Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 970: The Heart of This World

Ethan's pupils tightened.

"This energy…" His voice came out low, with a tremor he couldn't quite hide. "If we can bring this back to Emerald Castle, we'll have the foundation we need to stand against Nexaris."

Thalorien and the other warriors closed in quickly. They could feel how abnormal it was too.

When they released their own power and made contact with the mountain range, a clear resonance ripple immediately spread through the air. The energy structures echoed each other, making the surrounding space unnaturally stable.

No one hesitated.

Every energy node on their Powered Combat Armor lit up. Energy surged along the armor's framework as they tried to peel the entire mountain range out of this Plane World.

That was when—

The air turned cold.

Not in temperature, but in the way the energy structure suddenly tightened, as if everything had drawn in a breath.

Bzzzz—!

A deep, heavy hum rose from inside the mountains.

It wasn't a physical vibration. It felt more like… awareness, waking up.

The next second, the mountain's surface split open.

Massive cracks raced outward. Rock peeled back in curling slabs, and a huge figure slowly stood up from within the range.

A giant.

Its body was a fusion of stone and energy, covered in hard, scale-like plating. Between each "scale," dark red light pulsed and flowed.

And in the center of its chest, a blood-red energy gem throbbed steadily—like a living heart.

The air became heavy in an instant.

Ethan's breathing sped up without him meaning to.

The aura spilling from that gem made Heavenly Demon Lightning bristle with instinctive warning.

That wasn't ordinary energy.

It was a structure born from the origin of death.

The giant's gaze settled on them, slowly.

No rage.

Just a natural rejection, like their very presence offended the rules that held it together.

Ethan didn't wait.

Heavenly Demon Lightning gathered fast, condensing in his palm into a deep-white sphere.

It wasn't the usual violent, roaring kind of attack. It was compressed to an extreme—its internal structure so tight it was almost perfectly stable.

He snapped his arm forward.

The sphere cut through the air.

The instant it made contact—

BOOM!!!

The shockwave blasted outward.

The giant's shoulder was punched clean through. Scales shattered, and the internal energy framework flashed into view.

The giant let out a low, grinding roar.

It stumbled back.

And the blood-colored gem in its chest began to flare.

The light wasn't steady. It kept climbing, brighter and brighter, like something being forced past its limit.

Ethan's senses locked onto the anomaly immediately.

That wasn't defense.

That was—

Self-destruction.

"He's going to release all of his energy!" someone shouted.

The blood-red light spread fast.

The air started to fracture.

Space turned unstable, like the entire Plane World was responding to the gem's change.

Ethan didn't retreat.

He triggered a system scan.

Data streamed across his awareness. The analysis result appeared at once.

Core Structure: Weak node detected

Location: 1 inch below the chest energy gem

Ethan's eyes snapped to that exact point.

Heavenly Demon Lightning surged together.

This time, he didn't use a spreading attack.

He compressed everything into a single thin—yet terrifyingly stable—beam of white lightning.

Then he fired.

The lightning struck dead center.

At the moment of contact—

Space seemed to freeze.

Then it cracked.

The structure beneath the blood-red gem was pierced completely. A hollow opened in the giant's chest.

The light didn't explode.

Instead, it started to collapse inward.

Ethan's pupils constricted.

Because what he saw inside that hollow wasn't a normal internal structure.

It was space.

A self-contained space.

The moment Ethan confirmed it was an independent spatial framework, he didn't hesitate.

Heavenly Demon Lightning spun up instinctively inside him, sharpening his perception until everything felt razor-clear.

He could sense it—deep within that hollow was a purer energy source. Unlike the scattered energy outside, this was highly condensed, like the core veins of the entire Plane World converged there.

His body vanished.

The next instant, he'd already plunged into the hollow.

The space around him tightened rapidly. All outside sound and energy fluctuations cut off in a blink, replaced by an entirely different sense of existence.

No sky. No ground.

Only endless void.

And within that void, countless tiny motes of light drifted.

Each mote was energy made visible.

Ethan slowed to a stop.

Heavenly Demon Lightning became unusually active inside him, like it had stepped onto its own home turf. The energy saturating the "air" didn't need to be pulled in—it leaned toward him on its own, strengthening his energy circulation at speed.

He closed his eyes.

Let his senses spread.

The surrounding energy structure came into focus piece by piece.

This was a space made entirely of energy.

He reached out.

Heavenly Demon Lightning spread fast, forming several rotating energy vortices around his body. The vortices began actively absorbing the floating energy nearby, and his strength climbed at a pace you could practically watch.

That was when—

A single mote of light drifted closer from afar.

It was more stable than the others. Brighter, too. It didn't show any hostility. Instead, like it had awareness, it circled Ethan slowly.

Ethan locked onto it.

He could feel it—the energy structure inside that mote resonated with Heavenly Demon Lightning somehow.

Just as he was about to take a closer look—

The space shuddered.

A completely different presence rushed in.

A tall figure emerged from the void.

It wasn't a physical lifeform, but a pure soul-structure. Its body was made of energy, and every movement caused a faint warp in the surrounding space.

Its gaze snapped onto Ethan. No hesitation—an immediate attack.

Energy surged together.

A high-density sphere formed in its palm.

Then it fired.

The shockwave tore through the void.

Ethan instinctively slid back. Heavenly Demon Lightning gathered in his hand, shaping into a defensive framework. He was about to counter—

When the mote that had been floating beside him suddenly moved.

Way faster than it had any right to.

It shot directly in front of Ethan.

In the next instant, it released its energy.

Not a normal burst—something purer. The energy within the mote spread in a clean expansion and met the soul-entity's attack head-on.

The shockwave blew outward.

Cracks spidered through the space itself.