When Fantasy Glitches

When Lazitha took that first step, she rejoined the world.

She didn't know exactly how far she was from Arlcliff City, though she still remembered the way back. The land around her looked nothing like the open fields near Arlcliff, or even the endless forest of the Verdant Woods. Wherever she was now, it lay tucked between a series of hills—just short of being called mountains. Each one was covered in thick greenery, and at their bases, tall trees and climbing vines crowded the soft, almost muddy ground. The forest floor was layered with decaying leaves, roots, and other organic debris, slowly breaking down into nutrients.

Some hidden spell of hers—one of who knows how many—was active around her, allowing her to walk easily despite the robe and heels that clearly weren't meant for this terrain. The mud didn't stick to her at all. Her deep black eyes mirrored the world around her, taking in every detail. The storm was still ongoing here. Thunder cracked overhead, and lightning danced inside the dark clouds, louder and sharper than before. Yet, strangely enough, there was no rain. A storm without water—that was the best way to describe it—accompanied by wild, howling winds.

"Hmm, I know I sensed something..." She murmured.

With a thought, the mana field surrounding her surged outward, expanding fast until it spread across a full kilometer. There were all kinds of properties to the natural mana flowing through the world, and spells like this one worked by picking up on how those properties shifted. For example, mana in the soil carried a different feel than the mana in the air or inside a plant's stem. Rather than detecting the land directly, it was more like recording the mana over a widespread area and its unique traits—traits that painted a mental image in her head.

In the next moment, Lazitha's gaze flicked to the left. She focused on a spot far off, hidden from regular sight. At the base of one of the nearby hills, she could sense mana with unusual properties—something that suggested an open space where there should've been only solid stone.

"There you are," Lazitha breathed with a small smile.

She vanished in an instant, teleporting across the wide distance to the exact spot she'd sensed. When she reappeared, what she saw matched her expectations—and then some. Her magic had been right, but the real thing was even more impressive.

Calling it a simple cave entrance would've been misleading. The opening towered at least fifty meters high and stretched about half that in width. From what she could tell, it hadn't been carved by human hands. Even so, a natural formation of this size was a rare sight.

Now that I'm standing here, I don't even need to try to sense it—this is the place.

What gave Lazitha such confidence in her deduction was simple. When she looked up, the sky was still clearly visible, even through the tall, jungle-like treetops. And there, high above with the hill directly below, she saw an oddity in the storm. A section of the clouds was swirling in place. Slowly or quickly—it depended on how you looked at it—but it wasn't the start of a tornado. It was just that, in this specific area, the storm clouds were thicker and denser. They then spread outward in a spiraling motion, like a ripple expanding across the sky, giving rise to the strange storm now covering the region.

Without a doubt, this is the origin of the storm… But that doesn't make sense. This storm spans huge parts of the region, and from all reports, it's still growing. If it all started here, in a spot this small, its current rate of expansion shouldn't even be possible.

That only made her more curious.

She raised one hand, and from four of her fingers, violet mana flowed like narrow streams of energy. The streams curled and spun in midair, then condensed into shape.

What formed were four pear-shaped gems, glowing faintly with a purple light. Each one looked like a piece of purple labradorite—smooth and glass-like in some places, translucent in others. They weren't made from any known material. Instead, they were pure magical constructs, created by transmuting mana into something that didn't exist in the real world.

This was true magical creation—the ability to forge something that did not exist from mana, even if only for a limited time.

As soon as the gems were complete, they began to move, orbiting Lazitha in sync like planets circling a star. Once the spell was finished, she didn't linger. She stepped into the massive cave entrance without hesitation.

The moment she crossed the threshold, the booming roar of the storm dulled into echoes, bouncing along the cavern walls instead of traveling through open air. The change in how the sound moved told her one thing: this cave went deep.

The stone walls were rough and jagged, while the ground was only a little smoother. As she moved deeper, she noticed layers of minerals and sedimentary rock forming distinct patterns across the surfaces.

The cave was naturally dark. The only light came from the outside, flickering in briefly with each lightning flash. Aside from that, the only source of light came from the four violet gems rotating around her. They cast a soft glow, enough to light up her figure and a small space around her, but not nearly enough to see clearly. Then again, mages rarely relied on sight alone. She could still sense her surroundings just fine.

As she moved forward, Lazitha scanned the area through her senses.

I'm not picking up any mana fluctuations. Maybe they're deeper inside, closer to the hill's core. Does this cavern really go that far down? You'd think there'd be at least some kind of ripple effect-

She froze mid-step. Her thoughts cut off instantly.

A sharp change in the surrounding mana hit her all at once—the unmistakable trace of a spell being triggered. She whipped her head to the right, toward the source of the shift. Her eyes locked on the cavern wall, and sure enough, she saw them: runes, carved into the stone and glowing faintly as they activated. They had responded to her movement, like a magical motion sensor.

In less than a second, the mana stored inside the catalysts embedded in the runes flared to life. What had been dormant suddenly surged, gathering and condensing into a tight sphere. That mass of energy then transmuted into fire—blazing and intense—lighting up a full stretch of the cavern wall, along with Lazitha herself.

A moment later, the flames erupted outward.

The fire twisted into a spiraling inferno, whirling like a tornado through the air. It expanded by the second, first looking like it could burn down a large tree, then quickly growing until it could easily swallow an entire building. And it was coming straight at her, moving far faster than any natural flame should.

As if responding on instinct, one of the gems orbiting Lazitha pulsed with light. It broke formation, separating from the others, and shot up into the air. It positioned itself directly in front of the incoming tornado—just in time. The firestorm crashed into the gem, swallowing both it and Lazitha in a flood of roaring flames. Her figure vanished completely within the searing blast.

Yet something was strange.

Despite how powerful the fire looked—how violently it burned—it felt like it had no weight, no heat, no true presence.

"A mana chameleon-based rune trap?" Lazitha's voice rang out from within the blaze, calm and thoughtful.

"Blending with the natural flow of mana around it, using active concealment rather than pretending to be non-magical altogether. That's a different approach compared to the mana formation used to create the storm clouds." As the flames slowly faded, Lazitha stood unharmed in the center. Her wild black hair hadn't even shifted, and there wasn't a trace of heat in the air. The ground beneath her heels remained as cool and solid as before, untouched by the fire.

"Still, a trap like this wouldn't stand a chance against a Master-class mage or knight. It must've been meant to scare off mana beasts, wandering monsters, or anyone else unlucky enough to stumble in here."

The gem that had intercepted the flames floated back down and rejoined the others, resuming its orbit around her.

Lazitha's suspicions only grew stronger the deeper she went. More traps triggered as she moved forward, each different in design, yet similar in structure—like someone had laid them all using the same logic or blueprint. And most of them cast Adept-class spells.

One trap, clearly elementrix-based, froze the surrounding air and encased its target in a glacier. Inside that glacier brewed a miniature blizzard, and the snow within it was made of tiny ice blades. The idea was that the blades would slice the victim's flesh without them noticing, causing them to die of internal bleeding before they realized they were even injured.

Another was built on the Adept Class Elementrix, Sky Severance—a spell known for steadily increasing its power the longer it was cast. Because this particular trap had been lying dormant for who knows how long, the result was a high-pressure shockwave, sharper than any sword. It was strong enough to split the entire hill in half.

And elementrix traps weren't the only threats.

There were others: one was a compulsion spell that caused the victim's body to shut down completely, leading to instant death. Another targeted the mind directly, warping the victim's thoughts and driving them toward suicide.

Lazitha encountered them all—and not a single one could touch her.

Every time, one of her gems would activate. The glacier wasn't cold. The icicle-blades passed right through her without harm. The wind that should've sliced the ground open beneath her feet barely stirred her robe. The compulsion failed to kill her body, and the mental attack reached her mind but didn't warp a single thought.

She kept walking, step by step, until finally, she saw something up ahead.

There was light.

She didn't even need her magic to sense it. It shone clearly in the darkness, like a beacon or a lighthouse deep inside the cave. As she drew closer, a new detail hit her—this time not through sight, but smell.

A harsh, animalistic stench filled the air, making her nose wrinkle.

"Ugh..." Lazitha let out a noise of disgust as she stepped forward, feeling the cavern walls close in around her. The space narrowed sharply on all sides, forming what felt like the entrance to another section deeper inside. As she passed through, she immediately sensed the difference—there was a barrier here. One she hadn't noticed before. But now that she'd crossed it, her senses suddenly opened up, allowing her to pick up what had been hidden just a moment earlier.

Beyond the narrow entrance was a chamber—though calling it a "chamber" didn't quite do it justice. The cavern she'd been walking through had led straight into the heart of the hill, and this space was massive. Easily large enough to fit an entire village inside it, with plenty of room left overhead.

But it wasn't the size that made Lazitha's eyes widen.

It was what filled the space.

Suspended in midair across the chamber were the bodies of mana beasts—dozens of them. Maybe even over a hundred. Each one floated within a colorless, barrier-like construct, frozen in place. Some looked like common types, and most of them were only Apprentice-class, but that didn't matter. Seeing this many gathered in one place was far from normal. The strange glow she'd seen earlier now made sense. It came partly from the barriers surrounding the beasts, but also from the streams of mana flowing out of them—thin, glowing rivers twisting through the air.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Each stream carried a different color, depending on the beast it came from, and all of them were being drawn toward the same point: the center of the chamber.

There, Lazitha saw them—figures, more than a dozen of them, seated in a precise formation.

Each one wore dark robes and a hood that obscured their features. They sat perfectly still in meditative poses, stationed at key points along a massive, complex shape carved into the floor. Not carved in the traditional sense—it hadn't been etched into stone—but instead formed using materials that conducted mana. From where she stood, Lazitha could tell it was a giant rune, one made up of hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller runes joined together.

The swirling rivers of mana curved and twisted through the air until they fed directly into that giant rune. As the energy flowed into it, the shape on the ground shimmered—a bright grey light pulsing across its surface, interwoven with threads of other colors.

"So, the mana beasts are being used as living catalysts... Suspended in animation, but still alive—constantly feeding mana into the runes. This... is a ritual."

Now it all made sense.

That's how the massive storm was being kept alive. Mana beasts were practically walking magic. Like mages, they naturally absorbed the natural mana from the world around them. And as long as they stayed alive, they could be used like living batteries. With this many gathered in one place, their combined output could easily surpass even a Master-level mage. In the past, something like this wasn't considered simple or safe. Mana beasts were usually large, violent, and extremely hard to keep under control—even with magic.

Using this many at once... I remember reading that mages from older eras used to use mana beasts just like this. But it has always been considered too risky. Between their natural resistances and unpredictable behavior, it was never reliable working with mana beasts. On top of that, you'd need to gather a massive number of them to make it work. If it's something a single mage can't power on their own, then one or two beasts won't be enough either. That's why mages back then started breeding mana beasts—or even creating them by force.

But mass-hunting them threw entire ecosystems out of balance. Eventually, the Ten Great Magic Academies had to step in and ban the practice altogether to stop the chaos.

In other words, what Lazitha was seeing now was a dark art. Even spells that extracted mana directly from another living being were outlawed—let alone something like this.

And yet here it is. This many Adept-level rogue mages, all working together without us knowing? How did they even capture this many mana beasts? And what about the materials for the runes? Someone should've noticed the gathering of this many materials. Not to mention those barrier constructs keeping the beasts suspended and draining their mana—no Adept-level mage should even have access to that kind of magic, much less be able to cast it.

Everything was connected, all of it tied to the ritual. The mana drawn from the beasts was guided by the mages and funneled straight to the center of the formation. At the core of the massive ritual circle, all the gathered mana was funneled upward into a towering pillar of energy. Lazitha followed its trail with her eyes and saw another rune high above, etched directly into the ceiling. From what she could tell, this upper rune was modifying the gathered mana—converting it into the mana formation that created the massive storm outside.

But one thing stood out to her more than anything else.

Even after everything—after her arrival, after crossing the barrier, after walking straight into their ritual chamber—none of the mages reacted.

None of them moved. None of them noticed her at all.

"Does it require that much concentration?" Lazitha wondered aloud—and, to her surprise, received an answer.

"Indeed. You found us quicker than expected. Truly worthy of a mage from Takerth Academy." The voice was calm, almost gentle. It sounded like an older man—measured, neutral, and just loud enough to reach her ears clearly, despite the cavern's size.

Lazitha looked up and quickly located the speaker. Like the others seated in the ritual, most of his body was hidden beneath his robes. Even under his hood, where she should've been able to catch a glimpse of his face, there was nothing but darkness. His hand, too, was obscured as it held onto a staff made of some strange black material—metallic in appearance, but not mundane. At its top, the staff curled into a crooked symbol she didn't recognize. The whole thing pulsed faintly, its color shifting between an abyssal black and a dull, ghostly gray.

Her eyes narrowed. She tried to read his identity, but her magic couldn't pierce the veil around him. Something was blocking her perception. Only a Master-level mage could do that.

Tilting her head slightly, she smiled.

"I see. So you're the one responsible for this."

"Indeed. You may refer to me as Istall. Not my true name, of course. I imagine you're already running through the registry of known rogue mages, trying to match my voice to someone."

"Hmm," Lazitha let out a quiet hum and stopped her mental search. If he knew exactly what she was doing, there was no point in continuing.

"I must apologize for the lackluster greeting," Istall said, voice steady.

"As you can imagine, guiding this much raw mana is taxing—even for this many Adept-level mages. To make sure they could handle it and stay in sync, they had to etch the formation themselves. Even then, most of their focus is consumed by the ritual."

Lazitha's gaze sharpened.

"You're surprisingly talkative for a rogue mage. But I suppose your explanation makes sense. Still, even if they carved the rune themselves, there's no way they came up with the design themselves, which means you must've taught them. And that also means every single one of you is a runesmith. I must admit that's rare—rogue mages with your level of skill in runes are practically unheard of. I take it all those traps I ran into earlier were also your group's work?"

Istall gave a slow nod beneath his hood.

"Yes, they were. I saw no reason to make them myself."

Lazitha understood what he meant.

Those traps were enough to stop—or outright kill—anyone below the Master-level. On the other hand, if he'd set them up personally as Master-level traps, they would've been complete overkill against weaker intruders and hardly slow down anyone who was already at the Master-level. More importantly, they would've wasted mana and made it more difficult to conceal the signs of high-level magic. If a Master-level mage or knight stumbled across something like that, it would only confirm their suspicions and alert them that something worth hiding was here.

"I must admit, you're being quite informative," Lazitha remarked.

"So how about you tell me why?" She folded her arms as her gaze stayed locked on him.

"I can't imagine what would drive this many skilled runesmiths to go rogue, and no offense, but whipping up a massive storm and wreaking havoc across the region hardly sounds like a worthy cause. So what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?" If this had been the work of Apprentice or even Adept-level mages, she might've believed it. Young mages could be impulsive, emotional, driven by passion or pride. But a Master-level mage? One capable of pulling together this much power, this many resources, and forming a ritual this complex—just for the sake of destruction?

Impossible.

No mage at that level would go through all this trouble unless there was something bigger behind it. Well, perhaps if they were insane, but even then, this wasn't the kind of madness that acted without purpose.

Istall went quiet for a moment. Then, with a small shake of his head, he answered, voice calm but laced with a hint of apology.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that."

He didn't expand any further than that.

Lazitha didn't show any outward reaction. Her expression stayed relaxed, almost amused. But in her mind, she was breaking down their conversation.

Something's not right...

Rogue mages were elusive by nature. They didn't chat. They didn't explain. They avoided attention, stayed out of sight, and certainly didn't linger around mages from he academy powerful enough to threaten them. This one might have been hiding his face, but he was making no move to flee. Not even a hint of caution.

Does he think he can kill me and go back to his ritual like nothing happened? No... even that doesn't fit. He's been too talkative—giving me more information than I asked for. And from what I can sense, he hasn't even been preparing an attack. Meanwhile, I've been charging one this whole time...

None of it made sense. Her instincts told her this entire situation was wrong. The fact that she'd found this place so easily was already suspicious. Mulvin's warning echoed in her mind—this could be a lure. But if so, where was the real trap? What exactly was she being lured for?

Only one thing made sense now.

He's stalling. And if that's the case...

She didn't wait and acted with no warning or buildup. From the space around her, a violet ray of mana exploded into view. It curved through the air with speed and precision—but it wasn't aimed at Istall. Instead, it shot toward the ritual circle. Toward the Adept-level mages seated around it. As the ray closed in, it split mid-flight, fracturing into separate streams—one for each target.

But just before impact, something else stopped them cold.

A massive barrier flared to life, one that covered the entire perimeter of the ritual. The violet beams slammed into it with force. Immediately, sensing something blocking their path, the beams surged in strength. Once, then twice, then a third time, their intensity growing, the mana pulsing louder and brighter with each increase.

But still the barrier didn't break.

It pulsed in response, absorbing the blows without cracking, holding firm. Finally, the rays shattered—breaking apart into glimmering particles of condensed mana that scattered into the air like glowing dust. The barrier remained visible for a second more before it began to fade back into its inert state.

Up above, Istall let out a low chuckle.

"Did you think we wouldn't take precautions for something like that?"

"Hmph." Lazitha didn't bother replying.

Instead, the scattered particles of condensed mana from her previous attack shimmered—and suddenly shifted shape. In the blink of an eye, they reformed into thousands of fine needles that shot upward in every direction, bursting through the air like a storm of violet shards. Once again, the attack wasn't aimed at Istall. Her target was the floating mana beasts suspended throughout the chamber. The Adept-level mages might have been protected by that massive barrier, but there was no way it could cover every single beast—not when they were spread out across so much space in varying sizes.

Let's see how tough those suspension fields really are.

Realizing what Lazitha was attempting, Istall moved the same instant her needles began to scatter.

With a quick motion, a swirling portal opened behind him, and he stepped through it. Another portal appeared in the air, hovering just above the ritual barrier. From there, Istall emerged, lifting his staff. With a sharp gesture, his cloak suddenly flared open—yet his body remained shrouded in a misty blur, still impossible to see clearly.

Lazitha watched, noticing that the inside of the cloak wasn't fabric. It was something else entirely—a blackness so deep it looked like a slice of the void itself. Endless and all-consuming. In an instant, the exposed mana beasts were hidden behind that cloak. Her thousands of mana needles—raining upwards like a violet storm—vanished into the darkness.

They didn't seem to hit anything, nor did they explode. They simply disappeared.

Then, just a heartbeat later, the cloak folded in on itself and shrank back to its original size as a portal tore open behind Lazitha.

Flying out of it came her own magic—those same mana needles—but this time they were no longer connected to her, no longer under her control.

But Istall wasn't done.

As the portal opened behind her, he swept his staff in her direction. Reality itself seemed to warp in response. Space twisted—just slightly, almost imperceptibly. The left and right halves of the space before him became uneven, one side higher than the other. The line between these distortions was immeasurably narrow, and its length was just five meters.

"A spatial mage?" Lazitha murmured, a flicker of surprise in her voice.

Two of the floating gems orbiting her reacted instantly.

One shifted behind her to intercept the returning magic. The other moved forward to face the approaching spatial slash.

Both gems pulsed with bright light.

The hail of returning mana needles halted mid-flight the moment they reached the gem at her back, frozen in place as though caught in a time bubble. As for the spatial slash, the distorted slice of space corrected itself the second it passed near the gem in front of her—the warped image snapping back into symmetry, the attack unraveling as though it had never been cast at all.

With their tasks complete, the two gems quietly returned to their orbit around Lazitha.

Thinking to herself for a moment, she rose into the air, floating upward, completely unbothered by the needles still hovering behind her.

"Oho... so this is the power they say belongs to Lazitha, the Reviser—and her Gems of Diminishment," Istall remarked, watching as she rose into the air. His eyes tracked her slow ascent until she floated level with him, though a good forty meters still separated them.

"You've heard of me?" Lazitha replied, her tone sharp with sarcasm.

"Should I be flattered?"

Istall didn't bite.

His response was as controlled as his voice had been, "I make it a point to know every mage in Takerth Academy. Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you were the first to find me."

•

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the region, a familiar scene was unfolding inside a long-abandoned temple perched atop a tall mountain.

Within the depths of the ruined structure—its roof long since collapsed and its floor littered with the rubble of fallen pillars—Mulvin stood still. His sword had already been drawn from its place at his side, though his aura had yet to manifest. From where he stood, the raging storm outside was clearly visible. Though it carried no rain, the thunder still cracked loudly through the air, echoing even here.

He stared calmly at the ritual taking place at the temple's center.

Just like elsewhere, mana beasts hung suspended in the air, each trapped within glowing barriers. Streams of mana flowed steadily from their bodies down into a massive rune carved on the stone floor, guided by the Adept-level mages meditating within its formation.

Mulvin's gaze lingered on the ritual only briefly before shifting to the figure between him and the ritual—the rogue mage, Istall.

Istall hovered just above the ground, his robes swaying slightly as he looked back at Mulvin, grinning as he spoke.

"Mulvin, the Empyrean Star. I've heard much about you. With the talents you're said to possess, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you were the first to find me."

•

"If I'm not mistaken, that would make you Eredim, the Lawweaver. I never imagined you would be the first to find me."

"Well, this is interesting. Beriz, the Tidemind. How fitting that you were the one to find me—this deep underwater, no less."

"And here I thought I had more time. I suppose hoping to hide from Dravien, the Clausebearer, was arrogant of me."

Across the region, scenes like these played out again and again—different, yet eerily familiar. The locations varied more than anyone could have imagined: mountain peaks, ocean trenches, forgotten ruins, and hidden sanctuaries.

But one constant remained throughout them all.