Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Seraphina was already high in the sky.

Her enormous dragon head dove down, jaws stretched wide, aiming straight for the center of the smoke.

Andona followed right behind.

Golden wings flared open. A judgment array snapped into existence beneath her feet. Sacred runes lit in rings along the pattern, and that executioner’s intent steadily locked onto Azmekar.

At the same time, Ataneya spread all twenty-four fox tails.

She wasn’t going to drag this out.

The tails sealed off the smoke from every side, while she kept feeding hellish energy into her palm—ready to smash Azmekar the second it showed itself.

The smoke thinned.

Azmekar coughed hard, choking on the dust from its own explosion.

Before it could even make out its surroundings, Ataneya’s fox tails whipped in and wrapped around the mechanical tentacles on its back.

Twelve tails cinched down on different tentacles.

The rest pulled in unison.

Azmekar was yanked out of the air and slammed into the ground.

BAM!

The earth collapsed inward.

Azmekar lifted its head from the crater, the red in its eyes burning even brighter—almost thrilled.

"You finally came out!"

Its voice carried across the plain.

The next instant, every hole across the plain rang with metallic wingbeats.

Countless mechanical insects poured up from underground, rushing in from all directions to converge on Azmekar.

Everyone realized it at the same time—

They couldn’t let it complete another merge.

Seraphina had already dropped from above.

Her huge jaws punched through the last of the smoke and clamped down on Azmekar’s body.

Top and bottom rows of dragon teeth tightened together.

Brutal bite force crushed down on the mechanical armor. Metal shrieked as it deformed. Azmekar’s tentacles thrashed wildly, but Ataneya’s fox tails had them locked tight.

Andona spared one glance at the target trapped in Seraphina’s mouth.

Divine Power poured out of her and streamed into the array beneath her feet.

Golden runes sealed Azmekar’s throat first, then spread to cover its chest, limbs, and the roots of its tentacles—temporarily cutting off the "links" between different parts of its body.

The judgment array completed.

An execution aura expanded outward with Seraphina at the center—

Or more precisely...

With Azmekar, held between her teeth, as the center.

Seraphina kept tightening her bite.

Pressure from her jaws traveled through Azmekar’s armor. The seams screamed with grinding friction. Ataneya’s tails bound the tentacles. Andona’s Divine Power locked down throat, limbs, and chest, pinning Azmekar in place inside the dragon’s mouth.

Then, right as Seraphina prepared to go all-in, a strange sensation slid into her mind.

Let go.

It had no voice, but it was so clear it was impossible to ignore.

Let go of it.

Now.

Seraphina’s teeth trembled.

Her first instinct was to refuse.

She’d already paid for mistakes like this—especially the agony of metal fragments stabbing into her dragon heart. Even now, she remembered that pain too clearly. And Azmekar was surrounded by swarms of mechanical bugs. If those things got inside her—

The consequences wouldn’t be lighter than last time.

But the more she resisted, the stronger the urge became.

That "thought" didn’t argue with her head-on. It just kept repeating the same message over and over:

Holding on was the real danger.

If she didn’t let go, she would die.

Ataneya was the first to notice something was wrong.

Her tails were in direct contact with the tentacles. Any tiny vibration fed straight back into her awareness. The tentacles that had been fighting like mad seconds ago weren’t broadcasting only rage anymore.

There was a sharp, unmistakable edge of panic.

Not fear of getting hurt—

The kind of urgency that only showed up when the master was facing real danger.

Ataneya snapped her gaze up at Seraphina, about to warn her—

And saw the dragon’s jaws starting to loosen.

"Seraphina!" she shouted.

"Don’t let go!"

Too late.

Seraphina opened her mouth and spat Azmekar out.

She took a half-step back, looking at Ataneya in confusion—but her eyes said it plainly.

If I don’t let go, I’ll die.

Azmekar hit the ground and stumbled back a few steps.

It lifted both small mechanical claws to its neck, bracing and slowly nudging the parts Seraphina’s teeth had crushed out of alignment back into place. Inside its armor, metal clicked as components re-seated, one after another. Only when its head returned to its original angle did it exhale.

Close one.

Azmekar raised its gaze and looked at Seraphina with icy focus.

Nearby, the mechanical insects were already swarming in.

One by one, they latched onto its body and disassembled—turning into armor plates, joints, and energy structures. Azmekar’s frame began to swell again, and the plating across its back split open.

A dozen-plus new mechanical tentacles pushed out from within.

"You did great," Azmekar said to Seraphina, unmistakably satisfied.

"All that effort I spent wasn’t wasted."

Only then did Seraphina fully understand why Ataneya had tried to stop her.

That overwhelming need to release Azmekar hadn’t been hers.

She’d been manipulated.

But Azmekar was already free, and it was too late to take any of it back.

Ataneya tightened her tails again, trying to pin down the newly grown tentacles.

This time, though, the tentacles’ number and strength had changed completely.

Before, she could slam them down and keep them there. Now, every collision redirected both sides. The moment Ataneya tried to lock left, the tentacles preempted and curved right. When the tentacles tried to strike from below, her tails dropped instantly to crush the angle.

They were reading each other too well.

Like siblings who’d sparred a thousand times—each one already knowing what the other planned to do next.

Keeping this up was pointless.

Ataneya pulled her tails back, jaw tight.

The hellish energy she’d been nurturing in her palm finally shot out.

The tentacles saw the retreat and lunged forward, trying to press the advantage and suppress Ataneya—yet the instant they passed Azmekar’s body, the hellfire sphere slipped between the tails and smashed into the lead tentacles head-on.

BOOM!

Dark flames erupted outward.

Mechanical tentacles snapped, melted, and collapsed under the infernal force. Metal fragments were hurled into the air, and the already-dim sky was stained blood-red by the blaze.

Azmekar only spared Ataneya a glance.

Then it raised both small claws.

Red energy condensed in its palms, the internal structure disturbingly similar to Ataneya’s attack. When the sphere formed, Azmekar hurled it straight at her.

The energy ball skimmed low across the ground, tearing a gouge through gray-black earth in its wake.

Ataneya’s fox tails instantly snapped up in front of her.

All twenty-four overlapped in layered defense, ready to take the hit head-on.

But Seraphine stepped in front of her first.

Deep crimson Primordial Death Energy surged from her hands, compressed into a straight, merciless death beam. It pierced Azmekar’s thrown sphere—then continued forward along the same line of attack.

At the moment the two forces met, a blinding white flash exploded in midair.

The red sphere resisted for only a heartbeat before its inner structure was completely shattered by the Primordial Death Energy.

The death beam didn’t slow.

It drove straight toward Azmekar.

Mechanical insects went insane, throwing themselves in from every direction.

They slammed into the beam, trying to burn it down by sacrificing their own bodies. And right before each insect was erased, it transmitted the data it gathered back to Azmekar.

Azmekar’s massive mechanical body worked like a perfect central processor.

Attack intensity.

Energy type.

Dissolution speed on contact.

The numbers ran through it in a brutal, rapid cascade.

But the Primordial Death Energy was too dense—too absolute—to be "filled in" with sheer quantity.

Many insects didn’t even make it to the beam. Their bodies collapsed in the outer aura of death. Armor dulled. Cores stopped "beating." They turned to ash and fragments, swept away by the wind the beam itself dragged along.

Azmekar’s energy sphere was stopped—but Seraphine’s arm still shifted backward a fraction.

Seraphine caught it instantly.

It was stronger.

Azmekar was getting stronger.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!