Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Auri’s method was even more direct.

Green energy drilled into the insects’ bodies, and branches sprouted through the seams in their shells, pinning them in midair. Idra followed up with a breath of dragonfire, burning bugs and branches together in one sweep.

Their teamwork was almost too smooth.

Ethan, walking at the very front, was just about to tell them to slow down when the stone under his feet vanished.

His body dropped.

Luckily, his shield was still linked to everyone behind him. The pale barrier stretched, snapped taut, and Ethan flipped in midair—slamming hard into the shield’s edge.

He looked down.

All four little girls were falling too.

Ethan shot his limbs out.

He grabbed two of them with his hands, hooked the other two with his feet, and kept all of them close to his body.

Yeah. Moments like this made it painfully obvious why he’d insisted on pulling the four troublemakers into his protection radius.

The others reached the break in the passage.

Everyone leaned over and looked down.

A bottomless abyss split the corridor in half. Torchlight fell into it and was swallowed almost immediately.

Ethan saw it clearly now.

The four girls—usually the loudest, most fearless—finally looked scared.

"Don’t panic." Ethan gritted his teeth, holding his position and all their weight.

"Close your eyes first."

He looked at Idra.

"Idra, fly up."

Then he looked at Auri.

"Auri—grow branches out of the wall."

"Can you do it?"

As he spoke, Ethan forced himself upward inch by inch, trying to pull the girls back into the shield’s full coverage.

Behind them, the team ran in the opposite direction, trying to use the still-unbroken shield link to drag them back.

Ataneya started to extend her fox tails—

But the space between corridor and abyss was too narrow. If she released even one tail, it would jam against the walls. She couldn’t fan out, couldn’t get leverage.

Idra’s tiny wings beat hard.

Still gripping Ethan’s hand, she fought to climb.

But it wasn’t just Ethan she needed to lift.

It was the weight of the other three girls too.

Her wings beat faster and faster, yet she only rose a fraction at a time.

Auri pressed her hand to the wall.

Green fairy energy poured into the stone layer... but no branches emerged.

She stared at her own hand, stunned.

You couldn’t grow plants in this wall.

Ethan caught it immediately.

He adjusted his grip and shifted Auri up onto his head, then shouted toward the edge above them.

"Andona!"

"Can’t you make us float?"

Andona hesitated at the rim.

She’d already tried.

The moment golden power entered the area ahead, it vanished without warning. Not canceled—gone. It didn’t return to her body. She couldn’t sense it, couldn’t recall it, like something inside the abyss had simply eaten it.

"I tried." Andona clenched her hands, staring down at them.

"It doesn’t work."

Seraphine arrived at the edge.

She leaned forward, eyes fixed on Ethan still straining below.

Ethan believed Andona.

This abyss was too weird. Even Seraphine couldn’t just brute-force it casually, and Divine Power wasn’t going to lift five people out of a rule-bending void with zero preparation.

But what bothered Ethan wasn’t Andona’s failure.

The second his body crossed the corridor’s edge and hung over the abyss, he could no longer feel the energy inside him. White lightning, energy spheres—even the connection between him and the four little ones had thinned to something faint and slippery.

And yet, his body had gotten stronger.

His arms could bear more weight. Strength kept surging through his legs and core. If not for that, he’d never have held onto all four girls at once, let alone kept hanging under the shield.

But if energy vanished out here—

Why hadn’t the pale-white shield linking everyone collapsed?

Ethan looked up at Andona.

"Try again."

Andona’s golden wings trembled slightly.

"Use a shield to wrap all of us... then lift us back up."

Ethan held his balance, eyes locked on her.

"Trust yourself."

Andona froze.

She looked down at Ethan and the four girls hanging in the dark. Then she glanced at the spot where her power had been swallowed earlier.

After a brief pause, she brought her hands together.

"Okay."

Twenty pairs of golden wings spread wide.

Brilliant Divine Power surged from every feather, flowing into Andona’s palms—then becoming a thick, solid golden barrier that pushed down from the abyss’s edge, extending with everything she had.

This time, the light didn’t disappear.

It became the only clear light in the darkness, revealing rough stone walls... and the endless drop beneath Ethan’s feet.

The shield kept descending.

It wrapped Idra first, then pulled Auri and the other two girls into its coverage, and finally enclosed Ethan completely.

It worked.

Andona lifted her hands at once.

The golden shield rose, carrying all five of them up toward the corridor.

Freed from that hanging strain, Ethan finally released his aching grip. Leaning inside the shield as it ascended, he used the moment to scan their surroundings.

Below was nothing but infinite black.

Light fell a long, long way and still found no bottom.

But when Ethan lifted his head, he saw something else—

Higher up, spanning the abyss, a bridge cut across.

It stretched from one side to the other. From this angle it looked like a thin line, perfectly connecting two exits among the countless corridors.

"How big is this place?" His voice dropped into the void, then bounced back in layered echoes from different directions.

The golden shield finally rose back to the corridor.

Ethan set the four girls down. Everyone rushed over.

Even with Andona’s help, Idra was completely spent.

Her tiny wings drooped uselessly. The second her feet hit the ground, she hugged Ethan’s arm and gulped air. What she’d been holding onto wasn’t just Ethan—she’d carried most of the other three’s weight too.

Ethan ruffled Idra’s head, then turned serious as he faced the group.

He pointed back at the abyss.

A white energy sphere formed in his palm.

Inside the corridor, energy circulation was perfectly normal—if anything, it was more active than usual. Lightning danced across the sphere’s surface, its brightness and pressure steadily climbing.

Ethan slowly pushed the sphere toward the corridor’s edge.

The instant it crossed the boundary—

All the light died.

The energy vanished completely.

But Ethan’s arm, extended out over the abyss, clearly gained strength. When he clenched his fingers, the air compressed with a small pop.

"Alright. It’s clear now."

Ethan pulled his hand back.

"Inside the corridor, energy gets boosted. Our bodies stay basically normal—we can use power, and our physical condition doesn’t noticeably drop."

"But outside, over the abyss, the rules flip."

He extended his arm again so everyone could see the contrast.

"Energy gets weakened, even erased."

"But physical strength gets enhanced."

Seraphina and Idra’s eyes lit up at the same time.

For them, that wasn’t bad news at all.

Neither of them relied on delicate energy techniques. Most of the time, their real weapons were dragon bodies, claws, teeth, and raw force—and that was more than enough to beat enemies back.

The others nodded too.

Then curiosity took over.

Kaelira stretched a thread of purple-red energy out past the corridor.

The glow vanished the moment it crossed.

Ataneya sent a wisp of infernal power along one fox tail.

Same result.

After a few more tests, everyone had to pull their powers back, disappointment settling in anyway.

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