Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 826: This Is Where the Hunt Begins

At that moment—

Ethan's eyes lit up.

Not with joy.

But with certainty.

His data panel refreshed in real time, scanning, comparing, locking in.

Every critical metric had dropped—simultaneously—below the danger threshold.

"They're… done."

He spoke quietly.

Then his voice snapped sharp and loud—

"This is it."

"All units—attack."

"Let them learn what it costs to step into Emerald Castle uninvited."

The command dropped like a released bowstring pulled to its limit.

The Emerald Castle forces, long held in check, exploded into motion all at once.

The cores of their Powered Combat Armor flared to life.

Thrusters roared.

Energy pulses rained down like a storm.

This wasn't a charge—

It was an execution.

At the same time—

The Sky Fortress units hovering around Emerald Castle shifted position.

Cannons deployed.

Targets locked.

The Ultimate Annihilation Cannons—

All aimed directly at Raimondrex and Tiberon.

Only now did the two realize—

The real hunters had never even stepped onto the field.

But it was already too late.

The first beam of destruction lanced down from the sky.

Raimondrex's body jolted violently, his chest punched clean through.

But he didn't fall.

A wound like that wasn't enough to kill a calamity-class entity.

However—

The moment the thought of recovery flickered in his mind—

The second, third, and fourth waves of firepower slammed into him.

From the Sky Fortress.

From the Powered Combat Armor units.

From the entire might of Emerald Castle.

When every weapon converges on a single target—

No lifeform can survive it.

Not even Raimondrex.

A piercing roar echoed through the sky.

His body began to crack, tear, and unravel—losing all structural integrity.

"You filthy insects… crawling in the mud!"

He screamed, his voice stripped of its former dominance.

"Once I recover—one-on-one—just you and me—!"

The only answer was more fire.

No one replied.

No one stopped.

This wasn't a duel.

It was war.

And finally—

Ethan raised his hand.

An Energy Disc formed in his palm.

No flourish.

No speech.

Just a clean, precise throw.

A silver arc sliced through the air.

And in the next instant—

Raimondrex's head separated from his body.

The world fell silent.

At the same time—

Tiberon didn't fare much better than Raimondrex.

When he tried to gather his strength again, he was hit with a wave of panic.

His internal energy circuits—were completely severed.

This wasn't just an injury.

It was structural collapse.

Under the relentless assault from Emerald Castle's forces, he couldn't even mount a proper counterattack.

His armor was torn apart.

His protective charms were ripped away.

Weapons that once had the power to sway entire wars fell one by one, powerless without energy to sustain them.

And then— 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

His body was shredded into pieces.

No explosion.

No last stand.

Just the brutal, unceremonious end of an imperial commander, crushed by reality after his strength ran dry.

As the final fragments of his body were swept into the chaotic air currents, the battlefield finally fell into a brief, eerie calm.

But that calm felt… wrong.

The air was thick—almost sticky—with lingering energy.

Thunder, flame, death, and shattered willpower hung in the sky like the ghost of a storm that refused to fade.

Ethan's gaze shifted slightly.

"Don't waste it."

The moment the order left his mouth, the Emerald Castle troops moved.

Some sat cross-legged on the ground.

Others opened the energy ports on their armor.

A few exposed their bodies directly to the swirling energy currents.

The remnants of Raimondrex's power still carried the crushing weight of a calamity-class being.

Even absorbing a sliver of it could cause an ordinary person to implode on the spot.

But here, in Emerald Castle, it was a rare opportunity.

Tiers began to climb.

Power reshaped itself.

And this—

Was only the beginning.

In the days that followed, Ethan never lifted the state of high alert.

The outer defense barriers were reinforced layer by layer.

Patrols increased in frequency.

Training and energy absorption continued without pause.

Until one day—

Feylora burst into the main hall, practically flying, a few Fairies trailing behind her.

Her breathing was uneven, but her eyes were blazing.

"Master," she said, voice low but brimming with excitement,

"We found something… seriously off."

Ethan's head snapped up.

He knew that look.

Feylora spent most of her time either cultivating or leading the Fairies in scouting missions. Many of the high-value dungeons and interdimensional rifts they'd discovered had come from her.

And every time she wore that expression—

It meant something dangerous and powerful was waiting.

Ethan didn't hesitate.

A small elite team was quickly assembled and followed Feylora out of the main city.

The entrance she'd found wasn't far from Emerald Castle.

But it felt like it had been deliberately erased from the world.

The spatial rift was incredibly well-hidden.

Without the Fairies' innate sense for anomalies, it would've gone completely unnoticed.

What was even more unsettling—

Was the aura leaking from the crack.

Cold. Rotten. Saturated with the stench of death that triggered instinctive revulsion.

Even Ethan shivered the moment he got close.

"You've been inside?" he asked.

"What lives in there?"

Feylora nodded firmly.

"It's a world called Bonehell," she said.

"It's… full of skeletons."

The words had barely left her mouth when the rift tore open.

The group stepped through.

And in the next instant—

The world changed.

The sky was a cracked, dark gray, like shattered glass.

The ground was dry and fractured, ready to collapse at any moment.

A thick aura of death churned in the air, like an invisible fog.

For ordinary lifeforms, even inhaling a trace of it—

Would rip the soul from the body and rot the flesh in seconds.

But that power—

Had no effect on Ethan.

His body already coursed with a potent death aura.

And with the Bloodfiend's strength running through him, this kind of corrosive energy wasn't a threat—it was fuel.

Then—

A tall figure slowly emerged from the gray mist ahead.

A massive skeleton.

Its hollow eye sockets burned with an eerie green-blue flame.

Not for show—this was soulfire, pure and lethal.

The moment it appeared, its gaze locked straight onto Ethan.

"Well, well…"

Its voice was low and grating, like it had clawed its way up from the depths of hell.

"Didn't think anything living would dare step into Bonehell."

The soulfire in its hand flared, condensing into a massive greatsword wreathed in flame.

And without hesitation—

It swung.

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