"Hm?"
Serie stopped mid-stride. She was taking a leisurely walk through the gardens of the Magic City, enjoying the quiet hum of mana that permeated the air.
She looked up.
On the southern horizon, the blue sky had vanished. In its place was a blinding, radiant sheet of gold.
Her usually half-lidded, bored eyes widened slightly.
"So it was her," she chuckled, a rare sound of genuine amusement escaping her lips. "Hah. How interesting."
She recognized the energy signature instantly. It was unique, alien to this world. It belonged to the strange, mechanical angel she had fought not long ago.
"To use an attack of that magnitude..." Serie mused, a small smile playing on her lips. "I'll have to ask her what she found when she gets back. What kind of enemy warrants a strike pf this magnitude?"
This unexpected light show was a pleasant surprise. It only deepened her curiosity about the creature known as Stell.
….
Serie wasn't the only one watching.
The entire city had ground to a halt. Mages, scholars, and apprentices poured out of the libraries and towers, their eyes fixed on the southern sky.
Unlike Serie, who viewed the event with amusement, the mages were struck with a mixture of awe and terror.
"Hey... what is that?!"
"Do you see it? The whole sky... it's turned gold!"
A man grabbed his friend by the shoulders, shaking him. "Look! Just look at it!"
"I'm looking! I'm not blind!" the friend snapped, pulling away. He stared at the horizon, his face pale. "That has to be magic. But... the scale of it. It's impossible."
"A new spell?"
"It must be. Some genius must have created a new destructive art. But to color the sky itself... the mana cost would be astronomical."
They debated and theorized, trying to rationalize the impossible through the lens of their own knowledge.
The phenomenon wasn't limited to the Magic City.
Across the central and northern continents, nations and kingdoms looked up in fear. The clouds in the southern sky had simply evaporated, burned away by the golden light. Birds and flying monsters caught in the radiance fell from the sky like stones, turned to ash in an instant.
No one knew who, or what, had caused it. They only knew that a power capable of altering the world's atmosphere had been unleashed. It was a sight that would be etched into the collective memory of the continent for a generation.
….
Far to the north, in a land shrouded in perpetual twilight, the Demon King sat upon his throne.
He looked out the high arched windows of his palace. Even here, at the edge of the world, the golden glow was visible, a scar of light cutting through the darkness.
The demons in the castle stared in silence. They were creatures of magic, sensitive to the flow of mana. But this light was too distant for them to sense its nature. They could only see the result.
And the result was terrifying.
The Demon King, the strongest of his kind, felt a sensation he hadn't experienced in centuries.
Surprise.
"What... is that?"
Even his voice, usually calm and commanding, held a trace of hesitation.
"My Lord!"
The heavy doors of the throne room burst open. His generals, the Seven Sages of Destruction, rushed in, their faces grim.
"The sky to the south…"
"Silence," the Demon King commanded, raising a hand. "I see it."
He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the distant light. His intuition, honed by a thousand years of conquest, screamed at him.
"I can feel it," he said softly, more to himself than to his subordinates. "The being who released that attack... is stronger than I am."
The generals froze. To hear the Demon King, the pinnacle of their race, admit inferiority was unthinkable.
But the Demon King was a pragmatist. He knew that the strongest warriors possessed a "sense" for danger, an instinct that transcended logic. And his instinct was absolute.
If I fight that entity, he realized with cold clarity, I will die.
There would be no epic battle. No chance of victory. It would be a slaughter.
Yet, despite this terrifying realization, he did not feel despair. He felt a strange, thrilling chill.
He was unique among demons. He possessed emotions, dreams, and a vision for the future of his kind. To achieve his dream of coexistence, or domination, depending on one's perspective, he needed to live.
This golden light was a wall. An insurmountable obstacle that had suddenly appeared on his path.
"How curious," the Demon King whispered, a faint smile touching his lips. "A power that can kill me instantly... I wonder what it wants?"
He sat back on his throne, his gaze locked on the fading gold. He wouldn't tell his subordinates the depth of his fear. But as he watched the light die, he knew that the game had changed.
….
…
..
.
A young girl with orange-yellow hair sat by a window, bathed in the soft afternoon light. A thick, leather-bound grimoire lay open on her lap, its pages filled with dense, arcane theory.
Her room was a library in miniature. Stacks of books, varying in size and subject, lined the walls and cluttered the floor. Yet, there was an order to the chaos. Every book was dusted, every spine aligned. It was the sanctuary of a scholar.
"Mmm..."
She closed the book with a heavy thud and rubbed her tired eyes. She had been reading for hours.
She looked out the window, letting her gaze drift over the drifting clouds and the birds soaring on the thermal currents. It was a peaceful day.
She pulled back her sleeve, revealing a simple, platinum-gold band on her left wrist.
To an observer, it looked like a plain piece of jewelry, devoid of gems or engravings. But to Flamme, it was the most precious thing she owned.
She traced the smooth metal with her fingertips, her green eyes soft with nostalgia.
Flamme was twelve years old now. She had grown taller, losing the roundness of childhood.
The books that filled her room were the parting gift from her "Stell-neechan," a treasure trove of magical knowledge that she had spent the last four years devouring.
Her parents supported her studies, even helping her decipher the more difficult passages. But there was one thing she couldn't ask them about.
The bracelet.
She remembered the day she received it. She had been eight years old. Stell had given it to her privately, just before leaving.
"Explanation: This is a 'tool.' It will assist you in the field of magic."
That was all Stell had said. No manual, no instructions. Just a cryptic gift from a cryptic teacher.
Over the years, Flamme had experimented with it. And slowly, she had unlocked its secrets.
She pressed her right index finger against a small, black, glass-like panel embedded in the metal.
[Fingerprint authentication successful. System startup... Complete.]
….
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