Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Up in the sky, Orun still hung there like a black-and-red mountain suspended over their heads.

Inside Ethan, power churned harder and harder.

He lifted one hand. In his palm, an energy sphere condensed in an instant—terrifyingly dense. Ash-gray light rose and sank inside it like silt in a storm, while white lightning coiled around the outer layer in tight rings.

He didn’t throw it.

The moment it stabilized, he flipped his hand and slammed it straight into his own body.

The next second, Ethan scattered into countless black particles and vanished from where he stood.

Orun halted midair.

His black-and-red mechanical armor jerked, just slightly. Even the blue flame blasting from his thrusters shrank for a heartbeat. He stared at the spot Ethan had been, eyes wide, a near-fanatical glint flashing deep in his mechanical pupils.

"Black particulate dispersion..."

"I knew I wasn’t seeing things!"

"You really are a genius! Hahaha—!"

Drunk on excitement, Orun twisted his huge mechanical body in the air and swung the mechanical battle axe toward the spot the black particles had disappeared from. The blade tore at space itself. A black-red arc of axe light swept out, like a razor crack sliding across the sky—trying to chop every lingering particle into nothing.

Far off, Ethan’s figure slowly re-formed.

Black particles converged in midair, sketching a blurred outline first, then rebuilding into flesh and clothes. When Ethan hit the ground, thin fractures spidered out under his feet. He lifted his gaze to the leftover axe light hanging in the air, his eyes cooling.

If he hadn’t turned into a data stream at the last second, that swing might’ve split him into pieces.

"Tch."

Ethan wiped at the corner of his mouth and looked up at Orun, voice flat.

"You’re really full of yourself."

Orun didn’t press the attack.

He floated there, the mechanical axe hanging at his side, the fever in his eyes not quite gone. Like he’d mistaken Ethan’s move for a willingness to cooperate, his tone even turned... polite.

Polite, but not friendly. Not even close.

Ethan knew exactly why.

Orun’s confidence came from that mechanical battle axe. The burst it showed just now was enough to cut space—and enough to force Ethan into black-particle form to dodge. If Orun wanted to get closer, it sure as hell wasn’t because he trusted him.

They hung in the air facing each other. On the surface, it looked like conversation.

Underneath, it was calculation.

Inside Ethan, two ash-gray energy spheres were quietly taking shape.

They didn’t leak much aura. They just rotated slowly along his internal energy channels, waiting for the right moment. Ethan glanced at the axe in Orun’s hand, then spoke.

"Can I take a look at that axe? I’m curious."

Orun stared at him for a few seconds.

Then—he actually handed it over.

In Orun’s grip, the axe looked heavy as a mountain. But when it reached Ethan, the black-red glow along the handle pulled back a notch, like it was being leashed. Orun even put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder and leaned in, like they were old friends catching up.

Ethan blinked.

That easy?

And then it clicked.

Orun wasn’t stupid.

He wanted Ethan to touch it.

There was definitely something inside that axe—some kind of mechanical rune, some kind of countermeasure. If Ethan grabbed it carelessly, Orun could use the weapon as a channel to invade his body in reverse. And that hand on Ethan’s shoulder wasn’t warmth.

It was a lock.

In that case...

Let’s see who’s faster.

The instant Orun made contact, Ethan’s body broke into black particles again.

This time, the particles didn’t scatter away.

They poured straight into the gaps of Orun’s armor—threading through seams, slipping between plates, drilling into the joints and the underside of the arms like a silent black gale, rushing directly into Orun’s body.

At the same moment, the two prepared ash-gray energy spheres detonated inside Orun.

The whole sequence took less than a blink.

But in Metalforged Orun’s perception, everything stretched out—slowed down a thousand times.

He saw Ethan decompose. Saw the black particles invade. Saw the twin spheres explode. Ash-gray energy spread through his mechanical structure, blasting apart internal links. Black smoke spilled out of joints and chest seams. Parts of his core systems nearly died on the spot.

And still—

He didn’t dodge.

Only when his frame began to smoke and the inside of him started popping with rapid fractures did Orun finally flex a finger, slow and deliberate.

"Back."

Ethan’s expression shifted. He withdrew immediately.

Black particles reversed out through the armor seams and reassembled into human form at a distance. But the moment Ethan steadied himself, he realized—

The mechanical battle axe in his hands was gone.

Somehow, it was back in Orun’s grip.

Orun looked at Ethan from afar and curled his mouth into a cold smile.

The next second, glaring fracture-lines lit up across the axe’s surface.

CRACK!

The mechanical battle axe detonated on the spot.

The blast wave slammed into Ethan head-on. Black-and-red metal shards mixed with a brutal, close-range shock, swallowing him and flinging him like a toy. He crashed through a scatter of rocks, then carved a long, deep trench across the ground.

When the dust settled, Orun glanced at the scraps in his hand with disgust and flicked them away.

No weapon?

Fine.

He raised both fists instead.

Catching the split second where Ethan’s mind was off-balance, Orun’s thrusters erupted with blue flame. His massive mechanical body launched forward. The air burst into a white pressure ring around him—

—and the next instant, he was in front of Ethan.

A fist came down.

Ethan was driven straight into the ground.

BOOM!

The earth collapsed. Dust shot into the sky.

Orun’s punch buried into the ground, the shockwave expanding outward. Stones blasted backward like rain. The trench Ethan had just carved caved in again, and the surrounding soil and rock layers sank in a rolling collapse.

A moment later, Ethan stood up from the rubble.

He calmly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, eyes still steady. Then he planted both hands on the ground and started drawing power from the earth and the river. Energy surged up through the soil into his palms. Far away, broken streams of water were tugged loose and pulled toward him, turning into dense threads of energy as they flowed into his body.

Orun hovered overhead, looking down with pure contempt.

"Thief."