Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Ethan’s brow furrowed hard.

He knew it. They couldn’t keep slugging it out like this.

After another brutal exchange, he forced himself to calm down. In the thin gap they’d created, he opened the system interface and locked onto Gorathul’s status panel again.

A flood of information streamed past his eyes.

Then his gaze snapped to a halt.

Right where Gorathul’s heart should be... there was a tiny hollow.

It was subtle—so subtle that in a fight at this level, it would be easy for it to get swallowed by the surrounding surge of power.

But once the system marked it, the meaning couldn’t have been clearer.

That spot—

Was Gorathul’s weakness.

If he could shatter it completely...

He could kill him.

The moment Ethan confirmed it, he didn’t hesitate.

He shot forward almost instantly.

Savage power gathered in his hand again. This time it didn’t form a greatsword or an energy sphere. He forcibly shaped it into a staff—one bristling with terrifying destructive force.

The instant the staff took form, the air around them sank, heavy and oppressive.

Then Ethan lifted it and brought it down.

Dominating presence and annihilating energy crushed down together. When the staff slammed toward Gorathul, the space around him was swallowed up with it. It wasn’t a simple strike line—it was like Ethan had sealed every possible dodge route at the same time.

Gorathul’s eyes widened.

He didn’t dare take it head-on.

He exploded backward, retreating several steps in a row. But what truly chilled him wasn’t the blow itself—

It was Ethan’s aura, locked onto him like a hook that wouldn’t come free.

That aura didn’t drift. It didn’t slip.

It was pinned precisely—

To his heart.

Only then did Gorathul’s shock spike into something close to horror.

Because that wound... even he had almost forgotten it.

An old injury, carved into him years ago when he’d escaped the Infernal Abyss—space turbulence had torn him open and left a hidden scar that never fully healed.

And because it was so deep, so secret, all these years there hadn’t been a second person alive who knew.

But now Ethan not only knew—

He’d locked onto it perfectly, and he was coming for it without mercy.

If this continued—

Gorathul might actually die here.

Grinding his teeth, Gorathul forced himself to block Ethan’s latest assault.

His body swayed as he slid off to the side.

But he didn’t lunge back in. Instead, he raised one hand and forcibly suppressed the churning power around him.

On that face that had been twisted with fury and panic, he managed to squeeze out a thin, reluctant calm.

"Wait." His voice was tight, but it was obvious he was forcing himself to steady it. "Your power has already exceeded what a Plane World like this should allow. Looks like you’ve mastered true Infernal Primordial Power. If that’s the case, there’s no need for us to keep fighting."

He stared at Ethan, eyes flickering, his tone dropping another notch. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"If you’re willing... I can become your subordinate. Starting now, you’ll be my master."

He held Ethan’s gaze, measuring every breath.

"Well? What do you say?"

High above, the wind and the tearing hiss of energy still hadn’t fully faded.

Ethan didn’t answer right away.

More precisely, none of the wills residing inside him rushed to respond.

But Gorathul clearly took that brief silence as a sign—an opening. The fear in his eyes didn’t vanish, but something else slid in alongside it: calculation, quiet and sharp.

A being like him really was the perfect weapon.

Ethan understood that. If he brought a monster like this under his banner, then war, plunder, even deeper resource control—everything would pay off fast. Ridiculously fast.

And that was exactly why Ethan was even more certain—

This thing couldn’t be left alive.

From start to finish, there was something indescribably wrong about Gorathul. He hid too well. Waited too well. Even when he looked like he was bowing his head, he was still searching for the angle to bite back.

Keeping something like that close wasn’t taking in a trump card.

It was raising a disaster at your side—one that could explode whenever it felt like it.

So Ethan only let out a slow breath.

Then his power surged again, compressing and condensing in midair until it formed a massive sphere of energy.

White lightning crawled across its surface, tangled with layered blended power. At the very center, it was so dense it looked black—as if it had started dragging the sky itself inward.

Ethan lifted his hand and slammed it down.

The sphere didn’t hesitate. It tore through the air with a suffocating, heavy scream and crushed straight toward Gorathul.

The terror in Gorathul’s eyes spiked to its peak in an instant.

He truly hadn’t expected Ethan to be this decisive—to not even waste a single extra word on him.

At this point, pride didn’t matter. Nothing did. Almost on pure instinct, Gorathul tore another blood-red gem from his own body and hurled it up into the sky.

Ferocious Infernal Primordial Power erupted out of it immediately.

The high heavens looked like they’d been washed in dark crimson. Filthy, violently turbulent energy poured out in waves, nothing like the straightforward power they’d been trading in their earlier clashes.

This was deeper. More fundamental.

More dangerous.

And far closer to Gorathul’s real trump card.

But Ethan watched it with nothing but cold mockery in his eyes.

Infernal Primordial Power really was frighteningly strong.

The problem was—

He didn’t lack it anymore.

With Lily’s presence, the fusion of multiple powers, and the world itself opening its Primordial Force veins to him, Ethan wasn’t just passively enduring that level of origin power.

He was starting to control it.

To seize it.

To swallow it.

And besides... the place he stood was inside this world.

What he could call on wasn’t limited to what was inside his body.

It was the sky here. The ground here. The energy currents here. Every remaining foundational structure that hadn’t been completely destroyed yet.

In the next instant, Ethan’s aura changed completely.

Not just stronger.

Stranger.

The chaotic, churning forces around them suddenly felt... alive. Residual shockwaves in the air, spatial energy scattered along the edges of rifts, lingering Primordial Force still trapped in the distant altar ruins—

Even the Infernal Primordial Power Gorathul had just unleashed—

All of it was caught by a higher pull and dragged, stream after stream, into Ethan.

Thunk.

A deep, muffled boom detonated across the high sky.

It wasn’t an explosion.

It sounded more like a core being forcibly seized—like something fundamental had just been taken over, and the world itself had groaned in protest.