrifying attack, Alice had covered a huge 50-meter area with a 360º destructive spell that no one could escape. Within this area, space shattered as the deadly space cracks swept across nearly every inch of the region.

  When faced with the devastating space cracks, which could shear through anything, Elementium Resistant was simply a joke. No Apprentice level Personal Protection spell would provide any protection against the destruction caused by the space cracks. Without any unique life-saving abilities, even if ten Pseudo-Adepts tried to resist Alice’s attack together, they would all probably die.

  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.