I was halfway through a bite of spiced bread when the door to the Resting Nest burst open.

  At first, I didn’t even glance up. The inn was always noisy in the mornings — mages coming and going, whispering spell theories, clanking their cups, scribbling incantations. But this time, something was different. The room grew still. Forks stopped mid-air, papers dropped, conversations halted like a spell freezing water mid-boil.

  I looked up, and there he was. A young mage, barely older than a boy, panting like he’d run across the entire city. His robe was mismatched, one boot untied, and his left sleeve had scorch marks — not from battle, but probably from a failed spell or careless haste.

  Everyone was staring at him. Even the innkeeper paused cleaning mugs.

  Then the boy shouted.

  “THE WAR—IT’S STOPPED! One year! The Morningstar Act and Freedom of Amber have stopped fighting for one year!”

  The silence that followed was so heavy it pressed against my ribs.

  A chair creaked. A mug hit the floor. Then, voices — dozens of them, all at once.

  “What?!”

  “No way—!”

  “Why now?”

  I blinked, slowly lowering my piece of bread. My stomach, just moments ago eager for breakfast, suddenly forgot its purpose. I leaned back in my chair, my heart thrumming not from excitement, but caution.

  Battles don’t stop like that. Not without reason. Not when both sides were invested as much as they were.

  At the far end of the room, the old mage who always sat by the window slammed his mug down. He had a voice like gravel grinding steel. “Boy,” he said, nodding toward the newcomer, “what’s the reason? Wars don’t stop because leaders get soft in the head. What made ’em pull back?”

  His two friends leaned in, beer mugs forgotten. The boy seemed to shrink under all the eyes. His hands trembled slightly as he straightened his back and cleared his throat.

  “They—uh—they said it was due to... outside intervention. Danger. That’s all the message said.”

  Whispers exploded like sparks flying from a broken mana crystal. “Outside intervention?” “Another faction?” “Could it be the Trinatrum?” “No, they’d never force a truce.”

  I frowned, slowly chewing the words.

  Danger. From outside.

  So it wasn’t peace. It was something else. Something worse.

  I stood up from my table, feeling the shift in the room. Dozens of mages, from students to wandering veterans, were in this inn today. Most had spent the past few weeks avoiding direct involvement in the war while still circling around it — scavenging artifacts, selling information, buying books, building power. Now, they all looked like children who’d just been told the storm had changed course and was heading straight for them.

  I made my way closer to the young mage.

  “You said they called it danger. From where?” I asked, keeping my tone level. There was no point overwhelming him with the same pressure everyone else was already giving.

  The boy looked at me and shook his head. “They didn’t say. Just that... both sides agreed it wasn’t safe to continue. That something else could take advantage.”

  I nodded slowly. That confirmed it. It wasn’t some diplomatic breakthrough. No peace treaties. No secret victory. It was fear. And fear doesn’t stop wars unless the alternative is worse.

  The Amorans.

  That had to be it. The timing matched. Rumors had spread in secret circles, whispers I had heard between book covers and mages’ lips that dared not speak too loud. Amorans — beings from beyond the known boundaries of our magic. Not humans. Something older. Perhaps stronger.

  Eval had probably seen it coming. Maybe even Felix. If the leaders of both Morningstar Act and Freedom of Amber agreed to halt all aggression, then it wasn’t just a threat — it was real. And it was coming.

  The chatter in the inn was rising, almost panicked now. Some were celebrating, thinking this meant no more random attacks or spell-fueled assassinations in the night. Fools. Others, the quiet ones — the veterans — just stared into their drinks, no joy in their eyes. They understood what this really meant.

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  War wasn’t ending.

  It was changing.

  I turned from the crowd and walked back to my seat. My notes were still there, ink still fresh. Pages on Wraith, on Mark–Sensing, on the Hearthsphere spell I was learning to anchor to my heartbeat.

  I stared at the scribbles.

  I’d hoped for time. Time to reach the Expert level. Time to master what I had. Maybe this pause in the war would give me that. But now... now it might not be enough.

  If the Amorans were truly moving, then none of the old rules applied anymore.

  I sat down, took a breath, and picked up my pen again. I scratched out a note on the side of the page:

  "Survival now depends on knowledge. Preparation. Awareness."

  I couldn’t stop the war. But I could make sure that when the next one came — the real one — I would be ready.

  And I wouldn’t face it as just another adept mage.

  -

  -

  The news spread like wildfire across the continent, igniting both relief and tension in equal measure. From the grand towers of Whiterock City to the quiet lanes of Crimson Berry Town, from the blackstone roads of Redglass to the swampy outposts near the southern marshes—every mage guild, organization, and even unaffiliated cabal began whispering the same thing.

  The war has stopped.

  Not ended. Just… stopped.

  A ceasefire between Morningstar Act and Freedom of Amber had been declared. Officially, it was a year-long armistice, with both sides publicly stating "external threats and foreign interventions" as the cause for this unexpected pause. But even without the fine details, those versed in magical matters and political warcraft didn’t need it spelled out. They all understood what was happening.

  The Amorans were here.

  Within a matter of weeks, reports began flooding in. Seven confirmed encounters in the first three days. Then ten. Some whispered the number had already climbed to fifteen. Violent clashes between human mage groups and the invaders from another continent, the Amarons—strange, often secretive, and overwhelmingly dangerous.

  In one report, a team of three human mages from the Sapphire Leaf Guild encountered a group of six Amarons near the Riverine Divide. Only one human mage survived, and she returned with half of her arm transformed into a crystal-like material, pulsing faintly with foreign mana.

  She was placed under heavy containment for study. In another incident, an entire Morningstar patrol vanished without a trace after entering a ruined village known to be under surveillance. The last recorded message was a scream followed by static energy bursting through the communication glyphs.

  These events spurred even the most hardheaded leaders to reconsider. Morningstar Act and Freedom of Amber had lost hundreds of mages over the past few weeks in skirmishes, assassinations, and ambushes. But the threat they now faced was… different. The Amorans weren’t here to pick a side.

  They were here to take. What exactly, no one was sure—resources, land, arcane knowledge, or maybe just chaos.

  When the ceasefire was formally announced, most mage organizations received direct magical communiqués explaining the terms.

  Both Eval Morningstar and Felix of Freedom of Amber had declared that for the sake of human survival, internal conflict must be set aside.

  The continent, still bleeding from its wounds, now faced a far worse predator.

  Within cities, the mood was surprisingly optimistic. Celebrations broke out, not because people liked Morningstar or trusted Amber, but because they were tired.

  Now there was a chance, a moment to breathe. In towns like Crimson Berry, families embraced in their living rooms. Marketplaces slowly reopened. Inns lit their lanterns again.

  But beneath the joy lingered caution.

  In the upper chambers of mage guilds, debates raged. Who were the Amorans? How strong were they? What did they want? And perhaps most importantly—could the truce really hold for a year? No matter how honorable a declaration might be, power always whispered in dark corners.

  Several smaller mage factions moved quickly, sending scouts to gather intelligence.

  The Bluewind Tower dispatched one of their elite windrunners to fly across the central plains and return with firsthand sightings.

  Even Time Wave Organization, despite their pact with Morningstar, began formulating countermeasures against temporal magic—after rumors spread that some Amarons could bend time in unpredictable ways.

  Among the general populace, the name “Amorans” became the new nightmare. Mothers whispered it to their children as warnings to stay indoors. Soldiers and battle-mages no longer looked at each other as enemies, but as potential allies in the wars to come. Though the fighting had stopped for now, the fire hadn’t gone out. It merely redirected itself.

  Meanwhile, in places of governance and magic research, the true nature of the threat began to solidify.

  In Redglass Mountain City, the Council of Artificers called an emergency gathering. Runes glowing hot, their chamber buzzed with tense discussion.

  They had captured fragments of Amoran technology—one being a shard of obsidian-like metal that resisted every known analysis spell. Another was a spell-seal, still glowing with alien inscriptions that made even expert translation mages ill.

  In Whiterock, Lady Amber’s secret court held a midnight discussion with Freedom of Amber's strategists. The question wasn’t whether the Amorans were dangerous. The question was how long it would take before they turned their eyes toward conquest.

  And perhaps most unsettling of all—there were whispers of diplomacy.

  Some claimed that a small faction of human mages had already opened talks with the Amorans. Others believed that the ancient Forgotten Orders, long thought extinct, were aligning with them in secret. If those rumors were true… the ceasefire might collapse even before the year had passed.

  But for now, the continent held its breath.

  In hidden islands and mountain passes, Morningstar Act began drawing new plans.

  Eval was no fool—he knew that this temporary peace was as fragile as an untouched spell circle.

  Any misstep, any provocation from rogue mages or old rivals, and the entire region could erupt again.

  Felix, for his part, ordered massive fortifications around critical resources and redoubled efforts to recruit and train new mages.

  The Freedom of Amber couldn’t afford to be caught unprepared—not by Eval, not by the Amarons, and certainly not by betrayal within.

  And so, as the sun rose and the continent seemed calmer, the world waited. Waited to see what the Amarons would do next. Waited to see how the fragile truce would hold. Waited to see whether humanity, in all its fractured pride, could truly stand together when the storm came.

  Because deep in the shadow of every city, in the winds that carried dust across the old battlegrounds, in the silence that followed too many screams… something was moving.

  And it wasn’t human.