The grand council hall smelled of old incense and mounting dread.
The nobles—hollow-eyed, gaunt, clad in garments that once symbolized power—argued in fractured shouts and trembling whispers.
Mana was no longer a strange phenomenon.
It was a sentence.
Queen Adelaine announced it with a breaking voice:
"Mana… has reached its critical point."
No one breathed.
They had all seen the signs, even as they pretended not to understand them:
Entire forests awakening twisted, trunks bent into impossible spirals.Rivers stained with a violet sheen, as though something lived beneath their surface.New creatures—hungry things—born of accelerated mutations.
It was the prelude.
The threshold of chaos.
Amid the general despair, only Duchess Sofia remained composed—upright, steady, bearing the posture of someone unafraid to be heard.
Unlike the other territories, hers—the Duchy of Douglas—was not dying.
It was flourishing.
Duchess Sofia, mother of the new Duke Lusian Douglas, rose with a calm that contrasted sharply with the disorder of the hall.
"Panic will only hasten the fall," she said firmly. "I bring proof that we can still endure."
The nobles turned toward her like castaways toward a lighthouse.
"The plants my son Lusian and I developed in the duchy," she continued, "grow with mana, not in spite of it. They bear consistent fruit even in the critical phase. They are easy to cultivate and replicate their yield within weeks."
An incredulous murmur rippled through the chamber.
That was when Count Daniel Carter—Emily's father and a direct witness to Lusian's work—stepped forward.
"I confirm every word," he declared. "The young duke brought those plants to my territory. My greenhouses, once dead, are now filled with life. The fruits are edible, nutritious… and resistant to mana corruption."
His voice struck like a blow of hope.
Debate erupted instantly:
"Sell us seeds, Duchess!""Name your price!""Our lands will not last another month!"
They were nearly begging.
Sofia raised a hand. Silence obeyed.
"And that brings us to the second innovation: Stone–Plants."
The tension sharpened.
"During our research," she explained, "we discovered mutated species capable of fusing with stone. They do not break it. They do not corrode it. They crystallize within it."
The nobility held its breath.
"Their mineral roots absorb aggressive mana, purify it, and redistribute it. This process strengthens walls by twenty to thirty-five percent. Denser. More resilient. Immune to mana erosion."
A councilor slammed a hand against the table, incredulous.
"And that reduces attacks…?"
"By forty percent," Sofia replied. "By lowering mana pressure, nearby creatures become less aggressive."
The hall erupted again:
"That could save our cities!""That could save the kingdom!""Share the technique at once!"
But Sofia, calmer than all of them combined, answered:
"We will. But not today. We must organize a controlled distribution, or chaos will consume the kingdom before the walls have time to grow."
Silence returned.
A heavy silence.Hopeful.Shaking.
And then, like a shadow slipping beneath a door—
Outside, on the roads near the capital, another story was unfolding.
The Last Laugh Before the End
A few miles away, in the Ashenwood Forest, three adventurers—levels 42 to 48—enjoyed a quiet hunt, unaware of the fate drawing near.
Rusk (Warrior, Level 48), Mara (Sorceress, Level 45), and Finn (Archer, Level 42).
Their target: mana elk—docile herbivores that had become a steady source of income.
"Told you this place was safe," Finn laughed as he cleaned his arrow. "The elk don't even attack unless you provoke them."
Mara, ever sarcastic, rolled her eyes.
"Right. And that's why one nearly trampled you two days ago."
"I sneezed! It thought I was a threat!"
Rusk snorted with laughter, hoisting the carcass of their prey.
"We should be grateful mana only made these things fatter. We could hunt here all month—"
The forest fell silent.
Not a natural silence.
An unnatural one.
Deep.Cutting.Cold.
Mara was the first to look up.
"…Rusk… Finn… did you hear that?"
The ground trembled.
A fissure split open two steps away from them.
Something… emerged.
Something massive, dark-skinned, with empty eyes—like a beast that should never have existed in any world.
Level 78.
Rusk let the elk's body fall.
"…That's not possible."
Finn stepped back, pale.
"Monsters… at that level… this close to the capital?"
The creature roared.
And the adventurers' laughter died in that instant.
It was not an isolated appearance.
A messenger burst into the council hall, covered in mud and dried blood.
"Monsters!" he gasped. "Creatures—level seventy! Eighty! They appeared south of the capital!"
No one breathed.
"The border cities… have fallen," he choked out. "Within hours, my lords… in mere hours…"
Absolute silence.
A terrible void.
The king's wise advisers rose almost in unison.
And they pronounced the sentence that would seal humanity's fate:
"If the trend continues…" Adelaine said, her lips trembling, "the human race will disappear in less than two years."
No one spoke.
Because the worst—
The worst was only just beginning.