Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

The moment the word left Orun’s mouth, he shot at Ethan.

His right fist came down with a deafening mechanical roar. Layers of black-and-red plates cinched tighter and tighter, and the air in front of his knuckles compressed into visible distortion. The punch was aimed straight at Ethan’s head—like he meant to pulp him in one blow.

At the instant the fist dropped, Ethan lifted both hands off the ground.

He sprang upward on the power he’d just stolen, sliding along the edge of Orun’s punch like his body was greased by the wind itself. The mechanical fist grazed past him and smashed into the earth. The explosion of force shredded the corner of Ethan’s clothes—

—but it still didn’t touch his body.

Ethan snapped back with a punch of his own, driving it into Orun’s goat horns.

White lightning detonated across his knuckles. Ash-gray energy drilled through the contact point and into the mechanical structure.

CRACK!

Both mechanical horns snapped clean off.

Ethan followed with a brutal knee straight into Orun’s ugly mechanical face.

Metal and bone-like framework shrieked as it warped. Orun’s faceplate caved in on the spot, black-and-red armor folding inward. The red glow in his mechanical eyes flickered violently. His massive body was knocked up into the air, and his thrusters spat unstable blue flame, leaving messy, broken light-trails behind him.

Ethan didn’t let the opening go.

He stepped on shattered airflow and chased, fists hammering out in a rapid chain. The barrage hit like a rainstorm—each punch wrapped in white lightning and ash-gray force, slamming into chest plating, shoulder armor, abdomen, and joint housings. Heavy booms popped one after another. Red warning lights flared across Orun’s body, and tiny metal shards shook loose from the seams.

"Got anything else?" Ethan asked, voice sharp.

Orun stopped talking.

His thrusters suddenly erupted with even fiercer blue flame, forcibly blasting his huge mechanical body up and back into the high sky. He stabilized midair, glanced down at the horns Ethan had broken, and lifted a hand to set them back in place. At the fracture points, black-and-red mechanical patterns crawled fast, stitching and locking the horns into their original position.

Then he looked down at Ethan, cold and contemptuous.

The next instant, the thrusters flared again.

Blue flame tore the air. Orun vanished from where he hovered.

When he reappeared, he was already in Ethan’s face.

The armor pressed down through the air, and the wind pressure alone sent loose stones skittering and tumbling across the ground beneath them.

Orun lifted his left leg slightly—like he was about to kick Ethan’s shin clean in half.

But as the kick dropped, a sharp mechanical blade snapped out from the sole of his foot. It flashed with cold metallic sheen and stabbed upward at a diagonal, aiming straight for Ethan’s body.

Ethan wasn’t about to let it land.

But he also didn’t dodge.

He clenched his left hand into a tight fist, drove power into his knuckles, and met Orun head-on—punching straight into Orun’s chest. White lightning burst along his arm. When his fist hit the breastplate, ash-gray energy plunged into the armor from the impact point.

BOOM!

Orun’s chest was blown open—punched into a hollow.

Mechanical parts, black-and-red shards, and scalding air blasted out. In the center of the chestplate, damaged core structure was exposed. Ethan used the recoil to slide back and to the side, narrowly slipping away from the foot-blade’s follow-up stab.

Orun only glanced down at his own chest.

His eyes stayed bored. Disdainful.

Right in front of Ethan, the torn mechanical structure shifted and rearranged. Broken metal re-knit. Black-and-red light flowed along the cracks like liquid solder. In just a few breaths, the hole restored itself—so clean you could barely tell he’d been punched through at all.

While it regenerated, Ethan moved.

He threw up clusters of energy spheres in rapid succession.

One after another, white orbs appeared around him. Lightning rotated slowly inside, while a layer of ash-gray power pressed down from the outside like a seal. He detonated part of them immediately, using the blast wave to force distance—pushing himself away from Orun’s position.

And that was when Lily woke up.

She sensed the power spiking in the distance and didn’t waste a single word. She chose fusion with Ethan on the spot. Ethan already carried several interwoven forces inside him—now Lily’s presence poured in too, and his internal flow swelled, thicker and heavier, like a river about to flood its banks.

Ethan pretended to pause.

He hovered in midair, head lowered, re-acclimating to the combined power after merging with everyone.

Vast.

Surging.

It rose from deep inside him, spreading through bone and flesh in waves. The aura that had been stuck at mid Tier 35 was shoved upward—cleanly, brutally—breaking into Tier 36. The air around him was pulled into a slow spiral, and the white lightning thickened into finer, denser threads that crawled over his skin.

In the distance, Orun retreated at top speed.

The reason was simple.

He’d detected the foreign power that had suddenly appeared inside Ethan.

"Hey, kid!" Orun hovered far away, red light flickering in his mechanical eyes. "What other tricks you got, bring them all out! I’ll take all of it! If you die, your brain’s gone!"

Still arrogant to the end.

Ethan floated there, expression flat. He pointed casually at Orun.

A tiny energy sphere appeared on his fingertip—only the size of a knuckle. Its surface glowed with quiet white light, but the lightning inside was compressed so deep it felt... wrong.

The next second, the sphere turned into a bolt of white lightning and struck Orun’s mechanical body.

Orun immediately tried the same move as before—forming another mechanical battle axe. The moment it finished shaping in his hand, he slashed it back into his own body, trying to cut out the invading force like he had earlier.

This time, it didn’t work.

After the white lightning entered Orun, it wasn’t suppressed by his repair power. It spread through his structure like a plague. The repair system that had been dominating a moment ago was being overwritten—broken down, cleared out, erased—replaced piece by piece by something else.

Red warning lights flashed across Orun’s chest, shoulders, and arms in rapid sequence.

"What did you do?!"

Orun stared at Ethan in real, sudden fear.

Ethan’s face was streaked with blood. A smear still clung to the corner of his mouth from where he’d been hit. And yet he smiled faintly, like none of it mattered.

"What, me?"

He raised both hands. Two energy spheres condensed in his palms. White lightning boiled inside them, trapped thunder slamming against the inner walls.

"Obviously," Ethan said, voice light, "I’m killing you."

He pressed one of the spheres into his own body.

His figure vanished again.

This time, Ethan’s voice came from everywhere at once—from the air, from between the rocks, from behind Orun, from above his head. The source was impossible to pin down.

"Go on," Ethan’s voice teased, threading through the space around him. "Guess who wins this time."

Orun panicked and raised shields around himself.

Layer after layer of black-and-red mechanical barriers unfolded, wrapping his body. He gripped his axe and snapped his gaze across the surroundings, trying to catch the trajectory of Ethan’s black-particle form.

A faint rush of air flickered in front of him.

Orun reacted instantly—firing a laser at the sound. A red beam tore through the air, scorching a ring of blackened ripples into that patch of space. But then movement sparked from another side—then behind him, then overhead, then underfoot.

Disturbances everywhere. All at once.

Orun’s lasers kept firing. His axe kept cleaving the air.

Every strike missed.

And inside him, explosions kept going off.

Ash-gray energy and white lightning crawled through his mechanical structure, tearing open connection after connection, severing systems one by one.

"A—AH!"

A scream finally ripped out of Orun’s throat.

He snapped around—he’d finally locked onto where Ethan was about to emerge—

Only to see, far away in the air, black particles gathering again.

Ethan stepped out of dispersion.

He stood at a distance, a white energy sphere hovering above his hand, eyes fixed on Orun. Orun’s mechanical body was flashing with blinding red light from within—warnings that looked less like an alert now...

...and more like a countdown.

Ethan looked down at Orun’s body with open contempt.

Then he casually flicked the energy sphere from his hand.

The white orb didn’t fly fast. If anything, it was slow—almost leisurely. But as it drifted forward, the air around Orun was forced apart to either side, like the world itself was making room for it. Orun’s eyes burned red. He tried to move—

—and could only watch as the orb reached him and slipped into his mechanical body.

No sound.

Ethan turned and walked away.

Behind him, a layer of energy shield surfaced around Orun. Inside that shield, white light began to bloom from within Orun—first in his chest, then his limbs, his head, his back thrusters, every mechanical joint lighting up in sequence.

The next instant, the white light exploded.

Orun’s body was blown into powder. Mechanical fragments hammered the inside of the barrier with a rapid cling-clang—black-red armor plates, snapped gears, shattered core parts, broken metal bones. Trapped inside the shield, they were ground down again and again by white lightning, crushed until even the debris couldn’t stay intact.

Ethan returned to the others.

Auri stepped out of him first, releasing the fusion. She didn’t say anything—just went straight to Feylora and quietly started feeding her energy. Lily fell back into sleep. As the fusions peeled away, Ethan’s aura slid down with them, dropping from Tier 36 back to mid Tier 35 in a blink.

With the commander gone, the mechanical constructs on the perimeter stopped attacking at the exact same time.

A moment ago they’d still been charging with axes raised. The second Orun shattered, every construct froze mid-stride. Red light flared from their chests—and then, one after another, they detonated. Explosions rippled along the arena’s outer ring in a dense chain, and the steel tide collapsed into nothing.

Andona spread her wings, holy radiance pouring down from the sky.

Golden light washed over the ruined ground, suppressing the leftover black-red mechanical stench and scrubbing away traces of magma and corruption. In that light, the group—and this battered land—finally caught a breath of new life.

Seraphina shifted back into her dragon form and carried everyone into the air.

She weaved around towering mountains, riding the distant currents forward. The arena shrank behind them, cracked ridges, severed riverbeds, and shattered mechanical wreckage left in the dust.

Before long, they stopped in front of a decayed ruin.

The moment Ethan drew close, he felt a sleeping power ahead—deep inside the ruins, wrapped in a wind aura so pure it almost hurt. It wasn’t violent. It was sharp and agile, like countless high-speed wind blades silently circling between broken walls.

A Tempest Dragon.

A Tempest Dragon that ruled this region.

It might be lacking in plenty of other ways, but when it came to controlling wind, it clearly knew what it was doing.

Ethan studied the wreckage and said evenly, "Vaelstorm Ruins. Just a broken relic. There’s probably something inside at peak Tier 35... maybe Tier 36. Hard to say."

Seraphina set them down, then flew alone to the highest point of the ruins.

She stood on the edge of a broken tower and swept her gaze over the shattered streets and collapsed buildings below. The place must’ve once been massive—pillars, statues, and high walls lay in pieces, but you could still see the shape of what it used to be.

"Man, this place is trashed," Seraphina muttered. "Used to be a real city, huh."

Right then, a wind blast broke its own speed limit and slipped silently behind her.

BANG!

It dropped like a meteor.

There was almost no warning—just the boom of air compressed to the absolute limit. It was about to hit Seraphina when Ethan appeared on her back, left hand already holding a charged energy sphere he’d been waiting on.

The wind blast arrived right on schedule above Ethan’s head.

Seraphina started to turn, about to greet Ethan for suddenly popping onto her back—

—and the clash of two forces behind her slammed her downward.

The wind blast collided with the energy sphere in Ethan’s hand.

The next moment, the wind blast was wrapped by another layer of wind, forming a high-speed spinning vortex. The vortex chewed at Ethan’s white energy sphere, slicing and eroding it, while the white lightning inside the sphere chewed back, trying to drill through. The two forces deadlocked on Seraphina’s back, pressing her dragon body into a steady, unwilling descent.

Ethan’s eyes locked on the core of the wind blast.

Inside it was a motionless green sphere.

Just as the white lightning was about to pierce into that green core, a sharp sense of danger spiked up Ethan’s spine. He slapped Seraphina’s scales hard and formed another energy sphere with his free hand, tossing it into the air.

"Move!"

They bolted.

Seraphina snapped back into human form to shrink her profile, grabbed Ethan—who had already begun to particulate—and yanked him out of the collision zone. But they both knew what was coming.

A third sphere was about to join the mess.

The others had been waiting for it.

Feylora moved first, feeding Ethan energy. After the steady nourishment and recovery along the way, she was fully restored. Green power flowed from her palm into Ethan, stabilizing the turbulence in his aura after the nonstop fighting.

Everyone else stared forward.

When the third energy sphere joined, the pressure from the first two forces had already crushed a huge portion of the ruins. Now, with three spheres tugging at each other, the release of power flattened the area outright.

Broken walls collapsed. Snapped columns turned to dust. Ancient streets were peeled open by the shockwaves.

Only the imposing Western-style building at the center remained untouched—tall, straight, and absurdly intact.

The lightning spheres formed a pincer from above and below, grinding the wind sphere against the ground. Their annihilating force squeezed the wind blast’s core again and again. The green wind sphere cracked under the white lightning, then finally dispersed completely.

The white energy spheres immediately shifted targets.

Ethan controlled both, eyes narrowing at the huge building. It hadn’t collapsed under that earlier pressure. That alone was suspicious.

The two spheres began to fuse slowly.

White lightning crossed and tangled inside, releasing a blinding glow. The merged energy turned denser than before, forcing the surrounding air to shove outward. Loose stones on the ground trembled as if pulled by invisible strings.

Andona moved in front of the group without hesitation.

She rose into the air, golden wings blooming open like petals. With both hands at her chest, she gave a light wingbeat, and a golden shield wrapped around everyone.

Namyanna planted her trident into the ground.

The instant it sank in, a pale blue barrier flared into existence, overlapping Andona’s golden screen. Tide-like patterns rippled across its surface, and the air filled with a faint salty ocean scent.

Ethan pressed both hands downward, then pointed at the untouched building.

The two white energy spheres in midair responded instantly. The lightning inside them compressed sharply, the outer glow collapsing inward—then they tore through the air and appeared right in front of the building.

But just as they approached the ruins, the wind changed.

Not one gust.

Not ten.

Tens of millions of reverse winds rose at the same time.

They lifted from every side of the ruins like invisible hands, grabbing at the two energy spheres from countless angles. The white lightning that had been driving straight ahead began to bend under the pull. Every inch forward shaved a layer of electric light off the surface, wind blades peeling it away. The energy inside the spheres was quietly worn down as they traveled.

Ethan frowned.

They weren’t blocked head-on.

They were being consumed on the way in.

The wind control was unbelievably fine—like a net that had been laid out long ago, patiently waiting for any outside attack to walk straight into it.

When the energy inside the spheres was nearly gone, all the reverse winds vanished at once.

A barrier appeared in front of the ruins.

The last scraps of the two white spheres slammed into it.

Thoom...

No roar of collapsing stone. No blast of flying rubble.

Just a long, deep echo that spread out from the shield’s surface—rolling through the broken ruins, across the flattened ground, and finally fading beside their ears.

Slowly, the shield disappeared too.

The ruins returned to stillness.

That building stood there, perfectly intact. No cracks in the walls. No tilt to the spire. Not even the outer stone patterns looked scuffed by the attack.