Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 1030: Burn It All Down

The next instant, Ethan swung his arm again and again.

One energy sphere after another flew from his hand, released in rapid succession with almost no gap between them. They tore through the void along different trajectories and slammed into the densest parts of the monster swarm. Impacts, explosions, and the sound of electric current ripping through flesh detonated all at once, shaking the entire battlefield until it quivered.

At the same time, Emerald Castle's army finally moved in full.

Deep within the fleet formation, huge numbers of smaller ships broke away first. Weapon ports along both sides of their hulls snapped open, and their firepower climbed to the limit in just a few breaths.

Right behind them, the Sky Fortress units stopped holding back as well. The massive fortress-class bodies advanced head-on. Every energy conduit lit up together, pouring out the power they'd been stockpiling for so long in a brutal forward torrent.

Wave after wave of energy floods cut across the void and hammered into the middle of the monsters.

The initial shock crushed the space at the front line—then a chain of violent explosions followed.

The monsters that had been pressing forward were blasted into staggering chaos. The weaker ones couldn't withstand bombardment at that density; their bodies were torn open on the spot. Chunks of flesh and severed limbs, wrapped in a mist of blood, sprayed outward—only to be caught by the second wave of impacts and pulverized completely before they could even travel far.

But there were too many of them.

And not every one of them was that easy to kill.

The stronger monsters kept charging through the explosions, the blood-red gemstones in their chests flashing again and again. Red energy blasted out, forming savage counter-shocks that slammed back into the oncoming fire.

The two sides' firepower collided endlessly in the middle of the void. The aftershocks from each detonation spread in stacked layers, to the point that even the distant spatial cracks that hadn't yet been drawn into the main clash were rattled wider and wider.

In this moment, the battle burned straight to its limit.

Ethan didn't stay in the rear.

White lightning stretched from his palm, compressing and gathering in midair until it condensed into a longsword.

The instant the blade took shape, every surrounding arc collapsed toward that single point. The sword blazed with a stabbing brightness, fine threads of lightning constantly flaking off its edges—only to burst again in the air.

He took the sword and charged into the monster pack.

Up ahead, several monsters had just forced their power into the red gemstones in their chests. Ethan slipped through the gaps between explosions and arrived in an instant.

His longsword slashed down on a diagonal. White thunderlight swept ahead first, cleaving the air, then splitting into the upper body of one monster.

The moment it connected, the compressed lightning inside the blade poured in through the wound. The monster's chest jolted, the blood-red gem trembling wildly—then, in the next second, half its body detonated on the spot.

Another monster lunged from the side.

Ethan reversed his grip and swept a horizontal cut. Swordlight drew a snow-white arc from left to right, carving straight into its waist and abdomen and tearing the massive body open at the middle.

Lightning danced crazily along the torn edge, scorching shattered flesh into blackened ruin. The air filled with a sharp, burning stench.

He kept driving forward, almost forcibly carving a path through the swarm.

Seeing it, Emerald Castle's forces in the rear pressed their suppression even harder, and the fleet's advance speed visibly picked up. But the battle didn't tilt decisively just because Ethan had broken in.

As time dragged on, both sides started taking damage.

Monsters kept dropping—yet Emerald Castle was paying the same price.

Several Skyships were hit head-on by attacks erupting from those blood-red gemstones. Their shields shattered first, then the hulls were punched through, and the entire ships exploded midair into burning wreckage.

Even farther back, a few Sky Fortress units didn't escape either. The huge fortress-class bodies were blown open in the exchange, sections collapsing outright, trailing fire and thick smoke as they slanted down into the deeper void.

Ethan saw all of it.

His brow drew tighter and tighter.

This couldn't continue.

If they stayed locked in a brawl, it would only drag both sides into a war of attrition. Either they brought out some ultimate weapon and wiped these things out in one sweep—or they bypassed this place and forced their way to Elysion.

But neither option was realistic.

He did have the Ultimate Annihilation Cannon. But he knew perfectly well that it couldn't clear every monster on this battlefield in a single shot.

Even if they somehow managed to wipe them all out, the energy carried for this expedition would be drained to nothing. When that happened, forget continuing the offensive on Elysion—they'd have trouble even maintaining forward momentum afterward.

As for taking a detour—impossible.

If they left these things behind, then once the fleet engaged Elysion, they'd hit from the rear.

And the consequences would be even worse.

Ethan's face hardened. He didn't hesitate anymore.

With a single slash, he forced the monster in front of him back, kicked his body upward, and shot straight back to hover above a medium fortress unit.

As he came down, his hand was already up, activating the fortress's internal weapon systems. Layer after layer of energy patterns lit across the outer armor. Every gunport opened. Inside, the power-transfer conduits began to run at high speed.

Right after that, he pulled a massive number of energy cores together.

The light of the entire medium fortress surged sharply. A constant rumble pounded from within, and even the outer deck trembled under the rising force.

And Ethan didn't leave it behind.

He directly took control of the medium fortress and drove it toward the densest part of the monster swarm.

In that instant, everyone in Emerald Castle who was still fighting realized something was wrong.

Before they could react, Ethan's voice swept across the entire battlefield through the command system.

"Everyone in Emerald Castle—withdraw immediately!"

The order came down clean and absolute.

The Emerald Castle forces that had been locked in combat pulled back at once.

The fleet maintained suppressive fire while rapidly opening distance. The small ships peeled off the center first. Behind them, the remaining Sky Fortress units and Skyships turned as well, retreating from the soon-to-go-out-of-control battlefield at top speed.

Before long, the entire frontal zone had been vacated.

Only that medium fortress remained, charging alone into the heart of the monster pack.

Inside the fortress, Ethan planted both hands down, pouring every last bit of power in his body into the entire structure.

The energy system that was already near its limit was forced higher again under his injection. The rumbling grew heavier and heavier—walls, floors, weapon platforms, everything started to shake violently.

Then he armed the self-destruct.

After that, Ethan didn't stay a second longer.

His body turned into a streak of light as he shot out of the fortress, fleeing hard toward the distance.

Behind him, the medium fortress kept advancing—like a gigantic ember being compressed again and again, ready to detonate at any moment—plowing straight into the absolute center of the swarm.

Then—

An explosion.

First, a blinding flash erupted from within the fortress. Immediately after, the entire medium fortress shattered apart in that void.

The expansion from the blast core was terrifyingly fast. The monsters at the very front didn't even have time to react before their bodies were swallowed by that annihilating energy.

Only in the next instant did the roar truly catch up.

Shockwave after shockwave swept outward like madness. The nearby void was blown open by force. Cracks spread along the blast's outer ring, black spatial seams splitting and interlacing like a mirror smashed by a colossal blow.

The monsters that hadn't been swallowed head-on were still thrown away on the spot. Some snapped apart midair. Others didn't even get the chance for the red gemstone in their chests to erupt again before the spreading energy erased them completely.

Even Ethan—already a good distance away—was caught by the aftermath.

The surge knocked him off line, sending him drifting outward. His robe and hair-whip snapped in the rolling energy, fluttering wildly.

But he didn't slow or look back. He only stabilized at the edge of that violent white light and lifted his eyes toward the very center of the blast.

The energy there was still climbing.

Like all of heaven and earth had been pinned down by a single hand, compressed toward one point—then blown apart in one release.

When that impact finally hit its absolute peak, the battlefield was carved clean, leaving a huge blank stretch of emptiness.

More than half the monsters were wiped out outright.

The ones left were shattered wrecks. Severed limbs and broken armor floated scattered through the void—some missing arms, some torn in half. The blood-red gemstones in their chests had dimmed, no longer carrying that oppressive, vicious glow from before.