It happened before I even had a chance to prepare.
One moment, I was sitting at my table, staring at the system message. The next power surged through me, unbidden, wild, untamed.
The air around me twisted.
The candle flames flickered, warping sideways as if bending toward me. The walls groaned, the very structure of the palace reacting to my presence.
Every nerve in my body lit up as the mana around me rushed in, obeying a command I hadn't even spoken.
A pulse.
Not an explosion. Not a surge.
Just a pulse of something far greater than magic, something that felt like it came from beyond this world.
The room didn't just break.
It ceased to exist.
In an instant, every material thing within my chambers unraveled, dissolving into nothing but fragments of light and shadow, spiraling away into the void before reality snapped back together.
The walls gone.
The furniture gone.
The ceiling a gaping hole leading into the sky.
The floor beneath me barely held its shape, fragments of marble floating in mid-air, twisting like they were deciding whether to exist or not.
And at the center of it all me.
Standing in the aftermath of something I had no control over.
The air vibrated with lingering power, threads of energy flickering in and out of sight. It wasn't normal magic. It wasn't elemental. It wasn't light or dark.
It was something else.
Something that shouldn't be.
The system chimed.
[ New Magic Unlocked: Abyssal Requiem ]
Description: A reality-warping magic that exists beyond conventional laws. It does not destroy. It does not create. It rewrites. A power that bends existence itself to the will of its wielder. Unstable. Unmastered.
Current Status: Catastrophic.
I stared.
I had many questions.
First: What the hell does "Catastrophic" mean?!
Second: What do you mean it "rewrites existence"? That seemed concerning.
Before I could process any of this, the screaming started.
The maids, who had been blissfully unaware of what was happening just moments ago, now stood at the entrance, staring at the destruction with absolute horror.
Elira clutched her chest like she was about to have a heart attack.
Mara, who had miraculously survived despite being in the room with me, crawled out from under the remains of what had once been a chair. She looked around at the destruction, then at me.
"…Did we just get attacked again?" she asked, blinking slowly.
One of the other maids grabbed her by the shoulders. "DOES THIS LOOK LIKE AN ATTACK?!"
Mara squinted at the ruins of my room. "I mean, kinda?"
Elira's voice broke. "PRINCESS, WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Glanced at the floating pieces of marble still defying gravity.
Then, in a very calm, very rational voice, I said, "…Oops."
Elira looked like she was going to faint.
The rest of the maids had already bolted down the hall, screaming about a second attack.
Great. Just great.
I tried waving my hands, attempting to dismiss whatever lingering effects were still floating in the air.
It did not work.
Instead, the fragments of reality that had been hovering around me shifted, bending inward, reshaping themselves into something different.
A rippling mirage of energy formed at my fingertips, distorting everything around it. The very air twisted unnaturally, like space itself was trying to rearrange.
I immediately stopped moving.
"…Okay," I muttered. "So that's a thing."
Then I heard them.
Two very distinct, very familiar presences moving toward me at alarming speed.
Oh no.
Oh no, no, no.
I barely had time to brace myself before my mothers arrived.
The entrance to my now-nonexistent room was obliterated instantly as Verania and Sylvithra stepped into the wreckage, eyes scanning the destruction.
For a brief moment, no one spoke.
Sylvithra's eyes narrowed. "Elyzara."
Verania tilted her head. "Little one."
I froze.
"Hi," I said weakly.
They both stared at me.
Then at the ruins.
Then back at me.
Verania slowly crossed her arms. "Would you like to explain why your bedroom no longer exists?"
Sylvithra glanced at the fragments of marble floating in defiance of all logic. "And why space is currently folding in on itself?"
I swallowed.
Mara, ever helpful, poked her head out from behind me. "Oh! She did a thing!"
Verania blinked. "A… thing."
Mara nodded. "A big thing. A magic thing! A 'we should probably be very concerned' thing!"
I gently shoved her back down.
Verania pinched the bridge of her nose. "This family is going to give me gray hair."
Sylvithra sighed and extended a hand. Silver magic crawled through the space around her, scanning the damage, analyzing whatever residual energy was left behind.
Her violet eyes narrowed further.
"This magic…" she murmured.
Verania glanced at her. "Bad?"
Sylvithra didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she stepped forward, carefully raising a single finger. A thin silver thread of magic extended from it, touching one of the floating fragments of my destroyed furniture.
The moment her magic made contact, the fragment reacted violently, twisting, shifting, rewriting itself into a completely different material.
Sylvithra's expression did not change.
She turned to me. "You used this ability without understanding what it was."
I hesitated. "…Yes?"
She sighed. "I should have expected that."
Verania finally seemed to register the problem. She turned back to me, her eyes narrowing with sudden interest.
"Wait a second," she said slowly, her grin fading slightly. "What exactly is your new magic?"
Sylvithra was no longer just observing she was analyzing. I could see it in the way her fingers twitched slightly, magic already forming at her fingertips, ready to counter anything unpredictable.
I hesitated. "Well… funny story about that…"
Both of them stared at me.
I could not tell them the truth.
If I casually admitted that I had somehow awakened a magic that could rewrite reality, I had no doubt they'd lock me in a room and force me to undergo a hundred years of magical testing.
So, lying it is.
I waved a hand vaguely at the chaos around us. "I… actually have no idea what happened?"
Sylvithra narrowed her eyes. "You do not know?"
"Not at all!" I said way too quickly. "One second, I was eating dinner, the next, boom! Floating marble, collapsing space, very dramatic lighting—"
Verania held up a hand. "Alright, alright. We get it."
Sylvithra's gaze flickered to the shards of warped space still hovering unnaturally in the air.
"You cannot control it," she stated.
I nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! No control! Very dangerous. Probably shouldn't happen again."
Verania and Sylvithra exchanged a look.
Not a good look.
A look that meant they were about to treat me like an unstable magical anomaly that needed immediate containment.
Which, to be fair, was technically correct.
Sylvithra exhaled, stepping closer. "Then we need to suppress it before it destabilizes further."
Verania crossed her arms. "Can you dispel it?"
I blinked. "I… don't know?"
Sylvithra's hands moved in the air, her magic weaving intricate silver runes. "I will assist. Focus your energy inward, redirect it, and try to contain it within yourself instead of releasing it externally."
Verania cracked her knuckles. "And if that doesn't work, I'll just punch it out of existence."
Sylvithra gave her a look. "That is not how magic works."
Verania shrugged. "Hasn't failed me yet."
I groaned. "Please do not punch my magic."
Sylvithra gestured. "Focus, Elyzara. Let's begin."
I took a deep breath, hoping to whatever gods existed that I wasn't about to break the palace even further.