Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1147: Crack in the Key

Ethan lifted his arm and whipped the energy stone into the sky.

It streaked upward trailing transparent lightning, then slammed straight into the massive Stone Golem phantom.

Boom—!!

The two forces detonated in midair.

The gemstone power inside the rock was ignited by Ethan’s lightning, crashing directly against the phantom’s descending fist. The shockwave tore down the canyon like a blade. Both cliff walls shuddered, and the sky split into dense, crawling spatial cracks.

The phantom’s fist was blasted back for an instant.

The energy stone itself shattered into powder.

The powers tangled for a brief moment—then, in the end, both dispersed at the same time.

The Stone Golem froze.

It hadn’t expected Ethan to handle the canyon’s energy stones with that kind of ease.

This was power born from inside Energy Canyon. Yet in Ethan’s hands it was just ammo—something he could casually trigger, with a burst strong enough to cancel the golem’s attack head-on.

Before it could reassess—

Ethan was already in its face.

Transparent lightning skimmed across the canyon floor. Ethan cut straight through the lingering aftershock and appeared beside the Stone Golem’s shoulder.

He reached out, clamped five fingers around the crystal embedded there, and squeezed.

Crack!

Stone layers and gemstones fractured together.

Violent transparent lightning drilled from Ethan’s palm into the Stone Golem’s body, surging along its internal energy pathways. Gemstones embedded across its frame lit up one after another, trying to resist the invasion—

But Ethan’s lightning kept severing the connections between them, turning the golem’s internal structure into a snarled mess.

With his other hand, Ethan yanked hard and tore off a whole chunk of energy gemstones from its shoulder.

The Stone Golem roared and swung a fist down at him.

Ethan slipped aside. His eyes, though, locked onto its chest.

When his lightning had entered the golem’s body, he’d felt it—one denser, more concentrated source of energy.

It was buried deep in the golem’s heart area, linked to every gemstone around it. Whenever the Stone Golem drew on the canyon’s power, that spot lit first... then distributed energy through the entire body.

A Primordial Core.

Excitement flashed in Ethan’s eyes.

This wasn’t some ordinary rock lifeform. Its body was more like a structure of pure energy-stone, chained together into a living frame—and that Primordial Core in its chest was the true center.

If he got his hands on it, he might be able to further parse—maybe even seize—control of the entire canyon’s energy network.

Ethan didn’t hesitate.

He reached straight for the Stone Golem’s chest.

The Stone Golem sensed his intent instantly.

It was still trying to press the attack, but the moment Ethan’s fingers closed in on its heart area, every gemstone on its body dimmed for a split second.

Then it did something insane.

It abandoned half its body on purpose.

Its left shoulder, half its chest, and one arm tore away from the main mass—ripped into chunks under Ethan’s transparent lightning.

The remaining body used the recoil of that violent separation to shoot backward, slamming into the canyon wall.

Ethan’s eyes flicked.

The instant the Stone Golem touched the cliff, surrounding rock and energy crystals surged toward it.

Loose stone filled the gaps. Gemstones embedded themselves into newly formed layers. The severed arm began rebuilding, structure knitting back together at frightening speed.

In only a few breaths, the half it had discarded was mostly restored.

And during that reconstruction, Ethan saw it even more clearly.

The chest area kept erupting with a dazzling light.

That was where the Primordial Core was.

Ethan’s excitement sharpened into something almost hungry, and his body flashed forward again—turning into lightning as he closed the distance.

This time, the Stone Golem refused to meet him head-on.

It kept retreating, constantly "patching" its body against the canyon walls, doing everything it could to keep Ethan away from its chest. Every step it took made nearby gemstones flicker, like it was drawing on the entire canyon with each movement.

In the end, it backed into a corner.

The cliff faces met there, and the density of embedded gemstones was far higher than anywhere else. On the ground lay a naturally formed ring of energy patterns—old, deep lines that looked like they’d been etched into the earth by the canyon itself.

The Stone Golem stopped inside that space. The light in its chest steadied, as if it had finally reached a safe zone.

Ethan didn’t slow down.

He drove straight in.

But the instant he entered that corner’s range, the surrounding gemstones lit with an eerie sheen. An invisible force erupted between the ground and the cliff wall and slammed into him.

Bang!

Ethan was blasted back dozens of steps, carving a transparent lightning scar through the air before he stabilized.

He glanced down at his arm.

Several shallow scrape marks had appeared on the surface of his Powered Combat Armor.

That force wasn’t just defensive—it was aggressively reactive, able to rebound and strike the moment he got close.

So there was an energy barrier here.

Not just protecting the Stone Golem, but protecting whatever energy structure lay deeper in that corner.

Ethan lifted his head, his expression going flat and cold.

Transparent lightning erupted fully from his body, surging forward along the ground’s cracks and through ripples in the air at the same time.

The Stone Golem tried to use the barrier to keep retreating—but Ethan’s lightning found a weak edge and punched through, detonating directly inside its body.

This time, Ethan didn’t probe.

Transparent lightning exploded within the Stone Golem, forcibly severing the energy linkage between its shoulder and chest. Then Ethan surged through the rebound turbulence, grabbed one of its arms, and yanked.

Crack!

The arm tore off.

A spray of gemstone shards burst from the torn joint, and the Primordial Core’s light in its chest spasmed wildly.

The Stone Golem let out a heavy, furious roar and tried to counter with its other fist, but the barrier hadn’t fully reformed—

And Ethan was already on it again.

As their power hammered the canyon in overlapping bursts, the aftershock caught someone else.

The white-clad man.

He’d been watching from a distance, his chest badge—the key for assembling Powered Combat Armor—still pinned to his clothes.

But the barrier’s rebound, Ethan’s lightning eruption, and the shock from the Stone Golem’s body splitting all expanded at once, sweeping across his position like a sudden wall of force.

The badge on his chest took the hit.

Crack.

A clear fracture split across its surface.

That thing was a Powered Combat Armor key.

If it shattered completely, he wouldn’t be able to recombine the armor again. And that advanced suit was a major chunk of his combat strength—if the key broke, his advantage would be cut down hard.

The white-clad man’s face changed instantly.

He staggered backward several steps, panic finally flashing in his eyes. He stared down at the cracked badge, breathing quick and uneven.

Around him, energy was still churning. The Stone Golem was still being crushed under Ethan’s pressure. Even the canyon barrier didn’t feel safe anymore.

He didn’t stay.

The white-clad man forced his breathing into line and released a strange, pale-white power from his chest.

It spread over the cracked badge first, sealing it in a thin layer—then wrapped around his whole body, turning him into a streak of bright white lightning.

In the next instant, the white light shot straight up.

The man in white became lightning and vanished into the horizon.