Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Maelor’s palm clamped tight around the hilt, blood leaking between his fingers.

But he didn’t swing the blade like everyone expected. He didn’t even bother to inspect the violent power radiating off it.

He gripped both ends of the sword—

—and bent.

Crack!

The blade snapped in half at the center.

The force released from the break blasted outward, pressing warped, bending ripples into the surrounding space. Maelor didn’t care. He tossed one half aside, then reached up and grabbed the dragon horn that had just regrown on his head.

Another sharp crack.

He tore the full horn straight off.

The broken sword and the horn were immediately wrapped in wind. In the spinning airflow, they drew closer. The broken sword’s leaking power flowed along the horn’s surface, gradually reshaping it. The horn’s sharp tip was pulled longer, while the base fused to the hilt.

In Maelor’s hands, a sword made from dragon horn took form.

There was no fixed glow along its edge—only a layer of constantly flowing wind. Every time that airflow skimmed the blade, a hairline fissure opened in the nearby space... then was forcibly sealed by the surrounding power a heartbeat later.

Maelor lifted his face—still not fully healed—and threw his head back, laughing.

"You’re done!"

His voice rode the wind to every platform.

"Done!"

Maelor started walking forward.

There was no path beneath him, yet the wind gathered before each step and held him up. He walked slowly past the front of the group until he stood above them all, the dragon-horn sword held sideways at his flank.

The blade twitched.

A fresh wave of air rolled out from it, racing across the entire space. Distant gray fog was sliced apart. Cracks crawled across platform surfaces. Even the deep-gold light around Seraphine was blown back, tilting away.

But just as Maelor was about to swing again, he froze.

A lump of blue light lit inside his abdomen.

It wasn’t new power.

It was the energy Ataneya had loaded into the blue-white sphere earlier. Pale-blue light spread outward from deep inside the wound, piercing through the flesh Maelor had just repaired, then forming a ringed ripple—like layered waves.

The first blue ring left his body and expanded outward.

Then the second.

The third.

When the ring-waves passed the platforms where everyone stood, they didn’t hit like a direct shockwave. Instead, they shoved all nearby wind outward, clearing space around the group. The ripples continued to expand until they hit the edge of the domain.

The space barrier flashed blue.

Blocked, the expanding rings reversed direction. What had been pushing outward now snapped inward, collapsing back toward the center along the same route—faster than before.

At the same time, white lightning erupted from inside Maelor’s abdomen.

It spread first along his chest and spine, then blasted outward, turning the whole gray space blindingly white. The current pinned Maelor in place. The wind power he’d just stabilized slipped into chaos again.

The returning blue rings arrived a beat later.

They slammed into Maelor from multiple directions and converged at his abdomen. The second impact squeezed inward along the already damaged area. The healed flesh tore open again, and blue light and white lightning surged out from deep inside the wound.

Maelor lowered his head, staring stupidly at his abdomen.

He didn’t immediately disperse the power inside.

Instead, he raised the dragon-horn sword, pointed the tip at himself—

—and stabbed it in.

The blade drove into his abdomen, sinking in most of the way.

Maelor kept his hand on the hilt and twisted his wrist, even stirring it inside the wound a few times. The wind power carried by the sword drilled into his body, colliding with the remaining blue energy and the white lightning.

Ethan froze, staring.

Self-harm?

Or did Maelor think the wound wasn’t bad enough and decided to add more himself?

But Maelor’s aura didn’t weaken.

It strengthened.

As the dragon-horn sword turned inside him, the chaotic wind leaking outward gradually calmed. The white lightning’s snapping began to fade. The blue rings stopped expanding. The wind around Maelor returned from disorder to a steady rhythm, layering closer and closer to his body.

Ethan caught the opening.

He raised both hands at once. White lightning shot forward from his palms. Two streams merged in front of him into a thicker bolt, firing straight at Maelor’s chest.

Everyone else launched ranged attacks at the same time.

Energy of different colors rose from platform after platform, crossing the storm-woven space and pressing down on Maelor from the front, the sides, and below. The attacks staggered cleanly, not blocking each other’s lines, quickly sealing off the zones Maelor could’ve dodged into.

High above, Seraphine slowly lifted both blades.

Deep-gold light rose from beneath her feet, flowed up her body, and instead of dispersing after it passed her shoulders, it gathered behind her—packing tighter and tighter, sketching a massive outline.

Wings unfolded first.

Then a head, shoulders, and arms.

A gigantic angelic silhouette fully manifested behind Seraphine. Its lowered gaze pierced the wind layers and fell coldly on Maelor. The figure was made of pure light, and as it appeared, all nearby gray currents were forced back, driven away.

Maelor didn’t show a hint of fear.

He pulled the dragon-horn sword out of his abdomen. Not much blood sprayed—only a steady wind followed the blade out, then circled back around his body.

Holding the blood-stained sword, Maelor smiled at them.

In the next instant, swarms of storm cores appeared around the space.

One core after another condensed out of the wind, lining up in neat formation around the group. They didn’t attack randomly. Under Maelor’s control, they advanced toward the center in perfect sync, gradually compressing everyone’s room to move.

The encirclement tightened.

Scattered across different platforms, everyone was forced to close in, step by step, until they were pressed into a compact circle.

Maelor stayed where he was. He didn’t dodge the attacks coming straight at him.

White lightning struck his chest first. Other energies followed, detonating in rapid succession around his body—light and wind exploding over and over. The impacts tore his skin open, only for wind surging from within to patch it just as fast.

He simply raised the dragon-horn sword and swung at the nearest storm core.

The edge cut straight through the core’s center.

It shattered on the spot. The faint power stored inside slipped free of the wreckage, becoming a dull-colored wisp that hovered in the air.

Maelor crooked his finger at it.

That wisp threaded through the barrage of attacks and dove into his body. A small portion of his damaged skin restored itself. His grip on the sword steadied.

"Ganging up on me?"

He looked at the crowd packed together, the corner of his mouth lifting.

"I can’t do that—and I don’t want to!"

Ethan moved.

He vanished from where he stood, crossing the distance in a blink and appearing right in front of Maelor. Maelor’s last word hadn’t even fully landed when Ethan’s fist smashed into his cheek from the side.

Bone couldn’t take the impact and twisted.

Half of Maelor’s face caved under the punch. Flesh split along the line of his teeth. His body slid a short distance through the wind, shoved sideways.

But Maelor didn’t hit back.

He didn’t even bother to fix his face.