Earth's Greatest Magus

“Klea!!”

The word tore from Emery’s throat before he could restrain it.

For a brief, terrifying moment, it felt as though his heart had stopped entirely. Atlas carried her down the central aisle of the tribunal hall, one arm supporting her back, the other steadying her frail body as if she weighed nothing. Klea’s skin had lost its color; her lips were pale, her movements slow and fragile, like someone walking at the edge of collapse.

The guards moved instinctively to intercept them, but the judge raised a note of authority.

“Let her approach.”

Atlas reached the front of the hall and carefully helped her stand. Even then, she swayed, her fingers quivering against his sleeve.

“Your name,” the judge demanded.

Her voice barely carried. “Kleopatra… of Earth…”

The judge frowned. “Lady Klea, if you wish to be heard, you must speak clearly.” The impatience in his tone was unmistakable.

Emery felt heat flood his veins. His restraints hummed as his aura threatened to flare, but he forced himself still. If he reacted now, they would silence her.

Klea drew in a shaky breath.

With effort that made every word cost her strength, she began to speak. She described the Frozen Throne.

The day Caelthar captured her.

The months of confinement.

The subtle and deliberate manipulation of her cultivation. The coercion. The pressure. The cold, clinical intent behind Prince Denard’s ambition.

Her voice cracked when she spoke of the Winter Lord-of how the Asteil’s elder had forced its presence into her soul, suppressing her will from within. Each sentence drained her.

The prosecutor did not ease the burden.

“Specify the dates.”

“Describe the methods.”

The questioning was relentless, clinical, and intentionally exhausting.

Emery watched in silence, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. He did not need divine sense to see her life force flickering like a candle battered by the wind.

“That’s enough,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s enough…”

But it was not enough for them.

When she finally finished, the hall fell into tense quiet.

The judge conferred briefly with the panel beside him. His expression remained neutral, detached.

“Thank you for your testimony, Lady Klea,” he said at last. “However, without corroborating evidence, your statements remain unverified.”

Emery’s vision darkened.

It was obvious.

They were prepared to condemn him regardless of what she said.

Then Klea turned.

Their eyes met across the courtroom.

She was pale, trembling, barely able to stand-and yet she smiled.

It was small. Fragile.

But there was resolve in it.

And that frightened him more than anything.

“Whatever you’re trying to do… don’t,” Emery whispered, his voice raw with urgency. He could feel something gathering within her soul, something unstable.

She did not answer him.

Instead, she faced the panel once more.

The faint candle of her life, which moments ago seemed on the verge of extinction, suddenly flared. Not stronger-but sharper, as if burning the last of its oil in one desperate blaze.

“I have proof,” she said.

Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet the entire courtroom fell silent.

Then it happened.

A violent surge erupted from within her body. Spiritual light burst outward, and she screamed-not in defiance, but in agony so pure it froze the air. Guards rushed forward, hands glowing with restraining spells, but the judge lifted his palm, halting them. Everyone felt it.

Her soul was manifesting.

Above her body, a translucent figure began to rise, shimmering and unstable.

Then it blurred.

One became two.

Two became three.

Three became four.

Four became five.

Five overlapping soul-forms hovered above her, flickering like fractured reflections in a broken mirror. But one of them was different. Darker. Colder. Its presence carried ancient frost and cruel intent.

The four brighter fragments moved together.

They forced the fifth outward.

The darker soul was expelled violently from the cluster, twisting as it solidified.

Its aura rippled with icy authority and malignant will.

Emery’s breath stopped.

He knew that presence.

Winter Lord.

The fragment attempted to recoil, but before it could dissolve or retaliate, one

of the judicial elders stepped forward. A complex sealing array erupted beneath him, golden symbols spiraling upward as he extended his hand. A crystalline vessel materialized in midair, glowing with containment runes.

The fragment was dragged inward.

It struggled violently, frost spreading across the surface of the glass, but the sealing formation tightened. Within seconds, the fragment was trapped, swirling like a storm inside a bottle.

“It is a soul fragment,” the elder declared solemnly.

He turned and presented the vessel toward Darian Astiel.

The ruler’s jaw tightened. His eyes darkened.

He uttered nothing.

But he did not deny it.

Emery’s attention never left Klea.

The moment the fragment was extracted, her manifested soul collapsed

inward. Her body wavered once, twice-and then she fell.

“Help her!” Emery shouted, his suppression chains flaring, “Help her! Now!”

Atlas rushed forward and caught her before she struck the floor. Healers converged immediately, their spells weaving around her fragile form. Even from where he stood, Emery could feel it.

Her life force was faint.

Too faint.

They carried her out of the courtroom, and Emery watched helplessly as the

doors closed behind her.

The judge conferred quietly with the panel. Whispers filled the hall. Politics

shifted in real time.

Finally, the judge struck the gavel.

“It is clear that Lady Klea’s mind and soul were tampered with,” he announced. “However, the full circumstances require further verification. Both parties are granted additional time to present evidence.”

A deliberate pause.

“One week. Court is adjourned.”

The additional week granted by the court should have been a relief.

Instead, it felt like a countdown.

As the guards escorted Emery back to his cell, he did not hear the murmurs of

the spectators or the subtle shift in political tension. He heard only the faint echo of Klea’s soul tearing itself apart before the tribunal.

“What is her condition?” he demanded the moment the cell door sealed behind

him.

No answer.

Nothing.

Just silence.