The sky looked mythic—golden clouds stretched across the heavens, soaked in radiant, ethereal light.
Too beautiful. Too still.
The world was quiet, almost empty, its vastness echoing hollow and unanswered. Unease hid beneath the calm, coiled and waiting.
The four stood together—Adam, Lucy, Abbie, and Nark—silent as they took in their surroundings.
Something felt wrong.
Not hostile.
Unnatural.
They had arrived too early. The war had not yet begun.
Lucy lifted her gaze to the alien sky, doubt slowly creeping into her chest.
"Where are all the other participants?" Abbie asked, turning to Nark—the most experienced among them.
"It seems we're early," Nark replied, already stepping away.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" Adam shouted.
"It doesn't matter," Nark said without looking back. "Once it starts, we'll be separated anyway."
Then—
The sky screamed.
Violent voices tore through the heavens as inexperienced sorcerers fell from above, screaming for their lives. Hundreds of millions descended at once—some landing with practiced grace, others shattering against jagged terrain.
Across Wister, billions of souls poured into the world.
A sick tactic.
A first cull—meant to thin the numbers before the real slaughter began.
The Wister War was a yearly event, held on the 20th of October, Galactic Standard.
Legends claimed it coincided with the birthday of a god.
As Nark walked away, her back turned, she spoke one last time.
"Brenn did this so you could see each other one last time."
She paused.
"Use it well."
Abbie opened her mouth, fury flashing at the implication—but a sharp, blunt pain slammed into her skull. She collapsed, screaming.
"Abbie!" Lucy lunged toward her—
—and was struck by the same invisible force.
Agony speared through Lucy's mind, white-hot and merciless. Adam cried out. Across the world, every participant touching Wister's soil fell as information flooded their consciousness.
The familiar disembodied voice returned—the hooded, cloaked hologram—its tone cold, mechanical, absolute.
Wister.
Named after Lord Owin Wister, the shardless mage who once stopped an entire war alone.
A massive rocky world, mostly drowned beneath the vast Blood Ocean.
Five super-continents—classified as islands—served as the only battlefields of the Wister War:
Frozen Fields — North
Red Desert — South
Bleeding Forest — West
Stone Fields — East
Falling Mountains — Center
General Rules & Information
1. Entry is final.
Branded participants must compete or face secret execution.
2. Forced distribution.
Participants are randomly spread across four islands. Leaving one's assigned region results in instant death.
No one begins in the Falling Mountains.
3. Area saturation.
Each region has a survivor quota. Once exceeded, ether-enhanced natural calamities activate and kill indiscriminately.
4. Kill density.
Survival requires eliminating other mages and Mana Madness victims.
A mage kill is worth 10 points.
Anything else is 5 points.
5. Power acceleration curse.
Each confirmed kill increases ether output.
6. Final cull.
On Day 13, when only ten million remain:
All areas freeze.
Magic ceases.
Anyone lacking a mana drive or required kill count is erased.
Survivors awaken alone on Godhaven.
7. Timeline — 13 Days
Days 1–3: Survival Phase
70–80% perish.
Environment and panic dominate.
Kill density silently activates.
Days 4–10: Containment Phase
Mana Madness victims released.
Mana drives and disks must be acquired from fallen participants or older registered vell sorcerers.
Days 11–12: Convergence Phase
The four islands collapse into the Falling Mountains, forming a single super-continent.
Day 13: Final Cull
On average, 13 billion participants enter.
Only 10 million may survive.
A survival rate of 0.076%.
The Golden Moon will terminate the war the instant ten million living signatures remain.
Anyone alive beyond the cap is automatically erased.
The four stood together, absorbing it all.
Lucy's hand trembled as she looked at Abbie.
"So… this is it."
Abbie cracked her knuckles, her grin fierce—uneasy beneath the bravado.
"One last time, then."
Adam's eyes scanned the terrain, already calculating.
Nark simply watched—calm, unreadable.
Then—
Darkness swallowed them.
Lucy was falling again.
Wind howled past her ears as hundreds of unfamiliar faces plummeted nearby. Abbie, Adam, and Nark were gone—scattered across the world, facing the same nightmare.
Some mages chose violence immediately.
During free fall, spells tore through bodies. Flesh burst. Blood spiraled through the air as killers dragged victims down with them, both dying in twisted collisions.
Lucy looked away, bile rising.
She remembered Brenn's words:
You will face people who no longer value their lives.
She steadied herself. Focused on the ground rushing up to meet her.
The disembodied voice thundered in her ear.
"Player No. 1013 has entered the Stone Fields."
Somewhere below, Wister roared.
And the War began.
Lucy hit the Stone Fields hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
Rock shattered beneath her back, pain blooming white across her vision. Before she could scream, a body crashed beside her—then another—then dozens more, raining from the sky like broken dolls. Screams snapped into wet silence as skulls split on stone. Blood pooled fast, dark and steaming against the pale rock.
And then the killing started.
Mages rose from the ground feral. No spells. No chants. Just hands, teeth, blades dragged from nowhere. A man tore another's throat out with his fingers. A woman smashed a head open against a boulder until it stopped moving, then kept going anyway. Laughter bled into sobbing. Mercy didn't exist here—only hunger wearing human skin.
Lucy scrambled backward, heart hammering, as the truth pressed in.
Wister War participants entered the battlefield empty.
No ether.
No reserves.
Nothing.
Every mage arrived hollowed out, stripped to flesh and instinct. Ether had to be earned—pulled from the world itself. From Nirvra, the latent essence embedded in stone, soil, bone. It was why they killed. Why they tore at each other with such desperation.
But there was another way.
Lucy saw it happen.
A sorcerer convulsed nearby—ether awakening violently within his body, blue light crawling beneath his skin. Before he could even understand what was happening, three others fell on him. One pinned him down. Another crushed his jaw open.
The third plunged their hands into his skull.
They ate his brain while he was still alive.
Power flared. Ether surged.
Lucy gagged, bile burning her throat as she forced herself to look away. Brenn's words echoed again, colder now.
You will face people who no longer value their lives.
Around her, the Stone Fields drank deeply.
And Lucy realized the worst truth of all—
This wasn't madness.
This was the system working exactly as intended.
The numbers were still to high and the madness had already began.