Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 1014: A New King Stood

Ethan didn't answer.

He just stared at it with ice-cold eyes. Then his five fingers slowly curled, compressing a massive sphere of energy in his palm.

Inside the orb, white lightning tangled with a "melting" attribute, twisting around each other like living things. The waves it gave off made the space around him warp violently.

The next second, he slammed it forward.

Ant King Threxus's expression changed on the spot.

Almost on instinct, it shot backward, and a dazzling, multicolored barrier unfurled around its body.

The power packed into that barrier was terrifyingly dense. Even the slightest outward ripple was enough to drive the surrounding space into extreme distortion.

When Ethan's attack crashed into it, the barrier didn't shatter right away.

Instead, it kicked up heavy ripples—one ring after another.

But the truly lethal part wasn't the frontal impact.

It was the "melting" attribute that seeped in behind it.

In only a few breaths, a razor-clear crack had been corroded into the once rock-solid, rainbow shield.

Ant King Threxus's face flooded with sheer terror.

It knew exactly what that meant.

Whether it was total energy reserves or Tier, it wasn't weaker than Prince Zerathrax. In some ways, it was even stronger. And yet now, it was being pinned down by Ethan so completely it couldn't even mount a real counterattack.

The gap was almost impossible to accept.

"Who the hell are you?!" it finally roared again, but there was a hint of panic buried in the fury. "What did Nexaris ever do to you? Why do you have to wipe us out—why won't you leave anyone alive?!"

At that moment, the energy inside Ethan spiked to its peak.

The entire sky trembled under his power, splitting open with hair-thin fractures—one after another. The pressure had grown so thick it was almost tangible, like if it expanded any further, this entire world might get ripped apart.

He stepped forward slowly, the killing intent in his eyes so cold it was practically sharp.

"You?"

His voice was quiet, but the contempt in it wasn't even slightly hidden.

"You're nothing but an insect rolling in the dust—"

He locked his gaze on Ant King Threxus, his tone dropping to something viciously cold.

"What right do you have to ask me that?"

The instant the words fell, Ethan's power erupted again—across the board.

Ant King Threxus didn't even have time to fully react before that lightning and destruction, compressed to the absolute limit, came crashing down. The multicolored barrier—already cracked—finally shattered completely under the blow.

And then the force pierced straight through its body without the slightest resistance.

The massive ant king's body jerked hard in midair—then it was smashed into countless fragments.

"BOOM—!"

A dull, explosive crack tore open the high sky.

Even at the moment of death, Ant King Threxus's eyes still held thick unwillingness and bafflement. It couldn't understand why a human who looked so small could possess power this unreasonable—nor why, of all times, he had come here now.

But it wouldn't get the chance to understand.

Ethan left it no possibility of turning the tables.

He lifted a hand and pressed down, shattering even the last wisps of energy spilling from Ant King Threxus. Then, from the ruptured wreckage, he pulled out its energy core and clenched it firmly in his hand.

And with the ant king's complete death—

the entire ant army fell into a brief, total daze.

No matter how they tried to process it, they couldn't accept that their nearly invincible king had been crushed—this overwhelmingly, right in the middle of the battlefield.

Ethan, holding Ant King Threxus's energy core, rose slowly into the sky.

The core kept pulsing in his palm, layers of multicolored elemental light cycling over it like the heart of a king that hadn't fully gone out yet.

When he released his power without holding anything back, white lightning rapidly expanded around him and resonated with that core, making the air above the canyon flash bright and dim in unstable waves.

He looked down at the surviving ant army below, his voice cold and distinct.

"From this moment on, I am your king."

His gaze swept over every ant still standing on the battlefield.

"Either surrender, or die. Choose."

In that moment, the entire battlefield went silent.

With Ant King Threxus gone, whatever momentum the remaining ants had was completely crushed.

They glanced at each other, antennae trembling. They were still drowning in chaos and fear, with no idea how to face the human who had just personally ground their king to pieces.

In that dead silence, one ant suddenly crawled forward a few steps.

It lowered its body, slowly, until its head was almost pressed to the ground. Its voice shook with terror—and obedience.

"Master… from now on, you are our master."

Once there was a first, there was a second.

Soon, one ant after another dropped down, packing the entire canyon with kneeling bodies. They had clearly lost any thought of resisting. Under the double pressure of absolute power and the king's core being taken, submission became the only way out.

A flash of barely restrained excitement lit Ethan's eyes.

He'd already seen firsthand how terrifying this ant legion was. Not only did they have insanely tough bodies, strong elemental talent, and that Infernal aura—there were a lot of them, and they moved like a real army, disciplined and coordinated.

If he could truly bring all of them under his command, then the war power he could deploy next would jump to a level he'd never had before.

His eyes shifted slightly, and a new idea clicked into place almost instantly.

The next moment, Ethan lifted a hand and swept it outward, letting his power ripple through the air. Then he reached into space itself and pulled out a temporary set of Creature Dwellings. The instant it appeared, quite a few people around him visibly froze. Even the ant legion kneeling on the ground stirred as one.

No one could tell what he was planning.

Especially the ants that had just surrendered. Instinctively, they tensed with unease. They were the defeated—newly subdued. Nobody knew if Ethan might suddenly change his mind and use them as some kind of sacrifice or test material.

Very quickly, they got their answer.

Ethan casually grabbed the nearest ant and tossed it straight into the Creature Dwellings.

In the next instant, a surge of violent energy detonated outward.

Bands of light and intricate patterns raced across the surface of the temporary nest, spinning up at high speed. The air filled with a low, rumbling resonance that didn't stop for even a second.

Only a moment later, an identical ant was summoned back out—same body, same aura, even the elemental fluctuations along its carapace matched down to the finest detail.

Everyone watching went momentarily blank.

The ants who'd been terrified just seconds ago flat-out froze in place.

They clearly hadn't expected to be "copied" like this. And judging by the power radiating from the newly born individual, this wasn't some cheap illusion—it was a real unit, something that could be thrown into battle immediately.

After a brief, suffocating silence, more ants began edging forward on their own.

Their fear hadn't fully vanished. But after seeing that result, what rose up even stronger was something else—shock mixed with awe, and a curiosity they couldn't quite suppress.