Earth's Greatest Magus

Both Caelthar and Ishtar were Nephilim elites, veterans of intrigue and survival who had never relied on a single lifeline. Their bodies were layered with artifacts-each one designed to use the moment things turned dire.

Ishtar moved first.

She flung a dull silver sphere behind them, her fingers snapping open as the artifact detonated midair. The metal shell dissolved into a billowing storm of distorted smoke, thick and iridescent, spreading rapidly through the sky. The mist did not merely obscure vision-it clawed directly at divine perception, fragmenting spatial awareness and flooding the senses with false echoes. Distances twisted. Directions overlapped. To any pursuer relying on divine sense, the world became a maze of overlapping illusions.

At the same time, Caelthar completed a precise sequence of hand seals.

A colossal sword unfolded.

Nearly ten meters long, its blade was etched with ancient runes. This was

no weapon-it was a flight artifact, a high-speed vessel shaped like a sword, its edges surrounded by rotating internal energy blades that screamed as they cut through the air, both propelling and shielding them at once.

Caelthar poured his cosmic energy into it without restraint.

The sword howled.

The sky warped.

Within seconds, the landscape below vanished into streaks of lights as the artifact ripped through the upper atmosphere. They crossed dozens of miles in heartbeats.

“Did we did we get away?!” Ishtar shouted, her voice cracking as she glanced back, desperation bleeding through her arrogance.

Caelthar did not answer immediately.

His eyes were closed, his divine sense stretched, filtering through the distortion left by the smoke artifact. His brow furrowed-and then tightened.

“No,” he said grimly. “We didn’t.”

Ishtar froze. “What…? That’s impossible! That mist should blind even a three-cosmos divine sense!”

Caelthar’s jaw clenched as he focused on a single presence slicing through the chaos behind them.

“Only one.”

Ishtar’s lips trembled, then curved into a hopeful smile. “That’s good, isn’t it? We held the other one back!”

Her relief shattered instantly.

Space ahead of them rippled.

A spatial fracture-tore open directly in their path.

“Damn it!” Ishtar screamed. “That cursed space magic!”

Caelthar reacted instantly. With a sharp gesture, multiple of his spirit weapons shot forward, detonating into a storm of ice shards aimed directly at the forming rift. At the same time, he wrenched the sword-vessel into a violent evasive maneuver, forcing its trajectory sideways.

The ice shattered.

From within the collapsing rift, a figure burst forth-wings of blazing light flaring as he emerged.

Emery.

The Icarus Wings roared, their radiant arcs cutting through the air as he accelerated instantly, closing the distance in a flash of thunder and pressure.

“You’re not going anywhere!!” Emery’s voice boomed across the sky, heavy with killing intent. “Tell me where she is!”

Ishtar shrieked and instinctively raised her bow.

The divine artifact blazed to life as she loosed a barrage of radiant arrows, each one streaking through the air with destructive power capable of piercing grand magus defenses.

They were meaningless.

Emery twisted mid-flight, his movements precise and terrifyingly calm. Some arrows were dodged by hair’s breadth. Others were deflected casually with Excalibur, shattered into motes of fading light.

“T-take this then!!” Ishtar screamed.

She slammed her palm against a crystalline seal at her wrist. A hexagonal artifact unfolded instantly, splitting apart midair into hundreds of interlocking light-plates that twisted and expanded. With a sharp metallic shriek, they snapped shut, transforming into a dense mesh of luminous nets that wrapped around Emery’s form from every angle.

“I got him!!” Ishtar cried, laughter breaking through her fear.

“No,” Caelthar said flatly. “You didn’t.”

The figure trapped within the net flickered.

Its outline blurred, stretched unnaturally-and then dissolved, breaking apart into nothing more than a fading afterimage.

“How-?!” Ishtar cried out, her voice sharp with disbelief.

What she had captured was never Emery at all.

In that fleeting instant, Emery had invoked time manipulation, slowing the flow of space around his own body just enough to slip free. Through exquisite control over momentum and temporal distortion, he left behind a perfectly timed false silhouette-an echo carved from delayed motion rather than

illusion.

The real Emery had already halted an instant earlier, suspending himself in midair as the hexagonal nets snapped shut around empty space. The trap collapsed inward with a violent hum, sealing nothing at all.

Then the Icarus Wings ignited again.

With a thunderous crack, Emery surged forward, space warping behind him as

he closed the distance once more. Excalibur flared in his grasp, and he unleashed a sweeping sword strike that tore through the air like a falling

judgment.

BAAAMMM!!

The protective barriers surrounding Caelthar and Ishtar screamed under the impact, trembling violently. Though they held, the force disrupted their flight artifacts, destabilizing their trajectory and compelling them to slow-just

enough.

Another strike followed.

BAAAMMM!!

Then another.

BAAAMMM!!

Each blow shook their defenses harder than the last, until maintaining escape

became impossible.

“What are we going to do?!” Ishtar shrieked, her composure completely

shattered.

Caelthar did not answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on the horizon ahead.

“I hope they can hold him longer,” he muttered under his breath.

As if summoned by those words, a massive silhouette emerged ahead of them, a streamlined fighter-class ship surging through the clouds.

“It’s one of ours!” she cried out, her voice breaking with desperate joy. From the very beginning, Caelthar had been steering their escape toward this exact rendezvous point. The ship wasted no time acknowledging its targets; weapon arrays flared, and a barrage of pulse cannon fire tore through the sky toward Emery.

The Fourfold Dawns spun into motion around Emery, their rotating barriers intercepting the barrage in layered bursts of light. Explosions rippled across the shields, and though none broke through, the sheer force of the bombardment slowed his pursuit, pushing him back through waves of shock

and fire.

Caelthar seized the opportunity and accelerated, pouring more energy into the sword-vessel beneath his feet while the fighter maneuvered behind Emery, continuing to unleash relentless fire.

For a brief moment, distance began to open between them.

Then-

A flash of white light ripped through the sky.

The fighter ship shuddered violently as something slammed into it from above,

striking a precise blind spot along its dorsal plating. Metal crumpled. Systems failed. The vessel spiraled out of formation as explosions ripped through its

interior.

It was the super golem.

Under VIA’s control, the massive construct crashed down onto the ship like a descending meteor, its fist punching straight through reinforced armor. Another blow followed, then another, each impact crushing systems and tearing the vessel apart piece by piece until it disintegrated into flaming

wreckage.

Figures were flung from the exploding hull-one grand magus and over half a dozen magus-scrambling desperately to stabilize themselves in midair. They barely had time to form spells before the golem’s arms reshaped, energy blades unfolding with a low, predatory hum.

Under Emery’s absolute command, the golem moved.

Within seconds, the sky was stained with blood.

Some fell lifeless, others crippled and spiraling downward, their screams

swallowed by the wind.

Ishtar watched in horror.

“Monster…” she gasped, “Where did he even find something like that?!”

Emery was already closing in again, the Icarus Wings blazing as he tore through the air like an avenging specter.

Caelthar’s expression darkened. He bit down hard on his finger, drawing blood, and slammed his palm against the artifact beneath his feet. The blood ignited instantly, absorbed by the runes etched into the weapon. Using his own life essence, he forced the artifact beyond its limits, unleashing a surge of power that sent them rocketing forward at an overwhelming speed-just enough to

match Emery’s pursuit.

Emery frowned as he felt the sudden acceleration. These Nephilim elites truly had endless contingencies.

His Spatial Gate would take too long to cast at this distance without a fixed destination. A single miscalculation would only let them slip farther away. Left with no other choice, Emery pushed the Icarus Wings to their absolute

limit,

At the same time, he layered temporal dilation and spatial compression around

his body, bending distance itself to squeeze out more speed.

The world warped around him.

Wind screamed. Space groaned.

Little by little, he began to close the gap again.

Caelthar’s thoughts were in turmoil.

The man chasing him had become something he could no longer comprehend.

What began as dismissal-an underestimated outsider-had twisted into reluctant admiration, and now, slowly, into something far more unsettling.

Fear.

Who is he, really?

Someone like this cannot be a nobody… definitely not someone born of a lower realm.

The realization gnawed at him, tightening his grip on the artifact beneath his

feet.

Minutes slipped by in strained silence, broken only by the howl of wind and the

roar of pursuit.

Then.

Hope came for the Nephilims.

Behind the chase, two more ships were beginning to close in, their silhouettes

growing clearer with each passing second. Two additional grand magus reinforcement converging rapidly.

At the same time, Caelthar subtly adjusted their trajectory, guiding the chase

toward a new vector altogether. Emery turn to frown.

VIA’s analysis streamed into his mind a heartbeat later.

The result drew a sharp breath from him.

Ahead, cutting across their path, loomed a medium-sized Nephilim vessel

bearing the markings of an entirely different clan-guests invited to the Astiel celebration. Three grand magus signatures burned brightly aboard it.

If the battle spilled into that space, it would no longer be a private pursuit.

Clashing openly with another Nephilim family would escalate this far beyond a rescue mission.

Emery faced a true crossroads.

Should he press forward, consequences be damned?

Or retreat?