Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1132: Silence Before Judgment

Ethan stayed back, not вмешing in right away.

He opened the System and locked his gaze onto the powerhouse across the battlefield. A data panel unfolded in front of him, lines of information sliding into place.

His eyes skimmed past power tier, energy attributes, armor response... and then stopped on the core designation.

Drazareth.

Netherflame Controller.

Ethan mouthed the name under his breath, a flicker of contempt passing through his eyes.

The title sounded domineering. But once you saw through it, it was nothing special.

Drazareth’s so-called Netherflame might be terrifying to ordinary civilizations, but compared to Phoenix Queen Ignara’s Eternal Flame, it wasn’t even in the same league. And Ataneya’s Inferno-type flame power—its level, its purity—Netherflame didn’t even deserve to be mentioned beside it.

Hell, even Desert Queen Kaelira—who wasn’t even known for fire control—carried stronger flame power in her body than Drazareth did.

Ethan watched the blood-red firelight slicing and colliding in the sky, his mouth tightening.

A guy like this... and he still dared to step out and provoke him.

Ethan honestly didn’t know who had given Drazareth that kind of confidence.

Rumble—!

The fight between Desert Queen Kaelira and Drazareth kept escalating. The crimson phantom behind Drazareth hammered down again and again, while sand-colored power surged up from below to meet it head-on.

Their collisions brewed into a massive storm. It tore across the sky hard enough to shove even distant warships’ energy cannon beams off course.

Ethan had thought Kaelira would pin him down quickly.

But as the exchange dragged on, his expression slowly turned heavy.

Drazareth’s flame power really was weaker than Kaelira’s. Every time Netherflame met her strength head-on, the blood-red fire would get crushed back, curling and rolling like it was being forced to retreat.

But Drazareth wasn’t fighting with Netherflame alone.

His Powered Combat Armor, the snow-white gemstone embedded in his forehead, and other complex energies inside him layered together—supporting his output like stacked reinforcements.

Those layers added up.

And in the grind of repeated impacts, he started to edge ahead.

Kaelira’s sand-colored energy was forced to contract. Several blood-red light blades punched through her defense and carved open multiple spatial fissures at her side.

She slid back half a step—then steadied herself immediately—but Ethan still caught that brief hitch.

He was about to move.

But the instant Ethan shifted to step in, something appeared in Desert Queen Kaelira’s hand.

A blood-red scepter.

It came out of nowhere, yet it didn’t feel foreign for even a second—like it had always belonged to her, and she’d simply never bothered to draw it until now.

The entire staff was crimson. At its tip sat a golden gemstone. Powerful energy flowed slowly inside it... threaded with a strange, unsettling dimensional aura.

Ethan stopped.

Because the moment that golden gem lit up, the chaotic forces around them began to gather toward the scepter.

Sand-colored energy, ragged spatial traces, leftover shockwaves, and the power pouring out of Kaelira’s body—everything was pulled in.

It didn’t take long before a gigantic phantom of a scepter formed in the sky.

It hung above Desert Queen Kaelira like a divine verdict. The blood-red shaft pierced the cloud layer, and the golden gemstone at its head looked like an opened eye—staring straight down at Drazareth.

As soon as the phantom manifested, the huge crimson shadow behind Drazareth was visibly suppressed, its edges starting to wobble and shake.

Kaelira tightened her grip.

She didn’t say a word.

She simply drove the scepter down.

The massive scepter phantom above followed her motion, crashing down with an unbearably heavy force—straight toward the top of Drazareth’s head.

As it fell, space itself caved in in concentric dents. All light was squeezed aside, forced to the edges, leaving a perfectly straight path of destruction in its wake.

Drazareth’s expression finally changed.

He threw his hands up and crossed them in front of his chest. Every energy trace on his Powered Combat Armor flared at once.

The snow-white gemstone embedded in his forehead erupted with blinding light. The domineering force inside him surged forward, condensing above his head into a massive sphere of energy.

He shoved the sphere up—straight into the falling scepter phantom.

They hit.

Thunder rolled.

This collision was heavier than anything before it. The scepter phantom bore down on the sphere like a mountain. The golden gem’s dimensional aura kept tearing at Drazareth’s defenses, peeling them apart layer by layer. Meanwhile Drazareth drove his armor and that snow-white gem to the limit, grinding his teeth as he forced himself to hold back the descending pressure.

The whole of Elysion let out a muffled groan.

The sky split with huge fracture patterns, and deep underground, the world itself trembled.

The world-force Ethan had just stabilized rippled again. Spatial cracks crawled outward from the center of the clash, stretching far enough that they nearly reached Emerald Castle’s line.

Ethan lifted a hand and immediately called on the world’s Primordial Force.

An invisible, crushing weight surged in from every corner of Elysion, pouring into the cracks.

Primordial Force flowed along the torn space like stitching thread, sealing each rupture before it could spread. If Ethan hadn’t reacted in time, the shock from this single impact would’ve been enough to fracture the world on a massive scale all over again.

After another earthshaking boom, Drazareth finally couldn’t hold it.

He was driven back several steps under the scepter phantom’s pressure. With each step, space rippled and shattered under his feet, collapsing in wide, broken waves.

By the time he managed to stabilize himself, the blood-red phantom behind him had dimmed noticeably, and several of the energy patterns across his armor had started to flicker and cut out.

Drazareth didn’t press the attack.

He raised one palm as if to call for a pause, but his eyes stayed locked on Desert Queen Kaelira.

"Kaelira. We’re both king-level existences."

The arrogance in his voice was gone now, replaced by something sharper—urgent.

"So why are you serving a tiny human? Does he have leverage on you? Something he’s holding over your head?"

A flicker of hope crept into Drazareth’s eyes.

He looked like he was waiting for a specific answer—one he’d already decided on.

Forced. Controlled. Bound by some contract she couldn’t break.

If Kaelira said any of that, it would make his embarrassment justifiable. It would turn what everyone had seen into an excuse.

But Desert Queen Kaelira didn’t answer.

She only lifted her scepter and gathered her power again. Sand-colored energy, the crimson authority of the staff, and the golden gem’s dimensional aura fused in front of her—compressing into a gigantic sphere of energy.

The expectation in Drazareth’s eyes stiffened, then started to crack.

And in the next instant—

Desert Queen Kaelira slammed that sphere down with brutal force.