Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 946: Who Gave You That Power?

Ethan stepped up and gave the old man's shoulder a light pat. His tone was gentle, but there was steel under it.

"Don't take it so hard. You can go to a new world and build your future over from scratch. Trust me—your people will come back for you soon enough. You're their backbone."

It was meant as comfort, and Ethan didn't drag it out. He turned, took Feylora with him, and led the army forward in a massive surge toward the core energy vein's location.

And yeah—this place was saturated.

Even with the core energy close to running dry, the power here still carried a violent, feral edge. The instant Ethan brushed against it, his bloodline boiled. Something inside him roared awake, like an urge he couldn't clamp down on.

At that point, he stopped caring about anything else. He plunged straight into the storm of energy and started absorbing it like a man possessed.

The rest of the team refused to be left behind. They whooped and chased after him, spreading out and pulling in the ambient power as fast as they could.

Then—right when everyone was getting drunk on that rush—the ground let out a low, warped rumble.

A heartbeat later, the last giant slowly rose up from the earth.

It was huge and brutal-looking, like a monstrous brown bear at first glance. But on a closer look, its body wasn't flesh alone—it was built from stone chunks fused with a strange energy, leaking a chill that crawled under the skin.

"You people have gone too far," the giant bear thundered, voice thick with menace. "I made an agreement with your ancestors long ago. You were only allowed to draw power remotely through the Primordial Core. You were never to come close to this place! And now you barge in and gorge yourselves like this… You're tired of living."

The words were pure tyranny and rage. The moment it finished speaking, it snapped out a massive sphere of energy.

That orb wasn't just core power. Mixed into it was an unnatural, infernal stench—like Purgatory itself had seeped into the attack.

Ethan was used to infernal aura by now. He didn't flinch from it.

But when he caught the specific presence of the Infernal Abyss inside that energy, his chest tightened.

If it really was that kind of power, it would be viciously unstable. Emerald Castle's troops wouldn't be able to take even one hit.

Ethan sucked in a breath and forced his breathing steady. Then he sprang up without hesitation, gathering everything he had into his hand. In an instant, his power condensed into a huge energy sphere and slammed toward the giant.

What he'd formed wasn't ordinary energy—it was the strength Lily had left behind before she fell asleep inside him. That Infernal Primordial Power was dense, heavy, and terrifyingly pure. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The instant it appeared, the bear froze like it had been hit with a bucket of ice. It stumbled backward, scrambling to steady itself.

"That's impossible!" it growled, shock cracking through its voice. "Who the hell are you? How do you have power like that?"

Ethan didn't answer right away. He'd confirmed what he needed to confirm: this giant was afraid of Infernal Primordial Power.

Good. That meant Ethan could use it.

He snapped the energy in his hand into shape, compressing it into a razor-edged blade. A brutal light flickered along the length of the energy sword.

Ethan didn't waste a breath. He swung.

The blade tore through the air and came down with outright annihilating force, chopping toward the bear's shoulder.

A violent pressure burst outward. The energy sword hit with a thunderous boom—and then it bit in.

Rip.

The edge punched straight through flesh. Blood erupted like a fountain, splattering across the ground in a hot red spray.

"Aaagh!" The bear's scream ripped the air apart, loud enough to rattle bones. Its massive body buckled and crashed down, limbs jerking hard as it convulsed in agony.

Power from the Infernal Abyss was the natural bane of Infernal Essence—built to consume, built to destroy.

And the Infernal Primordial Power Ethan had condensed was so concentrated it tore the bear open almost instantly.

That raging energy kept pouring in, drilling toward its heart like it meant to erase the creature's life at the root.

It didn't take long.

The energy inside the bear collapsed completely. All signs of life winked out. Then its heart—still trembling under the assault—shattered into sludge, and gore burst outward in a final, horrific spray.

Ethan was genuinely shaken. He'd never imagined Infernal Primordial Power could hit this hard. A silent awe pressed down on him, and he couldn't help nodding to himself—now he finally understood just how terrifying this force really was.

He was about to collect the loot and haul the giant bear's corpse away when a sharp energy fluctuation pulsed from somewhere not far off.

Then a strange figure shimmered into existence in midair.

It looked like a pangolin—massive body, stubby limbs, its back plated with hard overlapping scales.

And the energy rolling off it was familiar enough that Ethan recognized the source at a glance.

"Didn't expect this," the pangolin said, voice low with a hint of shock. "An outsider who can control energy from the Infernal Abyss. Who are you? Where'd you come from? And who gave you that power?"

Its gaze snapped onto Ethan, razor-focused. It had clearly realized Ethan wasn't a native of the Infernal Abyss.

It knew the rule: only those born from the Infernal Abyss could naturally wield that energy—unless someone else had bestowed it on them.

Ethan didn't answer. His eyes stayed calm, almost chilly. He eased back a step and opened the system, scanning the creature's status panel.

Data surfaced almost immediately.

What he saw made his expression tighten. This thing's energy was pure Infernal Abyss power. No dilution, no mix—meaning it really had come from the Infernal Abyss.

When the pangolin saw Ethan still refusing to speak, it only got angrier. Its aura flared violent, and a huge energy sphere condensed in its hands. With a thundercrack of sound, it hurled the orb straight at Ethan.

Ethan didn't hesitate. He'd been ready for this.

He instantly activated the weapon systems on his Powered Combat Armor. The energy weapon locked on and fired, a bright, concentrated blast slamming into the pangolin's incoming sphere.

The moment the two forces touched, a savage shockwave exploded outward.

The surrounding cavern shuddered violently. The ground kept bucking underfoot, and chunks of rock broke loose from the ceiling, crashing down in a rain of debris.

The roar rolled through the tunnel like endless thunder, as if the entire cave system was being forced to swallow the backlash.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

A chain of explosive impacts echoed again and again. The cave's strange material—stuff saturated with Primordial Force—screeched under the abuse.

Nobody would've guessed that even a cavern like this, steeped in Primordial energy, couldn't withstand a head-on clash between the two of them.

The pangolin's pupils contracted sharply. It hadn't expected Ethan to be this strong. The energy inside its body wavered, destabilizing.

Realizing the situation was turning bad, it didn't hesitate. It yanked a blood-red gemstone from its body.

The gem was carved all over with dense runes. Each rune looked alive, throbbing in a steady rhythm.

They hooked into one another like chains, releasing an intense energy pulse—like the whole thing was one heartbeat away from detonating with world-ending force.