Earth's Greatest Magus

Emery remained silent.

Then just as the last traces of her soul disappeared, a tiny point of light emerged from the ashes.

It floated quietly through the darkness before drifting toward Emery and sinking into his body.

A fragment of her soul.

A fragment of her memory.

Emery immediately focused his Divine Sense on it.

Images began to unfold within his consciousness.

Her name was Sesani.

She had once been the Abbess of an order of warrior nuns whose temple was hidden deep within one of the Thirteen Mountains. For centuries, the order had remained isolated, training its disciples and protecting the sacred mountain.

Then, twenty years ago, everything changed.

The Scourge reached the western continent.

The warrior nun order was called to the front lines, and Sesani had personally led her disciples into battle. She had fought alongside the Sunveil Supreme herself during the Battle of the Western Continent.

And they had lost.

Emery’s expression slowly hardened as the memory unfolded further.

He saw flashes of a battlefield consumed by chaos.

Mountains had been shattered, the sky burned red, and countless cultivators fought desperately against an endless tide of corrupted creatures. Sesani’s memories were fragmented, flickering between moments of desperate combat and overwhelming destruction.

Then Emery saw something else.

Behind the chaos of the battlefield, beyond the countless Scourge creatures and the destruction that filled the horizon, an enormous eyes slowly opened.

Ancient.

Monstrous.

It didn’t appear to belong to the same Parasite X.

Emery’s breath caught.

The memory abruptly ended.

He searched deeper.

Twenty years of corruption had destroyed everything beyond that final image. Whatever Sesani had witnessed after that moment was already gone, consumed along with the rest of her soul.

But something else remained, tucked deep within the fragment, and it took Emery a moment to recognize what it was.

The legacy technique of her order.

[Lotus Blooming Palms] — a genuine soul-attacking technique capable of inflicting real damage, rather than merely paralyzing the target like his Spectral Gaze.

It was a Tier 8 technique, built around the complementary affinities of Light and Nature.

Exactly the kind of technique that suited him.

”Nice”

The legacy technique also proved to be the key to accessing her domain.Following its lingering connection, Emery pushed through the aperture left behind in her fragmented soul and entered the domain proper.

As expected of a peak Two-Cosmos cultivator with a high-grade soul, the domain was vast, stretching across an enormous inner space. Yet almost all of it had been ruined. The corruption had ravaged the landscape, leaving behind broken structures and lifeless terrain. Nothing living remained.

Emery’s Divine Sense swept through the ruins until it located a temple buried deep within the domain.

Most of what remained inside were scriptures and ancient tomes. With a simple glance, Emery identified them as historical records and prayer texts. Nothing seemed particularly useful to him, but to be safe, he could have VIA analyze each of them later.

There were also less than a billion spirit stones, an embarrassingly small amount for someone at her level, but understandable given her identity as a secluded abbess.

Among the collection were several high-grade pills that could aid cultivation, along with one particularly valuable pill. It was golden in color, with three distinct rune marks etched across its surface.

Emery’s Divine Sense swept over it, quickly identifying its grade and purpose.

[Tier 8 - Third Heaven Ascension Pill]

A rare pill developed within the Tartarus realm specifically to help a peak Two-Cosmos cultivator break through to the Three Cosmos realm. Given that the Abbess had reached the peak of the Third Layer of Two Cosmos, it was clear she had been preparing this pill for her own breakthrough.

Emery couldn’t help but feel excited.

Although the apothecary arts of the Tartarus realm were not as profound as those of the Magus Realm, Tartarus possessed an abundance of high-grade materials that were difficult to find elsewhere. A pill capable of assisting a breakthrough into the Three Cosmos realm was extremely precious.

Emery doubted it could help with his unique cultivation situation, but even if he didn’t consume it himself, studying its composition and refining method would still be valuable.

The last part of the temple was a stone chamber where the Abbess had meditated and kept her most precious treasures. Her memories told him that there had originally been half a dozen high-grade artifacts stored here, the treasured possessions of her temple. Most had been destroyed during the final battle, but there should still be a few remains.

Emery found two.

The first was a bronze staff with several chain rings attached to its crown, [Soul Resonance Staff] a low-grade Tier 7 spirit weapon that had served as the Abbess’s secondary weapon. The chains could produce strange sounds when activated, allowing the staff to launch powerful illusions directly into an opponent’s mind.

The second was a string of prayer beads, [Demon binding Beads] another low-grade Tier 7 artifact. Its primary function was restraint, allowing the beads to expand and bind powerful opponents. It was especially useful to Emery, as it could serve as a replacement for the ring artifact he had lost.

There were also a dozen Tier 6 artifacts. They weren’t particularly useful to Emery anymore, but they were still valuable treasures that could be exchanged for a considerable amount of resources.

Emery was satisfied.

For a secluded abbess, Sesani had been surprisingly wealthy. The collection was more than worthy of the leader of a powerful sect.

Indeed, looting from battles was the best ways to gain wealth. Emery suddenly felt a little regretful that he hadn’t put more effort into taking the other infected Grand Magus with him. Each of their domains should have contained some valuable treasures.

But as that thought crossed his mind, Emery suddenly held his breath.

In a place as dangerous as this, allowing greed to cloud his judgment could very well get him killed.

”That should be all of them”

Emery was ready to leave when something caught his attention.

His Divine Sense had detected a faint energy signature coming from a stone pedestal in the corner of the chamber.

Emery turned toward it.

Sitting quietly on the pedestal was a simple woven rattan mat.

His eyes narrowed in surprise.

At first glance, it looked completely ordinary, almost worthless. It was in fact a mid-grade Tier 7 artifact, crafted from high-grade materials and covered in intricate formation runes.

Emery reached out with his Divine Sense, examining every rune across its surface.

Then he searched deeper into the Abbess’s remaining memories.

He soon discovered its true purpose.

The mat had been designed to calm the mind and help its user enter a deeper state of meditation, greatly improving concentration and allowing the mind to reach a more stable state during cultivation.

Emery took it without hesitation.

With nothing else of significant value remaining, he withdrew from the collapsing domain.

Behind him, the aperture in her soul finally crumbled, and what remained of her body followed soon after.

Emery cast a quiet flame spell.

The remaining corpse was slowly consumed, reduced completely to ash.

He watched the final traces of smoke drift away before offering a silent wish for her success in reincarnation.