Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1151: The Blue Runes

After pocketing the last few snow-white stones, Ethan turned into a streak of lightning and shot straight into the cave mouth.

It was deeper inside than it had looked from outside.

The walls pinched in tight, the floor slanting downward. Eerie blue light flowed through the cracks in the stone like thin little rivers.

Ethan pushed forward. The air grew colder by the step, and the energy density climbed higher and higher. Before long, the narrow passage suddenly opened up, and he stepped into a massive underground chamber.

This place was nothing like the canyon above.

The surrounding rock was a deep, pitch black, but its surface was laced with blue patterns that looked almost naturally formed. In the center lay a wide open area, where that eerie blue energy kept surging up from below, forming one slow-rotating vortex after another in midair.

The vortices didn’t make much sound, yet the whole chamber sat under a strange, suffocating pressure.

Ethan stopped at the entrance, his expression shifting slightly.

This place was filled with a kind of power he’d never seen before.

As he moved closer, the blue vortices drifted toward him on their own, like they’d caught a familiar scent. The first vortex brushed against the ghastly-white lightning around him. There was no explosion, no rejection—just a quiet seep as it slid along the arcs and burrowed into his body.

Ethan didn’t stop it.

The instant that blue power entered him, a thread of dark wind appeared inside his transparent lightning. It was faint, but razor-sharp. As it traced the lightning’s edges, it gave the already ghastly-white arcs a deeper, more brutal tearing force.

Then the second vortex came. The third followed right after.

Ethan closed his eyes, feeling the power pour in, one wave after another. The ghastly-white lightning coursed through him while that eerie blue, shadowy wind coiled around it. The two forces weren’t the same at all—yet the moment they touched, they settled into a new kind of balance.

Right then, as he absorbed it—

—the ground beneath his feet shook.

Rumble...!

A huge fissure split open across the center of the chamber.

Layers of pitch-black rock peeled back to either side, and eerie blue light blasted up out of the crack like a geyser.

Then something crawled out from the depths.

It wasn’t shaped like any normal creature, and it didn’t feel like a simple stone-lifeform either. Its skin was a deep, dusky black, the outline of its bones exposed like armor under the flesh, and a thick Infernal Abyss aura wrapped around it in waves.

The moment it surfaced, all the chamber’s eerie blue energy leaned toward it, drawn in like iron filings to a magnet.

The thing threw its head back and let out a roar that shook the world, making the blue lines on the walls flare in a chain reaction.

"Who the hell are you?" it bellowed. "You dare trespass in my territory?!"

The vortices around Ethan froze in place.

He turned, eyes landing on the intruder.

The aura coming off this thing was savage—wild, unmistakably tinged with the Infernal Abyss. And more than that, the blue energy on it was so dense it felt saturated, like the entire chamber’s eerie-blue power was tied to it by some invisible thread.

It was staring at Ethan, too.

Not just anger.

There was hunger in that gaze—the greedy focus of a predator spotting prey. It licked at the corner of its mouth, eyes sweeping over the ghastly-white lightning around Ethan, then lingering on the Infernal Abyss aura buried inside him.

"Well, I’ll be damned," it said, voice thick with appetite. "A tiny human... carrying the aura of The Infernal Abyss."

Its mouth split wider, greed spilling out with every word.

"But that kind of power on you is a waste."

"Hand it over. All of it."

The moment the last word fell, eerie blue energy exploded from its body.

The underground chamber wasn’t that wide to begin with. Once the blue power spread, the rock walls immediately groaned under the pressure, a low, heavy vibration rolling through the stone. The energy churned overhead, folding and twisting until it condensed into the shape of a gigantic bird.

Its body was made of eerie blue light. When it spread its wings, they nearly scraped both canyon walls at once. And its sharp beak and talons carried a ferocious, swallowing hunger—like they were made to tear, seize, and devour whatever stood in front of them.

Ethan eased back a single step.

Transparent lightning and that ghastly-white current spilled out of him at the same time, layering into a protective shell around his body. The eerie-blue bird hadn’t even closed the distance yet, and he could already feel the devouring force packed inside it.

This wasn’t a normal attack.

If that thing touched him, it would probably punch straight through flesh and soul alike—worm its way inside and rip every last bit of energy out of him.

Ethan steadied his breathing and lifted his right hand in front of him.

Ghastly-white lightning. Transparent arcs. And the eerie-blue, shadowy wind he’d just absorbed.

All three forces gathered into his palm, compressing into a brutal sphere of energy.

It didn’t shine.

It felt heavy—like he’d forced several different powers into the same core and slammed the door shut.

He snapped his arm forward and hurled it.

At the exact same moment, the eerie-blue bird dove.

The two forces collided in the middle of the chamber.

There was no ear-splitting explosion.

No shockwave tearing through the room.

The instant the sphere touched the bird, both of them froze in midair—like two monsters with their jaws locked on each other.

Ethan’s sphere kept trying to swallow the bird’s eerie-blue power from the inside out.

And the bird, beak wide, tore back just as viciously—dragging at the lightning and that shadow-wind inside the sphere like it was trying to drink it dry.

They fell into a bizarre, mutual devouring.

The underground space went terrifyingly quiet. The only sound was the low, heavy hum of two energies ripping at each other. Lightning flickered across Ethan’s palm in constant motion, and across from him, the grotesque creature kept pouring out eerie-blue power, trying to overwhelm his pull.

They were both absorbing each other.

Whoever cracked first would be eaten whole.

As the struggle twisted tighter in midair, Ethan’s peripheral vision caught the rock wall to the side.

It was carved with dense blue runes.

They were packed close together, running from the floor all the way up the wall—like some ancient energy pattern that had been there for ages.

Eerie-blue light flashed through them, bright then dim. And with every pulse, the chamber’s devouring force shifted—just slightly, but enough to matter.

The moment Ethan’s eyes locked onto those runes, the ghastly-white lightning in his palm hesitated for a single beat.

Those weren’t random scratches.

They were set into the pitch-black stone, lines tight and intricate, with eerie-blue light flowing between every stroke.

And every time that light flared, the devouring power in the chamber changed direction.

The eerie-blue bird was still deadlocked with Ethan’s energy sphere in midair...

—but the true source that was steering this entire space wasn’t the bird at all.

It was those runes.