Age of Adepts
chapter-572

The Lance Plane.

It was an exceedingly beautiful small plane.

The entire plane was composed of stretches of swamps, hills, plains, forests, volcanoes, and vast seas.

In terms of area alone, Lance was two times the size of the Goblin Plane.

The biological resources here were plentiful, and the reserves of metal and ores were shockingly high.

Moreover, the reserves of magical crystals and resources of Lance were many times that of the Goblin Plane due to its nature as a high-magic plane.

The most populous and widely found tribe across the vast plane were the trolls, who had all sorts of various tribal branches.

Trolls were a fearsome combative species who averaged seven feet tall (approximately two meters) and two hundred pounds (approximately ninety kilograms) in weight. They possessed large skeletal structures and had remarkably developed muscular strength. They were skilled at using poisoned javelins and spears and possessed all sorts of desirable racial abilities such as berserking, regeneration, beast slaying abilities, and proficiency in throwing weapons.

Voodoo doctors with strange voodoo abilities would even be born in some large troll tribes. They wielded some of the more primal arts of herbalism and voodoo magic.

The trolls had been the rightful rulers of Lance before they were faced with a terrifying invasion. In fact, at the peak of their history, the trolls had even established an utterly vast Troll Empire.

Unfortunately, all of this came to a screeching halt in the 1207th Year of the Voodoo Calendar.

The history of the trolls' rule had ended when a massive flight of dragons arrived, soaring in the blue skies.

The dragon allied army quickly destroyed the capital of the trolls and slaughtered their army.

The massive Troll Empire instantly fell apart and was split into hundreds of territories of various sizes. The dragons obtained different lands depending on their grade and power. Fourth Grade dragons could claim lands over a million kilometers in size as their territory, while Third Grade dragons could only take lands of a hundred thousand kilometers.

Dragons of even lower grades could only own one or two villages or a large troll tribe as their land, living the life of a lord served by a horde of servants.

The Dragon Lords intentionally cultivated a group of dragon descendants with a native bloodline upon conquering the plane– the Dragonborn. It was to suppress the resistance of the trolls.

The dragonborn hid within the palaces and dragon dens they had created with all their hoarded wealth and gemstones, while the order within their territory was maintained by the dragonborn servants who possessed their bloodline.

These dragonborn were the loyal servants of their dragon lords. They were usually responsible for taking care of the daily lives of the dragon lords within the palaces and the dens, but they would occasionally leave the lands to retrieve the offerings and contributions of the troll tribes.

Small-scale troll resistance and riots wouldn't even need to alert the dragon lords. The dragonborn had an immense individual strength and possessed elementium powers granted by their dragon bloodline. These disturbances were often settled by a small number of dragonborn warriors and scouts.

As such, the hierarchy in Lance had turned into a food chain where the dragon lords ruled from high above, the dragonborn were the middle class, and the trolls were the ones being exploited by the upper levels. As for the other tribes that were even weaker than the trolls? They became the target of exploitation and robbery by the trolls themselves.

The dragon lords only ever ventured out to play, or just chose to stay at home to sleep. They never thought about the spreading of the dragon civilization. That was why the local natives were still living lives as rough, uneducated, starving, and freezing primitive people, even after a thousand years of the dragons' rule.

Not a single place in Lance could feel the warmth of civilization!

The Year 1723, Month 4, Day 11 of the Draconic Calendar.

It was a mysterious day that was fated never to be forgotten by people.

A large light door of teleportation slowly opened in a vast swamp that stretched for tens of thousands of kilometers.

Silhouettes flashed in front of the door, and the faint figure of a tall person slowly became clear.

The man was half-man and half-dragon. His upper body looked like an adult male in golden bronze armor. The man held an electric spear in his hand. His lower half had four thick limbs covered with bright blue scales, and terrifying dragon claws rested at the end of each leg.

The dragonborn dragged a thick, slightly flat dragon's tail along the ground behind it. Beautiful and tough scales covered the tail as well.

Here in Lance, the Dragonborn practically represented rulers who murdered and robbed as they wished.

A First Grade dragonborn could easily use his powerful body and fearsome elementium powers to slaughter a primitive tribe of over a few hundred trolls. A Second Grade dragonborn like Zacha could be worshipped as a messenger of the dragons, even if he went to large troll tribes of over tens of thousands in population.

As such, the vulturous beasts and hunters hiding in the nearby waters quickly fled in fear when they saw Zacha's easily recognizable dragonborn body.

The one thing that native tribes like these feared the most was the sight of a dragon messenger.

The arrival of a dragon messenger meant that the wealth of the tribe that had been accumulated over the past year, and even the past few years, would all go to waste. These dragonborn messengers were often excessively muscular but mentally simplistic creatures. They had no objective concept of numbers.

They would randomly walk about the territory, forcing any tribe they met to give up all their resources: food, metal ores, magic gemstones, mysterious treasures. The amount they had to hand over? It would just be any random number that the dragonborn came up with.

If it was only something like five hundred kilograms of various jerkies, then the tribe being extorted might still be able to cough it up if they tightened their belts. However, if the messenger simply said something like five hundred kilograms of magic gemstones, the tribe would be in deep trouble. They would never be able to amass such a terrifying sum, even if they smashed their pots and sold them as scrap metal.

As such, appealing to the dragon messengers became the only way for a tribe to continue living. Killing a dragon messenger and rebelling against the tyranny of the dragons was a thought that had best remain only in their minds. If someone couldn't suppress their emotions and struck a messenger, then what awaited them would be the full force extermination and genocide of the dragonborn army.

Zacha quickly scouted the area as he moved through the humid swamp with his heavy footsteps.

Zacha's every step in the silt where rotting matter resided would cause dirt and pungent black water to splash in every direction. Black puddles and a persistent fog was visible everywhere.

Everything slightly further away in the distance was all cloaked in a thin veil of mist, making it hard to see clearly.

The genuinely relaxing feeling of returning to the plane he came from made Zacha incredibly happy. However, he felt his heart weigh heavy when he remembered the task he bore upon his shoulders. It felt as if walking became that much harder.

No traitors had ever appeared amongst the dragonborn, who saw loyalty as the only creed in their lives. They would sooner lose their lives than lose their pride and glory as dragonborn.

Yet, as a dragonborn slave subordinate to Thunder Dragon Lord Arms, he had been given away by his master to a human adept. This unprecedented event made Zacha remarkably lost and confused.

Who was it that he was supposed to be loyal to?

The dragon lord that had bestowed upon him his bloodline? Or the human adept that possessed his soul contract?

Zacha's soul was lost!

He was thinking, searching for an answer.

Before he could come to an answer, his new master had sent him back to his home that he had been thinking of, even in his dreams.

Zacha felt a sense of relaxation and ease as he took in the pungent air of the swamp, even though it was a completely different environment from Lord Arms' lands.

Zacha allowed his feelings to run free for a moment before finally returning to the teleportation door with heavy footsteps. He sent out an 'all clear' signal to the door according to the plan.

Fifteen minutes later, ripples appeared on the door of light, so much so that it seemed almost like the sea itself. An incomparably massive metal monster huddled up and squeezed itself out of the narrow teleportation space.

The size of the metal monster was still far, far, far too big for the ten-meter tall teleportation door.

It had already tried its best to compress its body, even going as far as to distort its metal body into a metal monster that resembled a soft squid. It was still this difficult and painful to go through the door of light.

Its massive body would split apart the planar space if he used just a bit too much strength, causing violent spatial gusts to appear.

Several flashing spatial shards gathered around the metal monster, continually devouring its metal body. Some of the more substantial spatial rifts roamed about, dicing the thick metal shell of the metal monster to pieces wherever it went. The metal didn't even last a single second.

However, despite the difficulty of the journey, the metal monster was still squeezing its way into Lance without any hesitation.

The metal monster took an entire three hours before finally emerging from that cracking teleportation door. Zacha had been keeping guard and making sure no enemies would interrupt the process.

This barbaric action had also caused indescribable damage to the metal monster.

Just the parts sliced up and devoured by the spatial rifts took up over 31% of its body.

The teleportation door finally shattered into bright spots of light and vanished the moment the metal monster dragged its damaged body out of the gate.

The next second, Gazlowe, Greem, Endor, Billis, Deserra, Dana, and the other adepts all grunted in unison, even as they remained hidden within the metal monster. They all felt the endless hostility from this world.

The planar suppression descended upon them without another word!

Lance was small in terms of area. It was a classic small-sized plane among the tens of thousands of planar worlds. However, the magic aura here was extremely lively. It was apparent that it had a high-magic environment.

The dragons had probably taken much care to change the planar laws of this world upon conquering it. They had created a nearly perfect backyard for the dragons. Otherwise, Lance would never have had such a powerful magical aura with its world level.

As the main offense sent by the Crimson Clan to Lance, all the adepts including Gazlowe were severely weakened. They were almost incapable of providing any combat support before they slowly adapted to the planar laws here.

However, the metal body that Brain Monster Gazlowe controlled was not amongst the list of those affected by planar suppression.

After quickly retrieving some metal shards that could still be used, the metal monster walked into the mist and toward the southwest with Zacha in the lead.