Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 829: Someone Lit the Match

Ethan finally understood.

This wasn’t just some high-grade energy resource site.

It was a fully functional—

Self-sustaining, near-zero-maintenance war engine.

The lake generated energy.

The forest converted it.

The nests produced soldiers.

Endless troops. Endless power.

No wonder.

No wonder the four races were willing to bleed themselves dry over this place.

While Ethan was still piecing it all together—

The sky began to shift.

A faint pale light crept into the gray, like the first breath of dawn.

Balric’s face changed instantly.

"We have to go."

His voice was tight, urgency bleeding through every word.

"If we don’t leave now, we won’t make it."

"When the sun rises, the Daybound and Sunborn armies will start converging on this place."

"And by dusk, the Starborn and Nightveil will be here too."

He nearly growled the last part.

"When that happens—"

"This lake becomes a slaughterhouse."

"No one gets out."

But Ethan didn’t move.

His gaze stayed locked on the lake.

It wasn’t greed in his eyes.

It was calculation—cold, precise.

If it were just about absorbing the lake’s energy, then sure, the Primordial Lake was valuable. Rare, even.

But if—

If he could take the whole thing.

Disassemble the system. Rebuild it. Repurpose it.

Then it wouldn’t just be a resource.

It would be a machine—

A war engine that could endlessly produce both power and troops.

His eyes shifted to the forest surrounding the lake.

The nests embedded in the trees were still working silently.

No minds. No loyalty.

Just pure function—summoning Noctilume Skeletons on loop, following preset rules.

If he could extract those nests...

Integrate them into Emerald Castle...

The army’s summoning rate would double. At least.

The idea took shape in Ethan’s mind fast.

Not a fantasy.

A viable, tactical plan.

Emerald Castle had already gone to war with Narlost.

Total conflict was only a matter of time.

Before that happened—

He had to push the castle to its absolute limit.

As he ran the numbers in his head—

The horizon on both sides suddenly shifted.

The ground trembled.

The air split open.

Two powerful forces surged toward the lake from opposite directions—almost simultaneously.

They were here.

Ethan slowly looked up.

Two armies emerged, one from each side.

Not massive in number.

But every soldier radiated dense, dangerous power.

These weren’t grunts.

They were veterans—honed by years of fighting at dawn and dusk.

What caught Ethan’s attention even more were their weapons.

Stable energy cores.

Refined construction.

Clear, specialized functions.

Even their armor—

It bore a striking resemblance to Emerald Castle’s Powered Combat Armor in design philosophy.

This world’s tech level was far from primitive.

As the two armies neared the lake’s edge—

A hunched old man stepped out from the Daybound ranks.

He looked frail, but with every step he took, the air around him rippled.

When he stopped, he slammed his staff into the ground.

BOOM.

A wave of raw power burst out.

Dozens of Energy Greatswords materialized midair, their blades all aimed at the opposing shore.

"Morvakar."

The old man’s voice was low, but carried absolute authority.

"Today is the day you die."

"We, the Daybound, are the only true Overlords of this world."

"Everything here—"

"Was ours to begin with."

Before the words had even finished echoing—

A figure stepped out from the Nightveil ranks.

Another elder.

His presence was just as powerful, but colder—like he was carved from the night itself.

"Aurelion," he said, voice sharp and mocking.

"You shameless old bastard."

"Just because the Daybound want something, you think it automatically belongs to you?"

Aurelion burst into laughter.

It rolled across the lake, loud and arrogant, with no attempt to hide the contempt in it.

"From the moment this world was born, the Daybound have stood at its center."

"And you—"

His gaze swept across the Nightveil ranks with open disdain.

"Are nothing but lowborn creatures that crawled out of the dark."

"You think you’re our equals?"

"You?"

"You’re not even close."

The moment the words landed—

The Nightveil side erupted in fury.

Morvakar’s face twisted with rage.

He raised his staff high, power surging wildly around him. The air itself grew unstable, thick with the scent of violence.

War.

All it needed now was a spark.

Ethan stood at the edge of the lake, watching the scene unfold, eyes narrowing slightly.

Both armies had fully deployed.

Formations locked.

Weapons drawn.

Power boiling just beneath the surface.

But no one had made the first move.

They just stood there—shouting, posturing, trading insults.

Like they were waiting for something.

"...This is it?" Ethan muttered under his breath.

He’d expected a brutal, fast-paced clash.

But what he saw looked more like a ritual—

Drawn out, deliberate, almost theatrical.

His lips curled into a faint, unreadable smile.

And then—

He moved.

No warning.

No buildup.

A surge of pure, alien power—completely outside this world’s system—erupted from his body.

Target: Nightveil.

BOOM.

The first Nightveil soldier exploded on the spot.

BOOM.

The second.

The third.

The force hit like invisible warhammers, slamming down one after another.

In the span of a heartbeat, over a dozen Nightveil warriors were wiped out—without even realizing what hit them.

The air went dead silent.

Morvakar’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

Ethan was standing near the Daybound line.

And beside him—

A Daybound tribesman.

In that instant, every clue snapped together into a single, obvious conclusion.

"You... you dare strike first?!"

Morvakar roared.

There was no doubt in his voice.

He didn’t need any.

In a place like this, the first blow was all it took to declare war.

"In that case—"

He raised his staff, voice tearing through the sky.

"Nightveil warriors!"

"Kill them all!!"

The order dropped like a hammer.

And the two armies—already stretched to the breaking point—finally snapped.

They surged forward, crashing into each other with full force.

Power clashed.

Weapons collided.

Blood and energy exploded into the air.

The battle didn’t build up.

It went straight to full throttle.

Ethan didn’t move to strike again.

He simply stood at a slight distance, calm and composed, watching.

He was studying them—

How they fought.

How their weapons were built.

How they coordinated, sacrificed, and squeezed out every last drop of power under the constraints of dawn’s rules.

If he wanted to conquer this world—

He had to understand it first.

And right now was the perfect time.

Then his gaze sharpened.

He saw them.

Amid the chaos of both armies—

Noctilume Skeletons.

They were mixed into the front lines, shoved forward as expendable shock troops.

No sense of allegiance.

No fear.

Not even hesitation.

They just kept advancing, unleashing raw force at anything in their path.

Even if—

That path led straight into other Noctilume Skeletons.

If you looked closely, you’d notice—

Each of them had a glowing core embedded inside their skull.

Some glowed white.

Others, a deep, shadowy black.

As if they’d been forcibly categorized, tagged, and bound to opposing sides.

"Control cores..." Ethan murmured.

And in that moment, his theory locked into place.

These skeletons weren’t a race.

They were—

War assets.