The tribulation clouds slowly thinned, violet lightning fading into distant echoes as the heavens cald. In the silence that followed, one figure remained suspended in the air above the splintered pavilion.
Ery.
Residual arcs of celestial lightning still crawled across his body, sinking into his flesh like dying serpents. Every nerve scread, every bone felt splintered, and the aftershocks of forced ascension rippled through his ridians in waves of agony. Yet none of it mattered.
His eyes found her.
Klea lay in Jinkan's arms, pale, trembling, her lips faintly moving as though caught between consciousness and a dream.
"...Ery..."
The sound reach his ears.
Sothing inside his chest twisted so hard it stole his breath more effectively than the tribulation ever had.
In that mont, the battlefield, the enemies, the politics - all of it vanished. There remained only her.
He wanted to go to her. To descend, to hold her, to burn away whatever poison or soul-binding had been forced upon her.
But the aftereffects of tribulation still wrapped around him like invisible chains. His limbs felt heavy, his spiritual sea turbulent.
His eyes lifted to Jinkan.
She t his gaze imdiately. No words passed between them, yet understanding flowed as clearly as spoken speech.
"She needs imdiate treatnt," Jinkan said aloud, voice tight with urgency.
Ery's jaw clenched. He already knew.
From inside the pagoda, he had seen enough - what the Astiel prince did. The subtle fluctuations in Klea's soul signature soul tampering, suppression, or worse to silence her.
Rage surged up his spine like a rising inferno.
But he crushed it down.
Klea ca first.
Slowly, with visible strain, Ery raised his hand. Space in front of Jinkan distorted, folding inward as he tore open a spatial rift.
It was not the Khaos Gate. With both avatars returned, he could only force a short-range portal- one that would lead closer to the Astiel teleportation nexus, not far enough for safety, but far enough to escape imdiate danger.
Jinkan shifted her stance, preparing to move.
Then the sky roared again.
"None of you are leaving!!!"
The voice bood like rolling thunder, shaking the air itself.
The Storm Lord rose into the sky, his figure wreathed in spiraling currents of wind and lightning. His battlefield domain expanded instantly, a storm world unfolding outward and swallowing the surrounding space. Air howled. Pressure mounted. Space twisted as if caught in a violent vortex.
The forming rift shuddered violently.
Then it shattered into fragnts of broken light.
Ery's jaw tightened.
He stepped forward, power flaring, ready to et the three-cosmos elder head-on.
But Jinkan moved first.
She did not speak to the Storm Lord. She did not appeal to the Grand Overseer. Instead, she turned toward the gathered guests, her voice amplified by spiritual
force.
"Friends, you all heard it. The Astiels forced this woman against her will, and now they dare to stop us from taking her to safety."
Murmurs rippled.
Denard reacted instantly.
"That is a lie!" he shouted, stepping forward with feigned outrage. His voice trembled with manufactured emotion as he indicated toward Ery in the sky. "My bride broke our engagent, betrayed her promise, all for that man. Those two adulterers dare to cause scene here and disgrace this sacred day!" His words were calculated, loud enough for every allied faction to hear.
Ery's gaze snapped toward him.
Just a look.
That was all it took.
Denard's voice hitched, his spine going rigid as instinctive fear crawled up his back. Still, he forced himself to continue, desperation bleeding into his tone.
"He is the cause of everything today! He slaughtered dozens of our warriors-" Denard turned sharply, pointing toward the Heaven's Will Sword Sect delegation. "He even murdered Caelthar!"
The reaction was imdiate.
Shock rippled through the Heaven's Will Sword Sect. Caelthar was one of them, he was one of the sect's brightest prodigy.
Several sword cultivators stepped forward, hands already resting on their hilts, their gazes locking onto Ery with rising hostility.
The sword master voice heavy with disbelief and fury.
"Is this true?! Did you kill him?"
Ery did not answer.
He did not lower his gaze, did not offer explanation, did not attempt justification. His silence was heavy, deliberate-and in the charged atmosphere,
it sounded very much like an admission.
Around them, the crowd's earlier confusion began to harden into sothing uglier. Whispers turned into accusations. Accusations turned into judgnt. Many present were long-ti allies, vassals, or beneficiaries of Astiel power. They did not need the full truth-only a target.
But Ery did not care about their verdict.
He cared about Klea.
While hostility thickened in the air, Ery's thoughts raced. He asured distances, power signatures, escape routes. A direct breakout now would drag Klea into the center of a battlefield between dozens of grand magus.
Unacceptable.
His gaze slid to the one figure still calm amid the chaos.
Oberyn, The Grand Overseer.
The only person here with both the authority and strength to extract Klea to
safety.
A silent ntal exchange passed between them.
Then,
Ery rose higher into the sky, aura blazing.
"Yes, it's true!" his voice carrying across the fractured plaza "She chose .
That Astiel prince never deserved her!"
A collective gasp rippled through the gathered factions. Jinkan, Eeshoo, even Atlas stared at him in disbelief-but not for the sa
reason as the others. They knew Ery. For him to confess such thing so
provocatively, made no sense-
Until it did.
The Grand Overseer moved at last.
He stepped forward, placing himself subtly between Jinkan and the Astiel
forces, then inclined his head toward Astiel ruler Darian.
"It appears this is a personal matter," he said evenly. "It does not concern us. I
will be taking my disciple to receive imdiate treatnt."
Understanding dawned across several sharp minds at once.
Ery had drawn the bla onto himself, severing public ties between the Amarhiks and the incident. In return, the Overseer would get Klea out to safety. Darian's expression darkened. He saw it too. He understood the implication imdiately. If they allowed the Grand Overseer to depart with Klea under the framing Ery had just created, then-at least publicly-the Asteiel could not be held accountable for what happened to Klea. The narrative would shift away toward a volatile personal conflict.
Darian Astiel's gaze hardened as he weighed against consequence
To seal such hesitation,
Ery turned toward the Heaven's Will Sword Sect again.
His voice rang out, cutting through the murmurs that rolled across the island.
"Yes... I killed Caelthar!!"
A tremor passed through their ranks.
Then Ery's expression turned openly scornful.
"And your so-called third elder? I killed her too."
The effect was explosive.
Gasps, curses, and killing intent flared in every direction. Now it was no longer
only Astiel that had a grievance. The sword sect had lost a prodigy. Their honor demanded blood. Other factions, already unsettled, felt the pull of collective outrage. Even the papal church observers stiffened, expressions darkening at
the ntion of a slain Nephilim elder.
Ery had just given them all a reason.
And while their fury fixed on him, Jinkan moved, guiding the trembling Klea
away under heavy Amarhikks guard.
Ery allowed himself one final glance. That was enough.
"Kill him! Avenge the Third Elder!"
The roar ca from the Astiel ranks, thick with grief and fury, and a figure
broke from their formation like a cot of frost. He was one of the four royal
grand magus guards, a veteran who had stood at the Winter Lord's side for centuries, her direct disciple and inheritor of her killing arts. The mont he moved, a two-cosmos aura detonated outward from his body, waves of glacial power distorting the air and frosting the shattered marble below.
Ice spiraled up his arm, condensing into a massive spear of pale blue crystal,
identical in structure to the Winter Lord's own technique. Runes flickered within the weapon's core, each one humming with lethal precision as killing
intent locked onto Ery's soul.
"DIE!!!"
He thrust the spear forward.
The world along its path froze. Moisture crystallized midair, space stiffening as
if reality itself had been flash-frozen, the weapon stretching into a streak of absolute zero aid straight for Ery's heart.
Ery did not move back.
All the grief, terror, and helpless fury he had been holding in since seeing Klea
collapse burned through him in a single, blistering surge.
He stopped restraining it.
Excalibur manifested in his hand in a blaze of white-gold brilliance, its edge
singing as the Dao of Heaven and Earth roared through his ridians. Lightning from the tribulation still crawled faintly across his skin, and now it fused with
the living force of Gaia and the devouring dark within him, forming a violent, perfect equilibrium.
He stepped forward into the attack and swung.
There was no hesitation.
One clean are of annihilating light.
The ice spear t the blade and crumbled instantly, exploding into a storm of
glittering shards. The Astiel royal guard's eyes widened, fury turning to disbelief as the sword-light continued on, unstoppable.
A thin line of brilliance passed through his chest, separated his body into two
halves, blood mist covered the sky.
Silence fell like a hamr.
One strike.
One of Astiel's top grand magus-gone.
Ery lowered his blade slowly, shoulders rising and falling with controlled,
burning breath. His eyes, bright with grief and wrath, swept across the stunned
ranks of Astiel elites and every watching.
His voice rolled out, layered with the echo of heaven and earth themselves. "Who else!?!" he demanded, pointing Excalibur toward them, "Co at !!!"
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