Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 1012: Something Aligned Within

Ethan was about to seize the opening—compress his power even further and finish it in one clean kill.

But right then—

Something went wrong.

That ant suddenly released a burst of violently oppressive power from inside its body. Immediately after, a mass of brownish-purple energy exploded out from deep within it.

The force came insanely fast, like some corrosive origin power that had been forcibly suppressed for ages—then, the instant the floodgates opened, it swept through the surrounding space.

Ethan's pupils snapped tight.

He retreated on instinct, at the same time condensing white lightning in his palm. He formed it into a huge sphere of energy and hurled it straight into the brownish-purple mass.

The moment the two forces touched in midair, the power that erupted was beyond anything they'd produced in any previous clash at this level.

The world rumbled again with a deep, rolling boom.

The surrounding valley, the fractures in the sky, the broken layers of space itself—everything took the hit. Huge sheets of rock were ripped up and thrown aside, and even the two armies fighting in the distance were forced off their original lines by the shockwave.

But what made Ethan's blood run cold wasn't the explosion.

It was the corrosive aura bleeding out of that brownish-purple energy.

It was… wrong.

It carried obvious destruction, but also a completely unfamiliar attribute. Not simple burning. Not simple erosion. It felt like a power that could slowly dissolve "existence itself."

Even getting grazed by the aftermath, Ethan's muscles spasmed uncontrollably.

For a split second, faint corrosion marks even appeared on the outer layer of the Powered Combat Armor.

He understood immediately—

He couldn't let that energy touch him head-on.

If it truly invaded his body, the outcome probably wouldn't be "injured." His entire body might be melted down completely.

With that thought, Ethan didn't hesitate. He pulled back again, retreating more than ten steps in a row, and rapidly stacked several thick energy barriers around himself. White lightning and the armor's defensive systems ran at the same time, locking him tight in the center.

On the other side, the full-scale melee between the armies had already gone completely white-hot.

The ant legion's numbers and overall strength were far beyond what they'd expected. Emerald Castle's side was riding high on momentum from nonstop gains, but against a monster army mixing elements, metal energy, and infernal aura, they still couldn't crush them quickly. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

And what gave Ethan an even bigger headache was—

This ant legion clearly wasn't some slapdash force thrown together at the last minute.

They'd arrived too suddenly, but their coordination was far too practiced—like a card that had been kept hidden on purpose, saved specifically for some extreme situation.

If these things had been present during the final battle with Zerathrax earlier, Emerald Castle's army would never have taken that win so smoothly.

Ethan's breathing had sped up to the limit.

That ant "lord" wielding brownish-purple corrosive energy was not a normal enemy by any definition.

The aura constantly spreading off it felt like a mutated form of white lightning… but mixed with some deeper, alien power from the depths of The Infernal Abyss.

With every collision, Ethan could clearly feel it trying to chew through his defenses. Even the patterns etched across the Powered Combat Armor's surface were starting to show faint scorch-corrosion.

And in the brief moment he lost focus—when he couldn't see a clean way to break the situation—

Three slender figures suddenly rushed in from not far away.

They didn't slow down. They didn't waste words.

They turned into three streaks of different-colored light and slammed into Ethan's body without hesitation.

In that instant, Ethan's body jolted hard, like three forces that didn't belong to him had been forcibly plugged into his energy structure at the same time.

Idra. Auri. Nysera.

The three little girls poured in everything they could possibly mobilize, holding nothing back, forcing it all into him.

It wasn't a simple stacking of energy.

It felt more like a higher-level resonance.

After those three streams entered Ethan, they didn't clash with each other. Instead, they fused in an incredibly strange way almost instantly. Ethan's white lightning surged violently in the same breath, bleaching the surrounding space a harsh, ghastly white. The chaotic field around him—moments ago unstable—reassembled itself in the blink of an eye.

Ethan could clearly feel it—his power was climbing at breakneck speed.

His bones heated up. His blood boiled. Even his consciousness felt like it was being yanked up a level. This wasn't some vague "I feel stronger" sensation. It was an unmistakably clear leap in tier.

34 Tier.

In that moment, his overall strength finally stepped into the height he'd been just a hair away from.

The instant it hit that threshold, violent energy detonated outward from him.

The white lightning didn't just wrap around his body anymore. It surged out like a truly awakened sea of thunder, flooding the space around him. Ethan didn't pause for even a breath—he slammed straight into the ant lord head-on.

The two forces collided viciously in midair.

But this time—

The outcome was completely different.

Ethan didn't give an inch.

Instead, the ant lord was blown back the moment they met. The recoil was terrifying, snapping its arms into exploding chunks of meat. Shattered carapace and gore sprayed through the air.

"Bang! Bang! Bang—!"

A chain of explosive cracks echoed through the valley.

Ethan didn't give it a second to breathe.

He threw an arm up, compressing all that freshly fused power high into the sky.

White lightning spiraled and gathered, condensing into a gigantic sphere of energy at the top of the heavens. It was massive and heavy, thunder churning violently inside it—like a white sun about to fall.

The next second, he dropped it.

The ant lord panicked to the point of terror.

Almost purely on instinct, it pulled every last scrap of power inward, forcing its remaining white lightning and that dangerous brownish-purple energy to condense. Layer after layer of stacked defensive barriers formed in front of it.

But those barriers, in front of Ethan now—

Were as flimsy as paper.

The white energy sphere smashed through on contact, obliterating them instantly. Lightning and impact poured through. The ant lord didn't even get out a full scream before its entire body was blasted into fragments.

Ethan surged forward almost the instant it came apart.

He ignored the scattered shell and severed limbs. His eyes locked immediately onto the snow-white energy core that had dropped to the ground.

It was still faintly pulsing, with threads of brownish-purple haze wrapped around its surface, radiating a brutal, dangerous fluctuation.

But the moment Ethan grabbed it, he felt something unexpected.

Compatibility.

Like it had always been meant to be his.

He slowly released his own power, letting the white lightning seep into the core little by little.

With a soft, faint hum, the core's chaotic internal structure snapped awake. In the same instant, the brownish-purple aura tangled around it surged out as well, flowing through his palm and into his body.

Only then did Ethan truly understand.

This power, at its root, also belonged to The Infernal Abyss.

It was just mixed with too many impurities—too much contamination—which was why it couldn't be cleanly converted into pure white lightning the way Lily's could. Even so, it still shared a common origin with the strength inside him.