Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Ethan's eyes sank at once.

The power around him detonated almost simultaneously. Violent white lightning spread layer by layer along his arms and across his body, forming an expanding halo of crackling electric light around him.

Their forces slammed into each other. The instant they made contact, there was a short, heavy boom—and then a wave of impact ripped outward, lighting up this dark core region for a split second.

Elira and Feylora surged up at the same time.

One threw her Divine Sovereign Moth wings wide, annihilating power spreading outward along the twin spans. The other drew on runes and the power tied to The Fey Sovereign, pulling the energy of the entire area toward her side, forcibly tipping the field.

When the three of their energies fused together, the momentum shifted violently.

The two guards who'd been advancing so aggressively were pressed down head-on almost immediately.

They clearly hadn't expected the three intruders in front of them to be this strong. Their steps retreated again and again. The iron chains in their hands trembled, and shock slowly rose onto their faces.

"Who the hell are you?" one of them gritted out, his face going pale. "How do you have power like this?!"

Ethan didn't answer.

He only lifted his hand, and in that instant, the energy inside him was pushed to its peak. Vast amounts of white lightning and compressed force gathered rapidly overhead, taking shape in the blink of an eye into a massive Energy Disc.

The moment the disc appeared, the air around it was sliced into a tight, piercing whine.

Then Ethan pressed his hand down.

The huge Energy Disc cut straight out.

The expressions on the two men across from him changed instantly. At this point, they didn't dare hold back even a fraction. Almost at the same time, they violently tore the energy gemstones from their chests.

The moment those two gems left their bodies, they fused in midair. Savage power flooded out, and a giant blue sphere of energy condensed overhead—meeting Ethan's cleaving Energy Disc head-on.

The two forces collided with a thunderous roar.

In that instant, the fight truly hit white-hot.

Neither the blue sphere nor the Energy Disc gave an inch. At the collision point, sparks and shredded energy burst nonstop, spraying in waves.

The walls around them began to rumble again and again. Chunks of rock started dropping from the ceiling, and even the entire area imprisoning the giant shook with it.

If this kept going, it wouldn't take long before this whole space shattered apart completely.

But Ethan's attention clearly wasn't fully on the two guards anymore.

While he held the frontal clash, he kept cutting glances—and system locks—onto the middle-aged man chained up behind them.

The more he looked, the clearer one thing became.

That man was absolutely not some ordinary prisoner.

He was locked in place by massive lengths of specially forged chains, yet even like this, the energy continuously seeping from him was still savage to the point of being frightening.

More importantly, those chains clearly weren't simple restraints.

They were suppressing his internal power without mercy.

If those chains could be removed, the true energy this giant could release would be hundreds of times stronger than what they were sensing now.

The moment that conclusion formed, Ethan began splitting off slivers of force in the middle of the exchange, quietly striking at the chains.

One strike.

Two.

Three.

White lightning and compressed energy hammered in succession.

But the result made his brows tighten bit by bit.

Those chains barely reacted to his normal destructive output.

No matter how much power he poured into them, it didn't raise even the slightest real disturbance. The special chains only shuddered faintly, then forcibly dissolved the incoming force, not even leaving behind a proper mark.

Left with no choice, Ethan snapped the system fully open.

Data unfolded in a flood across his vision, and he began directly scanning the chains' energy structure.

It didn't take long for the results to surface.

Inside these iron chains, not only was there this world's Primordial Force, there was also another extremely strange, extra-dimensional energy mixed in.

The two forces overlapped and reinforced each other—supporting each other into a restraint with terrifying stability and suppression.

But because of that—

If he could separate those two powers…

Then these chains might actually be breakable.

Ethan slowly forced down a breath.

In the next instant, the power around him erupted in full again.

Sheets of white lightning ran wild along his arms, shoulders, and back. Then he forcibly drove it forward, blasting the two guards who were still locked in the clash and震退—shocking them back hard.

The ground under their feet exploded at the same time. Their bodies were shoved backward, sliding away, and even the specially forged iron chains in their hands shook violently.

But Ethan didn't pursue.

He pivoted and dropped straight in front of the chained middle-aged man, reaching out and locking his grip onto one of the restraints.

The moment the chain hit his hand, an icy, heavy sensation traveled up his arm—like he'd grabbed onto a living rule.

The runes across the chain's surface flashed bright, then dim, bright, then dim. Inside, two completely different forces were flowing in a staggered weave—biting together, pushing apart, fused and repelling at the same time.

The middle-aged man clearly hadn't expected Ethan to do this. His eyes changed on the spot.

"What are you trying to do?"

Ethan didn't answer.

He just clenched his jaw and poured his power through his palm in one brutal rush.

White lightning and compressed energy spread through the chain's interior, like a blade forced into a seam—prying, inch by inch, at those two powers that had been locked together.

He'd seen it from the start.

These chains were insanely strong, not because a single type of energy was unbreakable, but because the two forces fused into an abnormal, stable whole.

But no fusion—no matter how stable—comes without gaps.

As long as he could peel them apart—

Then maybe this thing wasn't untouchable after all.

As Ethan kept forcing power in, the trembling inside the chain quickly became more and more obvious.

The runes on the surface began lighting one by one—then fading fast, like they couldn't bear it. Energy slammed back and forth inside the links, producing a tight, piercing hum that drilled into the ear.

The middle-aged man still had traces of confusion at first. But once he truly felt what was happening inside the chain, his expression shifted little by little.

He knew better than anyone how terrifying the thing imprisoning him was.

Yet now, that force that had been crushing his power down for so long… was actually being pried open.

"I don't know you. We're not kin, not friends." He stared at Ethan, and for the first time, there was a clear ripple in his deep voice. "Why are you saving me?"

Ethan still didn't spare even a sliver of focus to answer.

His teeth ground so hard they clicked. Veins bulged at his temples under the sustained output. Energy surged off him in layers—then he forcibly pressed it all back down into his hand.

As time dragged on, the two intertwined powers inside the chain finally began to separate completely.

One layer.

Then another.

More and more fine裂隙—hairline fissures—spread between them.

Ethan's eyes flashed.

He knew it.

The opening was here.

In the next instant, he jerked his hand up. Power compressed into his palm, and a massive Energy Disc formed at speed.

The disc's edge vibrated at high frequency, loaded with savage cutting force and compressed, explosive energy. Ethan didn't hesitate for even a breath—he brought it down in a ruthless slash.

Boom!

The Energy Disc split straight into the chain.

But even now, the outcome still made Ethan's heart sink.

The two energies had clearly been forced apart. Dense cracks had already crawled through the chain's interior. Yet with that strike, he still didn't truly sever it.

The huge Energy Disc only carved a white scar into the chain's surface before the rebounding force shook it apart, scattering it piece by piece.