Earth's Greatest Magus

Chapter 2990: Soul Battle

In a soul battle, weapons could be summoned through will alone.

The moment Emery asked for help, both avatars acted.

Excalibur appeared in the light avatar’s hand, its white radiance illuminating the cave like a miniature sun. At the same time, the dark avatar’s fingers closed around the heavy hilt of the Gravestone Ruler, the massive black blade materializing with a low, mournful hum.

Two of Emery’s own weapons, wielded by two of Emery’s own souls

The light avatar moved first.

Brilliant wings of light erupted from his back as he shot forward like a falling star, Excalibur carving a blazing arc toward the corrupted Emery.

The creature reacted instantly.

A spatial rift tore open beneath its feet, and its body flickered backward.

Exactly as the dark avatar expected.

The moment the parasite emerged from the rift, the Gravestone Ruler was already descending.

BAMMM!

The massive blade crashed into the corrupted Emery’s guard and hurled him across the cave floor. Flesh and purple mist exploded outward from the impact, while cracks spread through the living ground beneath him.

The parasite-Emery shrieked.

Not the calm, mocking chitter from moments ago, but a sharp, animalistic scream.

It stumbled backward several steps, the smirk finally disappearing from its purple-veined face. Across the cavern, thousands of yellow eyes flickered uncertainly. The crushing pressure bearing down on Emery’s pagoda weakened for a single heartbeat.

That heartbeat was enough.

The fleshy strands binding him to the cocoon snapped apart.

Emery stepped free.

Then the cave shook again.

Harder this time.

The living walls convulsed, and across the vast cavern, cocoons began to rupture.

One after another.

Figures emerged.

Emery’s stomach tightened as he recognized them.

Colonel Garran stepped out first, black corruption rolling from his body like smoke. Elder Ravik followed, already gripping his dark spear with both hands. Lord Daven emerged nearby, along with half a dozen famous Grand Magus from Marc’s lost expedition.

Then, near the rear of the cavern, a far larger cocoon split open.

Supreme Marc.

The Hunter Supreme stepped out slowly, yellow eyes burning with cold malice. Behind him, enormous phantom beasts began to materialize one after another—a lightning tiger, a flaming serpent, a wind eagle, and countless others, their forms half-real and half-spiritual.

The parasite had summoned them from its collection of stolen vessels.

Or rather, from the memories of those vessels.

The souls it had once worn.

Its defenders.

Without a word, they charged.

The entire cavern erupted into motion.

Corrupted Grand Magus surged forward from every direction. Ravik’s spear split the air with black streaks of killing intent. Garran’s furnace-like aura rolled across the battlefield. Marc’s phantom beasts descended from above in a tide of claws, fangs, and elemental fury.

Emery braced himself.

The first clashes came seconds later.

Steel met steel.

Soul power collided with soul power.

The cave shook under the impact.

Then, after exchanging several blows, Emery suddenly let out a long breath of relief.

These were not the originals.

Not truly.

They were fragments.

Echoes.

Imitations created from stolen memories.

The parasite, even within its own sea of consciousness, did not possess the complete power of the souls it had devoured. It remembered their techniques, their instincts, and fragments of their personalities, but the essence that had made them truly dangerous was missing.

Garran’s black furnace burned noticeably dimmer.

Ravik’s spear techniques arrived half a beat slower than they should have.

Even Marc’s terrifying phantom beasts lacked the overwhelming presence of the real Supreme.

The parasite had copied them.

It had not perfectly recreated them.

Still, there were many.

Far too many.

And the battle unfolding inside the sea of consciousness was no less deadly for being fought between souls.

If Emery lost here, the consequences would be just as real.

Emery surged into the press with his two avatars at his flanks. The dark avatar swept the Gravestone Ruler in great arcs through the corrupted Grand Magus to his left; the light avatar carved a path with Excalibur to his right. Emery himself drew the primal energy through his soul as best he could — thinner here, slower, but still his — and lashed out with whips of pure raw energy at the corrupted figures pressing closer.

Three Emerys.

Against dozens of enemies.

The battle erupted across the cavern.

Fragments of Garran, Ravik, Daven, and countless others attacked from every direction, supported by wave after wave of lesser souls emerging from the surrounding cocoons. Spears, swords, phantom beasts, and corrupted techniques filled the sea of consciousness with endless flashes of light and shadow.

It was not a battle that could be won quickly.

Every strike consumed mental strength.

Every second spent inside the parasite’s domain wore him down a little more.

Behind him, the seven-layer pagoda continued to shine, its bells ringing steadily through the chaos. Yet the chimes were growing quieter. Hairline fractures spread slowly across its outer layers as corruption continued to seep through the cracks.

Emery could feel the pressure mounting.

The parasite was trying to drown him beneath numbers.

I’m sure that creature is wearing down too, he thought, gritting his teeth as he kept his distance from the corrupter supreme.

Whoever runs out first loses.

It became a battle of attrition.

The corrupted Emery shrieked from across the cave once more, and the call summoned a fresh wave of fragments out of unopened cocoons — an endless reserve of stolen vessels for the parasite to throw at him.

And then — at the back of that fresh wave —

A figure stood still.

She did not charge. She did not raise her weapon.

She simply stood and looked around.

She was tall, slender, robed in soft pale colors that did not belong in this cave. Her eyes were not yellow. They were dark, and clear, and they were taking in the cocoons and the cave and the corrupted Emery and the broken figures of her own teammates with a slowly dawning, terrible understanding.

Lirien.

The spirit master.

She had been here all along — drifting in one of the deepest cocoons.

And the shock of the battle, the breaking of the lesser cocoons, the presence of a real living mind fighting back inside the abomination’s own sea — had finally cracked her open.

Her gaze swept across the corrupted figures of her own comrades. Across the broken face of her own commander, Marc, charging through the press with phantom beasts at his heels. Across the cocoons of every other soul the parasite had ever worn.

Her eyes filled with tears.

She turned toward Emery, and through the chaos of the battle, a soul-message reached him — clear, calm, soft as falling petals.

[This is all my fault.]

A pause.

[Let me make it right.]

Then the sea of consciousness shook one more time.

Lirien moved.

She did not draw a weapon. She did not summon a technique.

Instead, her entire body dissolved into pure spirit-light.

Brilliant silver radiance erupted from her soul, illuminating the cavern brighter than any sun. The sea of consciousness trembled as she accelerated forward, becoming a comet of living light streaking directly toward the corrupted Emery at the center of the hive.

The parasite sensed the danger instantly.

The corrupted Emery spun around.

For the first time, genuine panic appeared on its face.

Thousands of yellow eyes opened across the cavern.

The hive screamed.

It was too late.

Lirien struck the corrupted Emery dead-center, and brilliant light erupted from the impact.

Pure.

Blinding.

Clean.

The radiance spread through the cavern like a cleansing tide, washing across every wall and every cocoon. Cracks raced from one end of the cave to the other as the entire sea of consciousness began to fracture under the force of the collision. Thousands of cocoons shattered in succession, fragments of flesh and corruption disintegrating into drifting motes of light.

The corrupted Emery threw back its head and screamed.

The mocking chittering laughter that had echoed throughout the hive collapsed into a broken, agonized wail.

Then the sea of consciousness split apart.

Emery felt a great force grip him from outside — his own true body, his own domain, calling its souls home — and he was pulled out. Around him, hundreds of pale motes of light rose alongside him, each one a freed soul streaming out of the dying cave behind him into the open air beyond.

Only the corrupted Emery remained behind, screaming, dissolving into the violet smoke from which it had come.