Earth's Greatest Magus

Swiissshhh—!!!

BAMMM–!!

The air seemed to be torn apart as the Abyss creature swung its massive pincer arm, killing intent oozing out from its hideous insect face. It was so fast and powerful that it blasted the ground it hit into pieces.

As if its pincer arms weren't enough of a lethal threat, the Abyss creature still had other ways of attacking. The scythe limbs hanging from its back were extremely dangerous, as they moved quickly and strike from all sorts of unpredictable and blind angles.

The combination that the Abyss creature did using the two made Emery find it hard to even get close to the creature, let alone plunge his claw into its body. He already had a very difficult time to evade all the attacks thrown in his direction, as some of them managed to connect and made a few scratches on the plant armor covering his body.

Employing his [36 Dao Divine Technique] movement steps to its utmost potential, Emery managed to weave through the relentless onslaught the Abyss creature spouted, moving around the huge creature to land a few definitive blows. Unfortunately, his attempts only resulted in a few scratches.

With a single mistake in his calculations. The Abyss creature took advantage of it and swung its huge pincer arm, 

BAMM!!

It threw him dozens of meters away and sent him into a state of pain. A large part of his plant armor cracked and broke apart by the blow, while he himself coughed out a mouthful of blood.

Fortunately, just like his opponent, with the help of spirit being, the plant armor covering Emery's body was also able to quickly regenerate back to its original state. Even so, this deadlock would not last long.

Just as the spirit being said, he could tell that the Abyss creature was getting stronger every minute.

Emery needed a way to close in on the Abyss creature in order to drive his claws and deal some real damage. He first thought about distracting the creature by creating multiple shadows of himself with [Shadow Mist]. Unfortunately, his idea proved to be ineffective when the creature easily took down his clones with its psyche attack.

"You can't fool me!!"

Not giving up despite his countless failures, Emery charged towards the Abyss creature again. This time, he cast [Dark Void] trying to hide his tracks from his opponent's eyes, and it turned out that the psyche attack couldn't be used to tackle this particular spell as Emery was able to close in on the creature. Combined with [Blink], it surprisingly became a very dangerous move for his opponent.

Splaatt!! Spalltt!!

"AArggghh!!"

A loud beastly groan, followed by a repulsive splash of blood scattered in the air before falling to the ground. Emery continued to swing his arms over and over, sending his claws into the Abyss creature's body. But for every time he could strike the creature, its scythe limbs would strike a retaliation as quickly; when he got struck, Emery's figure would be forced to come out from the void.

"I need to do it faster!" 

[Dark Void], [Blink], [Shadow mist] the three took turns with each other as Emery relentlessly tried to strike down the Abyss creature, which also put up an equally fierce counterattack with the same intent.

Once again, amidst the exchange of deadly strikes, Emery tried to find a way to improve his attack. Based on the workings of his [Shadow Mist] spell which bore resemblance to the way water would create a reflection, he began to formulate another spell.

A reflection that did not hide in shadow but in the void, the opponent couldnt find the real him even with such a high psyche ability. 

[Void Mist]

At first, it only affected two shadow figures of Emery, but eventually as the battle progressed a total of four shadow figures still remained. They all phased within the void, and were all resistant to the Abyss creature's psyche attack.

The Abyss creature was no longer able to take down Emery's clones immediately, and with the distractions they provided, the real Emery managed to plunge his claws deep into its body, causing it to let out a deafening shriek.

Splatt! Splatt!!

"Arrgghh!!!"

The Abyss creature tried hard to get a hold of Emery and give him a taste of its suffering, but each time its scythe limbs would hit the wrong figure, It was as if the real Emery could easily switch between the clones.

Time went on and the battle still progressed. Bit by bit, the effect of Emery's [Spirit Devour] accumulated and started to pull in the Abyss creature's energy.

[Spirit force increased]

[Spirit force increased]

Upon realizing this, the Abyss creature was struck with horror.

"What!! What did you do to me?!!"

It suddenly released a powerful energy surge that pushed every Emery in the vicinity a dozen meters. It didn't give chase and instead stood there. It seemed to be calming itself down before turning its gaze towards Emery. A wicked smile plastered on its terrifying face, followed by an eerie laugh that sent chills down the spine.

"I just found a way to catch you."

A sense of foreboding couldn't help but appear on Emery when he saw the creature floated high in the air. It then glanced towards the huge 15 meters tall metal walls, and with a wave of its hand, the thick wall collapsed as a huge chunk of metal – 10 meter in diameter – floated to the air.

Emery guessed that what the creature just did was probably one of the metal element spells it got when it absorbed Commander Raynor. However, no matter how hard and fast the creature would throw the metal at him, he could crush it with ease. It should have known this, and thus Emery was confused by its actions.

But then, Emery saw the Abyss creature flashed its wicked smile while glancing at certain direction, and immediately he realized its intent.

"NO!"

The Abyss creature didn't throw the huge chunk of metal at Emery. Instead, the metal lump shot towards the center of the base, where all the survivors and acolytes were.

Immediately, Emery cast [Blink] and appeared right in the trajectory of the metal lump. He tried to stop it with his body, and when he discovered that he didn't have enough time to do so, he quickly mustered all the strength he had to change its trajectory.

BOOM–!!!

Loud noises echoed through the air as the metal lump landed on a random building hundreds of meters away from where everyone was gathered. A strong gust of wind containing dust and dirt swept across the jade walls protecting the survivors.

Emery, on the other hand, was sent to the ground and raised a dust smoke of his own. The power contained within the metal lump was much stronger than he thought. Seeing this, the Abyss creature laughed.

"As I said, I found a way to catch you."

Emery lifted his head and stared at the Abyss creature with a stern gaze. It returned his gaze with a vicious smile.

"I just understand you, human, biggest weaknesses." The smile on its face widened while a savage glint flashed across its black eyes. "..you are concerned about saving and preserving lives. As for us, death is simply part of nature, and when one dies, hundreds will rise from the remains."

After saying those words, the Abyss creature began to destroy more of the Platoon 1 base walls and extracted the metal. This time, it took the time to bring all of the metal lump to the sky, and as if a magnet, they all gathered around it.

"You cannot run anymore!"

Ten miles worth of thick metal walls had been completely dismantled and assembled into one huge metal asteroid. It hovered in the sky above the center of the base, looming over all the survivors who looked at it with terrified eyes.