Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

When Eldran saw entire swaths of thread disappearing, he hurled his spear.

It passed through the web of golden strands in front of him, then skimmed along the edge of the beam and shot upward, straight toward Elira as she focused on controlling the Divine Sovereign Moth’s wings.

𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Busy clearing the threads ahead, Elira paid little attention to what was above her.

Andona heard the spear tearing through the air first. With a beat of her wings, she crossed the battlefield and reached Elira before the spear could strike. Her golden blade swept upward and met it head-on. The collision blasted the surrounding dust and sand flat.

The spear stopped in midair, but Eldran continued driving it forward.

A multicolored laser shot past Andona’s shoulder and struck the middle of the shaft. Light spread along the spear, breaking down the energy across its surface and steadily weakening its forward momentum.

Andona glanced back.

The Divine Sovereign Moth’s wings remained fully spread behind Elira, every rune glowing steadily. She had locked the laser onto the spear, leaving Eldran no chance to redirect it.

Andona gave a slight nod and turned away. Her golden wings swept downward, launching her high into the sky and leaving the battlefield below to Elira for the moment.

Eldran recalled his spear and carried it behind his back.

He looked up at the rising Andona. Fine threads gathered beneath his feet, crossing and layering over one another until they formed a solid golden platform. The moment Eldran stepped onto it, another platform appeared higher up.

He climbed into the sky one step at a time on a staircase woven from golden thread.

Andona stopped far above him. She didn’t attack immediately. Instead, she spread her wings and allowed Divine Power to gather around her.

Pressure descended from above. The thread steps beneath Eldran vibrated under the strain, and even the surrounding air was forced downward.

A fully solidified Angel appeared behind Andona.

The Angel neither raised its sword nor moved. It simply lowered its head and watched Eldran climb. Its silence made the light around it feel even heavier.

Eldran still had a long way to go before reaching Andona.

But as he climbed the thread steps, the giant behind him began to change. Its outline sharpened, its body expanded with every rise in altitude, and its once-blurred limbs gradually took solid form.

With every step Eldran took, the power radiating from the giant grew stronger.

The main battlefield below had reached a stalemate as well.

Emerald Castle’s army couldn’t put down the soldiers of the Immortal Kingdom for good. Swords could tear through their armor, and energy attacks could destroy their bodies, but whenever one of them died, white light would flare somewhere else on the battlefield.

The fallen soldier would reappear with every wound healed, their mind restored, and all their spent energy replenished.

Emerald Castle could stop one charge.

They could stop ten.

But an enemy that kept coming back gave them no room to breathe. The moment the front line was driven back, fully restored soldiers rushed in to fill the gaps. Both formations advanced and retreated again and again, but neither side managed to break through.

Even as Ethan faced Valric, he kept part of his attention on the edge of the battlefield.

The crystal was still what bothered him most.

While Valric had been busy evading the threads earlier, Ethan had secretly sent one golden strand into the distance to retrieve the crystal Eldran had knocked away. It now rested quietly in his palm, its cold surface dark and giving off no obvious energy.

But Eldran’s initial reaction had already proven it was anything but ordinary.

Ethan ran his thumb along the crystal’s edge, then looked up at Valric.

Valric’s condition was deteriorating.

He hovered just above the ground. One eye had already been consumed by deep golden light, leaving the pupil almost impossible to see. He pressed a hand tightly over the other, but golden rays still shone between his fingers and struck the sand below.

Both eyes were changing.

Valric’s breathing grew heavier, and the thread wings behind him had lost their former stability. Every beat shook several golden strands loose, leaving them twisting uncontrollably in the air.

Ethan glanced down at the crystal.

As he did, he sensed an incredibly faint pull.

At first, it shifted the crystal only slightly across his palm. Ethan didn’t stop it. He raised his hand instead, carefully studying the space between the crystal and Valric.

There was no visible connection.

But whenever the golden threads around Valric lost control, the crystal trembled toward him. Something linked the two, and that pull was growing stronger by the second.

Ethan closed his hand around the crystal.

It tugged outward against his fingers.

That confirmed it.

He looked at Valric again. After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to test it.

Ethan ran a hand over the crystal’s cold surface, then tossed it into the air.

The instant it left his palm, it veered off course. Instead of following the arc of his throw, it changed direction in midair and shot straight toward Valric.

Only then did Ethan see what was really pulling it.

The out-of-control threads surrounding Valric were wrapping themselves around the crystal one after another. They ignored Valric’s commands and contracted in a frantic rush, dragging it toward his chest.

Valric opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the crystal hurtling straight at him. In an instant, the fighting spirit on his face gave way to fear.

He hurriedly retreated, waving both hands as he tried to order the surrounding threads to change direction.

Not one obeyed.

The harder Valric tried to push the crystal away, the tighter the threads pulled. Some even wrapped around his wrists and yanked his arms apart, preventing him from touching it directly.

The golden wings behind him began to unravel.

The threads woven into the wings came apart one by one. Without their support, Valric crashed to the ground, his body punching a crater into the yellow sand.

He had already raised his sword across his chest, placing the blade directly in the crystal’s path.

The crystal struck the sword.

There was no explosion or violent impact. Only a sharp crack that cut through every battle cry around them.

Crack.

Fractures spread outward from the point of contact.

Rather than protect the sword, the golden threads continued driving the crystal forward. The crystal punched through the blade, leaving a perfect hole in its center, then pressed against Valric’s chest.

His body went rigid.

The crystal didn’t tear his flesh or draw blood. It simply sank into him little by little until the last glimmer of its cold surface disappeared inside his body.

Ethan stared at Valric’s chest for a moment, his brow slowly furrowing.

The crystal had just... gone inside him?

There was no wound. No blood. Not even an obvious trace of energy. If Valric weren’t still frozen in place, Ethan might have doubted what he had just seen.

"That crystal can do that?"

The moment he spoke, Ethan sensed something wrong with the air.

Valric’s struggle against the crystal had kicked up a huge cloud of sand, and the thick yellow haze still covered the area. Now, rays of golden light were piercing through from within. The color deepened by the second, illuminating every grain of sand nearby.

Thump!

A heavy impact came from the center of the dust cloud.

An instant later, a ring-shaped blast erupted outward. The sand hanging in the air was swept away in layers and sent rolling across the ground.

As his view cleared, Valric appeared before Ethan once more.

His sword was gone, and both hands were empty, but his armor had become far heavier. The plates fit tightly against his body without a single visible seam. Golden light flowed along their edges, every pulse rising and falling with his breath.

Ethan noticed his eyes first.

The clarity they’d held before was gone. So was the careful judgment Valric had shown throughout the fight.

Nothing remained but a dense expanse of gold.

No.

The Valric in front of him had lost his mind.

Before Ethan could make sense of it, the ground beneath Valric sank.

Yellow sand exploded behind him as he crossed the distance between them and brought both fists crashing toward Ethan.