Age of Adepts Chapter 1113 - Festering Battlefield

Chapter 1113 Festering Battlefield
The defensive line had been breached!
It wasn’t just a gap in the defensive line for the floating city, but a total loss of control over the battlefield.
Today’s battle wasn’t a siege in the typical sense, but a slaughter party with the total annihilation of all living enemies as the ultimate goal.
The mutated beasts that were in a rush to make it past the defensive line were like a pack of hungry wolves. They had no time or effort to waste fighting with shepherd hounds. They would swarm forward the moment they found the hole in the sheep’s pen. They were eager to unleash their savagery and cruelty on the trembling sheep.
Who were the sheep, you ask?
Naturally, they were the arcane apprentices in the inner circle who were plenty in number yet lacked the power required to defend themselves!
The mutated beasts that had penetrated the defensive line still had to make it past the arcane towers.
If they were slightly more rational creatures, they would slowly take down these arcane towers scattered along their path to reduce their casualties. However, these mutated beasts clearly could not be judged by ordinary reason.
They had no thoughts of conquering the city or planting their flag on enemy ground. The only thoughts that filled their minds were bloody slaughter and delicious souls. The mutated beasts swarmed mindlessly, leaving behind a narrow path of blood and flesh between the arcane towers that stretched all the way towards the inner circle of the floating city.
Once they were in the inner circle, the creatures no longer had any thoughts of fighting against the cold and lifeless towers. Instead, they charged into the arcane facilities, using their terrifying numbers and formidable strength to furiously slaughter the low-grade arcanists and apprentices, to harvest their lives and souls.
Greem and the two others had no interest in helping Illhoof fight any longer. They followed the tide of monsters into the inner circle and started to gather loot freely.
No one would group up at this moment. It would only shorten the amount of time they had to scour for resources and knowledge.
Thus, the three adepts naturally went their own ways!
Greem reverted from his flame giant form and became human once more. He turned himself invisible with his golden fire and leisurely followed a pack of mutated beasts as they advanced towards the inner circle.
He saw several arcane facilities of unique design along the way and sensed a significant number of arcanists in these buildings. However, Greem simply ignored these buildings as if they didn’t exist. He was moving straight towards the massive palace in the inner circle of the floating city.
Since Greem was already here in the arcanists’ world, it would be a waste to all the times he had risked his life if he didn’t gather as much knowledge and resources as he could. Where was it most likely for the most advanced arcane knowledge to be stored in the floating city?
Obviously, it was the arcane palace that was the very heart of the city!
With the invisibility provided by the law fire, Greem managed to break through the tight perimeter of arcane towers. He passed by several buildings that resembled laboratories and libraries. He even had the time to stop at certain points to watch as groups of arcanists commanded armies of arcane golems to hurry towards the frontline.
These arcane golems were all very new.
Greem even saw signs of rushed production on these golems.
It was apparent that the floating city’s defenses had been squeezed to a limit of sorts. It was undoubtedly running beyond capacity. That was good news for Greem.
This overload of the floating city’s defenses did not appear to be a facade, so it was unlikely he would run into any lethal traps set out by the enemy in the battles to come.
That was also the only concern he truly had!
…………
The buildings were being razed, one after another.
The skies were filled with strange creatures with black feather wings and the heads of alligators.
They screeched as they wove between the colorful energy beams fired by the arcane towers.
When they saw an arcanist or an apprentice, they screeched and dove down to grab them into the air. The creatures would then fight amongst themselves and tear the enemy to ribbons of flesh while they were alive before devouring all of it.
Meanwhile, all sorts of mutated beasts were roaming the streets. A massive horde of monster could be found outside every single building. They broke into the premises after shredding the arcane guards to pieces. Shortly after, heartrending screams of terrors would emanate from within.
However, these screams often ended swiftly and were replaced by a horrifying crunching sound.
Greem casually walked through these scenes of murder and massacre.
He could clearly see spots of translucent blue light float into the sky from all over the city. These ghostly blue lights circled in the air and slowly drifted towards Illhoof’s position.
Greem didn’t know what means Illhoof had used to do so, but he had somehow managed to intercept these souls in their path back to the river of souls. However, Greem had a vague idea. It most certainly had something to do with the power of the principles. Greem could not imagine any spell or magic otherwise that would have such ability, enough to disrupt the functioning of a plane’s laws over an entire region.
According to their agreement, the harvested life energy and souls belonged to Illhoof. As such, Greem only observed in silence. He did not try to intercept any of the arcanist souls.
Adept Holly and Cherisha had already scattered!
Those who weren’t busy hunting for resources and treasure now were fools.
They might have formed a party, but no one was willing to follow behind another person and take their leftovers, especially in the treasure-filled floating city. As such, Greem was not surprised by their disappearance.
However, Greem knew very well that their actions were not wise.
After all, at this moment, there was still a Fifth Ring Great Arcanist remaining in the floating city. What Greem was truly fearful of wasn’t the Great Arcanist known as Freila. No, he was afraid of another terrifying enemy– the minor Scourge Lord, Illhoof!
Their positions had changed drastically after helping each other break into the floating city.
Illhoof’s talk of uniting their powers against the Fifth Ring Great Arcanist could be true or false.
Perhaps in his eyes, the scattered Fourth Grade adepts were easier prey compared to a Fifth Ring Great Arcanist!
Greem maintained his invisibility after splitting up with Adept Holly and Cherisha. He roamed the battlefield but did not collect any resources or treasures. His goal was to conceal his position from Illhoof to prevent him from having any ideas.
At a crossroads leading to the arcane palace.
Three Fourth Ring arcanists stood here in a triangle formation, surrounded by a circle of unusual arcane golems. They were defending this spot. Several hundred mutated beasts viciously charged at them, wave after wave.
The thick piles of corpses that had gathered around them were more than enough proof of the intensity of the fight.
The three arcanists were gathered around a spell pool that measured ten meters wide. The walls of the pool were made of white granite, and pure arcane energy rested within it. Various strange patterns and arcane runes were drawn on the walls of the spell pool. These runes resonated with the arcane energy within the pool every so often, causing it to shine with blinding radiance.
One had to admit that the spell pools were one of the greatest inventions of the Arcane Empire!
These spell pools might look inconspicuous, but they were the most important component of the floating cities’ security.
When the tens of thousands of arcanists and apprentices in the city had free time, they would come here to the spell pool to meditate and store arcane spell models that they had formed with their Spirit in the pool. This way, they could draw on the arcane models they had stored in the spell pools through the arcane web at any time.
Moreover, they could also make an overdraft of arcane spell models to an extent based on their authority!
That meant any arcanist that stepped onto the battlefield while remaining connected to the arcane web could unleash high-grade spells at minimal Spirit cost. Moreover, these spells were instantly cast.
The three arcanists with their backs turned to the spell pool were able to unleash a barrage of fast and terrifying high-grade spells with a single wave of their staffs. It was this bottomless supply of high-grade arcane magic that allowed the arcane golems to fend off the hundreds of mutated beasts despite their inferior numbers.
However, when the fighting was at its most intense and ferocious, the floating city trembled lightly. The arcane barriers on all the essential arcane towers and facilities flickered slightly and mysteriously vanished.
A loud cracking sound could be heard as a long crack also appeared on the spell pool that the three Fourth Ring arcanist had been defending. A torrent of arcane energy spewed forth from the break, creating a beautiful, magical rainbow above the pool.
They weren’t the only place where an incident had occurred. Every single arcane tower and spell pool throughout the city had malfunctioned at the same instant.
This terrifying sight instantly caused the Fourth Ring arcanists’ expressions to change. One of them even cried out in surprise.
“Dammit! Something must have happened to the energy core!”
The energy core was the heart of the floating city. Should anything ever happen to it, the arcane energy supply throughout the floating city would be cut off.
A small incident would result in the current situation, where all the arcane facilities powered down due to the lack of energy. With a severe event, the floating city would lose its ability to fly. It would crash to the ground, just like the other floating cities that had fallen.
Consequently, the arcanists couldn’t help but start panicking when they sensed the arcane barriers vanish.
How were they supposed to fight against this endless horde of enemies without arcane barriers, spell pools, and magic pools?
While they were stunned by what had happened, several violent earth spikes emerged from below, striking at them with the force of a storm.