Earth's Greatest Magus

The Crimson Dragon’s roar tore through the chamber like a dying star, its body riddled with jagged icicle blades that pinned its wings and tore through its

burning scales. Emery turned instinctively to help-

-but the Winter Lord was already there.

She crossed the distance in a streak of pale-blue frost, her serpent tail coiling beneath her as her upper body twisted and the icy spear in her hand thrust forward.

Emery spun back just in time.

His void blade met the spearhead.

The collision sounded like a glacier splitting.

A shockwave rippled through the frozen chamber, fracturing the floor and sending shards of spirit-ice spinning into the air. Emery was hurled backward, his arms vibrating from the impact as freezing energy crawled along his weapon, trying to crawl into his soul.

Before he could reorient himself, Caelthar struck.

Dozens of crescent-shaped icicle blades materialized around him, each one forged from condensed sword aura and Eternal Winter power. With a sharp gesture, he sent them screaming toward Emery from every angle.

Emery was forced fully on the defensive.

His void blade blurred, knocking several away, but others slipped through. Each impact detonated into numbing frost that slowed his movements and locked his joints for fractions of a second-just enough to prevent him from reaching Killgragah.

And then he saw it.

The remaining Tyrant Serpents swarmed the dragon.

Killgragah did not retreat.

With blades embedded in its body and frost consuming its wings, the crimson dragon reared back and released a final, defiant roar that shook Emery’s soul. Fire gathered in its throat-deeper, brighter, drawn from its very essence.

Then it unleashed everything.

A tidal wave of Khaos flame exploded outward, turning the chamber into a burning hellscape. Three Tyrant Serpents were vaporized instantly, their soul forms screaming as they dissolved into sparks.

But the attack cost too much.

The dragon’s massive body flickered, flames guttering like a candle in a storm. “You’re on your own, kid.”

Killgragah’s voice faded like embers in the wind as the crimson dragon collapsed into sparks and withdrew into slumber. The last traces of its heat vanished with it.

The temperature in the chamber plummeted instantly.

Frost swallowed the air. Sound dulled. Even light seemed to move more slowly as the Winter Lord’s domain tightened like a closing fist.

The next barrage struck without mercy.

A storm of glacial force detonated against Emery’s position, waves of freezing energy slamming into him from every direction. His soul form shuddered violently as cracks spread across its surface like fractures racing through ice. Pain lanced through him.

“Die. Die!” the Winter Lord’s voice echoed, cold and absolute.

Emery dropped one knee to the frozen ground.

But instead of retreating, he called on another guardian.

“Chututlu.”

And crashed his palm down.

He did not summon the guardian directly. Instead, he poured Khaos energy, channeling it through his Twilight vines. Verdant tendrils erupted outward, shattering incoming frost and weaving together into a living fortress infused with chaotic energy.

The frozen storm crashed against the barrier, but this time it did not break through immediately.

The Winter Lord sneered. “How long do you think that can save you? Accept the inevitable!”

She increased the pressure, yet Emery remained motionless inside the living bastion, eyes closed, focus absolute.

The truth was, the synergy with his Light Avatar was yet to be completed.

Earlier, he had received the comprehension.

Now, he was receiving the power it carried.

Within his inner domain, the Light Avatar stood silently before the Elysian Tree, its palm pressed against the luminous trunk. Golden-green energy flowed between them, slow at first-like sap beginning to rise in early spring.

Then the tree responded.

Branches lengthened.

Golden leaves unfurled in clusters, radiating soft, life-giving light. Roots surged outward beneath the soil, splitting stone as clear spring water burst forth and

flowed into winding streams.

Pure vitality flooded outward.

And Emery felt it.

A warm current surged through his soul, pushing back the biting cold that sought to consume him. The pain did not vanish-but it was drowned beneath something older, deeper, and far more powerful.

Whispers filled his mind.

Ancient.

Wordless.

They did not sound like Gaia, though they carried the same boundless

presence.

This was something more primal.

The will of the Elysian Trees.

Energy poured into him in unstoppable waves.

[Soul Power increases exponentially][Soul Power increases exponentially]

Outside, the Winter Lord’s bombardment intensified. Entire layers of the vine fortress shattered under the pressure-yet regrew just as quickly, thicker and stronger than before.

Inside, Emery’s aura expanded.

[3700]

The number pulsed through his consciousness like a drumbeat.

His soul brightened, cracks sealing as new energy reinforced his core. The frost invading his form was pushed back, replaced by luminous green-gold currents threading through his spiritual body.

The whispers grew louder.

Awakening.

[3800]

During his time trapped inside the Leviathan void beast, Emery had already defied convention by merging both avatars and forcing a breakthrough into the Two Cosmos Realm at a soul force of 3,000.

Typically, 3,000 soul force marked the threshold for entering the second layer

of Two Cosmos. When Emery returned to Earth, his foundation had already

climbed past 3,500.

In this battle, with the insight and power he gained from Gaia, he not only broke through the second layer, but his soul continued to surge.

The life force flowing from the Elysian Tree poured into him like a river breaching a dam. His soul trembled-not from instability, but from expansion. His aura deepened, thickened, and began to carry a presence that felt ancient

and primeval.

[3900]

“Why does he keep getting stronger?!” the Winter Lord hissed, disbelief

flickering across her face.

Moments ago, her glacial bombardment had been slowly grinding through the Elysian defenses, freezing vine after vine into brittle crystal.

Now, the vines regenerated faster than her frost could destroy them, pulsing

with golden-green life veins that resisted her eternal winter.

A shockwave rippled through the chamber.

[4000]

Among high-realm cultivators, that number carried weight.

It was the recognized threshold for stepping into the third layer of Two

Cosmos.

For most, it was a wall.

For Emery, it was fuel.

The Elysian Tree responded to his swelling soul force like a divine organism awakening. Its branches thickened, bark turning radiant with flowing patterns of life sigils. Its roots pushed deeper into the spiritual ground of his domain, drawing forth a tide of vitality that spilled outward into reality.

Then the whispers began to change.

They were no longer gentle echoes of Gaia’s blessing.

They became structured.

Runes ancient, verdant, alive-formed in his consciousness. They aligned

themselves into a spiraling sequence that carried a rhythm.

Emery did not hesitate.

He followed the pattern instinctively, channeling the sequence through his soul

and into the vines surrounding him.

A spell was born.

[Elden Wildburst]

The Elysian fortress exploded outward.

What had moments ago been a defensive sanctuary transformed into an

overwhelming, living assault.

Dozens of colossal plant pillars erupted from the ground in every direction,

each one wrapped in spiraling Khaos energy and tipped with crystalized thorns harder than divine steel. They did not grow-they launched, spearing across the chamber with the force of celestial artillery.

Caelthar reacted instantly, sword aura blazing as he carved through two incoming pillars. Frost exploded from his strikes, shattering several more mid-flight as he retreated through the air, eyes wide with shock.

The Winter Lord moved like the heart of a blizzard, her serpentine body coiling

and twisting as she slipped between the surging pillars. Her spear flashed, each

sweep freezing and shattering thick vines before they could encircle her. But the Tyrant Serpents were not so fortunate.

One was impaled clean through, lifted into the air as roots burst from the

wound and spread like veins, binding its soul form in place. Another was slammed into the ceiling by an ascending trunk and pinned there. It did not stop there.

The Khaos energy surging through the Twilight vines suddenly shifted in

nature, as if something ancient within the power had awakened. Emery felt the change instantly. The vines that had only been restraining and shielding began

to pulse with a predatory rhythm, their surfaces darkening with swirling runes

of devouring light.

[Spirit Devour]

A deep, resonant roar reverberated through the chamber as the Tyrant Serpent’s spectral bodies convulsed. Streams of azure soul essence were ripped from them and drawn along the vines like rivers of light flowing toward

a single source.

Toward Emery.

The stolen energy surged into his soul form in violent waves, filling the cracks

left by the Winter Lord’s attacks and then pushing far beyond mere recovery. His presence swelled, pressure rolling off him in visible ripples that distorted the frozen mist.

[Soul Power: 4100]

Within the confined space of the pagoda chamber, the battlefield geometry shifted decisively in his favor. There was nowhere left for the serpents to flee, no room to maneuver away from the expanding forest of living, devouring vines. One by one, the remaining Tyrant Serpents were pierced, bound, and drained until their struggles faded into trembling motes of dissolving frost.

When the last of them fell, only two figures remained standing amid the

writhing green and silver storm. Caelthar.

The Winter Lord.

“What kind of technique is this?!” Caelthar shouted, his composure finally cracking as he hacked apart a lunging vine with his soul-forged ice blade. Even

as he severed one, three more twisted toward him from blind angles. “We can’t let this continue!”

The Winter Lord’s expression darkened, irritation flashing across her serpentine features, yet her voice remained cold and certain. “As long as he is

inside this pagoda… he is mine.”

She began to chant.

Her voice carried an ancient cadence, each syllable vibrating through the

structure of the artifact itself. In response, the entire pagoda trembled. Runes hidden deep within the walls ignited one after another, forming vast interlocking arrays that spread like glowing frost veins across the chamber.

The air temperature plummeted. Even Caelthar felt it. Realization dawned on his face, followed by unease.

He turned and shot toward the upper boundary of the chamber, attempting to

exit the artifact-but a wall of freezing light slammed down in front of him. The formation sealed shut, locking him inside.

“Third Elder! Let me out!” he barked, genuine alarm breaking through his usual

arrogance.

“No,” she replied without looking at him, her eyes fixed on Emery as the final

runes locked into place. “You will stay and help me push this artifact to its full potential.”

What followed was a violent collision between the Eternal Winter formation of

the pagoda and the surging mass of Twilight vines that had overtaken the

chamber. Freezing sigils illuminated across the walls, pouring out waves of ancient frost that crystallized everything in their path. Vines were locked in ice, shattered, regrew, and surged forward again in an endless cycle of destruction and

rebirth. Green life force and pale winter energy tore through one another in a storm of snapping roots, exploding ice, and shrieking spiritual pressure. The twilight vines were suppressed, but through the entanglement of their

souls-and his devouring ability-Emery was able to see something. Fragments of memory that were not his own.

A frozen chamber.Chains of sealing light.A woman struggling against the same

imprisoning power.

Dark hair. Fierce eyes.

Klea.