Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1211: The Abyss Changes Sides

The interest on Catheryn’s face vanished, replaced by undisguised contempt.

She didn’t even let go of Ethan. She simply lifted her other hand, extended a single finger, and pointed through the air at the minotaur’s forehead.

The motion was so light it looked like she was flicking away a speck of dust.

But the instant her fingertip settled—

Violent energy erupted from her hand and slammed straight through the air into the minotaur’s brow.

The huge body went flying.

The ground beneath his hooves exploded. Even the space behind him was dragged into a warped smear by the impact. In the next instant, he crashed hard into the canyon wall. The entire rock face caved inward, and a rain of stone rolled down from above, battering his shoulders and back until he was a mess of dust and rubble.

"A tiny little guard," Catheryn said, voice calm and low, "and you dare act up in front of me. You’re tired of living."

She didn’t raise her voice.

She didn’t need to.

The minotaur went stiff anyway, terror filling his eyes. He dragged himself out of the rock pile, chest heaving, the mark of her finger still stamped across his forehead. He didn’t dare look at her again. He turned and bolted.

He took two steps—

—and stopped.

A savage energy detonated inside his body. His chest bulged outward first. Then cracks raced across his skin like lightning, and red-black power sprayed from the fissures.

The next breath, his massive frame burst apart from within.

Flesh and shattered bone exploded into the air, only to be ground into powder by the lingering pressure around them.

Ethan’s breathing spiked.

He stood frozen, shoulders and fingers still stiff from the fight, unable to pull his eyes off Catheryn. The scene replayed in his head on a loop—she’d simply lifted her hand, placed a fingertip, no chanting, no build-up, no grand gesture.

And yet she’d planted a force savage enough to rip meat and bone—

Inside the minotaur.

It wasn’t power that smashed someone from the outside.

It slipped into the body, sank deep... then blew it apart from within. Ethan had watched the minotaur stiffen for a heartbeat, lose balance, like an invisible hammer had punched straight through his insides. When it erupted, the air itself tightened, and even the loose stones on the ground rolled outward a few more inches.

Catheryn’s strength was completely beyond his estimates.

Before Ethan could fully recover from that single strike, space tore open again.

This time it wasn’t one rift.

It was a field of them—gashes splitting open across the sky. Darkness oozed out like thick ink poured into the air. The edges of the rifts trembled, making a fine, grating sound, and any light swallowed by the cracks never came back.

Then figures began stepping through.

Their shapes were all wrong. Some had hunched backs that rose like tumors. Some had limbs stretched too long to make sense. Some had tilted heads, their bodies twisted like they’d been warped by brute force.

But what made Ethan’s back go cold wasn’t their appearance.

It was what they carried.

Pure corrosion.

Every step they took blackened the ground in widening rings. Any lingering glow inside the stone cracks was chewed away bit by bit. A sharp, acrid stench filled the air; Ethan drew in one breath and his throat felt scraped raw, like sandpaper dragged across it.

He narrowed his eyes and realized something worse.

Their power wasn’t scattering separately.

It was flowing between them—slow, deliberate—linking them together, forming an invisible net.

If that energy fully fused and erupted at once...

The result would be unimaginable.

Ethan’s pupils tightened.

He still hadn’t figured out exactly what Catheryn was—and now these things were appearing one after another. If they teamed up with her, or even just turned their focus on him at the same time, he wouldn’t have a way out of here.

As that thought hit, Catheryn glanced down at him.

No explanation. No asking permission.

She simply loosened her grip and let Ethan drop back to the ground.

The moment Ethan’s feet stabilized, he felt the air change.

The chaos around them—corrosion, darkness, stray lightning—was seized by an invisible hand. It pulled inward for a heartbeat...

Then exploded outward from Catheryn.

A violent surge blasted from her feet, flooding across the ground, then curling up into the air like a tide reversing. In the blink of an eye, it swallowed the monsters who had just stepped out of the rifts.

They tried to retreat.

But the moment corrosion rolled off their bodies, Catheryn’s power crushed it back down. When the two forces touched, the air boomed in heavy, muffled detonations. Black corrosive energy was ripped into shreds—ashes scattered by a gale—twisting once in the air before vanishing.

Catheryn raised her palm.

Her fingers slowly curled.

And the energy surrounding the monsters tightened with it.

The first body’s chest caved in. Then shoulders. Then skull. Then limbs. Before a single scream could fully form, the second, third, and fourth figures exploded one after another. Flesh was pulverized, then flung by the backlash into the jagged edges of the distant rifts.

In the span of a blink—

The figures that had arrived dripping pressure were reduced to flying blood and meat.

Catheryn stood there, chest heaving hard, anger blazing without restraint. Her gaze swept over the carnage, her mouth set in a cold line.

"Hah. That sister and brother are shameless," she said, voice sharp with hatred. "Locking me up here wasn’t enough. They even sent a bunch of trash to watch me."

Her eyes narrowed, fury sharpening into something dangerous.

"If I don’t kill those two today, I’ll never swallow this down."

For a second, Ethan’s mind went blank.

Then the scattered pieces snapped together.

Catheryn wasn’t on Mournvale Abyss’s side—at least, not on the side of whoever currently ruled it. She’d been imprisoned here. And those monsters just now... they’d been sent to keep her contained.

Goddess Catheryn was an enemy of that sister-and-brother pair.

Ethan forced down the shock and stepped up to her. He knew how sudden this chance was—and how deadly—but the situation didn’t give him room to circle carefully anymore.

"Sounds like we want the same thing," Ethan said, meeting her eyes without backing off. "If we work together, we might actually be able to deal with that sister and brother."

Catheryn didn’t answer right away.

Her breathing grew heavier, and the energy suspended around her turned even more volatile. The air compressed into a low hum. Stones at her feet trembled, and a few smaller shards lifted off the ground, spinning slowly in place.

Then she reached out and grabbed Ethan by the shoulder.

She didn’t squeeze hard enough to injure him—but the weight in that grip was unmistakable. Catheryn looked him over from face to chest, then past flesh and bone, as if she could see into the deepest part of what he was.

Her expression turned serious.

"I can sense it," she said. "You’ve got endless power inside you."

Ethan didn’t interrupt.

Catheryn’s fingers tightened slightly, her words coming quicker now. "And you brought an army with you. If your people help me take care of that sister and brother... I’ll share the mineral resources beneath the abyss with you."

The moment she said it, a sharp light lit in Ethan’s eyes.

This wasn’t just a temporary alignment. This was an actual deal.

At that point, he couldn’t afford to hesitate over finer details. If Catheryn was willing to move, the entire situation could flip on its head.