Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Before Auri could even figure out what was happening, the rag doll on the ground started to change.

The little scissors on its back swelled first.

Metal blades extended outward along both sides, and in the blink of an eye they’d become a pair of giant shears taller than a grown adult.

Then the doll’s body began to grow.

Patchwork fabric stretched larger piece by piece, stuffing inside it inflating fast. The palm-sized toy stood up from the grass and kept rising, until it became a tall, stitched rag doll.

It gripped the giant shears with both hands.

The blades opened, lined up with where Auri had just been standing, and snapped shut hard.

Crack!

The air—and the dead grass on the ground—were cut cleanly, like someone had sliced a straight seam through the world.

The doll held the finishing pose, then slowly raised its stitched-on face.

There was no one in front of it anymore.

Auri clung to Ethan’s back, head lowered, peeking past his shoulder at the tall rag doll.

Those scissors had almost cut her—and the ground beneath her—right in half, but the fantasy in her head still hadn’t completely died.

The colorful scraps.

The crooked stitches.

And those interesting-looking scissors on its back.

If it would just stop attacking people, it would honestly still be kind of cute.

Andona lifted her hand. A beam of holy light spilled from her palm and shone onto the rag doll standing in the dead grass. She deliberately kept the Light Force gentle—everyone had only just sat down to rest. If she made too much noise and woke everyone up, the person who suffered most would be her.

The holy light had barely lit half the doll’s body when a rapid series of impacts rang out nearby.

Andona turned.

Most of the people resting by the campfire were already awake.

Ataneya’s fox tails were whipping through the air, colliding again and again with the doll’s giant shears. When a tail snapped in from the left, the shears clamped sideways to catch it. When another tail swept in low toward its legs, the doll stabbed the shears into the ground and used the leverage to flip aside.

Metal edges ground against the energy coating Ataneya’s tails, sparks scattering to the dirt.

Seraphina—still in human form—stood nearby, flustered, trying to jump into the fight. She took a few steps forward, then hesitated, afraid she’d get in the way of Ataneya’s tails, forced to keep shifting back and forth looking for an opening.

In the rear, Queen Elowen and Kaelira watched Ataneya quietly.

No urging. No rushing in.

Only Elira and Namyanna were still sprawled beside the fire, sleeping like the world could end and they’d snooze through it. The clanging of scissors and tails kept ringing, and neither of them showed any sign of waking.

Even without stepping forward, Queen Elowen never stopped working.

Pale blue glints slid along the ground.

Every time the rag doll planted a foot, ice rose under it, freezing one leg in place. When it swung the shears down to smash the ice, the power hidden inside the frozen block would burst, flipping its stitched body backward.

The doll changed positions several times.

Every time, it stepped right onto a fresh patch of ice.

Elowen casually rolled that round ice ball between her fingers. Her eyes weren’t even locked on the battlefield the whole time, but the ice under the doll’s feet never missed once.

Kaelira found her fun soon enough.

Purplish-red energy began to grow in her palm.

It started as a small flame-like cluster, then expanded outward as the violent force inside compressed layer by layer. The surrounding air was pulled, and dead leaves and pebbles scraped across the ground toward her.

That pressure quickly forced both sides to pause mid-fight.

Ataneya pulled her tails back.

Seraphina retreated at once.

Everyone turned to look at the energy sphere in Kaelira’s hand—getting more dangerous by the second.

The rag doll took the opening.

It dropped its center of gravity, sprinted, slipping past Ataneya’s not-yet-fully-withdrawn tails, and charged straight for Ethan.

The giant shears opened wide as it ran.

The two blades closed in from either side of Ethan’s body, aiming to cut him right down the middle in one clean snip.

Ethan didn’t move.

Auri was still on his back.

Andona was already there.

A golden blade shot from her hand and struck the side of the shears dead-on.

Clang!

The impact boomed through the dead forest, shaking loose debris from the brittle branches overhead.

The shears lurched violently. Hairline cracks spread across the blade edge, and even the doll’s arms—still gripping the handles—were forced to wobble side to side.

It looked down at its scissors.

Then up at the people surrounding it.

Ataneya’s tails had unfurled again.

Kaelira’s purplish-red sphere was still growing.

Queen Elowen’s ice ball was spinning faster and faster.

The doll fell silent for a few seconds... then suddenly gave up.

It plopped down on the ground, stabbed the giant shears into the dirt beside it with a heavy thunk, crossed its arms over its chest, and glared at Ethan with puffed-up cheeks.

The message was clear.

Do whatever you want. Kill me, cut me up—whatever.

Idra appeared behind it without a sound.

No warning.

A dragon head slid out of the darkness, jaws slowly opening, ready to swallow the entire rag doll in one bite.

Ethan looked from the doll to Idra.

His eyes said it plainly.

That’s enough.

The rag doll sensed the danger behind it.

Still sitting, it leaned its body slightly to the side, trying to see what had appeared back there—

Whoosh.

Idra instantly returned to human form and waved at it, her smile bright and polite.

"Hi."

The doll didn’t relax.

It had seen the small dragon claw Idra hadn’t fully withdrawn yet—clamped tight around the giant shears’ handle, clearly controlling the weapon already.

It looked at Idra, then at the rest of them—each one more dangerous than the last—and finally understood where it stood.

It opened its mouth and started bawling at full volume.

"Waaah—!"

The wailing carried far through the dead forest, making a few nearby brittle branches tremble.

Ethan heard the very first sob and already knew this was where it was going.

He lifted Auri off his back, set her on the ground, then walked over to the crying rag doll.

"What’s your name?" he asked.

The crying hitched for a split second.

"What are you?" Ethan continued.

"Where are you from?"

Three questions. Clean and efficient.

The doll went completely blank.

Then the crying spiked again, tears streaming down its patchwork face, somehow even more heartbroken than before.

Everyone stared at each other.

Then, as if on cue, all eyes swung to Ethan.

Ethan stood there, suddenly at a loss.

He’d only wanted to confirm its identity.

The questions weren’t wrong.

So why did it sound like he was interrogating a lost kid?

He was just about to change tactics and salvage the situation when the rag doll’s body shrank rapidly.

The tall stitched torso folded inward.

Arms, legs, and head softened back into cloth, collapsing in on themselves until it returned to the original palm-sized toy—lying there quietly, not moving at all.

The giant shears shrank with it, snapping back into the tiny scissors on its back.