The First measures taken were quite quaint and not well received.
The Elves did not reduce magic use.
They restructured it.
At dawn, Way-Singers were dispatched across the forests, each carrying living glyphs grown from heartwood. These glyphs were embedded at ley intersections never blocking the flow, but rather redirecting it.
"Elven magic must return to circulation," the elders decreed. "No spell may end where it began."
Small changes were made to try and restore balance to the magicule density.
Healing spells were required to vent excess magic back into soil or root networks, Growth magic was capped by seasonal quotas meaning no accelerated forests.Long Distance Scrying was strictly forbidden.
War-grade enchantments were dismantled and composted into the land.
"That last feels like a mistake" Grey could not contain his thoughts.
"It all depends on the High Humans being able to curb their use of magicules. If they are successful, then Elves or anyone won't need War enchantments." Faker said while looking at the history illusion.
Hunters were forced to rely on bows instead of guided shots.Healers learned to wait instead of overwrite wounds.Architects dismantled sky-bridges that strained canopy currents.
The backlash was immediate.
"We are being punished for restraint we never abandoned," one ranger argued."Our forests are older than your councils," another said bitterly.
But the elders held firm.
"We were balanced once," they replied."Balance now requires effort."
...
The High-Humans were far less gentle.
Their civilisation responded with regulation algorithms.
Within the parallel layer, circulation governors were installed they were mathematical constructs woven directly into bodily channels making it physically impossible to be able to use excessive magic.
Those Circulation governors seemed to catch faker's eyes.
No individual could circulate more than 72% of optimal capacity. Emergency override allowed once per lunar cycle.
Any sustained overdraw triggered automatic shutdown of the Mana channels.
Siena oversaw the first implementation.
People collapsed—not from pain, but from disorientation. High-Humans had never experienced magical resistance from within their own bodies.
"It feels like drowning on land," one man said, shaking."My magic won't answer me."
"It is answering," Siena replied calmly. "It is telling you no."
Entire professions vanished overnight, Precision constructors lost micro-casting abilities.
Long-range teleportation ceased entirely.
High-density spell craft was confined to sealed chambers
Public reaction fractured sharply.
"This is self-sabotage," some argued. "We survived four eras by optimisation."
Others whispered more quietly "What if we are the reason he woke?"
...
Humans paid the price first.
Ley redirection caused dead zones. Entire towns where enchantments simply failed. Stored magical infrastructure decayed without replenishment.
Streetlamps went dark.Water became murky. The Water purification charms weakened. Crops were starting to wither. Harvest enchantments faltered.
Riots followed.
"They're hoarding it again!""The hidden ones took everything!""The gods are punishing us!"
Temples overflowed.
Faith surged, but chaotically.
The priestess watching the illusion spoke softly: "Faith without structure breeds monsters of its own."
...
Deep beneath the mountains, the Trolls noticed the change—and approved.
Pressure normalized. For the first time in centuries, their forges burned without screaming strain. Stone settled. Resonance stabilized.
"They are yielding," an elder rumbled.
"Yes," another replied. "But not enough."
Patience, among trolls, was not kindness.
It was endurance.
...
In the demon territories, devils adapted instantly.
They had always thrived on imbalance. Reduced flow simply meant recalibration. Lesser devils shifted roles. Greater ones tightened domains.
And atop Mount Hulios, the Devil King felt it all. He became interested, to see if present might try to learn from history.
The correction pressure had lessened, but it was not resolved. The world was attempting to heal itself.
Clumsily.
...
Back in the illusion chamber, the priestess let the vision widen until the strain was unmistakable.
You could see it now—in stiff movements, in shortened tempers, in spells abandoned halfway through casting.
No armies moved.
But tension rose everywhere.
Grey watched silently. "This isn't war."
"No," the priestess replied. "This is preparation."
Faker's gaze stayed fixed on Siena she was standing amid her people, enforcing limits she herself felt every moment.
"They're trying to change history's inputs," he said.
"And history hates that," Tolstoy muttered.
The illusion froze on a single moment:
Magicules flowing unevenly.Faith beginning to spike.And Mount Hulios—still, patient.
The Devil King did not move.
He waited.
Because correction would only begin when restraint fails.
Inside it, Gilbert leaned into a future it did not understand—where power was no longer free, where belief would soon be asked to carry what magic could not.
And as unease settled like fog across every race, one truth became unavoidable:
If this failed,there would be no second attempt.
The Devil King would not awaken again.
He would finish his work.
...
A quiet tightening passed through Siena's chest—an internal resistance spike that should not have existed. Her circulation governors adjusted automatically, bleeding excess magic into the lattice around her, but the sensation lingered.
Somewhere in the parallel layer, someone had crossed a line.
She stopped walking.
"Location?" she asked calmly.
The answer came not as words, but as geometry, coordinates folding into her awareness. A civic refinement cluster. Residential density. Medium skill casters.
Not a battlefield. It was in a neighbourhood.
Siena closed her eyes for half a second.
"Seal it," she said.
The response was immediate. Regulatory constructs across the High-Human layer synchronised, forming a containment shell around the marked zone. Circulation caps tightened from seventy-two percent to fifty.
A hard clamp. It was too hard.
She felt it the moment it happened.
Pain, real pain that rippled through the layer, not localised but systemic, as if the civilisation itself had inhaled sharply. People staggered mid-motion. Conversations broke. Spells unravelled in hands that had never known failure.
And inside the sealed zone, a man collapsed.
He was young. Barely refined past adolescence, his channels still elastic, still greedy. He had been attempting an unsanctioned density weave—nothing malicious, just ambition outpacing restraint. When the clamp engaged, his internal circulation had nowhere to vent.
Magicules backed up.Then tore apart.
His body did not explode. That was the cruel part.
His nervous system overloaded first, synapses firing in perfect, lethal synchrony. He convulsed once, eyes wide with confusion rather than fear, and then simply… stopped.
Two others followed within seconds.
One older woman, her refinement too rigid to adapt.One child, linked through a shared household lattice, caught in feedback he never initiated.
Siena felt every one of them.
High-Humans were not meant to feel death at scale—but regulators were wired to consequence. Her breath hitched despite her control.
"Emergency override," a councillor's voice cut in, sharp. "Release the clamp."
"No," Siena said.
Her voice did not shake.
"If I release it now, the surge will propagate. The breach will widen."
"People are dying."
"Yes," she replied. "And more will if we hesitate."
Silence followed a measured, horrified silence.
The containment shell held.
Within it, medics moved fast, hands bare, forced to rely on manual stabilisation instead of instinctive magic. Some lives were saved. Others weren't.
When the system finally stabilised, the numbers settled.
Seven dead.Twenty-three permanently desynchronized.An entire district downgraded below functional refinement.
The clamp lifted slowly, gently this time.
Siena stood still long after the crisis ended.
Around her, the High-Human layer felt different now—not weaker, but heavier. As if something irreversible had been acknowledged.
A councillor appeared beside her, face flawless, eyes troubled.
"You acted correctly," he said. "The models agree."
Siena didn't look at him.
"They always do," she replied.
She turned her gaze inward, replaying the moment she had given the order. How easy it had been. How necessary. How unforgivable.
For the first time in her life, High-Human perfection had killed its own.
Far away, unseen by any of them, Mount Hulios responded.
Not with movement.
With recalculation.
Correction pressure dropped again—this time noticeably.
The Devil King did not smile.
But if he had, it would have been in recognition.
Because the world had begun to do his work for him.
And Siena who had been brilliant, optimised, devastatingly precise now stood at the centre of a truth no High-Human had ever been forced to face before:
Balance always collects payment.