Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Seraphina lifted her head.

"Blades—out!"

Every golden sword shot upward at once.

They pierced the golden barrier first. The moment each blade touched the shield, the barrier opened a tiny channel on its own. As soon as the sword passed through, the opening snapped shut again—no gap left behind.

Once outside, the swords accelerated hard.

Boom!

A huge, circular sonic boom ring burst into existence in midair.

The shock ring expanded outward from behind the sword formation, bumping the shield below just enough to make it shiver. The golden surface rippled briefly, then stabilized again.

Every Stellar Core up there carried power Vhalrath had personally poured into it.

This wasn’t a harmless joke anymore.

Vhalrath liked using Stellar Cores to toy with different forms of life. If it hadn’t gotten curious and nudged at the wall of space, it never would’ve noticed Ethan and the others in the first place.

Now, the attack it had left behind covered the entire sky above the cage.

The golden blades formed a dense array, punching forward like a drill straight toward the nearest Stellar Core.

The instant the first sword was about to hit, the energy mass in the sky trembled.

Beside one Stellar Core, a second identical sphere appeared.

Then a third.

A fourth.

The copying didn’t stop.

Every Stellar Core spawned a new one at its side. The new ones immediately started duplicating too. Deep blue points of light flooded the dome at a terrifying speed, until there were no clear gaps left—front, back, left, right.

Everyone’s breathing tightened at once.

A sky that had been lit by golden swordlight a second ago was suddenly nothing but Stellar Cores.

Ethan stared up at the packed field of deep blue energy and couldn’t help cursing under his breath.

The golden glow was completely drowned out.

In its place came layers of crushing pressure dropping from above.

All the Stellar Cores lit up together.

Deep blue halos surged downward. They hadn’t even touched the shield yet, and the pressure was already bending the space nearby. The ground under their feet cracked with rapid, ugly pops.

"Seriously?"

Ethan threw an arm up against the oncoming gale and yelled at the sky, voice echoing into the dark:

"You’re gonna drop Stellar Cores on people? Ever heard of protecting the environment?"

The golden swords plunged into the Stellar Core dome and were quickly swallowed by deep blue light.

Compared to the energy spheres covering the sky, the blades looked tiny—like moths throwing themselves into a bonfire.

Ataneya saw it and knew staying below to brace the shield wasn’t enough anymore.

She pulled back the eleven tails she’d been using to hold the golden barrier.

The last fox tail unfurled fully behind her.

All twelve massive tails rose together.

The moment Ataneya’s support vanished, the golden shield started sinking again. Seraphina immediately raised her hands and took full control, forcing deep-gold power back into the barrier to keep it from collapsing.

Ataneya left the ground, her twelve tails driving her upward.

She caught up to the rising golden swords.

Her tails swept past the sword formation from both sides, then snapped together in front like twelve long whips cracking at full speed—colliding alongside the blades into the nearest Stellar Core.

The sword tips pierced the sphere’s outer layer first.

Her tails followed a heartbeat later, striking from twelve directions at once.

Crack!

The first Stellar Core shattered on the spot.

Fractures spiderwebbed across the entire sphere. The deep blue energy inside lost its structure, and the shell blew apart with it—exploding into countless fragments of different sizes.

The golden swords and twelve tails kept driving forward.

The second and third Stellar Cores cracked apart in rapid succession.

They’d done it—shattered them!

But the broken Stellar Cores didn’t disappear.

They just got smaller.

Each deep blue shard still held the power Vhalrath had personally infused into it. The fragments hung in the air for a brief pause, their surface glow shrinking inward as if taking a breath.

Then—every shard changed direction at once.

A dense rain of deep blue splinters, dragging thin tails of light, dove straight down toward them!

Ataneya watched the shards plummeting from the dome and had no choice but to pull her twelve tails back.

The pieces were far smaller than a complete Stellar Core, but the power inside them hadn’t been diluted. Deep blue light cut through the darkness in a swarm so thick it nearly filled the space over their heads, and each fragment dragged warped space along its edges.

If she kept smashing them head-on with her tails, she’d just bleed herself dry one impact at a time.

Ataneya dropped back beneath the golden barrier, her twelve tails folding in one after another. She glanced up at the still-falling shards, then turned to Ethan. The plea in her eyes wasn’t subtle in the slightest.

Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose.

There were too many Stellar Core fragments.

Even if he unleashed everything he had, there was no way he could invade and steal the power inside every single shard in the few seconds they had. But if he let those fragments slam down freely, the shield Seraphina was holding would eventually get crushed.

"Keep feeding the barrier."

Ethan stared up at the dome.

"I’ll try."

Everyone nodded tightly and immediately poured their strength into the shield. Different colors spread across the golden surface, patching in every dent and hairline crack left by each impact.

Only two people weren’t fully focused on the barrier.

Desert Queen Kaelira and Goddess Catheryn stood side by side in a corner, looking like they were contributing too. Both had their arms raised; purple-red flame and deep black aura kept flowing into the defense. Their motions didn’t look that different from everyone else’s.

But beyond the shield, another force was quietly climbing.

A purple-red energy sphere—completely wrapped in darkness—slipped out through a shadow near the barrier’s edge. It didn’t shine. It didn’t shake the space. It hugged the cage’s darkness and crept toward the Stellar Cores above.

This place was saturated with Catheryn’s power.

In territory ruled by the Goddess of Darkness, hiding a lump of energy wasn’t hard for her. The darkness smothered every trace of the purple-red sphere’s presence. Only the dense, uneven bumps on its surface still wriggled slowly—proof that what it held had already climbed to a dangerous level.

Clearly, this plan hadn’t been improvised.

Ethan kept his attention on the sky, compressing white lightning tighter and tighter in his hand.

But he still noticed the corner.

Kaelira and Catheryn were posing like they were helping hold the shield, yet their gazes kept sliding past everyone, aimed beyond the cage. Even the power they fed into the barrier came in bursts—on and off—like their minds were somewhere else.

Ethan let out a quiet sigh.

Stopping them now was too late.

All he could do was hope they didn’t cause a problem no one could clean up.

Time bled away under the falling deep blue light.

Stellar Core fragments spread through the entire space, until at last they pressed down over everyone’s heads. Only a sliver of distance remained between the shards and the golden barrier. The deep blue pressure pushed through the shield and forced the ground to sink steadily.

And then—right when everyone braced for impact—the fragments stopped.

Not a single piece fell another inch.

They hung there above the shield, evenly spaced, their deep blue glow unchanged. If anything, it intensified. Power swelled outward from inside each shard, and the pressure dropped in layer after layer—more suffocating than a direct hit, like the sky was choosing to crush them slowly.