Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

After Azmekar finished evolving, its energy output had clearly climbed past what it had been a moment ago.

But—

What about its defense?

Seraphine’s Primordial Death Energy swelled again.

The deep-crimson beam expanded another ring, erasing entire clusters of mechanical insects along its path. Fragments rained from the sky, losing their original structure before they even reached the ground.

Queen Elowen kept her eyes on the energy sphere Azmekar had thrown—pinned down by death power, its speed steadily dropping.

Cold surged in her palm.

Ice-blue energy condensed into a long, slim shaft, then transparent frost-crystal spread forward from the tail end. A complete ice arrow formed in her hand in seconds, the air around its tip frosting over again and again.

Andona stood beside her and lifted both hands.

Divine Power stretched between her palms, shaping itself into a blazing golden longbow.

Seraphina climbed back into the sky, her wings sweeping through the insect cloud. She didn’t move in close on Azmekar—instead, she stayed above, constantly clearing out the bugs trying to interfere with her teammates.

Inside the shield, Elowen raised the ice arrow and nocked it on Andona’s holy bow.

She looked past the swarm that was still dissolving, toward an open patch of ground in the distance.

From there, she’d have a clean line—straight into Azmekar’s eyes.

The insect cloud tore open under Primordial Death Energy.

A gap.

Andona drew the golden bowstring back.

The cold around the arrow fused with Divine Power. The arrowhead brightened until it looked almost star-hot.

Aim.

Release.

The string snapped forward.

The ice arrow pierced the shield and flew low, skimming the edge of Seraphine’s death beam as it streaked ahead. Golden holy light wrapped the shaft, while a razor-straight trail of frost carved through the air behind it.

On the other side, Seraphine’s death power finally struck Azmekar.

The most violent portion had been eaten away while passing through the insect swarm, but the remaining impact still shoved Azmekar backward step after step. Its massive mechanical feet cratered the ground. Red sparks began spraying from the seams of its armor.

For the first time, Azmekar looked rattled.

Through the eyes of the insects around it, it saw the ice arrow coming.

The remaining tentacles on its back whipped around, stacking in front of its chest. Its two small mechanical claws started gathering energy too, ready to smash the arrow head-on the moment it got close.

Seraphine paused for a fraction.

The energy forming in Azmekar’s hands felt... familiar.

Same internal structure as the sphere from before.

And if Light Force got mixed into it—

How would it respond?

Ataneya shifted targets as well.

All twenty-four fox tails stopped going for Azmekar’s main body. Instead, they shot in from both sides and wrapped around the tentacles guarding its chest.

Her tails pulled outward.

The tentacles fought to clamp inward.

They deadlocked in midair, metal joints screaming with friction. Ataneya bared her teeth and yanked—every tail straining to the side at once.

She ripped open a gap wide enough for the ice arrow to pass through.

Underground, the deeper Ethan went, the sharper his caution became.

Mechanical eggs lined both sides of the passage.

Row after row.

Some were embedded in the fleshy walls. Some were cradled by steel supports. And more—far more—were stacked in layers that extended until the darkness swallowed them.

They looked almost identical.

But when Ethan got close, he could sense subtle differences between batches of eggs.

He couldn’t yet tell what those differences meant.

Explosions from the surface punched through the thick steel above.

The entire nest shivered faintly. Some of the mechanical eggs wobbled in response.

Deep in the underground, Vexara was jolted awake.

She lazily lifted her head, first checking the mechanical eggs she treated like treasure, then rolling her eyes toward the corridor.

It felt like someone was watching her.

Weird.

"Guess I’ll go see how the King’s doing."

She stretched her short foreclaws.

"Don’t disappoint me."

Vexara started walking out into the passage.

Ethan stayed hidden in black particles, watching her leave her original spot. Only after she vanished around the corner did he condense back into a body, landing where she’d been lying.

But Vexara hadn’t really left.

She’d tucked herself into a concealed corner, using the dense insect swarm around her to hide her shape, quietly watching Ethan reveal himself.

Because the insects’ presence filled the whole nest, Ethan didn’t notice that extra pair of eyes.

"Black particle form," Vexara murmured, eyelids narrowing.

"This kid isn’t simple."

"I underestimated him."

She gave a soft laugh and headed deeper down a different corridor.

Between the spines on her back, silver-white liquid began to seep out.

It flowed over her skin, layering into mechanical armor plate by plate. At the same time, the packed insects clinging to the walls peeled off and swarmed to her side.

They reassembled across her back into a pair of mechanical wings.

A massive cannon sank into the armor at her chest.

Her tail split at the tip—forking into three branches, each able to adjust its aim independently.

Mechanical Vexara, complete form, unfolded fully inside the underground nest.

"Ethan."

Her voice came from behind him in the passage.

"What are you doing down here?"

"Breaking into someone’s home isn’t exactly polite."

The moment she finished speaking, Vexara turned into a shooting star.

Her mechanical wings drove her to terrifying speed. The tunnel walls tore under the pressure as she passed—flesh detonating, steel structures cracking open—yet the insects behind her instantly swarmed the damage and repaired the passage as they flew.

Her three-pronged tail rose at once.

Three energy shells fired along different trajectories toward Ethan.

The gun barrels on both sides of her head locked on too, pouring a dense crossfire through the narrow corridor and covering every possible dodge angle.

Ethan turned, staring at the fully armed Vexara in confusion.

No time to study.

His body instantly entered gene-quantum mode and vanished from the spot.

The bullets all missed.

Metallic pings chained together between floor and walls, while the energy shells smashed into the distant corridor and triggered several small explosions.

Vexara landed where Ethan had disappeared.

Her foreclaw split open. A long, thin tube extended from inside, its opening pressing close to the air as it began sucking in Ethan’s leftover scent.

"Where do you think you can run?"

By then, Ethan was already above her.

He heard exits sealing one after another all around them.

Steel plates slid out from the walls. Flesh tissue spread over the seams, locking the entire area down.

Ethan looked down at Vexara, still tracking scent, and a white energy sphere formed in his palm again.

"Hmph."

The sphere left his hand and shot silently toward Vexara’s back.

But at the same instant, Vexara’s three-pronged tail snapped around.

Each branch moved like an independent anti-air turret, spraying huge amounts of white fluid backward.

The fluid spread in midair into a sticky, viscous barrier. The white energy sphere plunged into it and immediately slowed, and nearby insects swarmed in, rapidly grinding down the lightning on its surface.

Vexara’s chest armor began to glow red.

Red energy was building inside.

The insects kept blocking Ethan’s attack while feeding what they absorbed back into her body.

Scent collection completed.

Ethan’s distinct "signature" was imprinted into every insect’s senses.

Vexara straightened.

Her chest aimed up at Ethan.

The swarm gathered fast, forming a rotating structure around the cannon. A concealed tube extended from her armor—not long, but enough to compress all that red energy into an absurdly tight focus.

Short.

But lethal.

A red laser burst from her chest.

Heat flashed first, turning nearby metal cherry-red—but Ethan quickly realized it wasn’t just burning.

It was destruction.

The insect swarm spun along the outer edge of the beam, continuously feeding their own energy into it, driving the pressure higher and higher.

In the air, Ethan watched the attack close in without expression.

Then his body vanished again.