Mystic Calling：Stone of Glory-Chapter 1025: The Weight of the Sea

Ethan's stomach clenched. His eyes practically chased Namyanna as she dropped.

He was already figuring out how to haul her back out of the Oblivion Sea. Worst-case scenarios flashed through his mind—one after another. Then, in the very next second, he froze.

Namyanna didn't sink.

She floated there steadily on the surface, her body rising and falling with the ripples. The seawater around her—water that should've been able to corrode flesh and energy alike—had somehow lost its bite. It cradled her like it had turned tame.

She lifted her head, excitement she couldn't hide in her voice, and shouted toward the fleet.

"Master! Looks like I was right! The ocean's power here matches the aura inside me perfectly—I can control the sea's power!"

On deck, the tension that had been stretched to the breaking point locked up for a beat… then slowly eased. A few people who'd been seconds from charging out to rescue her just stood there, hands still half-raised, their expressions shifting in real time.

Ethan stared at Namyanna on the water until he was sure—absolutely sure—she wasn't hurt. Only then did some of the strength he'd been holding through his shoulders finally bleed off.

But Namyanna didn't give anyone time to react further.

The moment she finished speaking, she dove straight into the Oblivion Sea.

Clean and decisive. She slipped under without even throwing up much spray. And right after that, the entire Oblivion Sea changed.

The heavy, oppressive surface began to ripple outward in rings—wider and wider. Something deep in the water was being pulled up and guided. Even the sea wind shifted, as if it had been forced to turn.

The first ships to sense it were the warships at the very front of the formation.

The hulls gave a light shudder. Then those massive bodies—normally needing core energy just to inch forward—were lifted smoothly by the waves. It wasn't some out-of-control surge. It was ocean power that had been combed into order, pushing from beneath the keels and carrying the entire fleet forward.

The instant the speed jumped, everyone near the rail grabbed on by reflex.

Wind knifed past on both sides. The water rolled into layered whitecaps. And yet the fleet somehow felt steadier than before. The crew in charge of operations reacted first, immediately checking the core energy consumption. Then, one after another, their faces shifted into looks they couldn't hide.

The fleet's core energy… really could be shut down.

The ocean itself was driving them. It wasn't just faster—this meant saving an insane amount of energy and supplies. If this kept up, the trip that had seemed long enough to make your scalp prickle could be cut by at least half.

And that wasn't even the end of it.

The churning spread wider across the surface. Creatures that had been lurking beneath the Oblivion Sea rose up one after another.

They didn't lunge at the fleet with hostility like before. Instead, they gathered quickly across the water, arranging themselves into ranks with a clear, almost military order. More and more surfaced, packing the sea near and far—until, in the end, they formed an enormous army sprawled across the surface.

Namyanna didn't reappear.

But everyone could tell. That army of sea-dwelling monsters had already fallen under her control.

Ethan stood at the front of the deck, watching, and the tension finally eased out of his face.

The weight that had been hanging in his chest didn't truly drop until that moment.

After that, the voyage became much faster.

The Oblivion Sea was broader than any of them had imagined. The surface had no edge. No matter how far you looked, there was only roiling black water and a low, heavy sky.

The fleet tore forward under the ocean's push, but time still stretched thin—so long people started losing their sense of direction, so long that "ahead" and "behind" stopped feeling meaningfully different.

They didn't know how long they'd really been sailing.

Half a month passed, and the Oblivion Sea still had no end.

At first, the advantage of speed dulled everyone's impatience. But as the days dragged on, the problem started showing itself little by little.

The Oblivion Sea wasn't quiet. Even without storms on the surface, the air was always soaked in something heavy and stifling. That force didn't attack them outright, but it seeped into their breathing, wormed in through skin and mind, carrying a negativity so thick it wouldn't dissolve—slowly grinding away at a person's will.

Some people started growing silent.

Some stood on deck zoning out longer and longer.

And some, despite doing nothing at all, had fatigue pooling in their eyes—like even opening their mouths to speak took more strength than it used to.

Ethan saw all of it.

But before he could say anything, the sea changed first.

A low, heavy roar rolled in from an impossibly distant stretch of water. It didn't sound like thunder. It was more like resonance—like something titanic shifting on the ocean floor, pressing down on the water itself…and on everyone's eardrums. Then the water ahead bulged up high, and a massive shadow rose from beneath the surface.

Every eye snapped that way.

It was a monster—so huge it bordered on absurd.

It didn't stop at the surface. It lifted straight up into the air, hovering. Seawater streamed off its enormous body and slammed back into the Oblivion Sea, throwing up sheets of spray.

Its shape was wrong in a way your brain struggled to categorize at first glance. A gigantic shark's head dominated the front, its jaws opening and closing with a suffocating sense of pressure. Its entire body was covered in dragon-like scales, hard and cold, the dim light catching them in sharp, blade-clean edges. But the tail—if you could call it that—wasn't a tail at all. It split into more than forty octopus-like tentacles, slowly waving through the air and stirring up twisting currents of mist and warped air.

A quiet hiss of breath went up across the deck. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

That stitched-together unnaturalness was worse than sheer size. It made people's scalps go tight.

Ethan took a step back too.

Not out of fear—out of the body's instinctive recalibration when danger got close.

As he moved, power surged up inside him. White lightning snapped into dense arcs around his body, and his Powered Combat Armor lit in response. Layer after layer of energy flowed along the armor's edges, sealing him in completely.

The monster hung high above them, its gaze sweeping over the entire fleet. Then it opened its massive mouth, and its roar came down with the sea wind like a hammer.

"Where did you people crawl out from? Why are you trespassing in the Oblivion Sea?"

The moment the words landed, the air shook.

A lot of people in the fleet paled, ears ringing. It wasn't just volume—power was wrapped inside the sound itself, forced straight into everyone's senses.

Ethan frowned, not answering right away.

He checked the surroundings first.

The flow of the sea's power wasn't the same as before, and the oppressive pressure in the air had loosened. It didn't take long for him to reach a conclusion—this had to be close to the edge of the Oblivion Sea.

Here, the way power circulated felt normal again. It wasn't just that he could draw on his strength more freely—behind him, the fleet was no longer stuck relying purely on the waves to be carried forward. The ships could rise back up into the air on their own.

Once he confirmed that, Ethan flashed off the deck and rose into midair, facing the monster across open space.

"We're from Emerald Castle," he called out. "We're trying to pass through here to reach Elysion!"

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried cleanly.

The monster paused. Then it threw its head back and laughed.

The laughter rippled through the sky in layered waves, dripping with undisguised contempt. At the same time, its power fully burst outward. The air grew heavy under the pressure. The sea surface sank in rings, then surged back up. The scales along its body lit with a cold gleam, and all forty-plus tentacles lifted together, spreading a massive shadow across the air.

"You're nothing but bugs from some low-tier Plane World," it said, staring down at Ethan. Its voice pressed lower and lower, like it was forcing the sky itself down with it. "And you still dare dream of going there."

It leaned in, gaze locking on him.

"Today I'll let you trash-tier nobodies see what real power looks like."

As the last word fell, energy between heaven and sea began to gather toward it.

First the wind was ripped in, dragged violently into its orbit. Then the waves on the surface followed, pulled and twisted. Even the scattered energy currents high above were seized and yanked down.

An enormous force compressed at high speed in front of the monster. Light and dark, heavy energy coiled together, swelling bigger and bigger—until it formed a gigantic sphere.

The sphere hung in midair, its edges shivering nonstop. Inside, power boiled and collided with itself, producing a deep, muffled rumble.

Below, the sea couldn't bear the pressure. A perfectly round section of the surface was forced down into a sunken basin. Even the air around the fleet turned thick—people's breaths caught, and more than a few took an unconscious half-step back.

The next instant, the monster raised a claw and slammed it downward.

Boom!

The massive energy sphere dropped in the direction of that strike, coming for the fleet with a force that made the space itself tremble as it crashed down.