Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 1008: Before the Breaking Point

Ethan sprang onto the giant's head.

No extra movements. He just leaned down and hooked his fingers under the last gem that was still glowing—wedged right at the seam where the brow bone met the crown. He tightened his grip, and with a sharp yank, he tore the deeply embedded gem free.

And in that exact moment, the giant's life aura cut off.

His mouth stayed slightly open, like he was trying to say something. In the end, nothing came out.

Those bulging eyes still held a fierce mix of unwillingness and disbelief. Then that enormous body gradually lost what little support it had left and went rigid, dead weight on the ground.

Ethan didn't waste the loot.

He glanced down at the gem in his hand. The dense energy flowing inside it hit him immediately, and he didn't hesitate for even a second—he pressed it straight into his own body.

The instant it touched his chest, the gem dissolved at speed, turning into a scorching, heavy torrent that surged through his meridians and bones, spreading like wildfire.

The sensation was overwhelming.

Like a sealed miniature star had detonated inside him. Ethan's breath caught hard—then burst out again. He could clearly feel his tier jump once more, and the already-formidable power in him lurch upward by another notch.

He drew a long breath.

There was a satisfaction in it he couldn't even bother to hide.

The next moment, he flashed to a distant mountain. Standing on the peak, he didn't keep absorbing. Instead, he slammed one foot down and released everything he had without holding back.

Violent white lightning crawled down the mountainside and spilled outward in all directions.

At the same time, a subtler, more perception-focused ripple of energy spread with it—like a massive net cast over heaven and earth—rapidly covering every surrounding mountain ridge, ravine, and the deep earth veins below.

Ethan wasn't showing off.

He was searching.

He needed to confirm whether there were any other presences hidden in this Dark Abyss that could threaten them.

As his power expanded outward, his perception wrapped around the entire Dark Abyss.

And soon—far, far beneath the deepest layers of the earth—a completely different aura answered his probe, so powerful it made the scalp prickle on instinct.

The next second, the ground ruptured.

A figure shot up from underground.

It was too sudden. Too brutal. Like it hadn't "come out" at all—more like it had forced the entire region upward from below.

With just a single step as it landed, dense cracks split across the surrounding space, like thin ice crushed under a crushing weight.

Ethan's nerves snapped tight.

Every member of Emerald Castle went on alert at the same time. Those who'd been scattered around absorbing energy immediately pulled back and regrouped, forming a new defensive line.

And the existence that emerged from below…

looked like a gigantic bird.

But it wasn't anything like an ordinary flying beast.

Strange lightning coiled around its body—lightning that wasn't white, but darker, thicker, carrying a sticky alien quality, as if it could rot space itself open.

At the same time, the infernal aura on it was so dense it was almost tangible. With each rise and fall of its breathing, the surrounding ravines began to tremble.

Ethan only needed one glance to judge it—

if this thing fully unleashed its power, it wouldn't just wipe out the area in front of them. It might drag the entire ravine system into destruction along with it.

And right then, Lily lifted her head too.

When she got a clear look at the bird, her expression shifted for the first time in a stark, obvious way. It wasn't simple caution. It was recognition—confirmation on a fundamental level, and wariness that came with it.

Power immediately spread from her body.

"Back off," Lily said, her voice stripped of any hint of humor. "That's a creature from The Infernal Abyss. None of you get close."

Her gaze never left what was ahead.

"Wait. I'll deal with it first."

If even Lily was taking that tone, Ethan wasn't about to get careless. He immediately led Emerald Castle's people into a full retreat, pulling them all the way back to the edge of a safer rock shelf and clearing the battlefield's center completely.

In no time, the atmosphere between heaven and earth changed entirely.

Lily's power stayed ferocious. White lightning expanded wildly around her, spreading into something like a boundless sea of thunder.

Ethan quickly noticed something.

Lily still looked dominant, still overwhelming—but on a deeper level, her aura was faintly… suppressed.

It wasn't obvious.

But it was real.

Lily ignored it completely. The way she fought was as blunt and vicious as ever. With almost no setup, she dumped everything she had and smashed it forward in one go.

White lightning poured out in a roar.

The bird across from her wasn't weak in the slightest. Infernal lightning exploded off its body at the same time, rapidly condensing into a massive energy projection high in the air—then it hurled it at Lily like it was throwing a miniature star.

The two forces met head-on.

The space up in the sky tore like it was being ripped apart by two invisible hands. The shockwave spread along the mountain range, and everywhere it passed, the mountain mass, the earth veins, and the already-unstable rifts were forced wider.

Ethan could even see it clearly—some areas of intact space were being chopped into fragments by brute force.

Lily's style still looked simple on the surface.

She kept doing the same thing: gather, compress, release that white lightning.

But if you watched closely, you could tell the thunder wasn't just thunder anymore. Mixed inside was something deeper—something stranger—growing heavier with every exchange.

That energy didn't belong to ordinary lightning.

It didn't even feel like it belonged to this world.

And that was exactly why, even though the bird seemed to be suppressing Lily, it could never truly finish her off.

Every collision forced Lily back a little. But every time she was driven back, the aura on her only became denser—sharper, more dangerous.

After another brutal clash, both sides pulled away at once.

Lily and the bird retreated to opposite edges of a shattered stretch of sky, stabilizing themselves and taking a brief moment to adjust their breathing. Space continued to crumble around them, and the air reeked of scorch, lightning, and abyss all mixed together.

The bird locked onto Lily.

Its teeth ground with a harsh crackling sound. Blood-red lightning kept detonating around its body, each snap carrying power that felt like it could erase mountains and rivers.

"Who the hell are you?" it finally demanded. For the first time, true irritation and unease crept into its voice. "Why do you have such powerful Infernal Primordial Power inside you? You—did you escape from The Infernal Abyss?"

Lily didn't answer.

She simply lowered her eyes slightly, readjusting the two surging currents of power inside her.

White lightning still rolled over her skin, while that stranger energy continued to deepen and settle—like something was waking up in the very core of her body.

Then they collided again.

Once, twice, three times…

With every exchange, their power was visibly being consumed, but neither side showed even a hint of backing down.

Until—at one particular moment—it was like they made the same decision at the same time. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Both of them pressed a palm to their own chest.

The motion was bizarre.

It didn't look like the start of an attack so much as the trigger for something older—some ritual being awakened.

The next instant—

a giant appeared behind each of them.

The silhouettes of the two giants were almost identical: enormous, solemn, carrying an indescribable pressure. The only difference was the energy they were made of.

The giant behind Lily was a pale, corpse-white.

The one behind the bird was a seductive, dangerous blood-red.

The moment those two giants manifested, it was like the entire world got squeezed in a clenched fist.

Space—already fragile to begin with—turned even more unstable. The air above the mountains began collapsing in layers, and deep, heavy cracking sounds rolled from the abyss's edge, as if the whole world was being forced to bear a weight beyond its limit.