Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory

Chapter 1138: A Core Worth Stealing

Ethan hovered in midair and gave the place a single glance. His eyes slipped past the walls and went straight to the layout inside.

The castle was packed with structures built for mining. Transport rails ran from behind the wall straight into the mountain. Lifting platforms cycled nonstop. Several energy devices shuttled workers into different tunnels like a conveyor line.

Around the mine were defensive installations too. They weren’t high-level in Ethan’s eyes, but they said enough—whoever owned this place had been treating this mine as a core resource for a long time.

Ethan’s mouth curved slightly.

That made it even more interesting.

Then a strange aura suddenly rolled out from inside the castle.

It wasn’t pure, but it was violent—like multiple kinds of power had been crudely stuffed into the same container and shaken until they bled together. A moment later, a figure rose from within the city and floated up into the air.

His energy fluctuations were strong, enough to suppress most of the castle’s defenses.

But his eyes were dull, and his movements had a stiff, mechanical edge—like he was executing a preset order instead of acting on his own judgment.

He looked at Ethan’s group. His voice carried down from the sky.

"Who are you? Why have you come to Holda? Are you here to seize our resources?"

Ethan couldn’t even be bothered to give him a second look.

A mine this big sitting right here already said everything. Whether this place was called Holda or anything else, he was taking it. And whether they were willing to hand it over... didn’t matter.

He was about to cut straight through—

When another figure appeared in the distant sky.

This man hovered higher above the castle, dressed in white so clean it looked almost absurd against the gritty mining zone. On his chest sat a small badge. At first glance it looked like an ordinary insignia, but Ethan’s gaze paused for a fraction—

And he saw it.

That wasn’t a badge.

It was the activation key for Powered Combat Armor.

The interest in Ethan’s eyes sharpened.

The man in white was already strong—stable aura, dense energy, nothing sloppy about him. He wasn’t even in the same category as that blank-eyed guard. And if someone like this put on Powered Combat Armor...

Yeah. That was worth seeing.

Ethan didn’t give him the chance to speak.

Transparent lightning exploded beneath Ethan’s feet. He turned into a streak of electric light and shot straight at the man in white.

The high-altitude air tore open in his wake, a clean, clear trail of pale lightning dragging behind him. The several hundred soldiers hadn’t even processed what was happening before Ethan was already in the man’s face.

But at the exact instant Ethan was about to strike—

A terrifying force burst outward around the man in white.

It surged from his body with no flourish, no wasted motion—just pure density, like an invisible wall ramming into Ethan head-on.

The moment Ethan’s lightning met that force, the electric glow was shaken apart. A blinding ripple ring detonated in the air.

Ethan was blasted back dozens of steps.

He stabilized in midair, a sharp pain blooming in his shoulder. When he looked down, the area was already riddled with tiny cuts, like countless fine blades had raked across him at once.

The wounds weren’t deep.

But they told him something he couldn’t ignore:

That single hit had punched through his defenses.

Ethan’s eyes sank into something darker.

He retreated a few steps, slipping out of the still-spreading aftershock. Transparent lightning surged out of his core and condensed in his palm into a sphere of pure electricity. The surface spun like a miniature storm, the light inside compressed so tight it looked almost solid—ready to be hurled at any moment.

The man in white took a step back too.

He clearly hadn’t expected Ethan to recover that fast. Wariness surfaced on his face as he pressed the "badge" on his chest.

In the next instant, white light spilled outward from that point.

Plates of metal unfolded from within the glow—covering his chest and shoulders first, then sealing down his arms, across his waist, and along both legs. The helmet locked in last. The faceplate lit up. Behind him, an energy core gave a low, rumbling roar.

A full set of Powered Combat Armor assembled around him in the blink of an eye, seamless and airtight.

His presence spiked violently.

He’d already been strong. With the armor online, his power jumped several times over.

Energy tracers flared to life across the plating. The surrounding air bulged outward under the pressure, and even the castle’s distant shields flickered once in response.

Ethan held the lightning sphere and stared, colder than before.

This Powered Combat Armor was more advanced than he’d expected.

Ethan’s lips curled in a thin, sharp line as he studied it.

The armor ran from a chest-core out across his limbs, edges fitted so tightly they looked fused. Energy lines branched from the pauldrons into the arms, then streamed down the spine to feed the rear core.

Every time a line lit, the air rippled—tiny rings spreading out—and the ambient energy around them tugged subtly toward the man’s body.

Yeah.

This suit wasn’t bad at all.

Ethan lifted his hand and tapped his own armor core.

A beat later, Emerald Castle’s Powered Combat Armor unfolded over him. Metal structures slid into place across his shoulders, chest, and arms. The core let out a deep hum, and transparent lightning threaded through the seams as the suit sealed completely around his body.

Two sets of Powered Combat Armor faced each other across open air.

Visually, they weren’t the same. The man in white wore something lighter and more streamlined, its energy circulation tighter—every line revolving around a core compression unit like a closed loop. Ethan’s armor was built for battlefield adaptability: heavier, steadier, able to carry more varieties of explosive output.

But what really caught Ethan’s attention was the compressed core energy inside the other suit.

Powered Combat Armor existed for one reason—high-intensity combat in hostile environments. To do that, every suit had to break the upper limit of core compression.

Only when energy was compressed to a high enough density did an armor frame have the right to endure a direct clash between top-tier powerhouses.

And this one...

In core compression alone, it really was stronger than Emerald Castle’s current system.

Ethan’s interest sharpened into something almost hungry.

For a moment, he genuinely wanted to rip that Powered Combat Armor off this guy on the spot—tear it open and study the core structure piece by piece.

The man in white didn’t give him time to keep staring.

The thrusters on the armor’s back lit up. A violent wind-element burst out around him.

It wasn’t ordinary airflow. It carried a razor edge—space-cutting, blade-sharp energy.

It wrapped his arms and legs, forming high-speed rotating wind blades that carved the air into dense, hairline fractures around him.

Then he launched at Ethan.

Wind-element power stretched behind him into a long, ripping corridor. Wherever he passed, the sky tore into a chain of gray-white scars.

Down below, the castle’s defensive towers reacted to the pressure and threw up shields—only for them to flicker wildly under the passing shockwaves.