A Chronometric Defect

This is interesting. This is SO INTERESTING!

I tweak a spell variable here, change another sigil there. Voila, magic! Literal magic. I send it.

Honestly, anyone would be pissed with all the random stuff I'm sending, but I just can't help myself. I can't imagine anyone else would dare send the local pub's music to a dragon, but haha, I just can't help myself! Maybe they'll find the stuff I send funny? Haha! I don't care!

I'm learning so much by doing this. It doesn't even make sense, you know? This is a well-established, well-tested theory by now! Sure, I only came up with it recently, but! Haha! There's still so much to learn!

My communication array pops up. It says 'Pure Evil.' What? No thank you; you are NOT real! I ignore it. Instead, I send a blast of a ship's foghorn.

Woo hoo, this is amaziiiiing!

I lay down a series of conditional spells. Thennnnn~ they all fire off at once!

You like seagulls, don't you? DON'T YOU?! WELL, HAVE TWENTY!

I almost can't understand it. Almost.

I send this to literally anyone else, including myself, and the result is always the same. I send it there, annnnnd ZOOM! So much more interesting stuff happens? Why?! It's like the sigils just behave differently, somehow!

The theory that those black spikes and armor perfectly conduct Mana MUST be true! Even though what I send is surely being blocked, I mean, nobody likes seagulls, haha who was I kidding, right? RIGHT?! But what I get back isn't just an empty reply! It's a whole sea of Mana artifacts! It's a whole bunch of nonsense!

WHICH IS SO INTERESTING!!!

The worst thing for an experiment is getting no result. The second worst? Getting the usual result when you expected something different.

The best? THE BEST? It isn't getting the result which proves your theory. Oh, no no. That's up there; it isn't the best.

The BEST is doing something mundane and getting a whole lot more than you bargained for.

Maybe you've got days or weeks ahead, parsing what it all means. Maybe months or years! Maybe more! Maybe forever?! It doesn't matter! You just made progress!

Progress...

"Progreeeessss~~~!!!!!"

My array pops up again. Okay, I don't know why I'm getting crazy names on this inscription already, but if it's that turd called 'Pure Evil' I'm gonna tell 'em to shove—

Emperor Thaddeus Heavens

No fuckin' way?! Now they're trying to scam me with the Emperor's name, too? That's it, shoving things up their nostrils is off the table!

I cast a complicated spell. My spell presses 'accept' for me. I won't do anything the easy way!

"YOU, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE IMPERSONATING THE EMPEROR?! I swear, if I find out WHERE you are, I'm gonna make you wear a godsdamned half-piece armor and go fight a battle with three horny dragons!!!"

"Ainthia, I am the Emperor."

Oh, shit. That does sound like him. Wait, why the hell would the Emperor contact me here? No, I must be hallucinating again.

"Oh REALLY?! Then WHO was that sleazeball pretending to be named Pure Evil? I don't know how you're tricking the inscription, but you ain't trickin' me, YA HEAR ME?!"

"{haah} Ainthia. You did not respond to that communication, did you?"

"Awh HELL NO I didn't! Wait— why ask... That?"

"That's the dragon you're barraging with spells. Hundreds of spells. It likely contacted you to ask you to stop doing that, believe it or not."

The dragon. The dragon?

It used an array, to send me a communication, and then the Emperor too? Hmm. Hmm! Haha! Nonsense!!!

"You fuckin' scamming garbage think you're oh so clever?! How would you even know there's a dragon, huh?! How about you come on over here and see if my foot can dragon your ass!"

"I'm starting to see why the dragon wants me to punish you, Ainthia. It's disturbing I find myself agreeing with a dragon of all things."

"Yeah! I'mma punish your TEETH! Hah!"

"{Wh—} Ainthia, if you survive the remainder of the day, you will meet me at my grand reception room. Contact the master scheduling coordinator for your punishment hearing date; it will be decided after I hear your pleading. Which, as of now, is automatically 'guilty.'"

He disconnected?! What a crudmuncher!

"Ha, who do you think you are. The EMPEROR? Bahahah-urk"

Oh. Oh gods. Oh, no. No no no! What is that?!

My chest is on fire! It's telling me to run, to flee, to escape! But my mind, it's calm! It says 'there is no escape! Give up, for your time is nigh!'

I fall to my knees, and that's when I see it. The reason for my petrification. The reason for my mind being hopeless.

The reason!

A massive black wave in the sky. Like someone took the ocean and moved it into the air. It smoothly curves up and down, like the purest, most crystal clean water.

It's beautiful. But I know what that is. It's Mana.

IT'S MANA!

Behind the Mana wave lies space, like the valley behind an ocean's wave. The Mana wave isn't black. It isn't black! The space BEHIND it eats everything. Even light itself...

I've only ever seen a Mana wave in my lab. They move too fast; too mysteriously, to make with a normal spell.

Why is this one so slow?

And why is it so big?!

As if to mock my stare, the Mana wave jolts through space like a snake. Before I can process, it's already past the city's barrier and my poor defenseless body.

But it was enough. The barrier; it was enough. No civilian should be harmed! Never mind me.

I look down at the city's gigantic wall. I watch in awe as thousands of giant defensive inscriptions blaze with light, trying to reform the barrier. I know it's hopeless. That wave stole the very essence of what makes an inscription work.

No, not Mana— cohesion. Each sigil is distorted at a level we cannot see. They look fine, but are NOT fine, as they're shredded into billions, trillions, quadrillions of tiny little shards. They conduct Mana, but it's all oh-so-wrong.

Something... Something familiar comes into view. Flies into view. I look up. It's the dragon. The one I was asked to probe. The one I pissed off. Haha.

Oh crap.

"Humans of Tengerii! My name is Pure Evil! You will deliver to me the one called Ainthia or your lives shall be forfeit! Do not make me wait."

(tshshsshshhhhhhhh)

Did it just make Mana waves by... Yelling?

Its head snaps to looking straight at me. Does it know? I look around. There's nobody here, up on this watchtower. I look down. Nobody there, either. I locked the watchtower, with magic. Nobody should be inside. I look back at— IT.

Is it asking me to surrender myself? It's still staring at me. Would that work? Tengerii can't fight that! I'm the strongest one here. It didn't cast a spell I could recognize, yet it already destroyed the entire defensive barrier.

So, just use the Dragonblood Sigil, right? Hah! Not just the wall, but also most inscriptions in the entire city. They're gone! Inscriptions are easily damaged by Mana waves; only some few will survive. Usually, those made by Aitos. His inscriptions are definitely of a higher class. I know much of what he does, but I...

I can't match his skill.

What can I expect from the fragile Dragonblood Sigil? That thing has to be encased in silver to stay functional. What mad genius came up with it, I don't know, but I doubt they expected a dragon to break it so easily.

Of course, the defensive barrier took the brunt of the blast, so its sigils are completely and utterly wrecked.

I look at the defensive barrier's inscriptions again. I see one 'expansion' sigil blindingly outshining all the rest.

Which is because it's white hot. My whole face twists with horror.

"OH, HELL NO!"

I drop to the stone floor.

That's not a one-by-one explosion, nope. A Mana fixation originating in THAT sigil rams from one sigil to the next, keeping the Mana level balanced across the entire array. I start screaming and pulling my own hair.

"THIS IS REALLY, REALLY BAD! GAAAAA!"

I look at the dragon from where I lay, who's likely unawa—

The entire wall of inscriptions goes up in a chain reaction.

Around the entire city.

Instantly.