Earth's Greatest Magus

Chapter 2976: Baeldum Battle 4

The first clash tore the sky in two.

The Sword Demoness’s blade descended in a crescent of pure black intent, and the slash did not stop at the creature. It screamed onward for kilometers, shearing the crest clean from a distant ridge. The severed stone hung suspended for a single breath before sliding away in a roaring avalanche of rock and sand.

At the same moment, the Star Tower Lord’s stellar orbs descended.

A dozen miniature suns detonated around the creature at once.

Light swallowed the desert.

The resulting shockwave exploded outward in a ring of fire and fractured space, flattening the nearest swarms of infected hounds, rattling the triple walls of Dravos, and leaving thin spatial cracks hanging in the air like broken glass. Even after the explosion faded, those wounds in reality lingered for several seconds before finally sealing themselves.

When the blinding glare finally dissipated, the creature still hovered at the center of the devastation.

Untouched.

The darkness surrounding its body churned and twisted like a living thing.

It did not merely absorb the attacks.

It responded.

Tendrils peeled away from the black shroud and hardened instantly. Some flattened into broad shields that swallowed the falling stars whole. Others elongated into whips that lashed toward the Sword Demoness with enough force to split mountains.

Defense and offense.

Shield and weapon.

Both formed from the same writhing corruption.

Yet despite its versatility, the creature was gradually being forced backward.

The Sword Demoness danced through the incoming lashes with contemptuous ease, cutting them apart as fast as they formed, while the Star Tower Lord’s relentless bombardment shattered every defensive layer before it could fully regenerate.

A fierce grin spread across the Demoness’s face.

”Hah! Without that mind-trick of its, this thing is a Three Cosmos at most.” Her blade carved another whip in half. ”I could kill it on my own!”

The boast had barely left her mouth when she felt it.

Something was wrong.

The black mist that had splashed from her blade onto her arm during the last exchange was no longer merely clinging to her. It was spreading, sinking beneath her skin, and wherever it touched, a cold rot began to bloom. The Sword Demoness snarled and forced her spiritual power outward to cleanse it, only to discover that the corruption resisted her efforts, clawing back against the purge with a will of its own.

Then a bright radiance washed over her.

Saint Stephen’s holy light, cast from where the Archbishop hovered at the rear, burned the rot from her arm in a single pulse. His voice followed, grim and certain.

”It is not a dark shadow at all.” His eyes were fixed on the dark shroud surrounding the creature. ”That is pure corruption — particles, a bacteria, a disease. Every strand of it carries the parasite.”

The words sent a chill through all of them.

Because the corruption was not confined to the creature.

It lingered throughout the air, the sky around them, a fine, nearly invisible haze that had been drifting across their skin since the battle began. They had felt nothing. Only now did they understand why.

The resistance pills.

Without the miracle pill coursing through their bodies, the corruption would have already taken root within them minutes ago.

The Sword Demoness’s grin vanished.

With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed her battlefield domain. Dozens of black sword auras erupted into existence around her, spinning into a lethal cocoon that intercepted the drifting haze and shredded it apart before it could reach her flesh. Surrounded by that storm of blades, she surged forward once more, attacking faster and more aggressively than before.

What followed was a battle that few cultivators in the sector would ever witness.

The four experts moved as a single machine, each covering what the others could not. The Sword Demoness dominated close range, her domain of blades carving the creature apart at arm’s length. The Star Tower Lord rained destruction from above, his stellar orbs collapsing the creature’s defenses the instant they formed. Duke Damien remained at the rear with one hand outstretched, the golden dome of his Spirit Champion protection blunting the creature’s relentless mental assaults before they could touch any of their minds. Meanwhile, Saint Stephen anchored the formation, six wings of radiant light unfurling behind him as waves of holy flame continuously purified the corruption filling the battlefield.

These four were among the strongest Three Cosmos experts in the entire Magus Alliance. Apart, any one of them could level a city. Together, with their abilities interlocking, even this abomination could not hold the line.

For the first time since the battle began, the abomination was being forced onto the defensive.

The Star Tower Lord’s stellar bombardment intensified. One blazing orb after another crashed into the creature’s writhing defenses, each impact detonating with enough force to collapse mountains. The shadow shields shuddered beneath the relentless assault. Cracks spread across their surface.

Then one finally broke.

The Sword Demoness was already there — her eyes flashed.

[Demon Moon Severance]

The world seemed to darken for an instant.

A crescent of black sword-light swept across the battlefield with terrifying speed, so fast that many of the defenders below never even saw the strike itself. Space rippled in its wake as the slash cut cleanly through the opening.

The creature’s arm separated from its body.

Dark blood erupted into the sky like a fountain.

But the creature did not falter.

Fresh flesh bloomed from the stump almost instantly, swelling outward in grotesque ridges like coral growing in fast-forward, and within a heartbeat, the new limb was sheathed once more in roiling shadow.

Whatever they cut, it grew back. Whatever they burned, it re-knit.

They were winning. They all felt it. And yet none of them relaxed — because they were fighting a clock none of them could see. No one knew how long the pills would hold before the corruption finally took, and every breath spent in this haze was a breath closer to that line.

Far below, a different war had begun.

The hound tide had reached the walls.

At the North Gate, Iron General Varros met the first wave head-on, his great hammer flattening fused abominations the size of wagons with every swing. At the South, Crimson Marshal Selene’s twin sabers turned the ramparts into a slaughterhouse while thousands of guards loosed volley after volley behind her. Stone Constable Garen sealed the West Gate behind layered earthen barriers, holding the breach through sheer strength, while Storm Constable Orion’s lightning scoured the East Wall clean again and again as the infected clawed their way upward.

Every infected that reached the walls possessed the strength of a Magus-realm cultivator, and there were hundreds of thousands of them. The defenders continued to hold, but the cost mounted with every passing minute.

Among Orion’s battalion fought a towering Earth warrior. Fjolnir stood atop the battlements like an immovable mountain, his massive greataxe sweeping through the horde in great arcs that sent dozens of infected hounds tumbling from the wall with every strike.

Around him, the Void Wolves fought with brutal discipline.

For a moment, the defenders cheered.

Then more hounds climbed over the corpses.

And more after that.