Age of Adepts
chapter-229

The adepts’ defensive circle was shrinking.

Now all of the adepts had been pushed back against the tower gates. They erected a sturdy elementium barrier there, barely defending against the dragon breaths from the green dragons.

In this period of time, another adept had fallen under the blade of a radiant knight.

Tacna. An illusionist that was said to have learned some wind spells as well. Sadly, his talent for illusions couldn't be utilized to their fullest when facing numerous enemies, and his simple wind spells were unable to help him escape the pursuit of his enemies.

As such, he was bogged down by a group of reckless witcher-knights on the chaotic battlefield before finally falling under the sword of Radiant Knight Windsor.

At the last moments of the battle, Mary, Phantom, and Demon Shadows brought large numbers of 'reinforcements' back with them. This allowed the adepts' defensive line to endure for another thirty minutes.

Even disregarding everyone else, just Bloody Mary alone had brought five spellbreaker knight vampires back with her.

In their human forms, the knights had powerful defense and devastating melee attacks. Moreover, the moment they were in any sort of danger, they could instantly morph into bats and scatter in any direction. The addition of this fresh blood undoubtedly gave the adepts an opportunity to take a breath.

The adepts retreated right up to the gates, using them as the last line of defense. The three body-refining adepts formed a solid defense along with the vampire knights. They were the meat shields for the rest of the adepts.

All of the witcher-knights that dared to attack the gate first had to endure wave after wave of spells before they even had the opportunity to engage in melee combat with the body refining adepts. It was at this time that Greem was able to observe the body refining adepts combat style at a close distance.

Body Refining Adepts often appeared to be muscular men with tough bodies and intimidating size. They rarely wore the light robes of adepts, instead choosing leather or metal armor as their defensive wear. Even their choice of weapons resembled mercenaries and warriors rather than spellcasters.

As adepts that relied on their Physique and Strength to crush enemies, the most powerful weapon they had were their bodies. Even if they knew some spells, the main purpose of those spells were to enable them to close distances and engage in melee combat.

Their height of two meters might not be advantageous when chasing after the horse-riding witcher-knights, but if the two ever clashed and charged into one another, the witcher-knights would most definitely be the ones that ended up wounded.

All sorts of magical lights flashed on the bodies of the body refining adepts. They stood intimidatingly before the gates, knocking any witcher-knights that came into their sights off their horses, before tearing them apart with their hands. No obvious injuries had been left on their bodies, despite the gallant and reckless attacks of the witcher-knights.

It was almost as if their flesh had been forged from steel. Metallic reverberations would emanate from their bodies when swords clashed against their flesh.

The only ones that were able to wound them were the spellbreaker knights.

If it was a fair duel, the elite spellbreaker knights might have had powerful bodies that could rival the body refining adepts. However, under the numerous enhancements multiple magic halos, the attributes of the body refining adepts increased exponentially. This made them far superior to spellbreaker knights.

What was the effect of Strength and Physique being magnified and increased exponentially?

Greem's scanning vision had a very clear view. Every punch thrown out by these body refining adepts could deal an astounding 40 to 50 points of damage. Their full-strength attacks could even reach a tremendous 100 points of damage.

This… this was almost as powerful as Greem's best fire spell!

Vicious physical attacks were coupled with their impenetrable physical defenses. These were probably the iron tools that body refining adepts relied upon to wrestle victory away from stronger opponents!

While these body refining adepts had mastered some spells, they were not used in order to attack the enemy. These spells served an auxiliary role, allowing them to fully unleash their physical strength.

Moreover, these body refining adepts were not barbarians that could only use their muscles. All of the armor and weapons they wore on their bodies were magic tools that had been carefully chosen. Some of them could boost the speed at which wounds healed, while others allowed them to cast spells like wings of wind or haste, compensating for their lack of mobility spells.

The witcher-knights had no hope of organizing into a proper formation with these three human-shaped slaughter machines before them. They were tossed and scattered about like loose sand. Meanwhile, the swarm of vampire knights had found an opportunity to kill more enemies. They formed a second line of defense, along with Acteon’s carcass beetles, continuously exterminating the witcher-knights that sprinted forward recklessly.

Don't judge the body refining adepts by their muscular and barbaric appearance. They were as sly and crafty as any other adept. The moment they met a radiant knight they couldn't deal with, they would instantly retreat back towards the gates. Then it would be the adepts' turn to bombard the knights with a furious storm of spells.

Radiant Knights might be a whole grade higher than the lot of them, but even they had to avoid the rain of spells. Their bodies and armor could only endure elementium damage below 100 points.

Once all these spells stacked together, the damage they could wreak was extremely shocking!

In this world, the only ones that could endure a bombardment from a dozen First Grade adepts, and make it through to slaughter them, were probably those Third Grade dragon knights. In comparison, the Second Grade radiant knights were still incapable of doing this.

As the three Third Grade dragon knights stepped onto the battlefield, the situation quickly took a turn for the worse. The gates were now at risk.

The tower gates weren't very large. Their width of five meters might be enough for three or four witcher-knights to charge forward simultaneously, but it was only enough for a single dragon.

As a result, the battle quickly intensified when a dragon and a man appeared before the gates.

The Second Grade Green Dragon Ysondre shattered the barrier in front of the gate with a single green breath, and Third Grade Dragon Knight Jefferson walked in with firm steps.

The first to charge at him was Kiel.

He had obviously activated some sort of special magic, allowing him to temporarily transform into a three-meter tall giant. Unique black armor appeared around his almost naked body, with a terrifying horn on the spaulders.

Kiel moved forward with brutally heavy steps that sent tremors across the ground. He bent his body and ran towards Jefferson. Behind him, countless magic halos were falling towards the dragon knight like an unending rain. Most of these were single-target spells, with the occasional crowd control magic.

Dong! A muffled boom rang out.

The horn on Kiel's shoulder had clashed with Jefferson's longsword. The violent energy ripples caused terrifying creases to appear in the surrounding space.

Jefferson stood still on the spot, not taking even a single step backwards. Kiel, on the other hand, was like a ball that had just been smacked hard, flipping about as he flew across the room. For one moment, no one knew how badly wounded he was. The adepts could only see that there were large pools of blood left everywhere he went, along with pieces of shattered armor.

Kiel's body was still tumbling in the air when two green magic halos sunk into his body, greatly easing the injuries he had. Three more supporting magic halos flashed, and his physical body was reinforced once more.

Kiel was able to stand up right as he landed, and he began to down bottle after bottle of healing potions. Sadly, as a body refining adept, his resistance to potions had also increased exponentially. Even if he drank a gallon of potions that had once been effective in the past, the effect was still insignificant.

That said, insignificant help was still better than none. Kiel could only drink as much potion as he could in order to recover from his wounds.

As Kiel was trying his best to recover, the second body-refining adept Munro had charged forward!

Once again, he was defeated in a single blow!

First Grade Body-Refining Adepts were still too frail when pit against a Third Grade dragon knight. If it hadn't been the massive enhancements to their bodies that shortened the gap in power, just that brief contact with the knight might have caused them to die.

The spells continued to fall on Jefferson's body like rain.

They turned into bloodsucking vines that grew rapidly and binding him to the spot, or turned into strange clouds of mist, crackling as they corroded the forcefield of life around him. Some were even terrifying elementium spells that engulfed everything nearby in a savage elementium tide…

Yet all of this could not stop the dragon knight’s advance.

The bloodsucking vines were like spiderwebs caught in a wheel. As Jefferson walked forward, the thick and ghastly vines snapped in pieces, sending green sap flying everywhere. The poison mist and elementium spells might be immensely powerful, but they were unable to quickly wear away the thin layer of life forcefield around him.

This life forcefield formed, from the merging of runic and life energies, might be intangible, but it most definitely existed. It had powerful defense that vastly outclassed the elementium barriers the adepts used. Be it elementium spells, curses, illusions, or soul spells, none of them were able to break through this life forcefield and damage the knight’s body.

The only way to stop the dragon knight's advance was to engage in a frontal physical assault.

Even though every adept that charged at Dragon Knight Jefferson was immediately knocked away, they could only continue to do their best to slow his advance.

After the three body-refining adepts had become casualties at Jefferson’s hands, it was the bloodline adepts' turn.

Once they turned into magical creatures themselves, they also possessed powerful physical strength. The only difference was that they had not learned many melee battle techniques like the body refining adepts did.

Once Hyde with his robotic body of tentacles and Mary with her crimson shadows had been severely wounded, the only ones left were the Esoteric Adepts.

However, when compared to the trash-like stone golems and earth elementium that crumbled in a single hit, the strange, massive shape formed by Acteon's carcass beetles exhibited surprising strength.

The carcass beetles' tough shells, along with their odd ability to share damage amongst themselves, allowed them to constantly scatter and reassemble, weaving about the Third Grade dragon knight and buying the adepts a lot of time.

However, Jefferson soon ran out of patience. With a single ferocious Inferno Whirlwind Slash, he suddenly turned into a storm of slicing blades, and disaster fell upon Acteon's swarm of bugs.