Intermission – Consequences of Chaos

    Holy Lord Meruria''s serene church was once a towering symbol of faith with magnificent spires, but it now lay shattered against the smoky sky. Its grandeur reduced to a haunting silhouette, the ancient stones crumbled, their intricate carvings distorted and lost in the chaos. Instead of tranquility, an eerie stillness hung heavy in the air like an encroaching wave of darkness.

    As the cataclysm unfolded, the spell''s raw power surged through the church''s walls, cracking them with a thunderous force. Unrestrained magical energy consumed surrounding structures with a gluttonous appetite. Sturdy homes quivered under the weight of this destructive surge, and their foundations weakened as the compacted mana was skyward bound.

    The spell reached its zenith in a blinding flash, culminating in a cataclysmic explosion tearing through the city''s fabric—making the dead of night appear as it was high noon. The shockwave reverberated, smashing windows and leaving cracks in the remaining structures, marking the essence of the city''s shattered soul.

    Rain of crystallized mana descended like ethereal wrath, each fragment a deadly meteorite colliding with the ground. Buildings crumbled under the assault; their proud facades were reduced to debris. Streets, once vibrant, lay desolate, strewn with remnants of lost lives.

    Twisted metal and rubble littered the thoroughfares, a macabre dance of destruction frozen in time. Broken glass and stone reflected the eerie glow of residual magic, casting shadows that whispered secrets of lost enchantments. A surreal haze mingled with cries of panic and despair, embracing the city in haunting sorrow.

    Fires, ignited by the volatile mix of magical energies and earthly materials, spread like insatiable beasts. Flames danced hungrily, reducing once-majestic buildings to skeletal remains. Pillars of dark smoke rose, obscuring the sun''s futile attempt to pierce the devastation. The cityscape became a labyrinth of ash and soot, carried by desolate winds, where lost lives lingered.

    A young boy struggled to rise to his feet in a district to the north. His weakened body trembled with each labored breath, his lungs filling with dust, smoke, the scent of the dead, and despair. He tried to use an arm that wasn’t there, a cruel reminder of what had just occurred upon the city.

    Yet he was an innocent bystander—someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    With great struggle, the mortally wounded boy fought against the pain and stood, unaware that he had less than ten minutes left to live. Yet...

    He still pushed on. With discomfort, he limped out of the ruined structure that threatened to be his tome, seeing first-hand the destruction.

    He stumbled through the debris, doing his best to step over those lucky enough to die from the initial impact. The smell and scent of death hunt thickly, making it more difficult to breathe. Every corner he took revealed more devastation and chaos. Buildings were reduced to mere skeletons of their former selves, and those halfway standing were haunted by screams of the damned. Mothers cried for their sons, fathers for their daughters, and this little boy...who found the strength fading from his tired, achy legs...

    “Mommy...” His voice was less of a whisper than a dying cat’s meow. Even the sharpest elf wouldn’t have heard his teary voice.

    “Mommy... Where are you...?”

    The boy doubled over and vomited blood. An iron taste stained his lips, although his liquid crimson quenched his parched throat...

    “Mommy... I’m scared...”

    The boy rubbed his eyes. For a quick moment, he...thought he saw her. The corpse-filled streets looked like normal. He saw his friend, Jasmine, waving while waiting. She always dressed like a boy and loved to play rough. And over there was the shop that sold his favorite bread. Tommy’s father owned it. He gave the boy stale bread for free, and the boy always rushed home to give it to his mother, who cared for his younger sister.

    That was right... The boy had a sister... She was just born a few days ago. The boy and his mother were lucky enough to see a beautiful blue-haired girl sing in the middle of the street a week before that miracle. Her voice was enchanting and lovely, and her name...

    Elly...

    His mother repeated it twice as they walked home, hand in hand, hearing her happy, impressionable son sing the happy-sounding lyrics. She thought that was a pretty name. Perhaps the Soul Warrior they looked up to wouldn’t mind if she used it to name her daughter after her?

    The boy was too young to understand an expression that was all too common in Elly’s world—that life flashed before your eyes when you were dying. Those saying was the cornerstone of the song Elly had sung.

    But he...didn’t understand it. He’d never understand it.

    But... When he blinked once more, he was home. The one-room house didn’t have a kitchen. The stains plastering the floors and walls smelled when it was too humid, but it had his mother, whom he loved dearly. She held his baby sister in her arms. Jasmine was near her, smiling brightly at her future sister-in-law.

    “Mommy!!” The boy’s voice grew four times louder. He ran and ran and ran, yet no matter how much he pushed his legs...

    What he saw wasn’t real.

    The boy...was on the brink of death.

    Everything he thought he had experienced since standing up...didn’t play out. It had all been in his mind. The boy spent his last moments inside Jasmine’s house, unable—perhaps unwilling to notice that the bisected corpse next to him belonged to his closest friend when he collapsed after his legs buckled on him.

    Perhaps it was a stroke of luck—maybe you could call it mercy-- but the boy’s body persevered just long enough for the imaginary happiness he found in his mind to overcome the indomitable gap and jump into his mother’s arms before...his life came to a tragic end.

    “If you were skilled enough, you wouldn’t be an apprentice. Ysolo’s husband opened his shop yesterday--”

    “I TOLD YOU TO STOP COMPARING ME TO HIM!” He struck his wife across the face, and she charged with a punch. Their anger had grown so much that their children left their minds.

    However... If they had held control of their emotions, they would’ve heard a small, passionate cry for help emanating just fifteen feet away. The two idiots were close to their home, yet...

    Because of their inaction, they’d eventually find their twin boys hugging their grandmother, who had perished in the first few minutes of the chaos.

    However, the two would’ve been too late, as the blood in their bodies had started to boil, ripping through the skin.

    The spell that brought Cridia to ruin?

    It was more than a spell meant for destruction. It was focused on brutality. For some, it made its victims burn. Others? They were frozen. The effects varied, but all focused on dealing as much damage as possible.

    So, perhaps it was a blessing that the parents arrived after they had passed away? Yet it wasn’t, because the moment the mother screamed until blood dripped down her throat...

    She had lost the spark to live. And she used the sharp rock resting at her feet to end her life. And her husband soon followed her to the grave. There, he hoped to experience just one last hug. And maybe he’d have the chance to tell his darling mother how sorry he was that he turned out to be just like his father.

    In the grand forests to the west, near the entrance to the Fairchild Duchy, a pair of disguised warriors used scrying magic to perceive what was happening inside the ball Lord Meruria had advertised for weeks.

    The two had commands from their Holy Lord to set off a spell he had devised. It was filled to the brim with a sickening poison from the Spirit Realm—the very kind the Holy Lord had lost multiple organs from.

    But those dangerous times had hardened his will, and the Holy Lord mastered the deadly corrosive miasma.

    And when the time was right...

    When Lord Meruria descended from the stage...

    They pulled the ‘trigger’ and set off the magic circle they had spent so long preparing...

    But...

    There wasn’t supposed to be an explosion.

    The pillar of mana that rose into the sky and fired off large meteorites of crystalized mana...

    That wasn’t the plan.

    A sea of hazy miasma was to spread from the epicenter and kill everyone within the ballroom because that was where the poison would be concentrated the most.

    But none of that happened.

    The destruction wasn’t supposed to be that widespread. The Soul Warriors gulped audibly and feared for the immediate future.

    Was the plan changed without them knowing?

    Did they have a traitor in the midst?

    It was one thing to have a localized strike on their enemy, but to...inflict this carnage and chaos upon a city? They watched the smoke corrupt the starry skies before doubling their efforts to get away.

    Regardless of the truth...

    The Western Continent was about to be forever changed.