Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Ethan, as the one leading the team, reached up and lifted Auri down from where she’d been sitting on his head.

After she landed, Auri still tipped her chin up to peek at him—then obediently scampered back to Feylora’s side.

Ethan stepped forward.

Power pressed against the air beneath his feet, forming transparent footholds. He climbed them slowly, rising until he was level with the mechanical girl.

The ice bird’s entire body ignited in blue flame.

The fire gave off no heat. If anything, it made the cold around them even sharper. It watched Ethan warily, wings drawing slightly forward, holding a posture that said it could strike at any second.

Down below, Queen Elowen stood with her deep-blue eyes locked on the bird.

An ice-blue sphere of energy floated up from her palm.

It wasn’t large, but fine ice crystals kept forming inside it nonstop. Frost spread through the air and along the ground, and the blue flames on the bird’s body visibly wavered.

Judging by their stances, they were one heartbeat away from fighting again.

But the ice bird folded first—faster than anyone expected.

When Elowen’s gaze truly settled on it, the blue fire stopped.

Not weakened.

Extinguished. Completely.

The ice bird tucked in part of its wings. The wariness on its face melted into an awkward, ingratiating smile. It even shuffled sideways a little, voluntarily edging farther out of Elowen’s range.

It looked like a little brother who’d just realized the "nice" big sister was the kind you didn’t mess with.

A brutally clear bloodline suppression hung between them.

The ice bird wasn’t scared because it was timid.

Its frost power had sensed Elowen and instinctively judged the gap. The closer they were, the heavier that pressure became.

Ethan stood between them and glanced once at both sides.

To keep the ice bird from getting so spooked it couldn’t even talk, he shifted half a step, blocking their lines of sight.

Then he turned to the mechanical girl.

Their conversation didn’t last long.

She explained what she wanted. Ethan laid out the group’s terms. When it was done, they somehow ended up in a strange kind of cooperation—and reached out to shake hands.

After they let go, both sides turned back toward their own companions.

That was when something in the distance caught Ethan’s eye.

At the edge of the "mountain village," a massive shadow stretched across the farmland.

A snake’s shadow.

It slid slowly over fields and rooftops, far too large to belong to any ordinary serpent. Even without seeing the body, the sheer coverage told him how huge it was.

The mechanical girl noticed too.

She frowned, glanced at the charged laser emitters on her back, then looked over to confirm the ice bird’s condition. After that, she nodded, decisive.

"Ethan."

Her tone turned noticeably more formal than before.

"Can you help me suppress my other friend?"

She raised a hand and pointed.

"That giant snake."

"As long as you manage to pin it down, we’ll leave."

Ethan didn’t answer right away.

The ice phoenix at Frostreach’s edge was supposed to be the guardian of the locals.

Yet here it was, standing beside some outsider girl and taking her cues.

Ethan’s mind jumped back to the mural on the cave wall.

The massive serpent coiled high above.

The bird and the human beside it.

The people kneeling below.

The person in front of him, the ice phoenix, and that distant serpent... matched the three main figures perfectly.

He tried to connect the pieces, to work backward and forward until the chain made sense.

But the most important questions still had no answers.

Why had a local guardian become an outsider’s subordinate?

And why protect a group of creatures ruled by crawlers?

While Ethan was thinking, the world around them began to change.

The tidy houses drained of color.

The fields and the working farmers blurred like wet paint, their outlines dissolving layer by layer. The power station on the far slope turned transparent, then vanished entirely.

The simulated village peeled away.

Revealing what had been underneath all along—

an ancient space riddled with caves.

There had always been countless openings here.

That "hidden, peaceful village" had just been a disguise, meant to keep outsiders from interfering.

Strange-looking insects began crawling out of the caves.

They didn’t attack immediately. Instead, they gathered slowly beneath the mechanical girl.

Most of the smaller ones had six legs, their shells coming in different colors. The biggest among them only had sharper, more aggressive mouthparts—nothing about them radiated overwhelming power.

A few looked almost like octopuses.

Soft tentacles slid along the ground, and on either side of their heads were absurdly huge eyes. Even if they were ugly as sin, those eyes were undeniably... big.

The mechanical girl descended slowly.

She didn’t shoo the insects away.

She bent down and lifted a few tiny ones into her palm. Her metal fingers retracted their sharp edges, and she stroked their shells with movements so gentle they almost didn’t match her body.

The swarm didn’t show fear, either.

They clustered around her feet, close and familiar.

Overhead, the ice bird—or more accurately, the ice phoenix—kept its guard up toward Ethan’s group.

It clearly understood it wasn’t their match.

Especially in front of Elowen, it could barely even maintain its flames.

And yet it still didn’t leave the girl or the insect swarm.

Even if it couldn’t win... it was staying.

Ethan understood the choice.

The target of this trip was clear now.

He took one long look at the mechanical girl and the swarm below her, then turned and led his team toward the serpent’s shadow.

The girl lowered the larvae back to the ground.

Then the machinery on her back unfolded into wings.

She beat them and caught up to Ethan, matching his speed at his side.

"I recognize your strength now," she said, eyes on the distant snake shadow.

"But my mother has another subordinate. A really terrifying one."

She paused, the words catching for a fraction.

"You need to be careful."

The moment she finished speaking, Ethan vanished from in front of her.

Black particles skipped across space itself, reappearing directly above the battlefield.

Ethan formed a white energy sphere in one hand and looked down at the small snakes writhing across the ground, his expression edged with disdain.

"Been a while since I’ve seen something in a dragon-like form."

His gaze swept across the massive serpent’s body.

"Kind of nostalgic."

He watched a little longer, then his tone turned strange.

"The one thing I don’t get is—"

"Why’d you lose your mind just because you’re shedding your skin?"

At the same moment, Seraphina reverted to her dragon form.

Her huge body spread its wings, and everyone riding her back dipped slightly with the shift in altitude.

She glanced back at them.

After confirming everyone was ready, she gave a small nod—then let them leave her back as she dove alone toward the giant serpent.

Andona spread ten pairs of golden wings as well.

She gripped a golden blade in each hand. Her wings beat in a steady rhythm while she climbed down step by step on stairs of Light Force, closing in on the serpent below.

Ethan had thought Seraphina and Andona would be enough.

Then a much larger shadow slid across the battlefield.

A super-sized moth drifted in from the distance.

It was only about a quarter of Seraphina’s size, but it was still big enough to blot out huge patches of ground. Complex patterns covered its wide wings, and it flew almost silently.

The moth stopped above the serpent.

It stared down at the group warily, then mumbled a string of strange words—garbled, not quite any language Ethan recognized.

As the sound spread, the ground changed.

Countless small bugs poured out of the soil and cracks in the rock. They stacked, latched, and linked together, forming one attack turret after another.

Some turrets extended standard laser emitters.

Others grew thicker cannon barrels.

Andona was smaller, and fast enough to weave.

She darted through the crossfire on stepping-stones of holy light. Blue-white lasers skimmed her golden wings again and again, never quite landing a real hit. Shells exploded under her feet, but all they did was blow apart Light Force platforms that only existed for a moment anyway.

Seraphina had it worse.

Her dragon body was enormous, practically filling the sky.

No matter the angle, she was the most obvious living target on the field.

The ground turrets swung as one, concentrating fire on her. The moth in the air ignored everyone else entirely, spreading its wings and chasing right behind Seraphina.

Seraphina was far stronger than it was.

But her sheer size limited how sharply she could turn or accelerate in tight space.

The moth, on the other hand, was absurdly agile.

Sometimes it tucked its wings and slipped under Seraphina’s claws. Other times it flared them open near her back, riding airflow to glide to the opposite side.

Every time Seraphina tried to attack, it repositioned instantly.

Annoying.

But the moth couldn’t do much to Seraphina either.

Its blades and energy strikes landed on dragon scales again and again, leaving only shallow marks. Seraphina’s hide was thick—no matter how it scraped and carved, it couldn’t inflict real damage.