Ery's mastery over the Dao of Heaven and Earth resonated in perfect harmony with the Twilight Transformation.
Light and darkness flowed through his veins in perfect equilibrium, not clashing, not competing, but reinforcing one another in a seamless cycle.
The savage impulses of the wolf bloodline were completely suppressed-not erased, but disciplined-allowing him to retain its monstrous physical resilience and explosive battle power without sacrificing clarity or control. Every movent was precise. Every spell flowed at peak efficiency. His transformation was not berserk fury, but absolute dominance.
With Excalibur in hand, Ery tore through Caelthar's spirit weapon formation.
Each slash carried divine radiance. Ice splintered into glittering dust. Tier-six spirit swords scread as their spiritual cores fractured, their trajectories collapsing as the formation lost coherence.
Caelthar was forced backward for the first ti.
Ishtar's composure cracked.
"That filthy half-blood!" she shrieked, her carefully maintained aristocratic mask twisting with fury and fear. "Caelthar-can you defeat him or not?!"
Caelthar did not answer imdiately.
The cold, analytical calm that had defined him monts earlier had transford into sothing sharper-sothing dangerous. Excitent burned behind his eyes as ancient runes ignited across his forehead, spiraling outward like frostbitten constellations. The remaining sixteen spirit swords trembled, then reorganized, their edges darkening as deathly intent seeped into them.
"This is getting interesting," he murmured.
The formation shifted.
[Second Form: Glacial Sepulcher]
The air collapsed inward as the swords spiraled downward, carving out a massive spherical prison of rotating ice blades. Deathly frost poured from the formation, not rely freezing space but draining vitality itself. This was no simple ice technique-it was a funerary domain, a battlefield ant to entomb enemies alive and grind them down until their souls froze solid.
The pressure slamd into Ery like a mountain.
His defensive field shuddered. Ice shards pierced through gaps in his guard, slicing into his flesh. His wounds closed almost instantly under his
regeneration, but the cold did not vanish. It lingered like venom, crawling into his veins, slowing circulation, numbing nerves.
Without hesitation, he spoke a single na.
"Chutuhlu."
The Khaos Gate of Pestilence responded.
A formless ripple passed through Ery's body as the guardian's authority activated, analyzing, isolating, and expelling foreign substances with ruthless efficiency. The invasive cold energy was stripped away, neutralized as if it were a toxin rather than elental force. His blood burned warm again, vitality roaring back into place.
But the price was imdiate.
Excalibur trembled violently in his grip.
A faint resistance pulsed from the divine sword, its will clashing with the unstable balance of Khaos energy now circulating within Ery's system.
"Tch... stubborn as ever," Ery muttered.
He adjusted instantly.
Instead of forcing more Khaos energy into the equation, he shifted tactics. Two artifacts erged from his domain in a burst of multicolored light-the Chromacircle Rings locking into orbit around his arms, while the Fourfold
Dawns unfolded into a layered defensive lattice before him.
Rainbow-hued spirit energy surged outward, colliding violently with the glacial prison. The rotating ice blades screeched as their montum slowed, destabilized by the chromatic resonance. At the sa ti, Ery's Icarus Wings flared wide, thunder roaring as he burst upward, tearing free from the collapsing kill zone.
Layer after layer of Caelthar's infamous ice prison shattered.
Ishtar's face drained of color.
"What-what are you doing?!" she scread. "Use your famous spirit attacks!!"
Caelthar's voice was sharp, controlled-but strained.
"I already have. Multiple tis." His gaze never left Ery. "And you see it too. He's controlling three high-tier artifacts simultaneously... while maintaining his ntal defense"
He exhaled slowly.
"He is no less a spirit master than I am."
Caelthar's words struck Ishtar harder than any blade.
He was not just another Astiel Grand Magus. He was one of the clan's most celebrated spirit masters-openly grood to one day step into the ranks of true Spirit Champions. Hearing him admit that Ery stood on equal footing splintered the last illusion of safety she clung to.
Fear finally took hold.
In a erupted of panic, Ishtar drew her weapon.
A tier-seven celestial bow unfolded in her hands, its body forged from pale star-tal and inlaid with divine-crystals. As she pulled the string, condensed astral light ford into arrows of shimring light energy, each one capable of wounds a Grand Magus.
She loosed them without restraint.
The sky filled with streaks of golden starlight, a chaotic barrage ant to overwhelm rather than kill cleanly.
It was useless.
Ery moved like a phantom through the storm. So arrows missed by re inches as he shifted his position with surgical precision, others were deflected with casual flicks of Excalibur, their energies shattered before they could even explode. The difference in mastery was humiliating. A powerful artifact was only as deadly as the will and skill behind it-and Ishtar had neither.
"What are we going to do?!" she cried, her voice cracking as panic overtook
arrogance.
Caelthar did not raise his voice.
"Calm down," he uttered coldly. "We only need to hold him for a few more minutes. When reinforcents arrive... I can use that."
The words alone carried weight.
His sword formation shifted once more.
The remaining spirit weapons reversed their rotation, interlocking into a massive crystalline structure as his Battlefield Domain condensed inward. Frost surged outward in controlled waves, solidifying into an enormous Ice Fortress, its walls layered with defensive runes and spiritual reinforcent. This was not an attack-it was a delay, a calculated gamble to buy ti at any cost.
Ery understood the intent instantly.
If he remained trapped here when Astiel reinforcents arrived, escape would beco exponentially harder. Falling deep within enemy territory was not an
option.
But retreat was equally impossible.
Not with both of them standing before him.
Not when Klea's fate was still unanswered.
His gaze sharpened.
Then he opened his domain.
"VIA," Ery called. "It's your turn."
Space tore open beside the battlefield.
A white figure burst forth like a teor-sleek, humanoid, and impossibly dense. Randhall's Super Golem struck from a blind angle with terrifying speed.
Ishtar scoffed reflexively. "A golem? You think a construct can-"
Caelthar's eyes widened, his divine sense could see the truth.
This was no ordinary construct.
It was a golem whose physique rivaled that of a three-cosmos Grand Magus.
The reason behind Ery's confidence.
The golem's fist slamd into the Ice Fortress.
BAAAMM-
The impact detonated like a collapsing star.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the crystalline walls, runes shattering as the fortress buckled inward. Before Caelthar could stabilize the domain, Excalibur descended in a radiant arc, severing the remaining structure in a single,
rciless strike.
The fortress collapsed.
Caelthar did not hesitate. "Run!"
He seized Ishtar and fled.
Defensive artifacts ignited one after another, detonating behind them to
increase their speed and slow pursuit.
The two female Grand Magus charged forward in desperation, but they lasted only seconds-overwheld, crushed, and cast aside like debris.
Ishtar's face drained of all color as she watched her protectors fall.
Caelthar did not look back.
Behind them, thunder roared.
Ery pursued with the Icarus Wings blazing, lightning tearing through the sky
as he closed the distance like a true predator.
His voice thundered across the sky.
"Who allowed you to leave?"
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