Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 860: When the Sky Becomes a Frontline
Ethan exhaled slowly.
The first line of defense—held.
But this was only the beginning.
He stepped back half a pace.
A low-frequency command pulse rippled from the back of his Powered Combat Armor.
A moment later—
The horizon began to shift.
A massive Sky Fortress slowly rose from the direction of Emerald Castle's main city.
Then came a second.
A third.
A fourth…
One after another, steel giants broke through the cloud layer.
Their propulsion engines carved glowing trails through the sky.
This wasn't a scattered deployment.
This was—
A full-scale strategic formation.
After extensive upgrades and retrofits, the Sky Fortresses had been completely overhauled:
—Weapon module count more than doubled
—Core power systems switched to compressed energy reactors
—Ultimate Annihilation Cannons now charged in under a minute
—Total number of main Sky Fortresses: fifty
—Auxiliary mini-fortresses: mass-deployed
Which meant—
They could now deliver continuous, unbroken firepower across the entire battlefield.
A true airborne fortress fleet.
Ethan entered the command deck of the lead Sky Fortress.
His armor interface synced instantly with the ship's systems.
Neural link established.
Weapon permissions unlocked.
The next moment—
The Ultimate Annihilation Cannon slowly rotated toward the heavens.
Golden energy gathered at the barrel's mouth—compressing, stabilizing, focusing.
BOOM—!
A massive golden beam shot skyward, piercing the clouds.
At the same time—
The outer defensive barrier fully disengaged.
The blood-red beam from the Doomsday Ark continued its descent.
The two civilization-level energy blasts collided in midair.
BOOOOOOM—!!!
The resulting shockwave erased the very structure of space in the impact zone.
Air was torn apart, forming a vacuum collapse field.
The boundary of space itself fractured into a momentary "blank void."
A zone of absolute annihilation—
No living being could survive it.
Emerald Castle's forces had already executed a full tactical withdrawal.
Dozens of Sky Fortresses rose in unison.
All combat units loaded aboard with precision.
The sky was redrawn—
Divided by steel fortresses and blazing energy trails.
Far off in the distance—
On the deck of the Doomsday Ark—
Aurelkar narrowed his eyes.
For the first time, his gaze wavered.
He hadn't expected this.
Not only had the enemy withstood the strike—
They had a fully operational fleet.
But a second later—
His expression returned to its usual icy calm.
To him, it didn't matter.
No matter how many ships they fielded—
No matter how refined their systems—
Before the Doomsday Ark, it was all just a delay of the inevitable.
He turned slowly, his cloak unfurling in the wind.
Each step deliberate, steady, and heavy with purpose.
"They chose not to surrender."
His voice echoed across the fleet through the ship's broadcast system. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
"They chose resistance."
"They chose to pit numbers and cobbled-together weapons against a true imperial war machine."
His gaze swept across his own armada.
"Your task is simple."
"Shatter their delusions."
"Make them understand—"
"To stand against the Narlost Empire is to choose extinction."
A beat of silence.
Then—
The entire fleet's energy signatures surged at once.
Battle intent ignited like wildfire.
"Kill—!!!"
The roar thundered across the warships.
Every weapon system on the Doomsday Ark locked into final targeting mode.
The colossal warship began to advance.
But then—
Just as the Doomsday Ark's fleet was about to enter full firing range—
On the far side of the sky—
A dense formation of Sky Fortresses had already completed deployment.
They stretched across the horizon like a wall of steel, an unbroken barricade standing directly in the Ark's path.
Ethan drew in a slow breath.
The energy output of his Powered Combat Armor surged to its limit. The glowing lines across his suit lit up—steady, searing, and bright.
At the same time, the main Sky Fortress under his control ramped into high-power mode.
Its outer energy shields thickened layer by layer. The cannon arrays along its hull began to pulse with a steady, rising glow.
He looked up.
Through the transparent armor of the command deck, his eyes locked onto the sky ahead—torn and scorched by incoming fire.
"Narlost has trespassed on our land again and again."
His voice, amplified through the Sky Fortress's broadcast system, echoed across the entire airspace.
"Today—"
"They'll pay for their greed."
The moment his words fell—
A thunderous roar erupted from the entire Emerald Castle fleet.
Battle cries surged like a tidal wave.
The sky itself seemed to ignite.
Both sides unleashed their full arsenal at once.
Beams of light, particle lances, and energy cannon blasts crisscrossed the airspace in a blinding storm. The atmosphere ionized under the barrage, humming with a sharp, electric whine.
Explosions stacked like rolling thunder.
The sky lost all trace of its original color—
Now just a canvas of fire and fury.
Inside the control room, Ethan sat with his fingers clenched tight.
He could feel it—
The pressure from the Doomsday Ark's firepower was far beyond what any single Sky Fortress could endure.
His command ship was at the very front.
Every impact felt like a sledgehammer slamming into the hull.
If not for the dozens of Sky Fortresses around him forming a synchronized defense grid, constantly redistributing the force—
This ship would've been torn apart already.
Even so—
The pressure was still building.
For now, the two sides were locked in a fragile stalemate.
But Ethan knew—
That balance was razor-thin.
If even one Sky Fortress suffered structural failure, the entire defense net would start to unravel.
And reality was already pushing toward that breaking point.
He pulled up the real-time status panel.
Several allied Sky Fortresses were already skimming the red line on energy stability.
Cooling systems were overheating.
Structural stress was climbing fast.
If they kept holding the line like this—
It was only a matter of time before one of them exploded.
Meanwhile, on the other side—
The Doomsday Ark's output curve still showed plenty of headroom.
It hadn't even activated its full weapons array yet.
That ship wasn't just a flagship.
It was a true war core.
A force that couldn't be matched by numbers alone.
