It started with shouting.
It always did.
The human town of Slovengard had been quiet for days—too quiet for a place whose lamps no longer burned and whose wells no longer purified themselves. The air smelled wrong. It was stagnant. No flow of magicules had made the air putrid.
A crowd gathered near the old ley-marker at the town's edge.
The stone had once glowed faintly, a comfort more than a tool. Now it was dull, cracked, useless.
"They cut us off!"
A man's voice broke through the murmur, sharp with exhaustion rather than rage.
"The elves rerouted the flow," another shouted. "You saw it! Their forests still glow!"
"That magic was ours too!"
Fear found words. Words found agreement.
By the time the elven delegation arrived, the crowd had already decided who to blame.
They came openly.
That was their mistake.
Six elves stepped into the clearing, bows unstrung, armour light and grown rather than forged. The eldest among them raised a hand, palm open.
"We are here to speak," she said calmly. "Nothing more."
A stone struck the ground at her feet.
"You spoke already!" someone screamed. "You tree-dwellers have decided for us!"
Another stone followed. Then another.
The elves did not draw weapons.
They should have.
The first spell was from a human.
It was Crude and Overcharged. A burst of unstable force thrown without structure, fuelled by desperation and poorly vented magic. It detonated halfway between the lines, ripping dirt from the ground and sending people stumbling.
The elves reacted instantly.
Roots surged upward, forming a living barrier. Magic flowed around the humans instead of into them, redirecting excess force into soil and air. The defensive weave was elegant—non-lethal by design.
But it hurt.
Humans screamed as backlash snapped through their spells. A man fell clutching his arm, bones intact but nerves screaming as magic rejected him.
"They're attacking us!"
That was all it took.
The crowd surged.
Blades came out. Improvised weapons. Old enchanted tools that barely held charge anymore. Someone loosed an arrow it was unguided, wild and it struck an elf in the shoulder.
Blood hit the ground. The forest answered.
Compared to elves Humans were only a speck in the history of Gilbert.
Vines lashed out, knocking people off their feet. Roots wrapped ankles, wrists—not crushing, just stopping. Elven magic sought restraint even now, refusing to escalate.
But humans did not interpret restraint as mercy.
They interpreted it as control.
A man forced raw magic through his body, ignoring pain, overriding safety. The spell ripped free—a cone of heat that scorched bark, burned cloth, and caught an elf full in the chest.
She collapsed, breathless, alive—but badly hurt.
That broke something.
An elven archer drew his bow.
He did not aim for the heart. He aimed for the leg.
The arrow punched through muscle, pinning a human to the ground. The man screamed, not in rage now, but due to fear.
A brief but horrified Silence fell.
Then the town bell rang.
Not in warning but in summons.
More humans poured into the clearing, some were armed, some just desperate. The elves formed a tighter circle, defensive magic thickening, their expressions hardening as realisation set in.
Grey watched the illusion unfold, jaw clenched.
"This is it," he said quietly. "The line."
Tolstoy"s fists tightened. "They're going to call it an attack."
"They already have," Faker replied."Narratives form faster than truth."
Back in Slovengard, an elven voice rang out it was clear though strained.
"Stop! This helps no one!"
A human answered by hurling a firebrand.
It struck the roots. Flames spread.
The forest recoiled instinctively.
And instinct, once engaged, did not ask permission.
The elves fell back, dragging their wounded with them, vines and thorns rising between them and the town. Humans gave chase for a few steps but then stopped as the ground itself turned hostile.
No one cheered. No one won.
When it was over, the clearing was scarred. Blood stained dirt. Smoke drifted low. The ley-marker cracked completely in half.
Three humans lay dead.
One elf would not walk again.
By nightfall, word spread faster than the truth ever could.
Elves attack human town.Humans riot against magic hoarders.The old treaties are dead.
Far away, Mount Hulios registered the shift.
Correction pressure rose.
Just slightly.
Enough to matter.
The Devil King did not intervene.
He didn't need to.
Because for the first time since restraint began,violence had found justification.
"Until now all the things that have happened, the deaths among High Humans, the feud of Elves and Humans, all these took place and The Demon king has not even lifted a finger yet." The princess said as she waved her hand to fast forward the time.
"Fear drives creatures to against their own intelligence and instincts." Faker said quietly almost to himself.
...
Siena was summoned, not requested.
The Convergence sealed itself around her as soon as she stepped inside. The horizon of ley-light tightened, bending inward until the chamber felt smaller than it should have been.
That was deliberate.
Twelve councillors stood in the ring. Perfect posture. Perfect circulation. Not one of them looked surprised.
"The human–elven clash has destabilised three adjacent regions," the First Councillor said without preamble.
Siena inclined her head. "Expected."
"You anticipated escalation," another councillor said. "Yet you did not prevent it."
Siena did not flinch. "Prevention would have required coercion."
A ripple of irritation passed through the chamber.
"That is precisely what is now authorised," the First Councillor replied.
The word authorised settled heavily.
"Effective immediately," he continued, "High-Human oversight will extend beyond our layer. We will enforce circulation limits on external populations."
Siena's breath caught—just slightly.
"You mean humans," she said.
"Yes."
"And elves?" she asked.
A pause.
"No," the councillor said. "Their systems are already constrained. Humans are the variable."
Siena straightened. "You cannot regulate bodies that are not designed for regulation. Their channels will rupture."
"Acceptable losses," another voice said calmly. "Correction pressure demands it."
That word again. Acceptable. It felt like compromise, but it was just another way to show indifference towards lesser races.
Siena felt the weight of the neighbourhood she had sealed. Seven dead. Twenty-three broken.
"How many?" she asked quietly.
The First Councillor met her gaze. "Enough to prevent war."
Silence.
Siena stepped forward, breaking protocol.
"You're turning us into the Devil King," she said.
Several councillors stiffened.
"That is a false equivalence," one snapped. "We optimise. He destroys."
"Maybe if we become the primary oppressors, we can stop the lager and a much more cruel one." One of the councillors said.
"That's just stupid." Siena couldn't control herself.
The chamber pulsed—warning glyphs flickering at its edges.
"You are overstepping," the First Councilor said.
"No," Siena said softly. "I am recognizing the pattern."
She raised her hand.
An illusion bloomed—Mount Hulios. Flow diagrams. Correction curves. Then overlaid: High-Human governors, expanding outward, tightening around human population centres.
"You will push restraint without belief," she continued "Give me some time I will come up with a solution to restraint humans without oppressing them."
"And what do you propose instead?" the First Councilor demanded.
Siena hesitated.
For the first time in her life, she did not have a clean answer.
"Choice," she said finally. "You let them choose restraint or faith voluntarily. You stabilise with them, not over them."
"That takes time," another councilor said.
"Yes," Siena replied. "Which is why history never allows it."
The First Councillor's expression hardened.
"You will not interfere," he said. "You will continue enforcement. You will maintain order."
Order.
Siena looked around the chamber at the faces perfected beyond flaw, bodies that had never known scarcity, minds trained to accept loss as metric.
She thought of the child caught in feedback.
She lowered her hand.
"I will comply," she said.
The chamber relaxed.