Age of Adepts

These evil witches from another plane were entrenched upon Shadow Island, using the geographical advantage and their terrifyingly powerful adept’s tower to resist the repeated attacks of the seafolk, the elves, and the humans for over two hundred years.

Finally, the elves and the humans had no choice but to give up on this fearsome war that had almost run their races into the ground. Instead, they chose to trap the witches and isolate them from the main continents.

After a few hundred years of conflict, even the seafolk had no choice but to acknowledge the existence of the witches. They gave Shadow Island and the surrounding hundreds of kilometers of territorial waters to these foreign witches but strictly forbade them from stepping out from the island.

For the next six hundred years, Shadow Island became the most horrifying land of evil in Faen. Every year, countless evildoers who could no longer survive in the Faen and Garan Continents would travel far and wide to Shadow Island to join the Pale Witches.

That indirectly increased the influence and strength of the witches!

The Pale Witches were able to make connections with many underground dark forces within Faen with the help of the ties brought to them by these local natives. The Pale Witches provided them with powerful and evil magical equipment, and these dark forces became the eyes and claws of the witches, helping them scour the continents for rare resources.

Both sides took full advantage of each other and slowly extended their influence into each other’s factions. The Pale Witches had now become the strongest underground force of darkness in Faen!

Over the past hundred years, the Pale Witches always chose to open the way to Faen every ten years.

This way, the Northern Witches that entered Faen would become the allies and vanguards of the Pale Witches. They would hastily charge toward Garan and Faen, stealing wealth, plundering resources, and abducting higher elves and seafolk. In doing so, they inflicted tremendous suffering and calamities on the civilians of the two continents.

Thus, the natives of Faen painfully named these disasters as the Calamity of Witches!

After such a long time in conflict, the sages and wise men among the humans and elves had slowly managed to figure out the pattern of the Calamity of Witches. The event would happen once every ten years. It would last approximately six months, sometimes stretching out to as long as a year.

As long as they secured the necessary defenses and preparations, they could minimize the losses and damage brought about by the invading witches during the Calamity of Witches. The native forces near Shadow Island would also form the Anti-Evil Alliance in the event of the Calamity of Witches. They would send their armies out to fight with the witches.

It had been ten years since the last Calamity of Witches this year!

The surrounding forces were all on high alert. They used all the tricks they had up their sleeves to place sentries around Shadow Island. All of it was for the sake of figuring out the day of the Calamity at the very moment it happened.

The most apparent prelude to the eruption of the Calamity of Witches was the opening of the portals on Shadow Island.

............

After a thousand years of management by the Pale Witches, Shadow Island was like an iron barrel.

As the tower’s energies wildly gathered at the teleportation square, a massive portal measuring ten meters in height and five meters in width slowly opened up in the middle of the square.

Fifteen minutes later, the first batch of witches gradually appeared as the energy from the tower slowly started to stabilize. They hadn’t come alone. Instead, they drove many black carriages across the portal, quickly passing through the planar portal as if they were passing through castle gates. They arrived on Shadow Island from Werning City.

The ones pulling the carriages were not ordinary horses. They were all voodoo beasts that radiated a magical aura.

The planar suppression on Shadow Island had been reduced to the very minimum due to the magical barrier of the tower. The witches that arrived atop the carriages didn’t betray any excessive biological symptoms of unease. Even the beasts appeared unfazed. They continued to pull the carriages with plenty of vigor, transporting the goods and resources within to the island.

Six Death Witches had come. They were led by a Third Grade witch, with one Second Grade follower and four First Grades. Apart from the adepts, the Death Witches had also brought along with them two hundred undead of intermediate and advanced levels. Amongst them were one hundred and forty elite ghouls, twenty advanced mummy elders, five shadow dwarven assassins, fifteen specters, five evil corpse dragons, five toughbone dragons, ten death knights...

They were the cannon fodder the witches had specially prepared for this planar war!

The Coldwinter Witches sent five people. One Second Grade and four First Grades. They brought with them as many as a hundred Frost Guardians. These were a particular type of voodoo beast made by modifying ice and snow lifeforms.

The witches of the other branches also sent large voodoo beast armies. These armies quickly took up the massive teleportation square as the portal continued to spit up more people.

The Death Witches.

The Coldwinter Witches.

The Agony Witches.

The Pale Witches.

The Dark Witches.

The False Witches.

The Deceit Witches.

A brilliant light burst forth from the portal once the voodoo beast armies of the seven major witch branches had arrived.

It was as if this planar portal made from countless runes and chains of laws had swallowed a piece of meat that was larger than its throat could swallow. It could neither devour it or spit it out. The previously stable portal started to ripple and tremble.

"Dammit, what’s happening? Haven’t all the witch parties teleported over? Why’s there a big fellow in there? Quick, hurry; have the tower expand the spatial rift a bit more. If the bastards on that side blow up the portal, the entire teleportation array will be destroyed."

The tower trembled slightly, and the supply of energy was increased once more with the strict orders of the stationed witch. The portal started to expand, and finally, with a light pop, a massive metallic creation appeared before the witches.

"This...what’s this?"

It was the first time she had seen such a massive metal creation. The stationed witch stuttered from the shock.

"No need to be concerned, it’s a giant floating ship! It’s probably something from the Silver Union. Still, Faen is only open to the Northern Witches. Why’s there a Silver Union floating ship here?" This time, it was a Third Grade Pale Witch who spoke up. She had a pale face, silver-gray hai,r and was leaning against a mysterious staff of a unique design.

The Third Grade witch that led the Death Witches was evidently acquainted with this Pale Witch. She shook her head and explained, "Wurzer, you’ve spent too much time in Faen. I’m afraid you probably don’t know about the return of the Fate Witches. This floating ship was brought along by them!"

"Don’t think of me as such an ignorant fool. You are speaking of that brat known as Alice, aren’t you!? To think a First Grade brat could climb her way to become the leader of the Witches of Fate. Kehkehkeh. The Fate Witches are truly an existence that outsiders can never hope to figure out." Witch Wurzer couldn’t help but start cackling when the topic shifted to an interesting one.

The massive door of light trembled intensely and completely shattered once the flying ship had made it past the portal. The violent and chaotic magic energy turbulence thrashed about in the teleportation square, but it was kept out by the defensive arrays that rose from the ground.

The violent turbulence only calmed down after several minutes, allowing the people in the square to let out a breath of relief.

"All witches leading their parties must follow me to the seventh floor for a meeting." Witch Wurzer called out softly.

At this moment, Greem and Alice had only just stepped out of the metal hatch of their ship. They looked at each other upon hearing this and left the matters of logistics to their subordinates. They then followed the other witches and slowly walked toward the great tower looming at the center of Shadow Island.

Shadow Island was an island out in the sea and was isolated from the other continents. One couldn’t find a better volcanic island for a base within a radius of five hundred kilometers. The adept’s tower stood above the massive volcanic crater, using the mighty underground powers of fire here to provide the tower with an enormous source of free energy.

Shadow Island wasn’t particularly large in size. It was only approximately seventy square kilometers.

Apart from the abiding pillars of volcanic dust, the witches had also used a vast amount of mist on the outskirts to hide Shadow Island. That was why the island was mostly gray and shielded from the sun. Its skies were always the same dull gray color.

Naturally, the Pale Witches all stayed within the tall tower. They never needed to worry about the harsh outside environment. However, the fellows that came to Shadow Island to join the evil witches could only set up crude shacks and huts at the edge of the island, leading ’peaceful’ and ’needless’ lives as fishermen there.

The Pale Witches were not kindhearted enough to provide them with food and clean water. They needed to find their own water sources and food if they wanted to live in such a harsh environment. Or, they could take it from the hands of others.

Supply ships from far away only came every two or three months. That was why blood and murder were common themes in the walled city that was Shadow Island.

The brief meeting was held on the seventh floor of the tower.

When Greem and Alice arrived here with the other witches, they immediately saw a massive projection of Faen in the center of the hall.

The geography of the massive Faen Continent stretched and wound about. There were vast and sprawling mountains everywhere, with some extending for as far as five thousand kilometers, while others had steep and unforgiving slopes upon which towering forests stood. Human cities, towns, and villages of all sizes were scattered along the continent. When paired together with the winding rivers and massive lakes, it was a perfect picture of a human world.

On the other hand, the massive Garan Continent was filled with a sea of trees. From a distance, the place looked like a gigantic forest completely covered in towering, ancient trees and numerous green plants.

Greem immediately, with absolutely no reservations, scanned the three-dimensional projection of Faen into his Chip using a unique method. He then quickly reconstructed a model for comparison.

Just then, a group of witches in strange clothes walked into the hall.