Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Ethan crouched and pressed his palm to the top of the sea snake’s head.

"Don’t move."

White lightning flowed from his hand into her body.

This time, it didn’t invade her consciousness. It slid slowly along the energy framework threaded through her body. While soothing her frantic emotions, Ethan adjusted the nodes that were holding her size in place.

The sea snake shuddered once.

Then her enormous body shrank fast.

The two dead trees pinning her instantly lost their "leverage," and she slipped free. But before she could even process it, her body abruptly swelled again—back to her original size in the blink of an eye.

She lowered her head and stared at herself.

Then she shrank again.

This time she went all the way down to something like a normal python.

She caught on to the trick almost immediately.

Right next to them, she started expanding and shrinking nonstop—popping her head up to the treetops one second, then compressing down until she was only a little thicker than Ethan’s arm the next. She was having the time of her life.

Even Seraphina blinked, momentarily thrown.

The fun didn’t last.

A harsh grinding sound scraped through the forest.

The first to "move" was the dead tree beside them.

The trunk twisted sideways. Rough bark split down the center, revealing a pair of cloudy eyes.

Then the second.

The third.

Trees across the forest woke up one after another.

Dry branches interlaced overhead, blocking the way from multiple angles. Roots tore free of the soil and began to crawl, slow and heavy, closing in to encircle the sea snake and the group.

The sea snake stopped playing instantly.

She shrank back to python-size and ducked her head, trying to burrow underground.

But the forest floor was far harder than the beach sand.

She rammed her head down several times. All she managed were a few shallow dents. The last hit was too hard—when she lifted her head, her eyes were already a little unfocused.

Couldn’t dig in.

Embarrassed and furious, she raised her head, bared sharp teeth, and hissed threateningly at the surrounding treants.

Ethan swept an annoyed look over them.

Twisted trunks warped into ugly silhouettes in the dim light. Bark bulged into blurred human faces—some with eyes shut, some with mouths open—every feature distorting as the trees shifted.

Just looking at them made his temper spike.

Kaelira lifted her right hand, expression calm.

Purplish-red energy rose from her palm, savage power compressing fast. Air seemed to retreat around her. A few dead leaves hadn’t even hit the ground before the heat cooked them into ash.

Ataneya wasn’t about to let Kaelira take the first swing.

Several fox tails unfurled behind her.

Soft fur tightened as they snapped forward, sweeping along the ground and through the air at the treants ahead. The force shoved the air itself; even before contact, the front row of dead branches bent backward.

Then the tails froze in midair.

The treants’ color began to change.

Pitch-black shadow climbed up from the roots, swallowing trunks, branches, and those blurred faces. In just a moment, every treant in the forest turned into writhing darkness.

The whole group went silent at once.

That familiar dark power... only one person in the team used it.

"Catheryn!"

Everyone turned in unison.

Catheryn stood at the back with her head lowered, wearing the most innocent expression imaginable.

Nobody bought it.

They swarmed her and launched into a very "friendly" educational session.

Only... what they’d surrounded wasn’t Catheryn at all.

It was a human-shaped lump of shadow.

The real Catheryn was standing right next to Ethan.

She watched the others scold her shadow double with straight faces, and finally couldn’t hold it in—she laughed.

Hearing the laugh, everyone looked toward Ethan, confused.

But the space beside him was already empty.

Catheryn had melted into darkness a beat earlier, vanishing again.

They turned back.

Only then did they notice the "Catheryn" in front of them slowly deforming, collapsing into an ordinary patch of shadow that sank into the ground.

Fake.

After the brief chaos, not every treant stopped attacking.

Some shadows shook off Catheryn’s influence, reforming into deadwood bodies. Thick branches hammered down from above, and roots whipped across the ground like lashes.

Ataneya was done being patient.

Her tails looped in from both sides, wrapping several treants along with the trees around them. She dropped her weight, and all the tails yanked at once—slamming the bound treants straight into the earth.

Boom!

Dirt exploded outward.

Trunks shattered against each other, branches snapping into sprays of wood chips.

Kaelira, meanwhile, stood elegantly at a distance.

The purplish-red energy in her hand had already swollen far larger than before.

She drew her wrist back a fraction, then threw the sphere straight ahead.

The violet-red light shot through gaps between the trees, reached the densest cluster of treants—and fully detonated.

Violent force surged outward.

Flame, shock, and purplish-red energy tore the ground open together. Trees snapped off at the roots, and a huge swath of forest was obliterated in the roar.

When the blast wind finally cleared, only an open space remained.

Once again, they had no targets in front of them.

That was when a chain shot out of the lingering fog.

The fishhook at the end spun over the collapsed trunks and drove straight for Ethan’s chest.

Ethan was still smiling.

The moment he saw it, his expression cooled—but he didn’t lift a hand to block. He just looked along the chain’s line, straight toward where it came from.

A pitch-black barrier rose in front of him.

The hook slammed into darkness.

Clang!

The metal point bounced away, and the chain snapped and shook violently in the air.

Following the attack’s direction, Ethan caught sight of its owner.

A fisherman stood behind the fallen trees.

Green fire burned outward from his body. The flesh of his head was gone—only a skull remained. Green flame filled his eye sockets, staring across the distance, locked onto Ethan.

When his attack failed, the fisherman didn’t linger.

His body turned into a shadow and withdrew deeper into the forest at speed.

Catheryn’s Umbral Servitor immediately chased.

The dark servant slipped through the fallen trees, keeping close behind the fisherman, not losing him even as the distance stretched.

It caught up.

But when the Umbral Servitor closed in, the thing wearing the fisherman’s shape was already nothing more than a complete human skeleton.

Green fire leaked from the gaps between its bones.

And the fog around it was thickening again.

Ethan raised a hand, stopping Catheryn from pushing deeper.

They were out in the open.

The enemy was hiding in the dark.

Chasing alone into the forest right now was begging for something nasty and unpredictable.

"Catheryn." Ethan shook his head at her.

Catheryn glanced once at the distant skeleton, then lifted her hand and waved lightly.

The Umbral Servitor sank into the ground and vanished, the shadow gone for good.

After that satisfying round of violence, nobody rushed farther into the island.

They built a campfire in the cleared space, sat in a loose circle around it, and rested—planning to move again once they’d recovered.

As for waiting for daylight—

this island didn’t have a real day or night.

The sun couldn’t pierce the thick cloud layer overhead. Gray-white fog smothered the land for long stretches, keeping everything stuck in the same dim, sickly palette.

You couldn’t judge time by light.

They could only decide when to move based on how their bodies felt.

During the rest, a small presence entered their perception.

A rag doll—stitched together from scraps of cloth.

Different colored patches made up its body, crooked seams exposed on the surface. A tiny pair of scissors was slung across its back. It lay alone in the dead grass not far from the fire.

On an island that was nothing but gray, black, and dark green, that bright, multicolored doll was painfully conspicuous.

Auri saw it and her eyes lit up.

The little doll was lying there all by itself—cute, helpless, and lonely.

Auri’s heart practically melted.

She hopped down from Ethan’s side, arms wide, ready to sprint over and scoop it up.

The instant her feet hit the ground, Ethan had already stepped back.

He reached from behind, caught Auri around the waist, and jumped her out of the spot she’d just been standing in.