Marvel's master of cosmic magic

Chapter 575

"What’s happening? Why are our ships moving?!"

Beyond the island, every warship bearing Behemoth’s insignia began to tremble. Steel groaned. Hulls screamed. One by one, the massive vessels lifted from the sea, rising unnaturally into the air as if the ocean itself had lost its authority over them.

"This... this is impossible," Gade whispered.

He burst out of the command room and onto the deck just in time to see it clearly. Not just his ship, but every Behemoth vessel was airborne, drifting inexorably toward the palace at the island’s center.

Nearby ships belonging to other factions remained untouched.

The contrast was chilling.

Leaders aboard the Na-Do Union, the Azure Current Guild, and the Debtors watched in silence as Behemoth’s fleet was dragged skyward. None of them spoke. None of them could.

This wasn’t speculation. They knew exactly who was responsible.

Through a shared intelligence network compromised long ago, every faction was watching the same live feed. The temporary contractor known as Mirage had already burrowed deep into Behemoth’s systems. Every piece of equipment worn by a gene-soldier had become an unwilling eye.

And what they saw shattered their assumptions.

Each Behemoth warship displaced tens of thousands of tons. The flagship alone exceeded fifty thousand. More than half a million tons of steel now floated helplessly in the air.

Lift that much mass, and even dropping it would be catastrophic. No elite operative alive could survive such an impact.

At that moment, everyone reached the same conclusion.

If Rowan Mercer chose to wage war on the world alone, no nation could stop him.

Tanks were useless. Artillery was meaningless. Aircraft were toys. Even nuclear weapons offered no assurance. Anything made of metal could be sent right back to its sender.

And that wasn’t even accounting for his magic.

The gravity spell alone had crushed dozens of top-tier operatives into submission without killing them. Assassination was a fantasy. Resistance was a joke.

"Holy hell—holy hell—HOLY HELL!"

Near the palace gates, Evan Clarke stared upward as the warships descended from the sky, his brain failing to keep pace with his eyes.

"Rowan Mercer... that’s insane. That’s actually insane."

Moments earlier, Evan and his team hadn’t been affected by the gravity spell at all. He’d known instantly it was intentional. Rowan had spared them.

They’d pretended to kneel anyway. Survival demanded subtlety.

Nearby, Fiona Barlow lay flat against the ground, oddly composed.

"Words fail," she said calmly. "When language breaks, repetition becomes poetry."

Evan screamed again, voice cracking this time. No one noticed. No one cared.

Every kneeling soldier, every infiltrator, every elite operative had their head tilted back now. Their curses spilled out in a dozen languages.

Because above them, the impossible was still happening.

The warships halted over the palace.

Rowan rose from his throne.

He floated upward, his body expanding as it climbed. In seconds, he grew beyond towers, beyond mountains, until he stood as a colossal giant stretching tens of thousands of meters into the sky.

A hand closed around one warship.

He turned, aimed toward the sun, and threw.

The vessel vanished into the distance, shrinking to a black dot before disappearing entirely.

One after another, he repeated the motion.

Each ship was hurled beyond the sky, beyond the planet itself, cast away with indifferent finality.

When it was done, Rowan shrank back to human size and returned to his throne, satisfied.

Those ships would leave the atmosphere. Whether they survived the journey—or the crew survived at all—was not his concern.

The message had been delivered.

"Now," Rowan said pleasantly, lifting a hand as the gravity spell dissipated, "tell me again why you came here."

Ron Keller collapsed where he knelt.

No force held him down anymore. His legs simply refused to obey.

Cold sweat poured down his face. His breathing was shallow, frantic. He understood now. Completely.

Gade was dead. The analysts were dead. Behemoth’s fleet was gone.

If his next words were wrong, he would vanish too.

"Your Majesty," Ron stammered, forcing a trembling smile, "this was our mistake. Our arrogance. We pretended to spread civilization while coveting what was never ours. Please forgive us. Behemoth will compensate you—fully. We will provide all resources Natson Island requires, freely, without condition."

Rowan laughed.

He stood and descended the steps of the throne, passing Hyena and the others. None of them dared move. Their bodies were rigid, eyes forward, terror nailed into their spines.

"You have nothing I want," Rowan said quietly. "Which means you have nothing to offer. And forgiveness is not something you qualify for."

He tapped Ron’s forehead.

Green light flashed.

Ron Keller disintegrated into mist, erased so completely that not even ash remained.

Rowan turned to the stunned gene-soldiers.

"You have thirty minutes," he said calmly. "Leave the island. Swim if you must. Crawl if you must. If you’re still here after that—"

His gaze hardened.

"You’ll follow him."

...

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