Saint Anna's shield wall survived the storm.Nia Frostvale's blizzard crashed down hard enough to make the square groan. Spears of ice fell like a funeral rain, shattering against the golden field the Divine Order's soldiers raised from their interlocked shields. The air rang with anti-magic resonance. Frost became water. Water became mist. Mist vanished.Nia's eyes widened.The High Bishop lifted her staff. "I offered you a chance to leave. You chose defiance."A ring of gold opened under Nia's boots.The silence spell struck before she could shape another incantation.For one horrible second, she felt the world empty around her. Mana retreated from her fingertips. The air stopped answering. The storm in her core beat against invisible glass.The shield soldiers charged.The young Wintervale mage cried out. The white pigs squealed. Saint Anna watched with cold certainty, as if a mage without casting was no more threatening than a bird with clipped wings.Elias cracked one pistachio b

By evening, the inn had become a field hospital, research hall, and pig shelter.Nia hated all three functions equally.Elena spread maps across the dining tables. Scholar Bram dictated through grunts while Elias translated with suspicious ease. The cured and uncured pigs arranged themselves in rows according to expedition group, exposure time, and snack preference."Origin mana," Nia said, tapping the map. "Explain it again."Elias leaned back in his chair. "Modern mana is diluted. Stable. Friendly enough for ordinary bodies. Origin mana is older. Rawer. It does not politely become a fireball because you say the correct words. It asks what you are, then rewrites the answer."Elena went pale. "That is horrifying.""Only if the question is answered poorly."Nia watched him. "You sound familiar with it.""I read."I helped build half the safety rules people later forgot, he thought.Nia's pen stopped.Elias continued, unaware. Origin magic was never evil. It existed before temples learn

y sunset, word had escaped the inn.That was impressive, considering most of the town had avoided speaking publicly for three days out of fear that the Divine Order would classify their emotions as suspicious.Now families gathered at the square in trembling clusters. Some carried transformed relatives in carts. Some led them with rope. One old woman arrived with a very offended pig tucked under each arm and announced that both were her sons and neither had ever been this well-behaved before.Nia stood on the inn steps and looked at the crowd.For a moment, she seemed smaller than usual.Then she lifted her staff."One at a time," she said. "No pushing. No panic. Anyone who calls a transformed person livestock will be frozen to the nearest wall."The line became orderly at once.Elias sat beside the treatment table with the dictionary, several bowls of turnips, and an expression of long-suffering professionalism."Name?"The pig snorted."Martha Bel. Baker. Has strong opinions about t

Elias left the inn through the window.It was not necessary.He could have folded space, opened a door, or simply ceased to be inside and become outside. But the night felt old, and old nights deserved simple gestures.Below, Lakefall slept under the Silent Wind. People lay in beds, in barns, beside carts in the square. Pigs and humans breathed the same slow rhythm. Even the chapel's golden light had dimmed after shielding its soldiers from the first wave.Beyond town, the volcanic hills burned without flame.A footprint appeared in the ash.Then another.Each one was longer than a wagon and filled with black origin fire, yet no giant stood above them. The steps crossed the fields toward Lakefall as if an invisible colossus walked under the skin of the world.Elias dropped from the window and landed without sound.[Idle Ascension System]You chose walking instead of spatial travel.Humility +1.Efficiency -10."I liked you better when you were asleep," Elias muttered.He walked past the

Nia should have retreated.Her body knew it. Her mana core screamed it. Every reasonable instinct she possessed, which admittedly had never formed a large committee, voted in favor of leaving the crater immediately.Instead, she stood beside Elias and looked at the thing in the wind."That is the King of Origin Mana," she said."Part of him.""Part?""The rest is either sealed, sleeping, or being harvested very slowly by people who thought calling it research would make it cleaner."Nia's fingers whitened around her staff."The Order."Elias did not answer.He did not need to.The origin shape lifted one trembling hand. Black fire spilled from its fingers and became images in the ash: Saint Anna kneeling before a sealed crater; priests driving stakes into old stone; villagers transformed after leaks; reports hidden beneath chapel floors; a golden ward powered by stolen origin fragments.Nia felt sick."They knew.""Some knew," Elias said. "Some obeyed. Some never asked. These are diff