Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Queen Seraphine raised a hand.

Deep-gold energy spilled from her palm and spread outward, snapping into a shield that enclosed everyone. The raging wind slammed into it. The golden surface shuddered again and again, but the gale still couldn’t break through.

Ataneya unfurled her twelve tails.

The massive fox tails opened one after another behind her, their tips bracing against the platform to anchor her stance. She lifted her chin and looked toward the wind wall with open disdain.

Maelor’s silhouette flickered in and out behind the high-speed rotating air. He kept shifting position, and the wind wall shifted with him, constantly changing its angle. It was impossible to tell where he’d appear next.

Ataneya drew her tails forward, wrapping them around the group again, adding another layer of cover over Queen Seraphine’s shield. At the same time, she lifted one hand. Blue energy gathered in her palm at blistering speed.

Specks of light were pulled in from all directions.

They compressed tighter and tighter until a stable blue orb formed. The air around it was pushed outward, and even the nearby wind currents opened into a brief gap, like the atmosphere didn’t dare touch it.

That was when Ethan stood back up.

With Feylora’s treatment, his breathing had steadied. White lightning crawled up his arms again, gathering in his palm into a sphere. The arcs tightened, and the light sharpened.

He and Ataneya raised their hands at the same time.

The white lightning sphere and the blue orb shot out from inside the shield, slipping through a gap between Ataneya’s tails, and slammed straight into the tornado outside.

The two attacks flew along neighboring lines. White lightning struck first—its arcs immediately spread along the rotating airflow, ripping outward to both sides. The blue orb followed right behind, punching into the region the current had torn open and shoving the wind even farther back.

A rupture appeared in the center of the wind wall.

It widened fast. The ring tornado around the platform was blown open from the inside by those two forces. Huge volumes of air lost their spiral track and scattered to either side, and the view beyond the shield finally cleared.

Feylora let go at last, dropping to sit beside Ethan and sucking in a breath.

Auri and Idra waved Anya and Nysera over, pulling them into a tight little cluster.

Auri craned her neck, staring at Maelor’s half-seen shape in the wind, and pumped her small fist.

"Hit it! It’s so ugly!"

Then she glanced at Idra, voice turning even more absolute.

"Not pretty like Idra. Kill it!"

Auri, Idra, Anya, and Nysera all moved in close to Ethan.

The four kids’ bodies dissolved into pure energy and flowed into him one after another. Different powers flashed across Ethan’s frame for a brief moment, then sank out of sight. His outline began to break apart, his body shedding from the edges into countless tiny black particles.

Those particles didn’t stay there.

They scattered—

—and vanished from everyone’s eyes.

Ataneya pulled back the tails she’d been using to guard the group.

Her attack and Ethan’s had already blown through the tornado, but outside the wind wall there was no sound of impact. No sign Maelor had been hit.

Only his voice came from different directions in the space, drifting like it was riding the currents.

"You’re really something!"

There was no anger in it—only thicker interest.

"Which makes this even more fun."

The moment the words ended, the smile on Maelor’s face abruptly froze.

Pain flared inside him.

He looked down at his chest. The hands that had once looked human were changing. His fingers lengthened, tips sharpening, skin and bone twisting under the pressure of power until they formed dragon claws.

Maelor didn’t hesitate.

One claw plunged straight into his own chest. Five fingers speared inward. He followed the pain’s source and quickly caught something moving inside.

Then he yanked.

A human-shaped figure made of black particles was ripped out of his chest and flung away.

The black figure tumbled through the air. The particles clung together instead of fully dispersing. Meanwhile, the wound in Maelor’s chest sealed rapidly under wind power, flesh closing back up until only a brief ripple of energy remained.

Maelor stared forward, ice-cold.

"What went into my body?"

His claw slowly tightened.

"And what the hell are you?"

The black particles surged back together.

Ethan’s body reappeared in midair. He steadied himself, face tense as he locked onto Maelor.

He’d been a hair away.

He’d gotten inside Maelor, pushing deeper along the energy flow. If he’d made it just a little farther, he would’ve reached the core inside him.

But at the critical point, wind walls had appeared without warning.

They weren’t outside Maelor’s body.

They were inside him.

Every time Ethan’s particles moved toward the core, wind crushed in from different angles—tearing him apart, then forcing him off course.

Particle form made Ethan easier to spread, and it let him fill Maelor’s body from within.

And at the same time, those wind-driven distortions exposed him.

That was how Maelor found him.

Ethan watched Maelor’s already-healed chest, then raised both hands slowly.

One more time.

Just once.

If he could cross those internal wind walls and touch the core, he was confident he could seize control of Maelor—and drain that power out.

Several white energy spheres formed behind Ethan one by one.

They lined up with eerie precision, each one the same distance from the next. White arcs jumped between them. When the energy stabilized, Ethan shoved his arms forward.

The spheres launched together.

They sailed over his shoulders from behind him, flying at Maelor from different angles. The front ones locked onto Maelor’s head and chest, while the ones behind sealed off both sides, trying to compress his movement space.

Maelor lifted a hand and flicked the first one away.

The sphere met the wind, slid off its intended path, and cut past his shoulder. The second slammed toward his chest and was stopped by a layer of airflow hugging his body. White light burst at the contact point, then vanished.

A few struck him directly, leaving only brief snapping arcs across his skin.

Maelor clearly sensed these spheres might have a secondary purpose, so he handled them cautiously at first. Every dodge was minimal, just inches. Every time, he used wind to keep the spheres separated, refusing to let any energy get close enough to slip into his body.

One.

Two.

Three.

The more he avoided, the easier it became.

Maelor quickly realized something.

These spheres were slow.

Painfully slow.

He tilted his head, letting one white lightning ball skim past his cheek, then stepped back half a pace to avoid another rising from below. The two attacks crossed behind him—

—and didn’t even brush his clothes.

"Can’t you go any faster?"

Maelor yawned, tail swaying lazily behind him.

"I’ve got flowers waiting to wilt over here!"

Then his body dispersed into the wind.

His clear outline stretched into airflow, and in the blink of an eye he became a streak of high-speed wind that shot off into the distance. The space he left behind didn’t stay empty. Small tornadoes rose one after another—

—surrounding Ethan at the center.