Earth's Greatest Magus

Chapter 3024: Sacrifice

Three wood elf Grand Magus descended from the corrupted sky.

Once, they would have arrived wrapped in the pure white radiance that had long symbolized their race, clad in gleaming silver armor with elegant curved sabers that sang through the air like music.

That light was gone.

The figures descending now radiated only a sickly violet glow. Their once-pristine armor hung in broken fragments from bodies twisted by corruption, while darkened flesh split beneath pulsing veins of miasma that crawled visibly under their skin like living serpents.

Their eyes held nothing.

No hatred.

No rage.

No trace of warriors they had once been.

Yet they still moved with terrifying elegance, every motion carrying the preserved grace of Bladesingers whose bodies remembered centuries of battle even after their souls had long since vanished. As they descended, a haunting melody drifted across the battlefield—a broken war hymn echoing from ruined throats, a grotesque mockery of the sacred songs that had once inspired entire armies.

They attacked before their feet even touched the ground.

Violent winds exploded through the retreating column, hurling Magus from their feet as though they weighed nothing. The forest answered the corrupted song as the earth split apart beneath the fleeing soldiers, enormous roots bursting upward to coil around ankles and legs, dragging screaming cultivators toward the corrupted soil. At the same time, torrents of water erupted from ancient trees, transforming into freezing whips that lashed through the retreating formation.

The wood elves’ greatest inheritance...

Nature itself.

Now turned against the living.

Morgana never hesitated.

Her skeletal wings burst open behind her, stretching wide as tri-colored primordial flames roared across every bone. Heat flooded the battlefield, and the incoming nature magic shattered against her advance. The grasping roots blackened into ash before reaching her, the violent winds dissolved beneath overwhelming heat, and the frozen torrents evaporated into clouds of steam.

She soared upward to meet the three corrupted Grand Magus head-on, flames gathering around both hands as the blood of the Phoenix burned eagerly within her.

Then a figure of brilliant light descended before her.

Radiant wings unfolded across the sky.

Emery’s light avatar.

He hovered calmly between Morgana and the approaching enemies, completely blocking her path.

"I’ll handle them," he said. "Get these soldiers to safety."

She wanted this fight. Every instinct in her demanded it.

But she could not refuse him.

Her eyes fell upon the soldiers behind her.

They were the survivors of the two squads placed under her command, the first soldiers entrusted to her after receiving her officer’s commission. During these past months she had slowly learned that command meant far more than standing at the front of every battle.

Further delay and not one of those fifty Magus would survive.

"Go"

Emery’s voice echoed gently through their Khaos seed connection.

There was no command within it.

Only trust.

The single word dissolved the last of her hesitation.

Morgana clenched her jaw, folded away her frustration, and turned without another protest. Her tri-colored flames swept across the battlefield once more, forcing back the advancing horde as she led the surviving Magus, leaving Emery’s light avatar alone to face the three corrupted Grand Magus.

"No one can escape..."

The three infected elves surged after Morgana, only for thirty-two jade blades to erupt from the earth before them. In an instant, they snapped into a rotating sword formation, weaving together into an impenetrable wall that sealed the path ahead.

Behind the spinning blades, Emery’s light avatar slowly rose into the air.

The lead elf’s ruined gaze settled upon the lone figure.

"One Cosmos..." it hissed. "You should have let your friend stay, human. Now you’ll simply die here alone."

The light avatar’s expression remained calm.

"Maybe," it replied. "But I’ll take a few of you with me."

What followed was something the three corrupted Grand Magus had never imagined possible.

They attacked from three directions at once.

The avatar met all three.

The willow swords moved like a living organism, the thirty-two blades splitting apart and reforming in perfect harmony. Some intercepted incoming sabers, others darted in to harass before retreating, while the remaining swords constantly shifted to cover every opening. Wherever a curved blade descended toward the avatar’s throat, several jade swords were already there to intercept it.

Corrupted roots erupted beneath its feet, Emery grinned blocking them with his own.

Elysian roots burst from the forest floor, colliding head-on with the corrupted woodland magic. Vines strangled vines, roots crushed roots, and towering trees groaned as living wood wrestled for dominance.

Its mastery over nature proved even more infuriating.

It was an insult the three could scarcely comprehend.

They were wood elves.

Nature had always been their birthright, their greatest inheritance.

One of the Bladesingers hesitated, disbelief momentarily breaking its battle rhythm.

The avatar seized the opening, driving it backward beneath a lance of radiant light before instantly turning to intercept another saber with a rotating wall of jade blades.

But even Emery knew this could not continue.

Beyond the three corrupted elves, the forest was filling.

The infected horde surged forward from every direction, and through the avatar’s divine sense, more powerful auras emerged from the trees. Four Grand Magus...

Then six...

Then even more.

There had never truly been an escape.

The light avatar cast one final glance toward the army where Morgana and the last fifty survivors had nearly aboard them.

Good.

That was enough.

It turned back toward its opponents.

And abandoned every trace of restraint.

The entire sword formation exploded outward before converging again into a single spiraling drill of jade light that smashed straight through the elves’ combined defense.

Into that opening, the avatar unleashed [Spectral Gaze].

Its full soul force crashed into the nearest elf’s consciousness like a falling star.

The willow swords flashed and a corrupted Grand Magus died where it stood, its body collapsing lifelessly before it even realized what had happened.

The remaining two recoiled in shock.

Not satisfied, the avatar turned to the second —

Its gaze shifted to the second elf as temporal law rippled outward. Space itself seemed to thicken into syrup, every movement slowing to a crawl despite the victim’s frantic struggle.

The willow swords flashed once again.

Its head separated cleanly from its shoulders.

Two dead.

And with the last remnants of its strength, the avatar reached out and seized the fleeing soul before it could escape into the corrupted hive.

More infected Grand Magus were arriving, drawn by the deaths of their comrades.

The wood elf let out a shrill scream of rage.

It charged, corrupted wind and nature spiraling around its body as its curved sabre descended with enough force to split the forest in two.

The blade struck.

The light avatar smiled.

An instant before the strike landed, its body suddenly unraveled, bursting apart into countless fragments of blood, flesh, and radiant particles. The attack carved through empty air as the entire body simply collapsed into nothing.

The infected elf stumbled forward, its sabre buried deep in the earth.

It stared blankly at the empty ground.

"What... happened?"

For a brief moment, confusion replaced the hive’s relentless purpose.

"...Did we kill him?"

###

At that very moment, nearly half a galaxy away, within the stillness of the Khaos Domain, a waypoint silently opened.

Emery’s true body remained seated in meditation exactly where it had been for hours. Before him, the light avatar emerged through the spatial gate in soul form alone, its translucent figure flickering weakly as it staggered forward before collapsing onto the ground with an exhausted sigh.

Emery slowly opened his eyes.

A faint smile crossed his face.

"That’s the third one."

The avatar looked up at him with an amused grin despite its miserable condition.

"Why are you keeping count?" it complained. "You’re me. I’m you. My loss is your loss." It waved a translucent hand. "Now hurry up and make me a new body. A stronger one this time."

Emery shook his head with a helpless sigh.

Without another word, he stood and drew his blade.

The edge flashed once before slicing cleanly through his own forearm. Fresh blood poured onto the formation beneath him, while flesh, bone, and essence were carefully separated and guided into an intricate array that immediately began reconstructing a new vessel.

Creating a true avatar body was never a simple matter.

Unlike ordinary clones, every replacement demanded hours of painstaking work, consuming enormous quantities of spirit energy. Bone, meridians, and organs were rebuilt piece by piece. By the time the process was complete, even Emery’s true body felt noticeably drained.

When the final strand of energy settled into place, a brand-new One Cosmos body opened its eyes.

The light avatar immediately slipped into it.

It flexed its fingers, rolled its shoulders, then gave an approving nod.

"Perfect."

Emery opened another waypoint, this one anchored to Morgana’s current location.

As the portal stabilized, he looked at his other self.

"Try to make this one last."

The avatar laughed as it stepped through.

"No promises."

A moment later, the portal closed behind him, and the newly reborn avatar was already returning to the frontlines.