Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1172: Bloodline of the Abyss

The moment Ethan felt the power rolling off the minotaur, his expression changed.

This wasn’t ordinary Infernal Primordial Power.

That aura was heavy—steady—like it had been crushed under bedrock for countless years. Even the way it moved felt different, as if each pulse could tug on the mountain range itself.

Ethan had heard Lily mention a strength like this before—rare to the point of absurd.

If she hadn’t been wrong, then this was pure Earth Magic, only it had been thoroughly soaked through by the aura of The Infernal Abyss until it became the oppressive, domineering thing standing in front of him now.

The minotaur stepped out of the dimensional rift, the blood-red gemstone in his chest flashing bright, then dim.

With every flicker, the mineral-vein energy of the Morgrath mountains shuddered in response. Even the tokens that had just burst from the ground froze in midair, like their trajectories had been pinned down by that pressure.

Ethan exhaled slowly and rose higher.

Translucent lightning spread from his body like a veil. Infernal Primordial Power rode those arcs outward, flooding across the sky ahead of him and claiming space.

He didn’t wait for the minotaur to close the distance.

Ethan pressed his palm forward, and that tyrannical force surged out like a tide, sweeping straight at him.

The minotaur clearly hadn’t expected Ethan to strike first.

His pupils tightened. He threw up his thick arms at once. The gemstone in his chest detonated with a deep, weighty red glow. Earth Magic and Infernal Primordial Power burst from his body together, condensing into a dense, brutal wall of energy in front of him.

The two forces collided in the high sky.

Ethan’s translucent lightning tore through the red light—yet the Earth Magic shoved forward in layered slabs, like mountain rock grinding in.

Strange energies kept erupting around the impact point. Black-red radiance, clear electric arcs, and earthy yellow mana tangled together, hammering the nearby space until it warped in rippling distortions.

The minotaur stared at Ethan. The surprise on his face quickly curdled into excitement.

"Didn’t think I’d find someone like you in a dump like this!"

He bellowed, the sound shaking the distant peaks into a low, resonant hum.

"Not only can you control Infernal Primordial Power, you’ve got that many elemental powers too! Looks like I didn’t come here for nothing!"

As the last word left his mouth, the minotaur’s power erupted in full.

The blood-red gemstone released ring after ring of crimson light. Earth Magic was ripped straight out of the mountain range beneath them by force, spiraling around his body into a massive energy vortex.

Every time the vortex completed a rotation, the surrounding space visibly bowed inward under the pressure. Even the tokens hanging in midair began to tremble, quivering as the airflow and force-field tugged at them.

Ethan’s brows drew tight.

This minotaur was already at the peak of 35 Tier.

Worse, his Infernal Primordial Power and Earth Magic weren’t just layered—they were fused deep, to the point you couldn’t cleanly separate them.

If he let that power fully spread out, Morgrath’s mineral-vein energy would be dragged into the minotaur’s control. At that point, the entire battlefield would become his home turf.

Ethan raised a hand, and his own power answered.

Translucent lightning gathered in the sky. From deep within those arcs, golden light flared—then condensed into the phantom outline of a colossal golden dragon.

The dragon coiled behind him. Between its scales, violet energy flowed in slow currents. That aura was strange and ancient, heavy in a different way, intertwining with the power Ethan had just drawn up from the depths of Morgrath.

Ethan stared at the minotaur, his voice turning colder.

"You’re one of the ones who ran from The Infernal Abyss, aren’t you?"

The moment he said it, the minotaur’s face sank.

The Infernal Abyss was a place both miraculous and cruel—a world with a hierarchy so strict it was suffocating.

To be called someone who "ran" was to be branded as a traitor.

Worse than that... it meant you didn’t even have the right to stand there. It meant you’d fled like a bottom-feeding cur with no place left, clawing your way out just to survive.

And for anyone who carried the power of The Infernal Abyss—

That alone was justification enough to hunt you down.

"I think you’re the one who crawled out of The Infernal Abyss!"

The minotaur flew into a rage. The blood-red gemstone embedded in his chest flared violently.

He raised his right hand. A snow-white sphere of energy condensed in his palm. There was no flame on its surface, no lightning—only a layer of white light so dense it felt unreal, like the weight of an entire mountain had been crushed into a space no bigger than a fist.

Ethan didn’t give an inch.

The golden dragon phantom threw its head back and roared. Translucent lightning and violet energy poured into its body at the same time. In the next instant, the dragon lunged forward, carrying overwhelming pressure as it slammed into the minotaur’s snow-white sphere.

Their powers collided in the sky again.

This time, far more spatial tears erupted. Dense black cracks spread outward from the impact point like a web, and dimensional turbulence sprayed continuously from within those fissures.

At the same time, large numbers of energy cores shot out from both of them, hanging in the high air like two opposing starfields.

Ethan had fought his way through countless battles, collecting a huge stockpile of energy cores and storing them all inside his spatial gear. When he needed them, he could pull them out on the spot—crush an opponent under sheer quantity and explosive burst.

But the minotaur—

He had the same habit.

He was holding plenty of energy cores too, and their quality was no worse than Ethan’s. The two sides’ cores crashed into each other in midair, detonating and canceling out with sharp, staccato blasts.

Every explosion tore open a small patch of space—only for the Infernal Primordial Power pouring from both of them to forcibly press it back down.

The minotaur’s pupils slowly widened.

He hadn’t expected Ethan to have collected this many energy cores—much less to use them in such a brutally direct way. Every time he tried to widen his advantage with a wave of cores, Ethan would immediately fling out even more, dragging the situation back to an ugly equilibrium.

At this point, he couldn’t afford to hold anything back.

Bang!

The minotaur slammed his palm into his own chest.

The blood-red gemstone shuddered violently, and he opened his mouth and spat out a huge mouthful of blood. The blood didn’t fall. It was lifted in midair by Earth Magic, condensing into a writhing crimson mist.

Then the minotaur took out another blood-red gemstone and tossed it straight into that cloud of blood.

The moment the gem touched it, it melted rapidly, its power dissolving and merging into the blood like it had been waiting for it.

"You can tell at a glance you’re not from The Infernal Abyss!"

The minotaur howled like a madman, eyes gleaming with feral excitement.

"Do you not know—our bloodlines in The Infernal Abyss can resonate with energy?"

The blood-red gemstone swelled wildly.

Blood, Earth Magic, and Infernal Primordial Power twisted together, rapidly forming a gigantic energy body.

It didn’t have distinct facial features—only a blurry outline of a bull’s head and thick, heavy limbs. But the moment it appeared, the sky around it seemed to sink by a full notch, like an invisible mountain had been dropped on top of the world.

A flash of shock crossed Ethan’s eyes.

This was the first time he’d ever seen someone use an energy core like that.

But once the surprise passed, his interest in the minotaur’s bloodline only sharpened.

People who came out of The Infernal Abyss always had something unusual about them, one way or another.

Some bloodlines could generate all kinds of energy. Others could temper the flesh into a true weapon.

And this minotaur...

He seemed able to convert his own bloodline into an outward, manifested combat ability—then amplify it with energy cores.

If Ethan could study that bloodline even a little...

He might be able to build soldiers that were even stronger.