Earth's Greatest Magus

"The King wants you to come. It's you only, and we need to leave now." Magus Shena said, when she saw Emery turn his head towards his friends.

He could faintly sense this must have something to do with Roran's death, so Emery decided to follow the magus. In the meantime, Klea and the others would continue to stay to look after Roran's remains until his family or faction arrived.

"Take care, Emery." Klea said, clearly concerned with the whole situation.

Before leaving for their destination, Magus Shena glanced at Lymord, who was still visibly distraught by Roran's lifeless body, "You should not wander around places as well. I advise you to stay out of sight for a period of time."

The two of them left the room and walked out of the Grand Hall. Arriving outside, Emery could see there were many people, mostly the crowds from the arena.

They filled the road leading to the portals, and from the looks of it, the queue would take some time to clear.

"Not the portal. This way," Magus Shena said, when she saw he was about to join the queue.

The female magus led him in the direction of the dock. It looked like they would be leaving through the sky on a spaceship.

"What's going on?" Emery asked, confused by the situation. "I thought we were going to Zodiac City?"

"That's right. Don't worry, this is just a precaution."

***

Being one of the planets in the star system closest to the Magus Academy, it took a little over an hour for Emery and Magus Shena to finally arrive on the planet where the Zodiac City was situated.

There were multiple drones guarding the orbits, scanning the shop content.

[Gemini three, you are clear for landing]

Emery needed to wait a few more minutes as the ship made its landing.

As the ship continued to descend towards the ground, he could see the magnificent view of Zodiac City from the sky.

But it didn't take him long to realize the streets of the city, which were in his memory full of life, were much more empty.

Instead of people going back and forth doing their business, there were more guards equipped with weapons roaming around.

Even though the sun was about to set, which might be the reason for the depressing sight, Emery had never seen the city like this before.

The ship safely made its landing in the clearing behind the Zodiac City Palace.

To Emery's surprise, the place turned out to be inhabited by three dragons. The existence of the three Mythical creatures caught him off guard.

"It seems the meeting has started!" Magus Shena said after seeing the dragons.

Escorted by Magus Shena, Emery made his way towards the palace hall. When he got there, he was once again surprised to see Zach Talon was also present.

The Dragon Prince was standing in the center of the hall right before a white-haired man sitting on a throne, who exuded a domineering presence, King Alduin, the ruler of Zodiac City.

Besides him, there were also four peak Full Moon magus and two grand magus figures in the hall.

Among them, Emery recognized his clan chief, Magus Heorgar the Demon Wolf, and Zach's deranged master, Grand Magus Lilith.

As for the rest of the people, he could only assume they must be the representatives from the other bloodlines.

This was, without a doubt, a gathering of the best and most influential figures in the Zodiac City.

But of course, Emery started by paying his respects to the half-blood king, before finally approaching Zach and standing beside the Dragon Prince.

At the moment, a skinny middle-aged man with a feathery wing on his back – the second grand magus figure in the hall and the person who replaced Lord Esbern, was leading the talks.

"7 Flag Bearers are accounted for. The others are away. We are currently waiting for news from them." The middle-aged man was saying to everyone present. Attention, however, was quickly switched away from him as a snort could be heard.

"Huh! There is no need to wait for news from the Snake or the Bat!" said Grand Magus Lilith with clear scorn.

The grand magus, the man known as Lord Sinure of the Bird Bloodline, added.

"Other than the people in this room, our current strength is 38 magus, 3000 city guards and excluding the trainee, we have 22,000 warriors ready in the Barracks"

The other flagbearer started to give reports about backing from their bloodline allies.

The situation seemed much more dire than expected. Emery quickly noticed that Zach, who was standing beside him, also didn't seem to understand the situation. This was definitely something more than a death done by a half-blood in a friendly tournament setting.

They appeared to be preparing for war!

Before long, realizing Emery's confusion, Grand Magus Sinure turned his head at Emery and Zach. The latter two were tense, when the former began explaining the situation.

"While the two of you were competing in the tournament, an incident happened. Several massacres occurred throughout the Golden City and several hundreds of people died. Most importantly, everything pointed towards us, the half-bloods."

The news brought a wave of shock to them both. Coupled that with Annara's action, there was definitely, no doubt, something big was at play.

The man then added, "All access in and out of Zodiac City is currently under strict protocols, as for the two of you, until the threat is dealt with, both of you will stay here and will be under the full protection of Zodiac City."

Before Emery and Zach could protest, the grand magus added, "Yes, of course, the tournament still needs to continue, but we will allocate more magus to accompany you two."

Hearing such words, Grand Magus Lilith commented, "Just do what needs to be done. This has nothing to do with Zach. He still has to prepare for tomorrow's fight."

It was at this time that King Alduin, who had been silent all this time, spoke.

"The tournament is important to us, but this incident is also no small matter. I need you all to work together to protect the city, find the real culprit as well as prepare for the worst."

After discussing and confirming the resources needed for the plan, the meeting was quickly concluded. People began to leave the hall to go ahead with what they were responsible for, but Emery was asked to stay.

Only King Alduin, his right-hand man Ulrik and Magus Shena remained in the hall when Emery was asked to explain his relationship with Annara.

Since he felt he had nothing to hide, Emery went on and talked about everything he could think of – the Kulturmak incident, the time he spent on the empty planet, in Ouroboros, the mission of Andorra and finally he told about the messages he got from her.

King Alduin nodded when Emery finished his explanation, but there was no verbal response. Before the latter could say anything, he then spoke of another matter.

"You will have to face two strong acolytes tomorrow. How prepared are you?"

Of course, the king was talking about Eeshoo and Mahinder, who most likely would win his match against Zetto.

Emery stood silent for a second hearing the question. With him just finished mastering gravity and the breakthrough he had today, to be honest he had nothing much else to prepare.

Therefore he looked at the lord of the Zodiac City and spoke with conviction.

"I am ready to fight both of them."

"Good," the man said. "I am going to Golden City right now. You will come with me."

It was an order Emery couldn't refuse.