The temperature dropped without warning.

Not gradually.

Not subtly.

It fell, like the world had suddenly remembered winter existed and decided to overcorrect.

My breath caught in my throat as the air bit at my lungs, sharp and clean and wrong. Frost raced across the bark beneath my boots, spiderwebbing outward in an instant.

The warmth of the forest, thick, heavy, alive, was torn away, replaced by a brittle cold that set my nerves screaming.

My guard snapped up on instinct.

Fire erupted around my right fist, hot and furious, a coiling mass of crimson-orange flame that hissed angrily as it fought the cold.

My left hand bloomed with moonlight, pale and sharp, silvery radiance spilling between my fingers like liquid starlight. The two energies stabilized me, anchored me, kept my muscles from stiffening as the temperature continued to plummet.

I pivoted slowly, eyes scanning, senses flaring.

"What did you just wake up…" I whispered.

My perception surged, still restrained, still disciplined, but razor-focused now. I searched for mana distortions, for movement, for intent. Something had caused this, and it hadn't done so quietly.

Nothing.

No approaching presence.

No immediate threat.

No pulse of hostile will.

Just cold.

Then...

The world in front of me changed.

Right before my eyes, the air condensed.

Moisture froze mid-breath.

A line appeared in the distance not a blur, not a shadow, but a sharp, definitive edge. It expanded outward with terrifying speed, ice crystallizing from nothing, blooming into existence as if reality itself had decided to grow armor.

A wall.

No.

A monument.

Ice surged upward, outward, everywhere at once, its surface forming in layered sheets of glacial blue so pure it reflected the sky and forest alike. The sound was deafening, a deep, grinding roar like continents colliding, like mountains being dragged screaming into place.

The wall rose higher.

Higher.

It dwarfed the trees.

Then it dwarfed the sky behind them.

It stretched left and right until my eyes couldn't follow it anymore, vanishing into the horizon in both directions. Miles passed. Then dozens. Then hundreds, the scale becoming meaningless, absurd.

A shield.

That was the closest word my mind could offer.

A giant, impossible shield of ice, planted into the heart of the forest like a divine boundary.

I forgot to breathe.

My jaw hung open, my flames flickering dangerously as shock threatened my concentration.

"…That's not real," I murmured.

But it was.

The wall loomed there, its surface smooth and terrifyingly flawless, ancient and newly born all at once.

Mana radiated from it in waves so dense they pressed against my skin like physical force. Not just ice mana, something deeper. Something layered and reinforced.

This wasn't a spell cast in haste.

This was construction.

Deliberate.

Precise.

Monstrous.

My mind balked at the implication.

What kind of being created something like this?

What could make something that monstrous in the blink of an eye?

I swallowed, throat dry despite the cold.

I didn't want to imagine what could shape ice on this scale.

I didn't want to imagine what it had been meant to stop, or contain.

I stood there, frozen in more ways than one, staring at the wall as it reflected the endless forest below it. The trees looked small now. Insignificant. Like grass before a glacier.

Then the wind hit.

A sudden, violent gust slammed into me from the side, howling like a living thing. The force nearly ripped me from the branch I stood on, my balance shattering as the world lurched.

"Shit!"

I dropped low instantly, driving one knee into the trunk and wrapping an arm around it as the wind screamed past. My flames flared instinctively, stabilizing me just enough to keep from being torn away and dashed into the canopy below.

Leaves tore free in massive sheets, spiraling through the air like debris caught in a storm. Branches cracked. The forest groaned in protest.

The wind wasn't natural.

It wasn't random.

It was aftershock.

The consequence of something vast settling into place.

I waited it out, teeth clenched, until the gusts finally died down to a bitter, constant breeze. Slowly, carefully, I straightened, boots gripping the bark once more.

My heart hammered in my chest.

"All right," I whispered hoarsely. "All right… you've got my attention."

I stared at the wall again, closer now, clearer.

I needed to know.

I narrowed my perception.

Not a dome.

A line.

I pulled my senses inward, compressing them, refining them until they were no wider than a blade's edge. The forest around me faded from awareness, replaced by a single, piercing thread of perception that stretched forward, forward, forward...

Toward the wall.

This was not something most people could do.

Perception, for ordinary ascendants, was a field. A bubble. Expanding evenly in all directions, growing weaker the farther it extended. Shaping it like this, altering its geometry, focusing it without losing resolution, was impossible for them.

For me, it was instinct.

A birthright.

A technique passed down through blood and bone, taught only within the royal family of the Velkaris Empire. The Moonbound Sight. A legacy refined over generations of rulers who needed to see threats long before those threats ever reached their borders.

I extended the line until it touched the wall.

The sensation was immediate and jarring.

Cold slammed into my senses, far more intense than what my body felt. The air density here was overwhelming, layered so thick it felt like pushing against a solid object.

I pressed harder.

My perception pierced.

The ice resisted, but parted.

And what I sensed on the other side made my heart stutter.

Power.

Raw, oppressive, coiled power that made the mana in my veins sing and recoil at the same time. It wasn't just ice. It wasn't just cold. There was something else woven through it, reinforcing it, elevating it.

Dualflow.

The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.

Dualflow energy, stronger than mana by orders of magnitude. Energy that didn't just obey the laws of magic but rewrote them. Energy that 90% of ascendants couldn't wield.

My pulse quickened.

Dread crawled up my spine.

And beneath it—

Excitement.

Pure, electric, terrifying excitement.

Because beyond the wall, deeper still, I felt movement.

A presence.

Vast.

Focused.

Alive.

Something was there.

Something that warranted walls to be raised like continents and chill the world with its passing.

Someone who would be the best person to find in this situation.

I swallowed hard, fingers tightening around moonlight and flame alike.

"…So that's where you are," I whispered.

The forest creaked softly around me.

The wall loomed, silent and eternal.

And my heart raced as the chapter of my understanding slammed shut, leaving me balanced on the edge of something enormous.

Something terrible.

Something glorious.

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