Age of Adepts Chapter 1009 - Prelude to the Final Battle

Chapter 1009 Prelude to the Final Battle
The ones that defeated the two mighty subordinate armies of the Fabres Clan were none other than the inconspicuous self-destructing machines of the Crimson Clan.
These self-destructing machines were often the size of a human head and marched along with the magical machines. When the battle broke out, they swarmed forward, chittering and screeching as they rushed to where the enemies were the most crowded before exploding violently.
Their main lethality came from their modified magic energy explosives and the numerous armor-penetrating shells hidden within them. They unleashed a devastating and indiscriminate attack when they blew up.
They might seem small, but their numbers were unbelievable. Even after half of them had been destroyed by spells and frost magic, the remainder of them still managed to self-destruct amid the ranks of the frost giants and the modified tigers.
One or two self-destructing machines might not be much, but when there was an entire army of them, even the two powerful subordinate armies started suffering damage to their lower bodies. Most of the Frost Giants’ hairy legs were injured from the explosions, while the modified beasts were mostly wounded in the lower abdomen, where the golden scales did not reach.
These small injuries didn’t seem like much, but when they accumulated, they began to hinder the attacks and movements of the enemy severely. A Frost Giant shambling on one leg or magical tiger that occasionally paused to lick its wounds were both prime targets for the goblin chariots on the battlefield.
As courageous as the two subordinate armies were, there was no avoiding their rapid exhaustion in such a bloody battle!
Seeing how the frontline was about to descend into a wasteful tug-of-war that would expend much of their invested resources, the seven Third Grade adepts of the Fabres Clan started to become concerned.
The Fabres Clan was indeed several dozen times more powerful than the Crimson Clan, with incomparable advantages in both resources and number of adepts. However, the bigger the organization, the more power was needed.
These subordinate armies were all aces that the Fabres Clan had hidden across their lesser planes. They were the main military force meant to be used to defend the assets of the clan. If they suffered excessively heavy losses in a short amount of time and failed to replenish their numbers quickly enough, there would be an unpredictably severe effect across the lesser planes owned by the Fabres Clan.
For the first time, the seven Third Grade adepts of the Fabres Clan couldn’t help but be impressed by the Crimson Clan. They had only risen to power a hundred years ago, yet they could survive in a battle against the Fabres Clan and their thousands of years of accumulation until this moment. It was more than enough evidence of the effective management of the Crimson Clan, as well as their surprising military potential.
Moreover, even though the war had intensified to such an extent, the Crimson Clan had yet to send their golem dragon onto the battlefield. It fully demonstrated that the enemy was not yet on their last legs and that they were not desperate. It also indirectly reflected the Crimson Clan’s terrifying potential for war.
Faced with such an opponent, the Fabres clan adepts had no option left but to put aside their arrogance and to show the will and courage to fight a bloody battle.
The seven Third Grade adepts looked at each other and silently started sorting out their equipment. They flew out of the flying wooden ship and headed towards the bloody battlefield. Squads of elite adepts also emerged from their hiding spots behind them, gathering into a rumbling torrent as they rushed towards the battlefield.
Faced with the hundreds and thousands of Fabres adepts, the Crimson Clan also started to concentrate their military forces and assigning them to their various positions. In the distance, the magical golem dragon in Pinecone City could also be seen moving towards the battlefield with rumbling steps as a torrent of steam pouring from its mouth.
The three Motherships slowly lowered their altitude and hovered above the clan’s formation, shielding them from any aerial threats. Over four hundred goblin chariots grouped up into four cannon formations on the ground, still incessantly bombarding the enemies marching towards them.
The number of magical machines coming from the chariots, the Motherships, and from Pinecone City now numbered 1,262. All of them stood in front of the goblin chariots, forming a tight–if haphazard–defensive line at the very front.
Any creature that wished to assault their defensive line would have to endure the firepower of hundreds of magic energy cannons, along with sniping fire from the giant energy cannons above.
That did not include the 763 magical machines and 326 Brutalblood goblin machinist-sorcerers that were still fighting on the battlefield.
The two great clans were desperately concentrating their forces at the frontline but did not cast them into battle yet. Instead, they gathered their soldiers at the edge of the battlefield with the intent of forming an overwhelming force sufficient enough to crush the enemy’s line of defense in a single strike.
All manner of adept forces started to appear after a while, each one dressed in their own unique fashion and equipped in their own particular way.
There was cavalry riding upon ferocious beasts, wearing magic resistant armor while wielding thunder tridents crackling with lightning. There were archers with muscular bodies, carrying glowing runic longbows of strange design upon their backs. There were even bird-people who had wings growing out of their backs, dressed in leather armor and holding magic wands in their hands.
All of these soldiers radiated magical aura, and even the weakest of them was at the level of an advanced apprentice. In a small clan, these people would be the next generation forces that the clan would cultivate with all their strength. Yet, the Fabres Clan had chosen to train them into a strange ‘army’ of sorts.
Indeed, the Fabres Clan had trained these soldiers in the fashion of worldly armies while equipping them with the corresponding magical equipment. Sometimes, when an apprentice-level ‘warrior’ combined his power with that of magical equipment, he could unleash terrifying combat prowess equal to that of a proper adept.
That was perhaps the real reason the Fabres Clan had put in so much effort into training them!
It was important to note that successfully cultivating an official adept in the World of Adepts required such a tremendous amount of time and resources that it could topple an ordinary adept clan. However, if this time and these resources were invested in adept apprentices who had no hopes of advancement, it was easy to obtain a sizeable, simple fighting force quickly.
However, compared to official adepts, these apprentice ‘warriors’ only had the combat prowess to match. They didn’t have many hopes of advancement and could not be a source of high-grade adepts for the clan. As such, most large adept clans still focused on cultivating proper adepts, only complementing the clan’s primary military force by training such ‘adept forces.’
The Crimson Clan had risen to power far, far too recently, after all. They hadn’t had sufficient time, energy, or resources to train and create a voodoo beast army, a subordinate army, or an adept force belonging solely to the clan. Only the newly founded Brutalblood Army was somewhat like an adept force, while the dragons of Lance were slightly similar to a subordinate army.
As for a voodoo beast army? Not a shadow of such a force could even be seen within the Crimson Clan!
At this point in the war, both parties were already committing every single force they had to the battle. The conflict started to escalate in tension, slowly turning into the final showdown between the Fabres Clan and the Crimson Clan.
Behind the Crimson Clan’s forces was their last remaining city– Pinecone City.
If the Crimson Clan lost the war, all the territories, resource sites, and workforce they had painstakingly gathered over the years in Ailovis would be destroyed in a single night. Though they still had a clan tower they could retreat to, doing so would mean the reputation that they had built up over the years would be gone without a trace.
The competition in the World of Adepts was exceedingly cruel and practical!
Once the Crimson Clan was reduced to a weakling that anyone could bully, all the enemies they had made in the past would gather together to devour what resources they had left. They would never give the Crimson Clan a single chance at rising to power again.
Meanwhile, the core of the Crimson Clan remaining in White Tower would also have to survive a bloody storm just as brutal as the one in the central region if they wanted to grow firmly under the rule of the Northern Witches.
The presence of a powerful mastermind could faintly be felt behind the scenes of the tumultuous storm that the Crimson Clan was currently facing!
That the Crimson Clan could rule over a region of their own was proof of their powerful vitality and resilience. Though tension and conflicts over certain things might arise with the veteran clans, all-out war seeking to uproot the very foundations of a clan rarely happened under ordinary circumstances.
Though the Fabres Clan could conquer the entirety of Ailovis after they exterminated the Crimson Clan, it wasn’t exactly worth the price. The number of adepts and soldiers they had lost since the start of the battle was already pushing towards their limits.
If this series of ceaseless casualties were to continue, even the great and powerful Fabres Clan would face the possibility of a period of weakness.
It was precisely because they hoped to prevent that from happening that the seven Third Grade Fabres adepts had chosen to set foot upon the battlefield personally. They wanted to crush the last resistance of the Crimson Clan with a violent and unstoppable assault to end this long and difficult adept war as soon as they could.
The seven Third Grade adepts stood in a row, each using their abilities to hover above their forces. Their ferocious aura gathered into a formless will, heavily pressing down upon the Crimson Clan’s forces.
Meanwhile, on the side of the Crimson Clan, only Mary and Oliven were flying in the air, glaring at the enemy. There were no other Third Grade adepts. Neither their aura nor numbers could even come close to that of the Fabres Clan.
“You must be Adept Mary.” The leader of the Fabres Clan adepts was a Third Grade adept named Zam. He stepped forward and smiled as he looked at the crimson adept hovering in the air with her wings of leather, “All the forces that your Crimson Clan can muster are already here. If you lose, you will lose everything. Not only will you have no clan and no resources, but even you personally will not be able to remain in this land. So…surrender!
“As long as you are willing to surrender, I will ask Lord Declan to treat you all as best as we can. When that happens, you will remain respected adepts, free to walk under the skies. Why not take my offer?”
“Trying to get me to surrender?” The pretty Mary started chuckling loudly.
“What’s so funny?” A female adept from the Fabres Clan stood forward and said, “Stop dreaming of resisting us. Otherwise, you will lose everything when you lose the war. Not even your souls will rest in peace when that happens!”
“Hahaha! That’s where you are wrong! You aren’t speaking to the right people!” Mary continued to laugh, “The Crimson Clan is not mine. It’s his. If you want to ask us to surrender, you had better talk to him!”
As Mary finished speaking, a blinding pillar of fire blasted into the skies above a Mothership. A majestic and towering figure strode out from within.