Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 998: The Center of Power
Ethan shut the scan interface down quickly.
He drew a deep breath, forcing the shock down. No matter what, at least one thing was certain—
Lily was on their side right now.
As long as that stayed true, everything else could wait.
By then, the Emerald Castle troops coming through the spatial corridor had already fully deployed.
Figures rose into the air in waves. Their gear reflected a cold metallic sheen under the sun, and powerful auras gathered rapidly overhead.
The next second—
The battle erupted in full.
Emerald Castle’s heavy hitters unleashed their power. Beams and blasts crisscrossed the sky, slamming into the Dark Abyss legion.
The abyss side answered immediately. Black and dark-red energy surged in like a tide.
In an instant, the sky turned into chaos.
Attacks crossed and overlapped, explosions rolling outward in constant waves.
Thunder, abyss energy, and all kinds of other forces tangled together midair. Every collision sent out violent tremors.
It felt like the sky itself was being torn apart.
And just as the fight hit its most brutal phase—
A commotion broke out inside the Nexaris forces.
A figure suddenly burst out of the formation.
It moved so fast it broke through the edge of the battlefield in a blink—then dropped straight down from high above.
BOOM—!
A massive impact shook the mining range.
The figure hit the rock hard enough to split the ground. Shards flew. Dust surged up into a gray-white cloud.
Ethan locked onto the spot immediately.
As the haze thinned, he finally saw the person clearly.
Someone... unremarkable.
The aura didn’t feel especially strong—actually weaker than many of the Dark Abyss elites from earlier. By energy level and sheer pressure, they didn’t look top-tier at all.
And then the weird part happened.
The moment he landed, the flow of energy around him shifted.
It was like the air itself "noticed" something.
Power that had been scattered around the mine began to move, slow at first, like a tide pulled by a moon.
Then—
Everything surged toward him at once.
Abyss aura. Residual thunder. Energy from the ore veins—
Forces from completely different sources converged around his body. The scene looked like an invisible ocean suddenly forming a whirlpool.
In only a few seconds, a thick energy barrier wrapped around him.
And it wasn’t a normal defense.
It felt more like the combined power of the entire area, gathered and stacked into a single shell.
Ethan’s pupils tightened.
He hadn’t expected anyone to manipulate local energy currents this easily. It was like the mine, the sky—even the air—was responding to that guy’s presence.
"This bastard..." Ethan muttered.
But there was no time to dissect it.
He pulled power instantly.
The Powered Combat Armor kicked its output module on. Energy compressed into Ethan’s right hand, and the air warped around his palm as a bright sphere formed.
It spun faster and faster, its inner energy packed to the limit.
Then—
Ethan snapped his arm forward.
The sphere turned into a blazing streak and slammed straight at the mysterious enemy.
But what happened next caught Ethan off guard.
The man didn’t even flinch.
He simply took one small step back.
The movement was casual, like dodging a pebble that’d fallen from the sky.
Then he raised a hand and casually tossed the energy he’d just gathered outward.
The instant that power left his palm, it changed violently.
Everything compressed in a heartbeat.
And then—
It detonated.
A domineering blast expanded through the air. The sky shook like it had been hit with a giant hammer, and even the distant mountains wobbled from the shockwave alone.
Ethan’s eyes flew wide.
He hadn’t expected the guy to finish an energy restructure that fast.
That counterattack was already about to slam into his face when—
A figure shot out from behind him.
"Let me."
Feylora’s voice cut cleanly through the noise.
She swept past Ethan and landed lightly in the center of the mining range. The instant her boots touched down, a strange energy ripple rolled out from her body.
Feylora herself was like a walking energy core.
Her body could continuously absorb, store, and release massive amounts of power—so much that the others had long since started jokingly calling her the team’s "power bank."
But when she actually let her ability loose—
It was far more terrifying than anyone’s jokes did justice.
She lifted a hand slowly.
In the next second, the local energy flow shifted.
The forces that had been converging on the mysterious enemy hesitated. It was like the air had found a stronger center of gravity, and the energy began to turn.
Countless streams redirected toward Feylora.
Residual thunder, ore energy, spatial turbulence... everything became invisible rivers in the air, pouring into her body.
The energy currents above the mine changed faster and faster.
The moment Feylora anchored herself there, huge amounts of previously chaotic energy started gathering to her. Deep inside the mountain, the ore continued to release steady pulses, and that power was drawn in like it was being pulled by an unseen magnetic field.
Feylora narrowed her eyes.
Under the glow of the gathered energy, her gaze looked almost painfully bright. She kept it locked on the mysterious man across from her. The air between them grew heavy, like the entire mine’s power was holding its breath, waiting for the moment it could explode.
Feylora raised her hand.
Golden energy gathered in her palm in a rush.
It wasn’t a sloppy ball of power—it was compressed and shaped with precision. A few seconds later, a massive golden bow began to form in her hands.
The bow’s body was pure energy, its surface flickering with dense light patterns, like golden thunder was flowing inside it.
At the same time, an energy arrow appeared on the string. The tip shone with a sharpness that felt like a miniature sun.
Across from her, the man sensed the danger.
For the first time, his expression turned serious.
He stopped trying to pull in the surrounding energy and lifted his palm instead. A dim, heavy power condensed there, then stretched and shaped itself.
A longsword appeared in his hand.
It wasn’t flashy, but it carried a crushing weight, like deep abyss force had been compressed into its core. When the blade fully formed, the air around it let out a low, vibrating hum.
They moved almost simultaneously.
Feylora yanked the bowstring back, the golden arrow drawn to its limit. At the same time, the man swung his sword, power flooding into the blade.
The next instant—
Both attacks erupted.
The golden arrow and the abyss sword-light slammed together in midair. Blinding waves of energy burst outward, tearing at the air. The shockwave exploded over the mine, making the surrounding rock walls tremble.
But the truly frightening part wasn’t that single hit.
They attacked again almost immediately.
And this time, neither of them bothered with fancy techniques.
No ornate moves.
They simply dumped raw power straight out of their bodies and smashed it into each other the most primitive way possible. Gold and dark-red energy collided again and again, every impact like two raging floods meeting head-on.
This wasn’t a contest of skill anymore.
It was pure energy dominance.
Whoever had deeper reserves would win.
Worse, as the fight dragged on, both of them kept siphoning energy from the mine beneath their feet. The ore was being drained nonstop, and the entire mountain’s energy structure started showing signs of instability.
If this continued—
The mine could be sucked dry.
Ethan watched from nearby, his brow tightening.
He realized quickly that letting it go on like this wasn’t doing them any favors. The mine was the core energy source for their defenses—if it got depleted, their advantage would vanish with it.
He pulled up the system interface immediately.
The scan module spun up.
An invisible data sweep expanded from his line of sight as the system began parsing the mysterious man’s physical structure.
Complex readouts rolled across Ethan’s display, then condensed into a short analysis report.
