Age of Adepts Chapter 181

Chapter 181 Surrounded
With Greem's habit of thinking things through before acting, there was no way his assault would end right here once the fight had started!
Greem, who had long turned into the terrifying Flame Fiend, gripped the Fire Lord’s Scepter in his left hand while starting to loudly chant the obscure and profound words of a spell.
Following the powerful magic chant, the edges of the lava pool began to boil and swell. One after another, frightening fire spirits, magmakin, and lavahounds bathed in viscous lava rose from the pool, roaring as they charged up the shore.
The witcher-knights were long prepared for the opponent's counter attack. Over thirty witcher-knights, armed to the teeth, let out battlecries as they rode their horses and stormed forward, engaging with the fire beings at the edge of the lava pool.
Once again, a towering gigantic shape rose in the center of the pool as everyone was engaged in an intense skirmish. It was the Fire Deity! As a summoned being, it was not as reserved as the golems. The moment it appeared, it strode across with heavy steps, approaching the shore and bringing with hit a sea of flames that stretched towards the sky.
The witcher-knights could only continuously retreat under the pressure from the terrifying heat wave and the streams of flame. They had to avoid the fire damage that was coming from everywhere. Under the lead of the Fire Deity, the previously disadvantaged flame beings received a huge boost in morale. Immediately, they started another charge at the knights!
The several hundred square meter large lava pool was slowly edging forward with the help of the fire creatures. It almost seemed as if the entire valley was eventually going to become a new volcanic region.
However, the knights' retreat was only a feint. Once the fire beings, and the ten-meter tall Fire Deity in particular, had left the lava pool, the spellbreaker knights led by Ninther immediately struck them with their fiercest attacks.
The spellbreaker knights raised their small shields, and used energy shields to deflect the downpour of fiery rain. Enduring the violent blows of fire, knights used the runic swords in their hands to slash at the large body of the Fire Deity. The knights had already swapped out the magic crystals that they used beforehand. This time, it was no longer a flaming torch that appeared when the spellbreaker knights activated their longswords, but the power of frost, with ice crystals and snow floating about.
Countering fire with ice. It was obvious that the knights had their own unique experiences and battle techniques when fighting against heretics.
The powerful knight battle techniques that were shrouded in the freezing power of ice slashed at the Fire Deity, tearing its body and freezing it, causing the Fire Deity's movements to become slower and stiffer. Surprisingly, an adept-level Fire Deity was unable to endure even a single round of the spellbreaker knights' blows, shattering into pieces and howling as it crumbled.
The fragments of the fire-attribute Fire Deity were covered, amazingly, with ice shards of various sizes. Even the terrifying flames themselves were frozen within the light blue ice crystals.
Ninther lifted a huge ice crystal the size of a cart with his sword, and tossed it into the lava pool, where it landed right before Greem's gigantic body. The object frozen within that crystal was the large head of the Fire Deity. Its terrifying expression was perfectly preserved, trapped in its death howl.
Was this a terrible attempt at provoking him? Even though these kinds of tricks couldn't possibly have any effect on adepts, who were famed for their intelligence, the efforts of the witcher-knights' commander were still commendable and worth some kind of response!
Greem roared loudly, his large Flame Fiend body stepping through the boiling lava, striding towards Ninther.
Ninther was excited when he saw this. Immediately, he put away his runic sword and started using ice arrows to shoot at Greem, retreating as he continued to shoot. It looked like he wanted to draw his opponent out of the lava pool.
The roars of the Fire Lord who remained behind was even louder, so loud it even shook the earth. One after another, frightening area damaging fire spells covered the skies as they shot towards the witcher-knights. The Fire Lord had no intention of avoiding the fire beings at its side when it cast the spell. In fact, it consciously threw all of the most violent and explosive spells towards the frontline.
The Fire Lord's attacks mostly consisted of area damage spells, while Greem's attacks consisted of concentrated single-target spells. Fearsome spears the size of a human’s waist flew towards the enemy repeatedly, and every so often, the creature would even point and cause a terrifying lava pillar to blast out from beneath the body of its target.
Two witcher-knights that were closer to the edge of the fire pools were the ones blasted into the air by the lava pillars, then blown to pieces by the flame spears that sped through the air. Their bodies had been burned to unrecognisable char and ashes by the rain of fire before the blood and flesh even hit the ground.
The tragic state of their companion's death angered many witcher-knights. One after another their ice arrows, filled with vengeance, shot towards Greem like a violent tempest. Unfortunately, all of the arrows were blocked by three pieces of Lava Shield orbiting about Greem's body.
As compared to the Flame Shield, the Lava Shield had better fire resistance, as well as a greater resistance against physical damage. Naturally, it did not fear the damage of such a meager rain of arrows.
After walking forward a bit further, Greem stopped fifteen meters before the edge of the lava pool. He laughed loudly as he attacked the witcher-knights with multiple deadly single-target spells.
The damage of long-ranged spells was greatly reduced on the spellbreaker knights as compared to the witcher-knights. All the spellbreaker knights had mastered mid-ranged knight battle techniques and could intercept the incoming fire spells. After a few ineffective attacks, Greem focused his firepower on the weaker witcher-knights.
Ninther was angry. He could no longer hold back after seeing Greem sniping two or three of his weaker companions.
If he could not draw this evil heretic onto the shore, then he would go into the sea of flames to attack him!
Under Ninther's silent hand signals, all the witcher-knights started shooting waves of ice arrows as if their lives depended on it. Surprisingly, the target of the ice arrows was not Greem and instead they all landed on the lava in front of Greem.
The power of ice that exploded from a small ice arrow couldn’t even form into a snowflake before it was devoured by the boiling lava. But even the hottest lava cannot resist a constant bombardment of ice arrows! The lava pool around Greem solidified at a visible speed. A layer of light blue ice crystals appeared on the surface of the lava, suppressing the heat and flames from below.
This kind of ice crystal couldn't keep the lava frozen for very long, but it didn't need to be for long!
The spellbreaker knights, that had been waiting for an opportunity, surged forward under Ninther's lead, and their target was obviously Greem, who had been trapped in the middle of the ice crystals.
Finally!
Ninther wanted to draw Greem onto the shore, but Greem also wanted to draw the spellbreaker knights into the lava pool!
Both parties circled each other with their mind games, yet at the same time they both understood each other's intentions. And so one side had a trick within a trick, while the other decided to go along with the other's ploy. As for who would gain an edge in the end, that naturally depended on who was more powerful!
It was an exaggeration to say that Greem was not nervous at all, looking at the spellbreaker knights who were roaring as they charged towards him. After all, he was about to have a deathmatch with nine spellbreaker knights that were of the same power level as him! Until now, Greem's interaction and battle experience with these spellbreaker knights was still too limited. He didn't have a complete understanding of their battle tactics and couldn't analyse them to come up with a solution.
Thus Greem was also taking certain risks in baiting the enemy himself this time!
Ever since he started on this journey of becoming an adept, Greem had always hid behind the scenes in battles. The ones doing the heavy lifting had always been the golems that he crafted. This effectively reduced the risks and dangers that he personally had to face, but also caused him to fall behind in refining his personal combat skills.
The group of spellbreaker knights before him were a sizeable threat, but they were far from pushing him to the edge of life and death. Therefore, Greem was planning to take this opportunity to train his combat skill. Otherwise, if he truly met a powerful enemy that the golems couldn't deal with in the future, he would have to pay for his weakness with his blood!
Therefore, even though he knew he could get out of the awkward situation here with a simple Fire Teleportation, Greem chose to stay here and fight without any hesitation.
Greem roared loudly, and burning streams of flame blasted out of the three-meter tall Flame Fiend. Under his agitation, the lava pool started to vibrate violently, and the speed at which the newly formed ice crystals were melting sped up abruptly.
Explosions erupted where the ice crystals were at their weakest, and hot air currents surged up in a rush from below. If any magic colt were to walk over those spots at this moment, it would definitely have been scalded, burned, and blasted several dozen meters up into the sky.
The ice crystals that had once formed a sheet of ice, had been blasted into several small islands and crystal shards with barely enough space to stand on, floating amidst the lava pool. The blistering pillars of air rose and fell, one after another. This turned the lava pool into the devil's playground, filled with traps everywhere.
Even though Ninther, still high up on his colt, knew that this could be a killing field that the heretic had crafted for the knights, he still charged forward with no hesitation. The nimble and swift magic colt leapt from piece to piece of the shattered ice crystals as if it was flying. Within two leaps, it had already closed in on Greem.
And so, on one end was the leader of the three powerful adepts, and on the other was the leader of the witcher-knights- the two had their first contact on the battlefield!
The runic sword, covered in a thick shroud of ice energy, heavily slashed onto the Lava Shield that was floating before Greem. The powerful physical impact instantly slashed an opening the size of a fist on the Lava Shield. The overwhelming power of frost surged through the shield, freezing a large patch of raging flames on Greem's chest.
Greem, on the other hand, didn't give ground either.
Using the momentum as he turned his body, he swung his sizeable flaming hand, crashing into the magic colt Ninther was riding on. Instantly, the colt turned into a sizzling fireball as it was blown away.
Greem wanted to add in a powerful single-target spell for good measure, but the spellbreaker knights following behind Ninther had already arrived, leaping towards him. Greem had no choice but to give up on the idea. For a moment, the bombardment of fire spells at close range and the powerful physical attacks of the Flame Fiend's body were executed to perfection, precisely dealing with the attacks of the spellbreaker knights that had surrounded him.