Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1131: A Crown Contested

Ethan had no idea when it happened, but he was already floating at the highest point in midair.

Power gathered around him from every direction, like it had finally found its owner—pouring in without end, circling him in steady currents.

Elysion’s world-force braided itself with his presence, and the last trace of rejection vanished. The wind detoured around his body. The clouds split beneath his feet. Even the violent ripples along the edges of spatial corridors slowed, pressed down by nothing more than the fact that he was there.

He’d completely fused with this world now.

Inside Elysion, he could draw on its power as easily as breathing.

Ethan looked down at the chaotic sky below. His voice fell slowly—calm, unhurried—yet it still rang inside the ears of every civilization out there, clear as if he were speaking right beside them.

"This is the world of my Emerald Castle. You people showed up here for no damn reason—then you follow my rules!"

With his words, the world’s power expanded outward. It rolled over the roar of fleets, smothered the thunder of energy cannons, and even crushed down on the strength surging inside the bodies of the civilizations’ elites.

"Get on your knees and submit. Right now."

"Or you can choose to die. Right now."

That domineering voice echoed between heaven and earth.

Faces shifted across countless bridges and command decks. Soldiers on warships instinctively took a step back, their grips loosening, muzzles dipping without them even realizing it.

But they came from different civilizations. Each had its own pride, its own hierarchy, its own idea of what it meant to bow.

To submit to someone from a "low-tier Plane World" under these circumstances—even after watching what happened to the red giants—wasn’t something they could just swallow.

Silence pressed down on the battlefield.

Then, from one of the civilizations that looked genuinely formidable, a figure finally stepped forward.

He emerged from the front of a massive warship, clad head to toe in Powered Combat Armor. The plating was bare of ornament, but it carried an oppressive weight all its own—like a moving fortress.

Every joint glowed with steady energy lines. The core in his chest rotated slowly, like a heart beating beneath steel.

And most striking of all—

A snow-white gemstone was set into his forehead.

It wasn’t large, but the energy it gave off was terrifyingly dense.

He lifted one hand.

A portion of the world-force that had been streaming toward Ethan was yanked sideways—forced into his grasp. In front of his palm, it condensed into a slowly turning halo of light.

Ethan’s gaze locked onto him.

He was the Overlord of this world now. In Elysion, every thread of energy in heaven and earth should’ve answered to him.

Yet this man in Powered Combat Armor was calmly drawing on it anyway—right under Ethan’s eyes. Effortless.

Ethan stared at the figure as he walked out from the strong civilization, his brows tightening.

The armor’s energy patterns were steady and heavy. The snow-white gemstone on his forehead pulsed—bright, dim, bright again—pulling world-force that should’ve belonged to Ethan, inch by inch, into his own orbit.

That wasn’t borrowing.

That was stealing control.

Stealing it from the air itself, even after Ethan had become Elysion’s Overlord.

Ethan felt a threat.

Not vague. Not imagined. Clear as a blade at his throat.

This wasn’t the red giant tribe that had charged in on brute strength. This wasn’t some so-called expert who’d fold after a few threats.

He stood there, and the energy around him was like territory being carved out and marked—small, but undeniably real.

The man raised his head. The gemstone’s glow reflected along the edge of his helmet’s faceplate.

"What the hell is Emerald Castle?"

His voice came from inside the armor, low and grating, carrying straight through the nearby sky.

"It’s nothing but a low-tier Plane World. Just because you got lucky and seized the energy of this heaven and earth doesn’t mean you can use it to its fullest."

"I think you should hand over the power here."

He lifted his palm slightly.

A few more strands of world-force drifted in, gathering again into that slow-spinning halo.

"Letting something this strong sit in your hands can’t be good," he said, almost conversational. "All it’ll do is invite disaster."

Ethan’s eyes went cold.

He had just erased the red giant race in front of everyone. He’d stood as Overlord and used Elysion’s world-force to crush the entire battlefield into submission.

And even now—someone still dared to step out and provoke him.

This wasn’t simple defiance anymore.

This was a public test.

A deliberate probe for where his bottom line really was.

Ethan took a few slow steps forward.

With that simple movement, the world-force the other man had been dragging away began to tremble—like it had finally heard its real master’s call. One strand after another tore free from the space around that man’s palm and streamed back toward Ethan.

White lightning crawled over Ethan’s fingertips. In front of his hand, Elysion’s world-force compressed tighter and tighter, packing down into something heavy enough to make the air feel thin.

Several elites from the surrounding civilizations went pale and instinctively backed off.

They understood it immediately.

Ethan was about to strike.

But just as he was about to push that power out—

A sand-colored streak dropped from the upper sky and cut straight between Ethan and the Powered Combat Armor warrior.

Desert Queen Kaelira descended like a judgment.

There was no explosion where she landed, but the space around her suddenly felt heavier, as if gravity had been turned up a notch. Sand-hued energy spread from her feet, pinning down the rolling shockwaves still boiling below.

She lifted her gaze to the armored man. No hesitation. No "who are you." Just recognition, cold and immediate.

"I know this guy."

Kaelira’s voice was ice.

"He’s nothing but an arrogant little bug. Leave him to me. I’ll make sure he pays for what he’s done."

Ethan looked at her, his brows still drawn tight.

He could tell the armored man’s energy level had reached the peak of Tier 35. Kaelira was a hair weaker. If they went head-on, she might not get the advantage. Worse—this freak could still pull world-force inside a world Ethan controlled. That alone was wrong.

Ethan was just about to stop her.

Kaelira was already moving.

Her body turned into a sand-colored blur that ripped across the open air, straight at the armored man’s position. Stray shards of energy in her path were shoved aside by her aura, clearing a clean corridor through the chaos.

No probing. No feints.

She lifted her hand and slammed that heavy sand-colored power down on him.

Inside the Powered Combat Armor, the figure visibly paused when he saw her.

That tiny hitch was enough.

He did know her.

But it lasted less than a breath. The next instant, he threw both arms up. The snow-white gem in his forehead flared, and everything inside him surged outward at once.

Blood-red energy gathered behind him—first a vague outline, then swelling fast into a colossal crimson phantom.

The phantom raised an arm, carrying a pressure that felt like it could collapse the sky, and smashed it down at Desert Queen Kaelira.

Kaelira didn’t flinch.

Power detonated off her body. Sand-colored energy surged up from below, weaving together with something deeper in her core—something denser and older than the surface flow.

She didn’t dodge.

She met it head-on, drove both hands forward, and sent a massive wave of force crashing into the descending crimson shadow.

Boom!

The collision exploded in midair, and the backlash swept outward in all directions.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the sky—dense, ugly fractures racing along the firmament. Their edges tried to spread wider... only to be forced back down by Elysion’s world-force, like the world itself was gritting its teeth and holding together.

The watching elites all retreated another stretch. A few warships that had hovered too close had their shields flare violently, their hulls rippling with distorted bands of light.

This wasn’t a normal exchange.

The moment they collided, it was like old hatred that had been buried for years finally got lit—no restraint, no testing the waters, just full force from the first hit.

Every time Desert Queen Kaelira drove her power forward, the sand-colored glare pressed toward his core like she was trying to crush the life out of him.

And the Powered Combat Armor warrior answered without pause, whipping that blood-red phantom into constant counterattacks—punch after punch, blades of energy, and those thick, rotating halos slamming out in relentless sequence.