Earth's Greatest Magus

Emery was restrained by the Sky array, and to stop the Storm Lord’s wrath, he called out a name.

“VIA!”

In the next instant, a towering humanoid figure of white and gold burst forth from a spatial fold beside him. The super golem’s polished armor gleamed with layered runic circuits, its core blazing like a miniature sun as it surged upward to intercept the attack.

The Storm Lord’s lightning spear came down like divine punishment.

KABOOOM!

The golem crossed both arms before its chest, layered barriers unfolding in hexagonal plates of light while raw kinetic force thrummed through its frame. Lightning detonated across its guard in a storm of violet and blue, but the construct did not yield. Its heels carved trenches through the air itself as it absorbed the full brunt of the strike.

“This thing again!” the Storm Lord snarled, fury tightening his features as he shot forward, abandoning ranged attacks in favor of close combat.

The super golem met him without hesitation, metal fists swinging with mountain-breaking force as the two titans clashed in a separate pocket of sky, thunder and steel colliding in continuous shockwaves that rippled outward like expanding rings in water.

Their engagement allowed Emery to focus on breaking the array that held him. With a thunderous roar, he swung Excalibur in a sweeping arc, light and darkness spiraling along the blade’s edge. The strike smashed into the heart of the Sky-Soaring Array, forcing the intertwined winds, lightning, and frost to shudder out of rhythm. The disruption lasted only a heartbeat, but that was enough.

Emery’s battlefield domain ignited.

Space warped.

Invisible pressure descended across the area as spatial laws twisted under his will. The three royal guardians felt it immediately-distance stretched unpredictably, gravity skewed, and their coordination faltered as the environment itself turned hostile.

They reacted like veterans, each releasing their own domain to counter the suppression, elemental fields flaring around them in resistance. But before they could fully stabilize, thin cracks tore open in the air around their positions.

From those rifts burst writhing Twilight vines, thick as siege chains and glowing with a deep violet-green sheen. They shot outward with predatory precision, coiling around limbs, weapons, and auras alike.

“What are these?!” one of them shouted as the vines bit into his domain barrier.

Emery did not give them time to adapt.

A brilliant green radiance flared behind his back as a pair of translucent, leaf-veined wings unfolded-Icarus Wing. The artifact roared to life, flooding his body with explosive acceleration as he vanished in a streak of emerald light.

His target had already been chosen.

The wind royal guard.

Emery had studied their formation in the earlier exchanges; with his deep compression of all elements, he found the axis that stabilized the array’s rotational flow. Remove him, and the synergy would collapse.

He lunged forward, Excalibur drawn back for a killing stroke. “NO!”

However.

The Heaven’s Will Sword Master blurred into his path, silver blade intercepting in a violent clash that blasted the air apart.

BANG!

“I will not let you kill another!” the Sword Master growled, pressing down with all the weight of his intent.

Emery smiled faintly.

Space folded.

Instead of pushing forward, he stepped sideways-and vanished. A spatial distortion rippled behind the targeted royal guard, and Emery materialized from it like a phantom.

The wind grand magus had time only to widen his eyes.

His defensive artifact was activated, but it was shattered under Emery powerfull strike.

SPLATT!

Excalibur drove through his chest in a burst of light and blood. Emery ripped the blade upward in one merciless motion, cleaving through bone and soul alike. The body split apart midair, fragments of his soul scattering as the Dao of Heaven and Earth tore through the remains.

“One more down-“

The words ended in a choke.

Emery’s body convulsed, and a spray of blood burst from his lips, staining the storm-torn sky crimson as the backlash of his unstable power finally began to

surface.

Despite the terrifying aura rolling off him in waves, the truth inside Emery’s body was far less glorious.

Pain gnawed at him from the inside out.

Moments ago, he had forcefully drawn down a tribulation that should never have descended in such a state. In doing so, he had shattered the limits of all three layers of his two-cosmos foundation at once, gambling everything on a breakthrough under impossible conditions. Normally, a grand magus had to withstand at least two-thirds of the tribulation lightning to stabilize a new realm. Emery had barely endured a fifth of it.

By every standard-

It was a failed breakthrough.

The power surging through him now did not come from success, but from the remnants of that heavenly punishment still trapped inside his body. Strands of tribulation lightning crawled through his meridians like living things, violently refining his flesh and soul, pushing his realm to the peak of two cosmos while also tearing at them.

It was a temporary, unstable amplification.

And it was burning him alive.

Every movement sent fractures of pain through his spiritual body. His soul force circulation was erratic, swelling one moment and collapsing the next.

When it ran dry, the backlash would come.

At best, his cultivation would fall. At worst, the damage to his soul core could cripple his path forever.

Emery understood his situation with painful clarity. He had not stayed behind to win, nor to prove anything to the gathered powers of the realms. He remained for one reason: to buy enough time for Klea to escape to safety, while inflicting damage severe enough that the Astiel clan would think twice before

ever crossing him again.

Unfortunately, his condition did not escape the sharp eyes of the experts below. The fluctuations in his aura, the strain in his breathing, and the blood he

failed to fully suppress all revealed the truth.

Darian Astiel saw it and smiled coldly.

“He’s done!… kill him.””

At the ruler’s command, more than a dozen Astiel grand magus shot into the sky, and a dozen more grand magus from their affiliates’ faction joined. Thirty

grand magus in total, their domains unfolding and layering over one another, turning the air heavy with crushing intent. At the forefront came the Heaven’s Will Sword Master, his blade blazing as he struck without hesitation.

CLANKK!!!

As Emery parried with Excalibur, he felt it-

Resistance from the divine sword.

Whether from overuse or the weight of the lives it had taken, the blade

rebelled once more in his grasp. Forced back by the Sword Master’s strike, Emery made a split-second decision.

He sheathed Excalibur back into his domain.

In its place appeared two blades-Embernight in one hand, wreathed in black-red flame, and Frostveil in the other, radiating killing cold. Though neither matched Excalibur alone, their opposing natures aligned perfectly with his Dao of Heaven and Earth.

As the group of grand magus closed in, Emery crossed both swords in a crossing arc, flame and frost twisting together before erupting into the shapes of colossal dragon phantoms. One roared with devouring crimson fire, its scales forged from destruction itself. The other howled with glacial fury, its body formed from storming ice and absolute zero. Shock rippled through the group for the briefest instant. “Killgragah… Daurgototh,” Emery growled. “Let’s kill them all!!”