Age of Adepts
chapter-816

The magical machine army fighting under the banner of the Fate Witches was the fourth group to enter the planar door.

As many goblins in the group were only at apprentice level and below, the Crimson adepts had no choice but to apply magical defenses on them ahead of time. The goblins were also made to drink defensive potions to maximize their chances of survival.

However, twelve goblins were still crushed to pieces by the distorted planar powers during the process of crossing the door.

The sensation of crossing a planar door was a bizarre one. Greem himself felt like it had only been an instant, but the Chip recorded a lengthy seventeen seconds of blank memory. Greem had clearly been in a certain strange state of spatial transition during those seventeen seconds. His mind had not been able to break through the confines of time to allow him to experience the entire process.

Greem had a feeling that he might even be able to affect the teleportation process if he could maintain Spirit activity while under this state of spatial transition.

Unfortunately, Alice's spatial talent had been completely converted into a talent for fate. Otherwise, he might have been able to learn something from her.

Still daydreaming and wondering about the possibilities, Greem opened his eyes and was immediately stunned by the bloody and savage battlefield before him.

The portal was located in a desolate plain. There was only dried and cracked earth around them, along with pebbles and rocks of various sizes. At the moment, several hundreds of thousands of living beings and monsters were crowded around the portal, bathing every inch of the land with their blood or that of their enemies.

The first ten thousand undead to swarm through the portal were now crowded around the portal and using their bloated and ugly bodies to stall the enemies. Fighting to the death against these unholy beings were a group of otherworldly orcs of towering stature and bulging muscles.

They had large bodies, giant mouths, fangs that protruded from their lips, large eyes, and explosive muscles. Their skin was a light green and had large pores in it. Their veins were thick as serpents, and they wore crude animal hides and chestplates on their bodies. Almost every inch of their exposed skin was covered in indigo tattoos.

Their weapons were still extremely primitive.

They were either thick stone bats, giant spiked bats, or terrifyingly huge metal axes and warhammers. Judging by these weapons, these orcs did not excel at smelting metal. The weapons they used were far too primitive and crude. There weren't any of the blinding and chilling gleams that the human weapons tended to have, nor were there any delicate patterns resulting from the forging process.

However, these crude weapons still demonstrated intimidating might in the hands of these orcs and their barbaric strength!

They had no magic or supernatural powers to speak of. They were relying purely on their strong bodies and terrifying strength to battle against this army of undead, shadow creatures, and spirits. However, every time they unleashed their deafening battlecries, a mighty bloodline power would ripple from the elaborate tattoos on their bodies. This power would significantly enhance their strength, speed, physique, regeneration, and magical resistance.

Greem stood before the portal and narrowed his eyes as he silently assessed this sprawling, chaotic, and bloody battlefield.

With the help of the Chip's powerful sight, Greem could perfectly include everything within three and a half kilometers in his senses. When his attention shifted to a certain area, the Chip would be able to rapidly magnify a panoramic image of that area and project it before his eyes.

Greem could see that the orc army wasn't the primitive native tribe he had imagined them to be. They were a powerful race with proper means of war and a coherent division of combat tasks.

At the moment, the ones standing at the very front and battling against the witches' army were the green-skinned orcs he had seen earlier. They were wild and barbaric warriors that were relying purely on their strength and adrenaline to fight against equally terrifying enemies.

Behind the green-skin orcs, Greem saw harpies with human faces and eagle bodies. He also saw spear-throwing gnolls, centaur warriors, orc shamans with tribalistic tattoos all over their faces, war mammoths the size of hills, and terrifying cyclopes who could throw giant two-meter-wide boulders across hundreds of meters.

It wasn't a group of primitive locals with no intelligence. No, they were an actual orc army!

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be too many of them.

At least, there wasn't yet enough of them to cause any trouble for the witches' army.

The vanguard witches had risked their lives and buried a locating stone here at the very start of the battle. The stone provided the witches of the World of Adepts with the coordinates for teleportation. The nearby orc tribes quickly gathered by the divine decree of the beast gods, and they charged at the witches under the lead of the orc leaders.

It was fortunate that the reinforcements from the planar door arrived very quickly. The undead army that swarmed out of the portal instantly clashed with the orc warriors charging at them. The orc troops continued to gather upon this battlefield while the portal kept spitting out countless strange creatures to wreak destruction upon the land.

Initially, the orcs had still been able to contain the witches' forces near the portal. However, as more and more creatures emerged from the entrance with increasing power, the orcs were slowly pushed back.

Even with all the orcs risking life and limb to assault the enemy forces, there was no stopping the constant swarm of troops from the portal.

On the ground, orcs were battling with undead and shadow creatures.

In the skies, translucent spirits and wraiths fought against the harpies.

Several sharp wooden spears descended on the tide of undead like raindrops in a downpour, while massive boulders crashed into their ranks and left bloody splotches behind them wherever they rolled.

On the whole, the weapons and defenses of the orc army were still too crude and simple. They could not compare to the powerful voodoo beasts that the enemy witches had spent so much effort creating. If it weren't for how crowded the defensive line was, this army of thirty thousand orcs would not have been able to hold back the voodoo beasts at all.

Since they had already arrived at this battlefield, they could not just remain as listless spectators on the side.

Greem nodded at Gru, and the split-off brain piloted its three-meter tall mechanical body toward the battlefield. Behind Gru, rows of fearsome metallic machines raised their magic energy guns and marched forward along with Gru, firing as they advanced.

One had to admit that the voodoo beasts that the witches had made were all extremely powerful individually. All of them possessed terrifying might in combat. However, on a battlefield, they either crowded together and limited their own mobility or rampaged about the area, knocking down their own allies. The ranks of the voodoo beasts were chaotic and disorderly, with no praiseworthy acts of cooperation at all.

Meanwhile, the magical machine army that Gru led was starkly different from the witches' soldiers. The few hundred magical machines moved as one. Their formation was strict and tight. The magic energy rifles in their hands might not have immense individual power, but they would always choose to focus their firepower on a single area whenever they shot.

Even the orc Skullsplitters, who had resilient bodies, were incinerated when shot by so many energy beams. Their muscular bodies were riddled with holes in an instant.

A single volley was capable of exterminating all orcs in an area of one hundred square meters.

It was through such constant advances that the formation of orc Skullsplitter squads within range of the magical machines started to fall apart.

It also indirectly created a path forward for the voodoo beasts.

The undead tide swarmed forward in front of the magical machines, filling up the gaps created in the orc army. It thoroughly flushed all of the orcs' efforts to contain the witches down the drain.

The eye-catching performance of the magical machine army instantly caught the attention of many powerful witches.

They were either hovering in the skies or sitting on the backs of their magical pets, but all of them were assessing these inconspicuous machines with expressions of shock and surprise.

The witches here might not be proficient in the techniques of creating metallic golems, but they did have some degree of understanding as to how it was done. Compared to the more convenient and simple voodoo beasts, the creation and assembly of metal golems were far more tedious and difficult. It also demanded a surprising amount of metallic ores.

Consequently, most witches here did not forge metal golems, simply because they believed that they were not as cost-efficient as their own undead and shadow creatures. Metal golems were pretty decent when placed in a tower and used as stationary guards. However, when bringing them into actual combat, even losing one of them was enough to induce heartache. Repairing these metal golems was a complicated task as well.

After all, they couldn't possibly bring along the technicians and logistics groups responsible for golem parts every time they brought the golems out for battle, could they?

It was due to such reasons that the witches had given up on using metal golems as a fighting force on expeditions. However, this didn't mean that metal golems were not powerful!

Metal golems were loyal, powerful, robust, and had surprisingly strong defenses. Even more valuable was their ability never to feel fatigue. As long as there was a sufficient supply of magical crystals, they would become machines of perpetual motion, continually fighting until the moment they came apart.

This magical machine army under the banner of the Fate Witches was almost wholly made up of First Grade metal golems.

Yet, the combat prowess they were displaying was superior to the disorderly voodoo beast army. They appeared to be much easier to use.

The powerful witches also clearly saw the strange metal giant marching at the front of the magical machines. That machine was an even stranger existence. As it walked forward, blue energy beams shot out of its large metal body.

Magical machines hit by this beam immediately became charged with energy. The frequency of their rifle shots and the intensity of their attacks had increased to some extent.

Hmm? That appeared to some sort of strange energy source that could remotely provide energy to the entire magical machine army.

The curious witches couldn't help but secretly extend their Spirits toward the machine.

Unfortunately, a crystalline forcefield radiated around the machine and blocked the Spirits of the witches.

Eh? That was even stranger. It seemed it was not just an energy source machine, but a metal lifeform as well.

The witches couldn't help but become even more intrigued!