Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

The shadow stared hard at Ethan as he stood there with his eyes closed.

The suspicion was still there.

But in the end, its hunger for that energy sphere crushed whatever caution it had left.

It shifted a Stellar Core behind its back.

The deep-blue orb pressed close to its spine, the spatial force inside it rapidly collapsing inward. The next instant, the Stellar Core detonated violently behind the shadow.

Boom!

All the blast’s thrust was focused in a single direction.

The shadow’s body was launched forward on a wave of deep-blue impact. Both drill heads tore through air and space alike, ripping a path as it shot straight at Ethan at maximum speed.

Ethan watched it rush him, cold as ice.

The two high-speed drills were already bearing down on his chest, their tips wrapped in writhing red lightning. The space in their wake was shredded into tight, fine cracks. Using the Stellar Core’s explosion as a booster, the shadow poured every ounce of speed into this one strike—so much that the bright red core in its chest visibly clenched from the overload.

Ethan didn’t dodge.

He didn’t even pull his arms back. He just stood there, wide open, and when the drills were a hair from touching him...

He closed his eyes with open contempt.

In the next heartbeat, the white lightning compressed in his chest bloomed.

It didn’t explode outward like thunder.

Instead, from the center of that energy sphere, a thin pillar of light rose—stretching up and shaping itself into something like a flower’s stem. White arcs of lightning climbed that stem in tight spirals.

When the light reached the top, its color began to change.

The pure white drained away, and blood-red spread outward from the center.

One petal.

Then two.

Petals unfurled in layers in front of the shadow, forming a fully blooming red spider lily. The long stem ran straight through the space in front of Ethan’s chest, while the blood-red petals slowly opened around the shadow’s twin drills.

There was no ear-splitting blast.

No screen-filling flare.

Just a silent, irresistible pull—radiating from the flower’s heart.

The shadow’s spinning arms were the first to stop.

Gray-black energy peeled off the drill tips, stretching into thin threads that were drawn into the petals. Then its arms, its shoulders, its torso—everything began to lose definition, like ink dissolving in water.

The shadow tried to retreat.

But the Stellar Core behind it had already finished detonating, and the remaining push was still shoving its body toward Ethan. The more it struggled, the faster its gray-black form brushed up against those blooming blood-red petals.

The first petal passed through the shadow’s chest.

The bright red crystal orb that had been beating there stuttered—just once.

The second petal pressed against the core’s surface.

Instantly, white lightning wrapped around the red crystal like a net, and the power stored inside it began to stream along the petals and into Ethan’s body.

The shadow made no sound.

It just stared at Ethan—its gray-black "face" still blank, without features. As the core was fully enclosed, its entire body finally came apart, unraveling into a flowing, dark mist.

That mist crossed the spider lily and poured into Ethan’s chest.

The energy sphere Ethan had been using as bait changed structure at the same time. The white lightning split to either side, deliberately opening a channel for the gray-black power to flood through.

The two energies met inside the sphere.

The shadow’s bright red core was forced into the center.

White lightning kept flowing over its surface, peeling away Vhalrath’s spatial power piece by piece—then stitching it into Ethan’s own energy pathways.

The shadow’s body vanished completely.

The spider lily closed with it.

Blood-red petals folded inward into a single point. The stem retracted back into Ethan’s chest. The last wisp of gray-black mist was swallowed by the sphere, and the space fell quiet again.

Ethan opened his eyes.

Infiltrating Vhalrath—complete.

He could feel more space unfolding inside his awareness. The doors that had been impossible to read before now carried clear energy traces. Which door led where, and what layer of space it connected to—none of it felt random anymore.

Right then, a light flared ahead.

Between the clusters of sealed doors, a new gate of light slowly appeared.

No frame. No handle. Just a smooth, vertical plane of light standing in the middle of the void. Inside that surface, different scenes flickered constantly, like an enormous flat mirror reflecting everything happening on the other side.

Ethan walked forward a few steps.

A cage appeared in the "mirror."

Then the image shifted—enemies Vhalrath had created earlier stepped out of the darkness again. They repeated actions that had already happened: clashing, falling, then—when the image looped—standing back up like nothing had changed.

It was reflecting everything on the other side.

And replaying it... even reviving the figures that had already appeared.

Ethan’s gaze slid across the mirror’s surface, and quickly locked onto a familiar outline.

Green scales.

A broken dragon horn.

A humanoid body carrying unmistakable draconic traits.

Maelor?

Ethan frowned and moved closer.

That figure stood behind a half-open door, head lowered, wind still slowly spiraling around its body. Unlike the other images, it wasn’t repeating a fight. It was just... there, motionless and quiet.

Ethan wanted to go over and get a better look.

But the fluctuations from outside were already surging in through the space he’d infiltrated. Kaelira and Catheryn’s auras had clearly weakened, and the rest of his companions were gathering toward them.

No time.

Ethan gave the familiar figure one last look, then turned and headed for the light gate.

His body passed through the smooth plane.

Light slid past his shoulders. Behind him, the sea of doors and the mirror sank back into darkness together. When his feet hit solid ground again, Ethan was back inside the cage.

And the situation outside had already changed.

Kaelira was collapsed in Feylora’s arms.

Blood still stained the corner of her mouth. The spatial power Vhalrath had forced into her body hadn’t been fully purged yet. Her violet-red flames flickered on and off, and every time that foreign force struck her energy core, her body trembled faintly.

Feylora’s hands were braced at Kaelira’s shoulders and near her chest, pale-green life energy steadily flowing into her.

The others had noticed the problem too, hurrying in from different directions.

Seraphina was the first to reach them. Ataneya’s fox tails wrapped around the two of them in a protective ring, cutting off any angle for Vhalrath to strike again. Queen Seraphine and Andona dropped in right after, golden power spreading fast to cover everyone nearby.

They’d made it in time—barely.

When Catheryn saw the reinforcements arrive, the tension finally bled out of her body.

She forced herself to stay standing, dark power still suppressing the spatial turbulence inside Kaelira. But once she confirmed Feylora had taken over the healing, a faint smile tugged at her mouth—then her legs gave out and she slumped to the ground.

Vhalrath sat on its spatial throne in midair, watching Catheryn with clear interest.

This woman really had been a problem.

Darkness could conceal attacks. It could also swallow the spatial ripples it released. And more than that—inside this lightless cage, that power expanded frighteningly fast.

Darkness.

What a delicious kind of strength.

And soon, it would be its strength.

Vhalrath rose from the throne.

"All here?"

It stepped slowly to the side, revealing the light gate behind it in full.

The gate still blazed with brightness, too bright to see what lay beyond. Vhalrath stood beside it, the head formed from a Stellar Core turning slightly, pride dripping from its voice.

"The one you’re about to face..."

"It’s going to be terrifying."

Weapons snapped up across the group at once.