Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Ethan could only feel helpless about it.

He turned and studied the walls around them.

The corridor was built from blocks of gray stone brick. Every stone had a seam between it and the next—visible, but so thin you couldn’t even fit a finger in. When the torchlight swept across the surface, certain patches reflected a dull, dark red sheen.

A line of carved text caught his eye.

The grooves were deep.

Some edges had been worn down, but the message was still readable.

Ahead lies Cindara’s place of slumber—The Adilik Abyss. Do not awaken it!

Ethan read it out loud.

Everyone immediately crowded the wall.

"Adilik Abyss?"

"And what’s Cindara?"

"This is where it sleeps?"

They leaned toward the opening again.

An abyss this huge... and it was just a sleeping ground for something?

The first thing anyone pictured was a dragon.

As the murmuring died down, a fear that didn’t make sense seeped in from outside the corridor.

No attack.

No energy ripple.

But every body in the tunnel screamed the same warning—

Something unbelievably dangerous was getting closer.

Auri clung to Ethan at once, burying her face in his clothes.

The others backed deeper into the corridor.

Even with the large shield and their individual shields still intact, breathing turned tight and fast, eyes locked on the black mouth of the opening.

Ethan swallowed.

He forced down the instinct to retreat and edged forward anyway, step by step.

When he reached the edge, he pressed his back to the wall first, then cautiously leaned out—just half his head—peering into the abyss.

A moving firelight drifted through the dark.

A Flame Drake.

A tiny flame burned atop its head, swaying gently as it flew. The abyss was so vast—and the distance so extreme—that at first glance Ethan even thought it wasn’t that big.

But the pressure rolling in from far away had everyone in the corridor too terrified to make a sound.

Cindara crossed the abyss at a slow, unhurried pace.

Flame-red fire curled around its scales. Every wingbeat twisted the nearby space with heat shimmer. It circled once, as if checking for disturbances, then finally angled toward the steel bridge above.

So this was Cindara.

Only—

Was it injured?

Ethan stared hard.

Cindara’s landing on the bridge was careful to the point of paranoid. Its claws touched down inch by inch, its weight transferring slowly. Some scales were cracked, and when it moved one wing, it lagged compared to the other.

Only after all four claws were stable did Cindara close its eyes.

A heatwave rolled out from its body.

Firelight spread along the steel bridge, gradually illuminating the abyss.

Only then did Ethan truly understand the scale of the Adilik Abyss.

It wasn’t just their corridor.

The stone walls around the void were riddled with countless openings.

Some were high above. Some were deep below. More passages layered around the circumference like stacked rings. Every exit faced straight toward the abyss’s center, perfectly aligned—no deviation.

Like countless eyes.

All staring at the bridge... and at Cindara.

Were these corridors really built to worship this Flame Drake?

But then why would a Flame Drake be under a rainforest?

That was the question Ethan wanted answered most.

On the bridge, Cindara suddenly opened its eyes.

It shifted one shoulder, like something inside its body was bothering it. Its wings spread, preparing to leave the bridge.

Ethan immediately tried to pull back into the corridor.

But the moment he turned, he saw it—

Everyone was jammed behind him.

Seraphine was in front.

Andona, Ataneya, and the others were pressed right behind her. Everyone wanted a better look, and they’d clogged the already narrow corridor completely.

Ethan pushed back.

Didn’t move.

He pushed again.

Still nothing.

On the bridge, Cindara hadn’t planned to deal with them at all.

Continuing to laze around and sleep was comfortable.

But... if it was already awake, a little snack didn’t sound bad either.

Ethan fought his way back behind the shield at last, squeezing through the human wall.

"It already noticed us," he hissed.

"Back up. Now."

Too late.

Cindara lifted its head and looked toward the corridor with frank curiosity.

Once the firelight revealed its full body, everyone realized just how wrong their size judgment had been.

Among dragons, Cindara wasn’t especially huge.

Its real size was only a bit smaller than Seraphina’s.

But to the humans packed into a corridor, it was still a monster that could swallow their whole view.

The abyss had simply been too wide—and the distance too great—so Ethan’s eyes had lied to him.

Cindara’s gaze pierced the opening and met Ethan’s directly.

A thought rose in Ethan’s mind.

Come closer.

No reason.

No logic.

And no ability to refuse.

He’d already retreated behind the others, yet his legs moved on their own, stepping forward.

The steps were forced into a sluggish crawl, like his body was wading through invisible mud—but he kept moving toward the opening anyway.

Cindara tilted its head.

Why was this human approaching the king?

Out of caution, it actually backed away along the bridge by a short distance.

Ethan reached the opening.

His right hand quietly gathered white energy at his side.

When Cindara lowered its head again to watch him, Ethan snapped his arm up and smashed the energy sphere toward its eye.

Outside the corridor, the abyss’s rules bit down hard. The white lightning shrank, its brightness dropping sharply.

But the distance was close now.

The sphere still struck Cindara in the eye and slipped into its body through the seams between scales.

Cindara roared in fury.

It beat its wings, pulled back, then turned and slammed its body straight into the corridor opening.

BOOM!

The entire stone wall shuddered.

Dust poured from the ceiling. Fine cracks spread under everyone’s feet.

When Cindara realized the collision hadn’t done much, it extended one claw.

The massive talons hooked the edge of the opening, reaching inside—ready to dig the people out of the corridor one by one.

Ethan backed up several steps at the approaching claw.

Then—suddenly—the claw stopped.

The white lightning that had entered Cindara’s eye had already spread into that forelimb. Ethan couldn’t control the whole dragon, but for a short window, he could interfere with this one region.

He swallowed his fear, condensed another energy sphere, and threw it at the frozen claw.

Idra lifted her head too.

Dragon breath compressed in her mouth, then blasted out right after Ethan’s sphere, striking the same spot.

The two attacks hit in sequence.

White lightning pushed deeper into scale and flesh, and Ethan’s "feel" for the claw sharpened even more.

The moment Idra finished, she turned into a streak of light and dove back into Ethan’s body.

Auri and the other two followed immediately.

Four forces merged into him one after another.

Ethan didn’t hesitate anymore.

He sprinted for the opening.

Cindara, frustrated, tried to pull back the claw that had gone partially out of control—

And Ethan used that exact moment.

He launched himself out of the corridor and grabbed onto one of its claw-toes with both arms.

Cindara glanced down.

It thought something tiny had crawled onto its foot.

So it whipped its forelimb through the air with a violent shake, trying to fling the "bug" off.

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