“Some disasters happened naturally, but others were made and crafted by people, people who knew full well about the scope and effects said disaster would have on others. There was little we could do against natural disasters save to lament our fate and move on, but there were definitely things we could do to those responsible for having created a disaster that engulfed the rest of us.” - Albrecht Rockbreaker, Dwarven elder, survivor of Igunacio’s Wrath, best known to have led a group to find, capture, and persecute the survivors from those who were responsible for the disaster in question.

“Shit! On guard!” cursed Aideen as she felt the mana currents around her intensify and move towards the congregation at the palace rapidly. At first she didn’t feel it, but after a moment, she noticed that the torrent of Life affinity mana – which kept growing larger and larger – was trying to siphon the life from her as well as it passed by. She noticed how her charges – other than Kino – seemed to struggle against it as well.

“Kino! Make a barrier all around us! Just leave enough open below so that our footing doesn’t collapse!” Aideen commanded on the spot. To her credit, Kino reacted immediately to her command and immediately enveloped the five of them inside a sphere of void magic that only stopped at the roof they were standing on. Immediately the siphoning effect from the mana stream greatly reduced as it was annihilated where it ran into the void mana barrier.

“Everyone all right!?” asked Aideen with some urgency as she checked the condition of her grand-nieces. The three looked a bit shaken, the life siphoning having caught them by surprise, but they were all skilled mages, so they managed to resist it well enough. “Do you still feel anything off? Any after effects from whatever that was just now?”

“Nothing much, just a bit weak from that first hit,” replied Eilonwy. “It felt like the mana was trying to leech the life right out of our bodies,” she added with a shake of her head. Got it to stop pretty soon once I used my own mana to block it, though.”

“You have it easier with your death mana,” scoffed Rhys as he too shook his head. “We had to wrest the life that it tried to siphon away from its grasp since ours can’t so directly block it.

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“Do you think this will… continue, Aunt?” asked Áine with some evident worry. If the torrent of mana was so strong that the five of them as skilled mages could feel the effect so keenly, what would happen to all the people in the city who were nowhere near as powerful as they were? “Nevermind. I can feel it getting stronger just from the little bit that got through from the bottom.”

“Some madman must’ve been planning this for a while, probably the King himself or someone close to him,” said Aideen. “There’s no way someone could carve out a proper ritual that covered such a large area of the city centered right on the Royal Palace itself otherwise,” she added. “Whatever this is intended to do, I doubt it’s anything good for the people living here.”

“Damn it! It’s getting stronger! To me, you three!” yelled Aideen as she felt a sudden increase in the force with which the passing mana stream below them tried to siphon their lives. Her three grand-nieces immediately huddled close to her, with Rhys and Áine directly in her hands as they had the harder time fighting off the effects. Eilonwy had an easier time once she knew what to expect and helped set down a barrier of Death affinity mana below them, which further tempered the siphoning effect they felt. “Kino, you holding out fine over there!?”

“I’ll manage!” replied Kino back. She was maintaining the void barrier around them while also defending herself from the leftover effects that still leaked through the roof below them, but didn’t seem to have much difficulty in doing either. “My Void affinity seemed to counter whatever this is well. I should manage to keep this up for at least a few more hours!”

“All right, keep it up, then! I’ll help these three in the meantime!” replied Aideen as she used her mana to help Áine and Rhys repel the siphoning effect. Eilonwy mostly learned from what Aideen did and replicated it with her own mana, which also countered the Life affinity mana stream’s effect far more effectively.

All of them could feel how the mana stream beneath them grew stronger and stronger as time passed even through the roof between them. Naturally, its life siphoning effect similarly grew stronger as the mana stream itself grew, and after a while even Eilonwy needed Aideen’s help to hold on, while Kino clearly had to spend even more effort to keep the more intense mana stream outside of her barrier.

It almost felt like an eternity as they had no way to tell how long had passed other than their own heartbeat and breathing to count. The air felt rather hard to breathe and rather suffocating to the three siblings after a while, as Kino made her barrier airtight, and similarly the roof below them formed an airtight seal over the opening. Even so, it was preferable to face that issue rather than face the mana stream in its full force.

Fortunately the pressure started to lighten and finally got low enough that Kino dared to open a few holes in her void barrier to allow fresh air to enter. Aideen and Kino had no need to breathe due to their Unliving nature, but the same did not apply to Áine, Rhys, and Eilonwy, and the three took deep breaths of the fresh air that replaced the stale air inside the barrier.

Before long the mana stream completely died out, and all of them could feel a massive concentration of mana at the Royal Palace. As for the rest of the city, there was nary a sound to be heard, nor any sign of life to be seen.