Earth's Greatest Magus

Chapter 2970 Sacrifice

It hurt.It really hurt.

Gwen looked down and saw blood pouring from the wound in her side, staining her robes crimson. The strength that had carried her through the battle was slipping away rapidly now, and her vision was beginning to blur around the edges.

Through the haze, she saw the temple standing at the edge of the square. Survivors were still streaming through its doors—civilians, wounded defenders, and the frightened boy she had carried moments ago, now safely pulled from her arms by others and rushed inside.

Safe.

At least they were safe.

She could no longer feel her shoulder. She could no longer feel her back.

And a faint, tired smile touched her lips.

"Will I die here?"

The thought arrived gently, almost kindly.

"Well… I should have died long ago anyway."

A memory surfaced, unbidden — a little girl in a palace too large and too quiet, standing at a high window, dreaming of a great adventure beyond the walls. A girl who had wanted, more than anything, for her life to *mean* something.

She had done her part.

She had tried her best.

She thought she could rest now.

"No" Her fingers tightened. *There's still something I can do"

Her hand moved to the storage pouch at her waist.

Inside remained a single bottle.

The breakthrough pill — the medicine that would carry her at last into the Magus Realm. She had always imagined taking it somewhere quiet and safe, surrounded by the people she loved, with all the time in the world to grow into the power it offered

Instead she stood in the middle of a dying city, soaked in her own blood.

She swallowed it.

...

The reaction was immediate.

Spiritual energy erupted through her body like a river bursting its banks. Every meridian ignited at once. Every bone seemed to scream. Golden light flared around her as the ambient spirit energy of the world rushed inward from every direction, drawn to the breakthrough like iron to a lodestone.

Power flooded her.

The wounds across her flesh dragged themselves partway closed. Her exhausted spirit surged back to life. The strength that had bled out of her returned all at once, and for one impossible moment she felt invincible.

Her cracked sword erupted with radiant light.

And Gwen fought as though the years between had never happened.

Golden sword light swept down entire streets. Golden flame rolled out from her in waves and consumed the infected by the hundred. Every swing of her blade carved a path through the horde; every step she took drove the enemy back.

Hope returned to the square like sunlight breaking cloud.

The defenders rallied. The civilians at the temple doors cheered her name.

"Lady Star Maiden!!"

Even the most exhausted cultivators found something left in themselves and surged forward in her wake.

For a few glorious minutes, the impossible seemed possible.

"Star Maiden!!"

"Star Maiden!!"

The defenders roared her title across the battlefield as the line finally stabilized. The infected, who had been advancing relentlessly for hours, were pushed back street by street beneath the blaze of her sword.

Hope returned.

People who had already accepted death suddenly found the strength to keep fighting.

Then reality returned.

Her body had already been broken before she swallowed the pill. Her spirit had already been spent. The medicine had not healed her — it had only opened the door for her to pour out everything she had left, all at once, with nothing held back and nothing in reserve.

And now there was nothing left.

The strength began to drain from her body as quickly as it had come. The golden light around her guttered and dimmed. Her legs turned to lead. The wounds across her shoulder and side tore open again, and the world began, slowly, to spin.

One step.

Another.

She did not know how she stayed on her feet. She did not know how she kept fighting. She only knew that she could not fall yet — not while the line still held, not while there were still people behind her.

Until, at last, the square began to clear.

The pressure lifted. The infected broke and scattered. And through the ringing in her ears she heard it — cheering, real this time, rolling across the square as fresh banners crested the avenue.

Reinforcements had arrived.

A sense of relief washed through her, soft and complete.

"They made it."

Her fingers loosened.

The sword slipped from her hand and struck the ground.

And Gwen sank slowly to her knees, and then to the cold stone of the square she had refused to abandon.

She heard Livi's voice somewhere above her, ragged and far away, as though shouted from the far end of a long corridor.

"Good. She survived...."

Then other voices — closer, more familiar.

Klea. Kayelin.

"We have to save her. We must!!—"

Warm energy poured into her, gentle and frantic at once, healing light flooding the ruined channels of her body.

But her eyes were so heavy now. Her consciousness was slipping, thinning, drifting apart like smoke in a wind she could not feel.

"Her breakthrough failed…"

"...Her soul — it's dissipating —"

If only she could speak

She wanted to say.

"It's all right"

She turned her head one last time and looked out across the square—at the fallen, at the survivors, and at the temple doors that still stood.

So many falls.

"I wish I could have done more..."

A peaceful smile settled over her face.

And in the final warmth of her fading consciousness, one figure came to mind.

"I told you not to play hero... and here I am..."

One final word escaped her lips.

A name.

"Emery..."

###

10:10

Across the galaxy, in a quiet chamber aboard a ruin warship, Emery sat bent over a delicate apothecary array, his focus narrowed entirely on the half-finished potion taking shape between his hands.

Then the vessel cracked cleanly down the middle.

He froze.

Slowly, he turned his head as though he had heard someone called his name.

A strange feeling pierced deep within his chest.

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