Fantasy

“Mana… mana… mana… I’ve freaking died a hundred times already — and mark my words, mana doesn’t do shit to those beings!”
    A boy screamed, half in rage, half in despair.
    Towering before him was a being so vast that its face was swallowed in shadow.
    “And… perhaps, what if I told you mana was never real?” The voice rumbled, cold and vast. “What if I told you mana atoms could be broken down into smaller constituents?”
    The boy froze. He tilted his head upward, trying to glimpse its hidden visage. His voice cracked.
    “Huh? What the hell are you even talking about now? The only thing I know is that catastrophe is coming — and humanity can’t do shit about it!”
    The being’s presence pressed heavier.
    “Tell me, why do you think mana doesn’t exist in the Plasma Dimension… in the Upper Echelons… or the Lake of Harbinger?”
    “Well… they say that years ago, during the Doomspire Conflict, ‘mana’ was sucked out of those dimensions by reality itself.”
    “No. You are wrong.” The voice grew sharper, haunting. “Mana still exists there — but in another form. A form humans were never designed to detect… nor control.”
    The boy’s breath caught.
    The being leaned closer.
    “Have you ever wondered why some are born with vast mana reserves, while others starve with none? Why some wield destructive powers like Void Pulse… while others are cursed with tricks like Hell Blast?”
    “N… no…”
    “You see… even though our universe seems chaotic, even cruel, it has always loved rules. Order. Patterns beneath the noise. That is what makes it terrifying… and beautiful.”
    Then after a long pause.
    “And what if...you were finally able to glimpse those rules?”