Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 950: Impossible… they shouldn’t be here…

"What… is that…?"

Someone whispered, voice shaking.

The next second, a soldier dropped to his knees.

Then a second.

A third.

More and more people caved under the pressure, their bodies surrendering on instinct.

It wasn't fear.

It was instinct.

The instinct of a lower life-form facing a higher existence.

Ethan slowly lifted his head.

His pupils tightened.

He saw it.

High in the sky, something was floating there.

At first, it had no fixed shape.

Like a mass of black liquid, endlessly spiraling.

Space warped around it.

Light got swallowed.

Like reality itself was rejecting its existence.

Ethan didn't back down.

Primordial Force poured out of him.

His body rose, inch by inch, into the air.

Two powers squared off in the sky.

He lifted a hand.

Energy gathered in his palm.

A massive sphere of energy took shape, growing larger by the breath, blazing bright enough to light up the dim sky.

"Who are you?"

Ethan's voice was calm, but it carried weight.

"A Netherkin?"

"Or something from another world?"

The black presence stopped spinning.

Then—

It began to contract.

The liquid structure hardened.

Its outline sharpened.

Limbs formed.

A head took shape.

Finally—

It became a "person."

A humanoid existence the same size as Ethan.

Its appearance was almost perfect.

Skin with a natural tone.

Muscle structure that made sense.

No visible seams. No mechanical stitching.

But Ethan's system gave a different answer.

[Classification: Mechanoid Lifeform]

A mechanical life-form.

Not someone wearing machinery.

Not someone controlling machinery.

But—

The machine itself was alive.

The being spoke.

Its voice was flat.

Emotionless.

"My name is Noctyros."

He looked straight at Ethan.

"From the world of Nexaris."

He paused for a beat.

Like he was judging Ethan's threat level.

"My mission is to find the Worldheart Crystal."

"To rebuild my world."

The air went still for several seconds.

Inside Ethan, though, everything surged.

Nexaris.

Another world.

And one with a high-level civilization—advanced enough to create mechanoid life.

Which meant—

The Worldheart Crystal wasn't just the Netherkin's core power source.

It was a resource on a cross-world scale.

Ethan didn't let any of it show.

He just gave a small shrug.

"Never seen it," he said.

Casual. Like he couldn't care less.

"Go look somewhere else."

With that, he turned and walked away.

He didn't spare Noctyros a second glance.

But the corner of his mouth lifted a fraction.

Because he knew.

Noctyros wasn't leaving.

Sure enough.

Noctyros didn't move.

He slowly turned his head, looking out over the Nether Sea.

A faint light flickered in his pupils.

Scanning. Analyzing.

Then he locked onto something.

The next second, his body liquefied again—turning into a mass of silvery-black fluid—

and dropped into the sea.

No splash.

No sound.

Just… gone.

Ethan stood off in the distance, watching.

His smile widened.

"Go on…" he murmured.

The Netherkin guarded the Worldheart Crystal.

Noctyros needed the Worldheart Crystal to save Nexaris.

Same objective.

But they weren't going to cooperate.

They were going to fight.

And when two powerhouses wore each other down—

a third party would be the one who truly won.

Ethan turned back toward camp.

"From now on, keep the Nether Sea under surveillance twenty-four seven," he told the commander.

"Anything abnormal, report it immediately."

"Yes, sir!"

Behind him, the spatial passageway churned slowly.

It linked Emerald Castle to the Nether Sea.

But that route wasn't safe.

The middle stretch was called Purgatory.

It was packed with violent, unstable energy.

Only powerful units could make it through.

If ordinary soldiers entered, they'd be shredded by the currents.

That limited troop transport.

But Ethan wasn't worried.

Because he had another way.

Creature Dwellings.

New structures were going up inside the Nether Sea camp.

Ten of them.

Lined up in neat rows.

Each one looked like a beating heart.

Their surfaces were living tissue—organic, wet-looking—

constantly writhing.

Breathing.

Energy flowed up from underground and poured into them.

And then—

life was manufactured.

The first goblin stepped out from inside.

Then a second.

A third.

More and more.

The instant they opened their eyes, they were ready to fight.

No fear.

No hesitation.

The only reason they existed was to obey Ethan's will.

Time passed.

Two days.

Three.

The army's size exploded.

Ten thousand.

Thirty thousand.

Fifty thousand.

Until—

eighty thousand.

Eighty thousand soldiers stood in perfect ranks on the shores of the Nether Sea.

Waiting for orders.

Waiting for war.

Waiting to conquer this world.

Yet these past few days, Ethan's attention was never really on expanding the army.

Almost every day or two, he issued the same command:

"Keep scouting deeper into the Nether Sea."

His tone stayed calm, but there was a stubborn edge to it—something no one would dare push back on.

He stood on the highest terrace of Emerald Castle, gaze stretching past the distant, roiling ocean. Like he wanted to pierce that endless black-blue surface and see what the seafloor was truly hiding.

Noctyros had been down there a long time.

Too long.

For a mechanoid with a full combat system and self-repair capabilities, silence at this level was abnormal all by itself.

No battle report.

No system feedback.

Not even the most basic energy-wave signal.

It had all vanished completely.

Like—

it had been swallowed whole.

That thought made Ethan's brow tighten a notch.

Right then—

Bang!

The door was shoved open.

Feylora practically rushed in, and for once her usual elegant breathing had turned noticeably quick.

"Master—we found something!"

Ethan turned at once. "What?"

"Bodies," Feylora said. There was a tremor in her voice she couldn't quite hide. "A huge number of bodies just appeared along the shoreline."

She paused, then added, "The energy residue on them… it's extremely similar to that vortex creature we ran into before."

The air seemed to freeze solid.

Ethan didn't ask a second question.

"Take me there."

His voice was low and final.

On the coast, a faint salty stench hung in the air.

Waves kept slapping the shore, pushing more things up onto land.

Corpses.

More and more corpses.

Some belonged to massive sea monsters, their shells split open—as if some irresistible force had torn them apart by hand.

But what really set everyone on edge was something else.

Humanoid bodies.

They had skeletal structures like land-dwellers, but their skin was a pale, translucent blue. Along both arms ran dense, fin-like membranes. And at the neck, you could just make out slits that looked like gills.

Their proportions were almost too perfect.

They didn't look like monsters.

They looked like—

a civilized race.

Just then, an elderly native of the Nether Sea suddenly let out a sharp cry.

"The Thalaryn race…"

His voice shook, like he was staring at something that shouldn't exist.

"Impossible… they shouldn't be here…"