Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1197: A Quiet Warning

Ethan hovered high in the sky, lightning constantly bleeding off his body like a living storm.

He swung an arm, throwing out sheets of transparent thunder that rolled toward the Abyssal Empress in a crushing wave. Behind him, the dragon phantom opened its jaws and compressed that fused, chaotic power into a single pillar of light—driving it straight at her chest.

The Abyssal Empress still looked bored.

She stared at Ethan with cold disdain and casually flicked her hand in front of her.

The transparent thunder was crushed by the force her fingertips stirred up. The dragon’s light pillar was knocked aside as well, swept off course by the elemental bird’s wing like it was nothing. Ethan attacked again and again, never once truly closing the distance—while the shockwaves from her effortless counters forced him back, step after step, until his retreat turned frantic.

Ethan clenched his teeth and forced himself to stabilize in midair.

Then the battle shifted somewhere else.

The fire-red energy pouring off Ataneya already suppressed the enemy in front of her. Now she stopped holding back completely. All twenty tails unfurled at once, and power erupted from her body, turning into a sea of flame that bulldozed across the sky.

Her opponent’s face changed instantly, panic flashing through as he retreated hard.

The fire-red tide pursued without mercy, burning through his defenses, his escape routes, even the power he tried to gather again and again. Before long he was driven all the way to the edge of the horizon.

He tried to pull back farther—

—but a red blast smashed in from the side and punched straight into his chest.

Ataneya fought the same way Ethan did.

She didn’t give enemies breathing room.

The moment that red energy detonated inside him, she was already on him—flame, shadow, and Infernal Abyss aura crashing down in a relentless chain. Every strike landed around the same wound, tearing his defenses apart piece by piece until there was nothing left to hold together.

It didn’t take long.

His body was ripped into fragments.

But the transparent box in his hands—and the red sphere—remained.

The two objects floated in the wreckage of his shattered energy, untouched by the collapse of his body. Strange light-patterns flowed over the box’s surface, while inside the red sphere an extremely dense power rotated slowly, the pressure rippling off it heavy and terrifying.

Ataneya snatched both up and shot toward Ethan.

She handed the transparent box and the red sphere to him—and then, as if that wasn’t enough, she pulled out another gem from her own body. It was a blazing, fire-red crystal.

"Master."

Ataneya raised her hand and offered it to him.

"Every time I fight, my power condenses into a Primordial Core energy crystal like this."

She glanced down at the gem in her palm, her tone both puzzled and serious.

"I don’t really know what it does. But... I want you to have it."

Ethan paused.

The battlefield was chaos at the highest level; he shouldn’t have been letting anything distract him. But the instant he saw that fire-red crystal, the power inside him reacted on its own. This wasn’t the kind of ripple an ordinary energy core could cause.

It was something deeper—like a resonance.

He reached out and took it.

The moment his palm touched the crystal’s surface, a surge of incredibly dense energy spilled out and flowed into his body through his hand.

Lily’s voice rang out inside him, carrying a rare note of awe.

"Oh my god..."

"This girl can actually condense an Infernal Abyss crystal—something only a Supreme Deity of the Infernal Abyss should be able to create!"

Lily’s tone shook with disbelief.

"Your people... seriously keep surprising me."

Excitement flashed in Ethan’s eyes too.

Before he could even fully process what Lily had said, the crystal in his hand turned liquid and seeped into him through his palm. Once that fire-red power entered his meridians, it didn’t scatter and slam around like ordinary energy. It moved with purpose—rushing into his limbs and organs, linking up with the tangled, composite power he’d just fused together.

A presence Ethan had never felt before erupted from him.

The energy between heaven and earth reacted like it had finally found its owner, pouring into his body in an endless stream. Transparent lightning, snow-white thunder, fire-red force, Infernal Abyss aura, and Primordial Core energy compressed and spun at his chest.

Not long after, a massive sphere of energy condensed into existence right over his sternum.

Ethan’s breathing quickened.

The huge sphere kept turning slowly in his chest, while the melted, liquid energy from the fire-red crystal continued to flow into every part of him. Every time it passed through a region, torn flesh inside him sealed back up. The lingering burn in his meridians was erased little by little, like someone smoothing out a raw wound.

He could feel it clearly—his body was changing.

The power he’d erupted with earlier had been too vast, and it hadn’t truly belonged to him. Idra’s, Auri’s, Nysera’s... and Lily’s power had only fused inside him temporarily, forcing his Tier up to this terrifying height. But that fusion was dangerous by nature, and his body hadn’t fully adapted to a level like this.

On top of that, during the earlier fighting, he’d forced hundreds of energy cores into himself just to keep the line from collapsing.

Those cores had restored him again and again... but they’d also carved deep damage into his flesh and meridians. Every forced absorption had felt like pouring molten iron into his body. From the outside, he could still move and fight.

Inside, he’d been cracked to hell.

If this kept going, he would eventually be torn apart from the inside out.

But the crystal Ataneya gave him was different.

Once the liquefied energy entered him, it didn’t create new destruction. It flowed along the existing injuries, reconnecting broken energy pathways. Flesh recovered. Bones stabilized. Even the hollow emptiness left by his earlier overdraw was being rapidly filled.

And more than that—

His level was still climbing.

Ethan lowered his gaze to his own hand. Transparent lightning threaded between his fingers, fire-red power sinking deeper beneath it. And the sphere at his chest—like a brand-new core—kept dragging in the world’s energy and feeding it into his body.

Just then, Korvath arrived with a group of people at his back.

These native powerhouses had thrown themselves into the war too. Now that the immediate pressure had eased, their injuries finally showed. One man’s armor was shattered, blood still pouring from his chest. Another had half his body scorched black by energy and could only stand with someone supporting him. A few more were outright missing chunks of their bodies, their auras so weak they looked seconds away from dropping.

Korvath was the worst of them.

He was missing an entire arm.

The stump had been sealed by blood-red Primordial Core power, keeping it from bleeding out, but the energy there was unstable—shivering like it could snap at any moment. It was obvious: to hold the line earlier, Korvath had pushed himself past the limit.

Ethan looked at them, and something heavy settled in his chest.

By any reasonable logic, this war shouldn’t have had much to do with Korvath. The ones who’d drawn these monsters in were Emerald Castle—him. But Korvath had still come personally, and he’d dragged his friends and subordinates into a battle that had nearly torn the world apart.

That debt was too big to brush off.

Ethan didn’t hesitate. He pulled out several high-quality energy cores and shoved them into Korvath’s hands.

"There are plenty of energy cores on the battlefield," Ethan said, steady and firm as he met his gaze.

"Take whatever you want. Consider it compensation—from me."

Korvath didn’t put on a show of refusing.

He knew this wasn’t the time for pride. Without enough energy, a lot of his people wouldn’t survive the recovery period ahead. He immediately ordered his men to start collecting cores from the battlefield, then grabbed more than a hundred for himself in one go.

After that, he picked out a dozen and pressed them straight onto the severed stump.

The cores shattered. Dense power flooded into his body through the wound. His blood-red Primordial Core energy mixed with it—first stabilizing the broken bone, then forcing flesh to regrow over it. Not long after, Korvath’s missing arm condensed back into shape.

He flexed his fingers a few times. Only after confirming the limb was truly back did he lift his head and look at Ethan.

"Ethan. There’s something I need to talk to you about."

Korvath’s expression turned serious.

"Can we find somewhere quiet?"