Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Ethan turned his head to look at Queen Elowen.

Elowen stood quietly near the front of Seraphina’s back, her ice-blue hair drifting with the airflow. She was watching the mountain drawing closer and closer, no fear in her eyes—only a sharp, appraising focus on the power of frost itself.

A queen and a guardian god.

Both controlling ice and snow.

If they actually clashed... it was hard to say who would come out on top.

Seraphina reached the foot of the mountain quickly.

From a distance, the iceberg had looked dazzling. Up close, though, they realized how bare it was.

No trees.

No snow-covered paths.

The entire face of the mountain was smooth, flat ice. The only entrance was a dark cave straight ahead.

Seraphina folded her dragon wings and landed at the mouth.

After she returned to human form, the Phoenix Queen Ignara stepped to the front and raised a finger.

A red flame sparked to life on her fingertip.

She clearly hated being forced to play torch—her brows pinched slightly—but she still held the flame up high enough to light the way.

They filed into the cave.

Ignara’s flame ran too hot.

The ice nearest the light began to melt almost immediately. Water beaded and ran down the walls, then refroze once it slid farther from the flame.

Thick shells of ice peeled away layer by layer.

And what was hidden beneath slowly came into view.

It wasn’t natural rock at all.

The surface had been flattened by tools. In some places, ancient patterns still clung to it—just buried under ice for so long nobody could’ve seen them before.

Ethan stopped and placed his palm against the wall.

Cold. Hard.

He traced the grooves for a moment, then suddenly thrust his other hand forward.

A streak of white lightning shot into the depths of the cave.

The flash skimmed along the ground, lighting up a broad corridor as it flew—walls, ice pillars, and a far-off bend snapping into existence out of the darkness one after another—until the light finally reached a point Ethan’s eyes couldn’t track, and vanished.

Ethan stared at where it disappeared.

The space inside was deeper than the entrance suggested.

And in the last instant before the lightning went out, the surrounding space had visibly... folded.

Deep in here, there was probably a teleportation array.

They kept moving.

Phoenix Queen Ignara stayed out front.

The flame on her fingertip deepened in color, shifting from normal red toward something closer to blood. The fire wavered irritably from side to side, broadcasting its owner’s growing annoyance at the endless dark.

The passage stretched on.

Then the space ahead suddenly widened.

The side walls pulled away fast, retreating into the distance, and the ceiling opened up too. Ignara’s flame wasn’t even close to enough to light the entire area.

She paused, then transformed into a phoenix.

Fire unfurled off her body. Her massive wings threw a red glow through the darkness as she beat them and flew ahead, wanting to check the expanded space first.

The firelight quickly drifted away.

The group fell back into dimness.

Several gazes slid to Ataneya at the same time.

Ataneya fell silent for a beat, then lifted a ball of hellfire in her left hand.

She didn’t fan out all twenty-four fox tails—only two extended, holding position on the left and right of the team. Their tips brushed the ground lightly, feeling for anything lurking beyond the edge of the light.

Ataneya’s flame wasn’t as bright as Ignara’s.

But it was enough.

Now that the light steadied, they could finally see what they’d missed.

When the chamber had widened, everyone’s attention had gone to the walls suddenly pulling back. Then Ignara had flown off, the light had vanished, and none of them had time to scan the area.

With the fire back, a massive mural came into view.

It covered the entire wall.

At the very top was a huge serpent.

It was coiled in thick rings, perched high above, its head angled down as if watching the world below.

Beside the serpent stood a bird.

On the other side was a humanoid figure.

And below them, packed tight, was a kneeling crowd. Foreheads pressed to the ground, arms stretched forward—submission, as blatant as it could possibly be.

Ethan scanned the mural once.

It was ancient. Parts of the pigment had already flaked away, leaving only the rough shapes and the general story.

Before he could study it more closely, hurried wingbeats came from the darkness ahead.

A lump of firelight came flying back—fast, and not exactly dignified.

Phoenix Queen Ignara shifted back into human form in front of them. Even as she landed, she glanced over her shoulder more than once.

She stepped close to Ethan, her voice noticeably quieter than usual.

"Ethan."

"There’s... a lot of darkness up there."

Ignara gave a small cough, like she was trying to play it off.

"I’m kind of scared..."

Ethan looked at her with a weird expression.

A Phoenix Queen who could set her whole body on fire... flew into the dark and came sprinting back because it was too dark.

He plucked a tiny tuft of flame off her fingertip and flicked it forward.

The fire slipped into the black and kept going in a straight line. The lit area shrank and shrank until it was just a fading red dot—

then even that disappeared.

Darkness even Ignara couldn’t light.

How deep was this place?

Ethan looked away.

"It’s fine."

He stepped forward.

"We go together."

They were just about to move when a dense scraping sound rose from the ground ahead.

A swarm of small purple crawlers poured out of cracks between the stones.

Their bodies hugged the floor. There were a lot of them—way too many. Pale purple vapor seeped off their shells in a constant haze. And behind the swarm, a tall Stone Golem rose out of the darkness.

The Stone Golem’s body was made of rough, stacked stone.

Purple gas flowed out through its seams, and where its eyes should’ve been, two points of dark violet light burned steadily.

Phoenix Queen Ignara saw the little crawlers and spat out a small fireball.

It landed in the center of the swarm.

The first few bugs it touched immediately curled in on themselves. Their shells glossed over under the heat, and a strange, savory smell drifted out—only to turn into scorched stink a second later.

The flames spread through the mass.

Countless purple crawlers were swallowed up.

But the fire didn’t stop after clearing them.

It kept crawling forward, rolling toward the Stone Golem’s feet. Red tongues of flame climbed its stone legs, quickly covering its knees and waist.

Ignara tried to force the fire into the cracks.

But the purple vapor jammed the channels shut.

In the end, the flames could only cling to the surface, burning away at the outer stones—never reaching the core.

Ethan walked out from the group with a tired look.

A white sphere of energy formed above his palm.

Lightning danced across its surface, its glow throwing a clear path of light in front of them.

The Stone Golem lifted an arm, ready to smash down.

Ethan didn’t slow.

He walked right up beside it, raised his hand, and pressed it to the golem’s foot.

White lightning slipped into the seams between stones.

The arcs didn’t spread across the whole body.

They focused—savagely—on destroying the structure that supported the foot.

The golem’s raised arm froze midair.

The stones under it lost their connection.

That massive body tilted backward—

and slammed down.

Boom!

The impact shook the area hard enough that sheets of ice nearby cracked loose and peeled away.