Earth's Greatest Magus

Chapter 2703: Ice and Fire

One side burned with shadow flame, black fire that writhed like living serpents. The other flickered with unnatural frost, a glacial blue so cold it seemed to freeze the starlight itself.

Fire and ice. Opposites, yet bound together in one will.

Emery’s grip tightened on both weapons. His stance shifted, sharper, his aura splitting into two currents—frost and flame—before spiraling back into a single, terrifying balance. The void trembled around him, as though the cosmos itself bent beneath his intent.

A slow breath escaped him. His crossed swords glowed, their edges howling with power. Then, with one fluid motion, he slashed.

Twin arcs of power roared forward. One carried the suffocating blaze of the abyss, heat so fierce it warped the void. The other carried the chilling bite of death’s embrace, an icicle fang of annihilation. Within both energies lurked echoes of something monstrous; faint dragon-like cries resounded through his blades.

Draven’s face tightened. His jaw clenched as he thrust his crystal blades forward. Cosmic energy surged, layered with his blade intent. With a sudden spin, he carved the void itself, his signature technique bursting forth.

[Frostfang Cascade]

Like an avalanche made of glass, jagged arcs of frozen light burst outward, meeting Emery’s twin slashes head-on. The collision shattered both streams of power into blinding fragments, dispersing them across the void.

Draven staggered back, panting. He had managed to break apart the twin strikes, but only barely. Before he could recover, a dark blur surged from the storm.

Emery.

Both swords swung in harmony. Left, then right, then both together—an unrelenting storm. Every strike carried the force of a meteor, every swing splitting the void with its clash of extremes.

Draven’s crystal blades screamed against the assault. Sparks flew with every clash, each collision sending out rippling shockwaves that battered the surrounding ships. The fleets in the distance could see it — sparks like falling stars, detonations like miniature suns. Refugees and raiders alike watched in breathless awe.

The Frostblade Corsair was pushed onto the defensive; the sheer pressure of the dual-element barrage was staggering.

But the raider captain was no novice. He steadied himself, his mastery of the sword honed by decades of slaughter. Little by little, he adapted—sidestepping, weaving, deflecting. Emery’s rhythm faltered under the counterforce.

A clash.

Another.

And then Emery’s charge halted, his momentum broken.

Draven’s lips curled. Relief flashed in his eyes as he twisted his blade. He sneered, voice rumbling into Emery’s mind.

<Hah! You almost had me there... but they’re just flashy tricks. No weight, no substance>

Emery said nothing, but his steady golden eyes betrayed no denial. He agreed. This sword technique was newborn — still rough, incomplete.

This evolution of the Sword Dao had been born in desperation within the belly of the world beast. Its foundation was there — one blade burning with Killgragah’s Famine Gate-flame, the other freezing with Daurgothoth’s Death Gate-ice. A fusion of destruction. But his comprehension of the sword itself still lagged. Without a true master to guide him and having only to practice them against mindless serpent beasts, he was carving his own path blindly.

Draven sneered, his voice booming across the void, carried by killing intent.

<Is that all you’ve got? Then watch closely—I’ll show you what a true sword strike is!>

He tightened both arms, channeling everything into his crystal blades. A shudder ran through the void as the swords ignited with a terrifying brilliance. Blade’s intent poured out like a frozen tidal wave, merging with his cosmic energy, layered with the immutable law of ice.

The void itself rippled under the surge.

Draven raised the weapons above his head, and the energies merged. Out of the crystal glow formed a monstrous construct— a ten-meter-tall greatblade of pure glacial aura, jagged-edged, glimmering with frozen starlight. Its form was that of a single-edged executioner’s sword, but wrought of living ice. Every pulse from it sent tremors through space, waves of frost rippling outward for miles.

His voice thundered with pride.<Behold! My Glacier Tyrant’s Fang!>

The phantom blade roared, as though the wrath of a frozen titan had been given shape.

It kept growing; 15 meters... 20 meters.

Seeing this, a faint smile touched Emery’s lips.

Yes, his swordsmanship lacked polish. Yes, Draven’s mastery of blade intent far surpassed his. But Draven was a fool to challenge him to a clash of ultimate techniques. In a contest of raw power, he was confident.

With a thought, he summoned his two soul avatars.

From the yawning maw of Killgragah’s Famine Gate, a miniature radiant figure stepped forth—his first soul avatar, pale-haired, eyes gleaming. Flames blacker than midnight coiled around it.

From the frozen abyss of Daurgothoth’s Death Gate, his second avatar emerged—dark-haired, cold-eyed, a reaper cloaked in silent frost. Ghostly blue fire drifted from its form, every spark carrying the chill of the grave.

Both avatars extended their hands, channeling the power of Khaos through him, feeding into his mortal frame as conduits for destruction.

The opposing forces converged in Emery’s body. Heat and cold, flame and frost, fury and silence. They met in his arms, pouring into the blades he held, and the void trembled.

The Embernight Sword howled with abyssal fire.

The Savage Blade hissed with deathly frost.

Two massive blades of aura flared into being at Emery’s back, each radiating destructive power. Their sheer presence twisted the air, warping space itself. The sight mirrored the blade aura summoned by Draven.

A chill of dread crawled up Draven’s spine. His grip tightened on his greatsword, knuckles paling. He could not allow Emery to finish—he refused to be overwhelmed. With a furious roar, he unleashed his full strength. His blade aura expanded to thirty meters in size, a monstrous arc of raw destructive energy that cleaved downward with unstoppable force, its momentum shaking the battlefield.

But Emery did not panic. His stance was steady, his breath calm. He lifted both swords in unison, and in that instant, the twin powers of two cosmic realms surged through him. Fire and ice ignited as one, Heaven and Earth resonating under his [Dao of Heaven and Earth].

Emery’s eyes blazed, one burning with scarlet flame, the other glowing with piercing frost. His voice cut through the chaos like a divine decree, as he whispered the name of his strike.

"Dao Sword of Ice and Fire... First Form — Frostfire Rend."

The two towering auras fused into one. Fire and frost spiraled violently, colliding, devouring, until they condensed into a single, colossal blade of energy that split the heavens themselves. From within it, a roar erupted—half dragon’s flame, half glacial wyrm’s cry—shaking the void.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The clash of sword auras was cataclysmic.

When the Frostfire Rend met Draven’s thirty-meter crystalline blade, the void itself trembled. Ripples of power surged outward in blinding waves, like the birth of a supernova. For a heartbeat, both forces held—two titanic wills grinding against each other, neither yielding, their resonance threatening to tear open rifts in space itself.

Then dominance revealed itself.

Emery’s Frostfire Rend howled, its twin aura of flame and frost surging forward with inexorable might. Draven’s blade, magnificent and sharp as it was, began to fracture. First hairline cracks snaked through its crystalline form, then entire slabs splintered apart. In the next instant, it shattered completely, bursting into fragments of frozen light that scattered like dying stars.

But the Frostfire Rend did not stop. It swelled brighter, heavier, fiercer—its edge now carrying the weight of heaven and earth.

Draven’s face drained of color. He tried to fly back, but the pressure pinned him in place, locking his limbs as though chains of fire and ice bound him. Panic gripped him. With a guttural roar, he unleashed every ounce of his remaining cosmic energy, bombarding the oncoming strike with a storm of sword waves. Each strike crashed into the Frostfire Rend, slowing it for a heartbeat, for two... but it was like trying to hold back an avalanche with bare hands. The attack pressed forward relentlessly, the weight of a mountain made manifest.

In desperation, Draven pulled out a treasured defensive artifact—a gleaming azure mirror, runes flaring to life. He thrust it forward, and for one miraculous second, the mirror held, a shimmering barrier halting the blade of Frostfire Rend. Draven twisted, trying to escape the trap of its pressure, but a terrifying sound broke his will.

Crack.

The mirror fractured. Shatter.

It exploded into glittering dust.

"No—NOOO!" Draven’s scream was swallowed by the roar of the Frostfire Rend.

The void erupted in a cataclysmic blast. A tidal wave of fire and frost consumed everything in its path. The fleets watching from afar saw only a blinding radiance that split the darkness of space, an eruption that looked like two suns colliding. The shockwave rippled for miles, tearing apart fragments of asteroids and scattering them like drifting embers.

When the light dimmed, Draven’s form was gone. His body had been annihilated—half burned to ash, the rest frozen into brittle crystalline shards that cracked and dispersed into nothing. Even his soul and apertures had been scoured away, erased by the overwhelming fusion of flame and frost.

The mighty Frostblade Corsair had been destroyed in a single, decisive strike.

Only one thing remained. Drifting where Draven had once stood was his crystalline blade.

Emery hovered forward, shoulders rising and falling with a heavy sigh. His chest tightened—not with regret, but with awe at the sheer destructive force he had unleashed. Even he had not expected Frostfire Rend to reach such a level.

His gaze fell upon the floating weapon. "Hmph. Well...one loot is still better than none."