Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1173: Inside the Beast

Ethan’s gaze slowly cooled.

He stopped trading head-on blasts with the minotaur. Instead, he pulled the translucent lightning tight to the surface of his body.

The arcs compressed in an instant. His whole form collapsed into a streak of divine electricity and shot straight at the minotaur—and that massive blood-red energy body.

Lightning battered the air around him as he accelerated, and Infernal Primordial Power gathered into his palm.

It looked like a world-ending frontal strike.

The minotaur bared his teeth, spreading his thick arms forward. The blood-red energy body mirrored him, raising a fist.

Right as the two sides were about to collide, the power in Ethan’s palm suddenly dispersed.

Boom!

A huge mass of thick smoke exploded across the sky.

The blast was loud and the spread was enormous, but the real destructive force was nowhere near as terrifying as it appeared. The rolling smoke swallowed Ethan’s figure and cut off the minotaur’s line of sight.

The minotaur immediately narrowed his eyes. The blood-red gemstone in his chest released probing ripples.

The smoke thinned, bit by bit.

But the Ethan who’d been charging him was gone—vanished without a trace.

The minotaur’s eyes widened.

Once the smoke cleared, Ethan wasn’t in front of him. He wasn’t above, either.

That streak of translucent lightning that had looked like a direct collision... it was as if it had been scattered by the wind at the final moment, leaving only drifting scraps of lingering electric light across the sky.

The minotaur instantly unleashed his internal power.

The gemstone in his chest flared. Earth Magic pressed down through his feet into the mountain range, then flowed back from all directions into his awareness.

Air. Gravel. Mineral-vein energy. Residual fluctuations clinging to the edges of space tears—he swept through all of it, piece by piece.

Nothing.

No matter how he tuned his power, no matter how far he spread his perception, he still couldn’t pinpoint Ethan’s position.

That wasn’t right.

The minotaur’s heavy breathing started to speed up.

With peak 35 Tier perception, as long as Ethan was still in this patch of sky, it should’ve been impossible to dodge his search completely.

But right now, Ethan was like he’d evaporated between Morgrath’s mountains.

Then—while he was still hunting—

A voice carrying a hint of mockery suddenly sounded from inside his body.

"Your bloodline really is something."

The minotaur’s body went rigid.

That voice hadn’t come from beside his ear.

It came from within his flesh, his bones, his energy channels. Every syllable seemed to press directly against his heart, making the blood-red gemstone in his chest tremble in response.

"To actually possess both Earth Magic and Infernal Primordial Power from The Infernal Abyss at the same time."

True horror finally cracked across the minotaur’s face.

Ethan had slipped into his body.

That smoke wasn’t an attack at all—it was cover.

Ethan had particulate-ized his body, using the explosion’s energy turbulence to enter him. Those black grains had already spread along his bloodstream and energy pathways, worming into the most critical positions inside him.

The minotaur tried to mobilize the blood-red gemstone in his chest—

But his body didn’t obey.

His arms froze in midair. Even the Infernal Primordial Power in his chest was pinned down by an outside force.

Earth Magic still flowed under his feet, but he could no longer command it. Even the blood-red energy body he’d just formed stalled in the air as its master lost control.

Still... the minotaur wasn’t out of options.

After a brief flash of panic, he forced himself steady and did something ruthless—he tore his soul free from the body’s control and retreated straight into his own sea of consciousness.

Even though Ethan had seized his body, he couldn’t instantly take control of the minotaur’s soul—or his sea of consciousness.

The very next moment, both of their awarenesses appeared in the same place: a vast, empty world of void.

No mountains. No sky. No Emerald Castle army.

Only an endless gray-white nothingness in every direction, with not even a real ground beneath their feet.

The minotaur’s soul stood at the center of it, still towering. The blood-red gemstone on his chest had become a soul-mark, releasing thick, oppressive light in steady waves.

Ethan stood opposite him.

Here, Ethan’s consciousness looked even sharper than it did outside. Translucent lightning coiled around him, and every time the arcs snapped, they left tiny fractures in the void itself—hairline cracks that winked open, then vanished.

The minotaur’s teeth ground so hard they clicked.

"You’re dead!"

He flung his arms wide. In his sea of consciousness, Soulforce surged toward him at once. The gray-white void churned as huge quantities of power condensed overhead, rapidly forming a massive sphere of energy.

Bzzzz.

Pure Soulforce.

It hovered above the minotaur’s head, its surface collapsing inward, then swelling outward again and again.

Each tremor made the entire sea of consciousness heave like a tide.

This was the minotaur’s home field. Here, his Soulforce could be unleashed to the maximum—while Ethan was just an intruder.

By any normal logic, Ethan should’ve been crushed in seconds.

But there wasn’t a hint of panic on Ethan’s face.

He simply lifted his eyes, a cold curve at the corner of his mouth.

Translucent lightning spread from beneath his feet—first a single strand, then dozens, then hundreds. The electric light rolled forward like a flood, ripping apart the Soulforce mist in its path as it surged straight toward the gigantic sphere overhead.

The minotaur roared and slammed both hands downward.

The Soulforce sphere crashed down.

But the instant it touched the translucent lightning, huge cracks split across its surface. That Soulforce—power that looked like it could pulverize any spirit—was horrifyingly fragile in front of Ethan’s lightning.

Electric arcs bored into the sphere, tearing from the center outward, stripping apart its internal structure layer by layer.

A few breaths later, the Soulforce sphere collapsed in midair.

The minotaur’s eyes shifted—sharp, disbelieving.

Before he could pull his strength back together, Ethan had already crossed the shattered Soulforce and appeared in front of him.

One hand clamped around his throat.

Translucent lightning crawled out along Ethan’s fingers and wrapped the minotaur’s soul-body. The moment the arcs touched him, the minotaur’s massive spirit started to quake violently, and the blood-red soul-mark on his chest was pressed so hard it flickered.

"This might be your sea of consciousness," Ethan said, watching him with calm eyes.

"And your Soulforce is strong."

His fingers tightened, slowly, inexorably.

"But my lightning is made to counter Soulforce."

The minotaur’s pupils blew wide.

"Now go."

The translucent lightning erupted in full.

It drilled in through the minotaur’s neck, ripping through his soul-body along the channels of his spirit like a blade forced through living tissue.

He tried to struggle—but every time the Soulforce of his sea rushed in to help, Ethan’s lightning split it apart on contact. The power that should’ve been his greatest advantage became his final escort to the grave.

Cracks appeared across his soul.

Then the cracks spread—fast—spiderwebbing over his entire spirit-form.

And in the end, his whole soul-body detonated into countless fragments under the translucent lightning.

The sea of consciousness began to collapse.