Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1148: Where Souls Burn

Ethan watched the streak of white lightning vanish into the horizon, and his gaze sank.

He hadn’t expected the man in white to be hurt that badly—badge cracked, core unstable—and still move that fast.

When that white light cut over the canyon, it left a glowing scar through the air itself. By the time Ethan lifted a hand to chase, the figure was already out of the canyon and shooting toward the distant mountains.

The transparent lightning beneath Ethan’s feet had only just flared—

When a sound crawled out of the space between heaven and earth.

It wasn’t thunder. It wasn’t a birdcall.

It was like sharp flame grinding against something deep inside the world—high, abrasive, wrong. The energy gemstones embedded in both canyon walls trembled at once. Soldiers who’d still been pressing the Stone Golem looked up, faces shifting one after another.

The sky dimmed.

A gigantic bird dove from the upper air.

When it spread its wings, it nearly blotted out the canyon’s sky. Along the feather-edges burned a strange purple fire. The flames weren’t bright, but they had an unnerving penetration to them—each flicker carving tiny black fractures into the air around it.

It burst out of the cloud layer and slammed its wings downward.

The energy mist filling the canyon was swept aside by the fire like a tide being split.

Ethan looked up at the creature, his pupils tightening.

That purple flame... it resembled Phoenix Queen Ignara’s Eternal Flame.

But it didn’t carry that holy, clean presence.

This was colder. Heavier. Like something forged in a deeper hell.

And when that aura pressed down, it didn’t start by burning air or rock.

It went straight for the soul.

Soul-burning flame.

Ethan didn’t hesitate.

Transparent lightning surged from his body, expanding along the etched lines of his Powered Combat Armor and condensing in midair.

First it formed a long, arched spine.

Then a dragon’s head. Claws. A coiling body.

By the time it finished, a colossal golden dragon phantom had stretched across the canyon sky, transparent lightning threading through the gaps between its gilded scales.

Ethan thrust his hand upward.

The dragon phantom opened its jaws and charged—carrying transparent lightning straight into the diving bird.

The bird didn’t dodge.

It folded its wings tight. Purple fire gathered from the feather-edges toward its core, then it plunged down with a force that felt like it could smash heaven and earth.

Dragon up.

Bird down.

They met above the canyon in a head-on collision.

Boom!

Transparent lightning and purple flame exploded together.

The dragon phantom’s claws locked onto the bird’s wings, tearing inward as lightning tried to rip it apart. Purple fire rolled back along the claws, scorching dark-violet stains across the dragon’s surface.

Where their powers tangled, space was squeezed into warped ripples—then shattered in chunks, exposing dense, crawling fractures beneath.

Ethan’s body jolted and he was forced back several steps in midair.

A searing pain rose from deep inside his soul, like a strand of purple fire had slipped into his consciousness and started burning along the edges of his spirit. It wasn’t like physical injury—no blood, no wounds—just a direct stab into the deepest part of him.

Ethan’s eyes went colder.

The next instant, the transparent lightning in his body rotated on its own.

Power from The Infernal Abyss bled out through the lightning and spread along the boundary of his soul, pressing down hard on that invading purple flame.

The violet fire tried to spread—

But it was wrapped, crushed, and ground apart layer by layer by the transparent lightning.

Within a few breaths, it was extinguished completely.

Ethan steadied himself again, electric light already gathering in his palm.

He was about to strike—

When a figure shot out from the side.

Feylora moved in front of him.

She hovered in midair, and the power belonging to The Fey Sovereign rolled out of her in widening waves. The moment it appeared, the canyon’s energy fluctuations changed.

The dimmed motes of light in the air—suppressed by the purple flame—brightened again. Even the gemstones embedded in the cliff seemed to respond, sending thin, delicate threads of light toward her position like they were being drawn in.

Feylora raised her hand.

The Fey Sovereign’s power spread across the sky, condensing piece by piece into a huge, uncanny figure.

It wasn’t a normal giant. It wasn’t just a simple energy phantom, either.

It radiated the aura of a Fairy God. Behind it unfurled a pair of enormous wings. Every time those wings trembled, they scattered a rain of golden runes.

The runes were packed across the feathers, dense enough to make your eyes sting. From a distance, it looked like countless tiny laws had been embedded between the wing bones.

Every rune was glowing.

Very quickly, they linked into one continuous sheet.

Light flowed from the wing roots to the tips—then turned into a massive torrent of golden rune-force that dropped from the sky and smashed down at the strange bird wreathed in purple flame.

The bird sensed danger. Its wings snapped open, purple fire surging upward to block the descending rune tide.

This time, the purple flame didn’t win.

The golden rune torrent crushed straight through the outer layer of fire and slammed into the bird’s body. The violet flames were peeled away layer by layer, and that hellish pressure coating it was forced back, retreating under the rune light.

"AAAH—!"

A shriek tore open the sky over the canyon.

The bird thrashed wildly. In only a few breaths, more than half its purple fire was extinguished.

Charred black scars appeared across its feathers. Its wings lost their earlier stability, and its flight path began to wobble.

A flicker of surprise crossed Ethan’s eyes.

He immediately opened the system and ran scans on both Feylora and the bird. The feedback unfolded fast—energy properties, suppression relationships, flame structure, and the fluctuations in Feylora’s Fey Sovereign power all mapped themselves out in his mind.

And in an instant, Ethan understood.

The Fey Sovereign’s power naturally countered that purple flame.

It wasn’t just about who had more raw strength.

It was an attribute-level suppression. The purple fire could burn the soul—but the Fairy God aura and golden rune laws inside the Fey Sovereign’s power could sever the connection between the flame and the target’s spirit.

The battlefield shifted immediately.

Feylora didn’t give the bird time to breathe.

She pressed both hands forward. Behind her, the huge winged figure spread its wings again. Dense golden runes unfolded across the sky, sealing into a net that trapped the bird in the center.

The purple flame tried to force its way out through gaps in the runes—

But the moment it touched the rune light, it scattered and broke apart.

Their energies tangled in midair.

Purple fire was continuously stripped away from the bird, stretched into thin, whipping strands—then crushed and extinguished by the golden runes.

And as the flames faded, the bird’s body began to change.

Its previously huge, blurred outline sharpened. Feathers, bone structure, talons, and the shape of its head emerged little by little, the true form coming into focus.

It was finally showing what it really looked like.