Earth's Greatest Magus

Emery stepped forward and inclined his head respectfully.

"Master Atika."

She had been his sword master—the one who had taught him the fundamentals of the blade.

Atika returned the greeting with a slight nod; a familiar readiness settled over her expression.

Before they could start, Emery raised a hand.

"Please forgive me, Master," he said with an apologetic smile. "But there is actually someone who has been insisting on fighting you"

Atika paused, one eyebrow lifting.

Beside her, the Ouroboros Queen’s expression shifted into open confusion. The duel had been arranged to test Emery’s own strength. His words made no sense.

Without another explanation, Emery lifted his hand and opened a waypoint.

A figure stepped through.

He was identical to Emery in every detail, save for hair as black as ink and an aura that carried a colder, heavier edge. Strapped across his back rested a massive stone ruler wrapped in dark cloth.

It was Emery’s Dark Avatar.

"I hope I do not offend you," Emery said.

The Queen’s expression darkened slightly, clearly unimpressed by the substitution.

Then her gaze settled on the avatar, and she finally sensed its true aura.

Two Cosmos.

Its cultivation was not much different from Emery’s true body.

The Queen’s displeasure disappeared almost immediately.

"...Very well."

She rose gracefully from her throne and gestured toward the palace entrance.

"The eastern courtyard."

Emery understood her intention at once.

The last genuine duel he had fought against Atika had taken place within these palace halls nearly four decades ago, when he was still in the Magus realm. This time, however, the Queen had no intention of confining a battle between Two Cosmos Grand Magus indoors. She wanted to witness both combatants fight without restraint.

Emery let out a quiet sigh before sending a mental message through his connection to the avatar.

You better not make any mess.

The two combatants stood facing each other across the open courtyard.

Grand Magus Atika calmly drew the sword from her waist and planted it into the ground. The moment the blade touched the earth, a profound Law of Earth spread across the courtyard, making the very ground seem heavier. Stone and soil flowed over the weapon, reshaping it before everyone’s eyes. In the span of a breath, the slender sword transformed into a massive, jagged broadsword

The dark avatar steadied himself before swinging the Gravestone Ruler down, driving the massive weapon into the stone with a heavy thump.

Atika moved first.

BOOMM!!

The opening clash felt strangely familiar.

Both fighters employed [Three Axis Mountain].

Atika’s version was calm and immovable, like a mountain sinking ever deeper beneath its own impossible weight. Every swing was controlled, every movement deliberate.

The avatar’s was its complete opposite.

Wild.

Violent.

More beast than swordsman.

What followed was anything but elegant. The avatar fought with unrestrained ferocity, every swing driven by instinct and inherited memory rather than refined comprehension. Atika answered with ruthless precision, her blade cutting cleanly through the chaos with decades of disciplined mastery.

Strike after strike collided in rapid succession. Stone exploded beneath misplaced blows while the courtyard churned and cracked under the relentless impacts.

Yet something had changed within Emery’s technique.

A second layer now wrapped itself around the sword.

The Law of Gravity.

Emery’s own comprehension of gravity had remained stagnant for years.

The breakthrough, when it finally came, had not been his own. It came through Dillion, a young Magus connected to him through the [Khaos Voidweave]. Dillion’s understanding of gravity had been too fragmented to benefit himself, yet it resonated with the dark avatar strongly enough to unlock insights hidden within the Tier 7 treasure, the Seven Myriad Mountain Paintings.

Master and disciple had advanced together, each providing the piece the other lacked.

Now that gravity-infused weight bled into every strike.

CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!

Then, as though the warm-up had finally ended, the sword master released her true power.

Her Battlefield Domain unfolded.

The courtyard split apart.

Rows upon rows of sword-shaped pillars erupted from the earth in every direction, each forged from solid stone yet radiating the sharpness of steel. Within moments, the entire battlefield had transformed into a forest of blades, where earth and sword became one overwhelming presence that pressed down upon everything within it.

The dark avatar shuddered.

Emery’s memories of facing that very domain surged through him.

Darkness rippled outward as the avatar answered with his own domain, raw Khaos energy spilling across the courtyard as the two fields collided.

Watching from the edge of the arena, Emery and the others were captivated.

Strike by strike, the avatar was no longer merely imitating [Three Axis Mountain]. It was reshaping the technique, forging an entirely new sword style upon its foundation.

Atika sensed the change as well.

Without another moment of hesitation, her bloodline erupted.

[Shardfang Vipers].

Golden-yellow scales spread across her skin while a blade-like tail unfurled from her lower back. The transformation nearly doubled her physical strength, and the pressure filling the courtyard surged dramatically.

The avatar was driven backward with overwhelming force.

Even so, he refused to yield.

Without Emery’s true body, the avatar could only access an incomplete Twilight Form, drawing upon only a fraction of the primal power flowing through their shared bloodline. It was nowhere near the full transformation Emery himself could unleash, yet it was just enough to contend with a peak Two Cosmos Grand Magus.

Barely.

Even then, technique remained the deciding factor.

Again and again, Atika redirected the avatar’s overwhelming strength with flawless precision. Her blade slipped through his defenses no matter how fiercely he attacked, leaving fresh wounds across the borrowed body as the exchanges continued.

More than a hundred clashes passed in rapid succession.

The avatar’s breathing became ragged, his body was forced back repeatedly, yet with every exchange his movements grew steadier, his responses sharper. Somehow, he was adapting in the middle of the battle.

Then the real problem appeared.

Fine cracks spread beneath the skin of his arm, branching into countless hairline fractures. Weeks of continuous combat had finally caught up with the clone body. Whether the duel ended in victory or defeat, the vessel itself was reaching its limit.

Refusing to lose, the avatar finally reached for the one technique he had yet to reveal.

[Khaos Riftstep].

Space folded around him again and again, allowing him to move with a speed that even Atika’s Battlefield Domain struggled to follow. Each step tore through the boundaries of her domain.

The rhythm of the duel changed instantly.

Moments earlier, the avatar had been forced onto the defensive. Now he slipped through Atika’s guard with impossible precision, each Riftstep carrying him past her defenses and forcing the veteran sword master back another step.

Then, with one final exchange—

The Gravestone Ruler struck.

BAMMM!!!

All gasped as Atika’s broadsword was torn clean from her grasp before crashing into the shattered stone between them.

Silence settled across the ruined courtyard.

Atika looked at her empty hand for a long moment before letting out a slow breath.

A faint smile appeared on her face.

"You win," she said softly.

"The student has surpassed the master."

The avatar said nothing, standing as silent as ever while blood continued dripping from the shallow wounds already beginning to close.

It was Emery who answered in his place.

"You flatter us, Master," he said with a respectful smile. "When it comes to pure swordsmanship, we are still far behind you."

It was the truth.

Every advantage the avatar had gained during the duel had come from the Khaos Domain and his other abilities. In terms of sword technique alone, Atika remained unquestionably superior.

But that had never been the real purpose of sending the avatar to fight in Emery’s place.

By the end of the duel, the avatar’s comprehension of his evolving sword style had deepened considerably, another quiet step toward forging a path that belonged to him alone.

Emery glanced toward the Queen.

Her expression remained unreadable.

Shinta’s, on the other hand, twisted into obvious disappointment.

"I am not satisfied," she complained, crossing her arms before turning toward her grandmother. "Grandmother, what about you personally give Father a lesson or two?" She said with a wide grin.

Emery immediately stiffened.

That little devil!

He had no fear facing a peak Three Cosmos Grand Magus in battle.

The woman seated upon the throne, however, was not merely a peak-realm cultivator.

She was his mother-in-law.

Whether he won or lost, neither outcome promised him a peaceful evening afterward.

Fortunately, the Queen showed no interest in indulging her granddaughter.

Instead, her attention shifted back to the dark avatar. Its figure had already begun flickering faintly around the edges, while cracks of unstable energy spread beneath its half-healed wounds.

"This," Emery said, gesturing toward the avatar, "is the main reason I came."

"I’m looking for a stronger body replacement."

"I see."

The Queen studied the avatar for another moment before nodding slowly.

"So this is the Patriarch’s clone technique..."

The warmth in her expression gradually disappeared, replaced by something far more serious.

"Tell me," she asked quietly, "how much do you know about what is currently happening within the Half-Blood Alliance?"

Emery’s expression grew still.

The truth was, since devoting himself to secluded cultivation, he had paid little attention to the wider Half-Blood community. His contact with the Ouroboros faction had become infrequent, no better than his ties to the Zodiac or even his own Wolf lineage.

Of all his bloodlines, only the Insectoid race remained in regular contact with him, and they shared very little about the affairs of the other Half-Blood factions.

"Is something happening?"

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