Origin Witch - Blood on the Leaves
Two bodies lay tangled in the crushed ferns forty feet below, and neither of them was breathing.
Corinne hung beside the red cedar trunk, weightless in the night, and watched the steam lift off the nearer one’s opened throat.
One was a three-meter Timber Wolf. Its ribcage had caved in. Its black fur was soaked in dark, congealed blood that sparkled with tiny purple ether specks under the silver moon.
The other was a monster she had never seen in person before. A Giant Corrosive Flesh-Flower. Its thick, rubbery green stem was snapped in three places. Its yellow, saucer-sized central maw was torn wide open, leaking a thick, bubbling yellow sap that hissed as it ate through the damp leaf-mold beneath it.
Both were dead. They had slaughtered each other over a supply crate that lay cracked open ten feet away, its contents scattered in the mud.
Corinne did not care about the crate. Her eyes were fixed on the yellow sap pooling around the flower’s torn petals.
Through her spectacles, the blue text box pulsed:
[Corrosive Flesh-Flower Secretion (Grade-E)] [Properties: High Acidity / Volatile Organic Catalyst.] [Alchemical Application: Core ingredient for Acidic Decoctions, Corrosive Vials, and Armor-Melting Salves.]
[Timber Wolf Heart & Bile (Grade-E)] [Properties: Aggressive Physical Catalyst / Raw Mana Residue.] [Alchemical Application: Core ingredient for Offense-Type Potions, Slowness Decoctions, and Beast-Rage Stimulants.]
Corinne’s fingers tightened around the leather hilt of her Moonstone Carver.
Every potion she had brewed so far was defensive or restorative. Mana potions to keep her floating. Health potions to fix broken skin. Thermo-salves to stop the cold. She had been a merchant, a supplier, a girl counting logs and copper slabs in a wooden tower. That was who she was, not who she was becoming.
But Mickey Callahan’s mob was still out there. Jack’s West Coast gang was hunting near the creek. Outcasts were dying every night, and sooner or later, someone with a longbow or a fire-spell was going to notice that a girl floating in mid-air made a perfect target if she had no teeth.
“You can’t sell your way out of an ambush,” she whispered, her raspy voice swallowed by the wind.
She angled her upper body downward, pushing off the cedar trunk with her left hand.
She drifted down through the dark canopy like a white sheet dropped from a window, her dirty hospital gown fluttering around her hips. She stopped three feet above the bloody clearing, hovering directly over the dead Timber Wolf.
The smell hit her like a punch to the face. Sour wolf sweat, open intestines, and the acrid, battery-acid stink of the dying flower.
Corinne did not flinch. Five years of lying in hospital beds, watching nurses clean bedsores and change drain tubes, had stripped away whatever delicate disgust normal twenty-year-old girls were supposed to have. To her, blood was not horror. It was just fluid.
She pulled three empty 50ml glass test tubes from her herbalist bag.
Holding herself suspended three feet off the mud, she leaned over the wolf’s torn chest, unsheathed her Moonstone Carver, and drove the crystal blade into the animal’s exposed neck artery.
Squilch.
The crystal edge sliced through the thick, tough hide like wet paper. Dark, thick wolf blood, heavy with unrefined mana, poured out along the blade. Corinne caught the stream in her glass tubes, filling three vials to the brim before plugging them with cork stoppers.
Next came the heart.
Using her Moonstone Carver’s +30 Strength boost, she levered the wolf’s broken ribs apart with a sickening crack, cut the dark purple heart free from its connective tissue, and slid the fist-sized muscle straight into her Pouch of Preservation. The spatial bag’s internal stasis field immediately froze the tissue, stopping the blood from dripping onto her clothes.
She turned her attention to the Giant Flesh-Flower.
The yellow sap bubbling around the petals was dangerous. Through her spectacles, she could see tiny wisps of green smoke rising where the fluid touched the dirt, eating through pine needles and small stones in seconds.
“Don’t touch the glass lip,” she muttered to herself, her thumb steady as she held an open test tube half an inch above a pool of yellow sap.
Using a flat wooden scoop she had brought from her workshop, she carefully scooped the thick, sizzling fluid into the glass tube. The glass grew warm in her hand, but the high-silica material held against the acid.
She filled four vials of flower sap, three vials of wolf blood, and harvested two long, rubbery tentacle fibers from the flower’s base before pushing off the muddy ground and rising twenty feet back into the safety of the dark branches.
Her hands were covered in dark wolf blood up to her wrists, and her gown hem was splattered with yellow acid spots that had burned tiny, pea-sized holes through the cotton.
She did not care.
She checked her status panel.
Mana Points: 62/80.
She had twenty minutes before her flight time hit the safety margin.
“Back to the Spire,” she grunted, turning her body east.
Ten minutes later, she glided through the third-floor glass balcony of her high tower, dropped into her workshop on the second floor, and unlatched her iron water tap.
She washed her hands and her crystal knife in cold Anseic Water, watching the dark red wolf blood wash down the zinc drain. She pulled off her dirty hospital gown, threw it into a laundry bucket, and slipped into the clean, simple white cotton dress she had pulled out from her first supply crate.
She drifted over to her Abyssal Meteorite Cauldron.
The dark blue star-iron pot was dry and clean, resting securely on her three-legged granite array base.
Corinne set her four vials of corrosive flower sap, her three vials of wolf blood, and the dark, frozen wolf heart onto her stone workbench.
She opened Basic Alchemical Potions to page eighty-four: Offense-Type Volatile Decoctions.
The textbook laid out the formula:
Grade-E Slowness Decoction: Base Solvent: 200ml Pure Anseic Water. Primary Catalyst: 50ml Corrosive Flower Sap (Acidic Base). Secondary Binding: 10g Ground Wolf Heart Tissue (Physical Drag). Stabilizer: 5g Pulverized Bitter-Grass Root.
“A liquid anchor,” Corinne murmured, her eyes scanning the text behind her spectacles. “It doesn’t just burn. The wolf heart tissue binds the acidic sap to the target’s skin, forcing the raw ether to penetrate their muscles and drain their Agility attribute.”
She did not waste time.
She poured two hundred milliliters of pure spring water into the meteorite cauldron, tapped the golden glyph on her granite base to ignite the alchemical fire, and brought the water to a simmer.
Using her Abyssal Meteorite Mortar, she crushed a three-inch piece of frozen wolf heart alongside ten grams of dry Bitter-Grass root. The meteorite pestle ground the tough muscle tissue into a fine, dark-purple paste in less than two minutes, the 50% extraction efficiency boost turning the organ into a perfectly smooth alchemical binder.
She dumped the purple paste into the simmering spring water.
The cauldron answered with a long, wiry hiss.
The water turned a dark, murky violet, bubbling violently as the wolf blood reacted with the pure Anseic fluid.
Then, holding her breath behind a damp cloth mask, Corinne uncorked two vials of the yellow corrosive flower sap and poured them slowly down the inner rim of the cauldron.
A muffled thump and a click rattled the pot’s lid.
A soft, muffled concussive pop echoed inside the pot. A cloud of thick, sulfurous yellow-green smoke erupted from the liquid, hitting the workshop ceiling before drifting out the open balcony window.
The dark violet water changed color, turning into a thick, sickly mustard-yellow sludge that swirled in lazy, oily circles without Corinne even needing to use her stirring rod. The Abyssal Meteorite Cauldron’s secondary enchantment was Automatic Thermal Variance Balancing. It automatically adjusted the heat from the granite base below, keeping the volatile mixture from exploding.
Corinne watched the pot for fifteen minutes, her hand holding her Moonstone Carver tight just in case the brew went unstable.
The mustard sludge shrank down, thickening until it looked like molten yellow wax.
At the fifteen-minute mark, the liquid flared with a sharp, ugly, pale-green light.
Done.
Corinne let the pot cool for five minutes, then used her glass funnel to transfer the thick, yellow sludge into ten small, round glass throw-vials she had traded from Jasper earlier.
She picked up one of the completed round vials and held it up to her spectacles.
A burnished gold text box appeared over the yellow glass:
[Grade-E Offense Potion: Corrosive Slowness Decoction] [Type: Throw-Impact Volatile Decoction.] [Effect: Upon glass shatter, explodes into a 3-meter mist cloud. Inflicts 30 Acid Damage to armor/skin and reduces target’s Agility attribute by 3 Points for 15 seconds.] [Purity: 94%.] [Note: A terrifyingly lethal offensive weapon crafted by an amateur witch. The mixture adheres violently to organic tissue upon contact. Highly recommended for airborne carpet-bombing.]
Corinne stared at the readout.
Reduces target’s Agility by 3 Points.
Average human Agility was around 5 or 6. Losing 3 points of Agility meant your legs felt like they were encased in wet cement. Your reaction time dropped, your movement slowed to a crawl, and your body became a sitting duck.
For a girl who lived thirty yards in the air, a target that could not run was a target that was already dead.
She picked up all ten round yellow vials, sliding them carefully into the padded leather loops inside her Pouch of Preservation.
She floated out onto her third-floor high observation terrace, resting her hands against the cold timber railing.
The night sky over Sector 666 was quiet now. The silver moon was sinking toward the western horizon, casting long, pale light across the endless canopy of giant trees. Somewhere five miles to the south, a faint orange glow flickered above the treeline. Mickey Callahan’s mob stronghold, burning fires through the dark.
Corinne reached into her bag, her fingers brushing the smooth, cold glass of a yellow throw-vial.
She did not smile. She did not whisper a dramatic villain speech.
She just adjusted her black frames, pulled her thin white dress tight against the cold night wind, and looked out over the black forest like a crow perched on a high gallows.
Her leaf-mark seared hot on her wrist a half-second before the sky tore open.
The deep purple vault above Sector 666 split in a silent, jagged seam of violet lightning. It did not cast shadows so much as turn every broad oak leaf into a blade of glowing lavender. There was no thunder, only a sudden, heavy pressure in the back of Corinne’s ear canals, like dropping three thousand feet in an unpressurized cabin within two seconds.
She was twenty yards from the trunk of The Spire, hovering twelve feet off the damp leaf-mold near the creek bank.
In her right hand, she held the iron handle of her dark-oak water bucket. She had come down to scoop a fresh forty pounds of creek fluid to test whether her new granite array base held up under continuous boiling, figuring the quiet midnight hours were as good a time as any for grunt work.
The leaf-mark on the back of her wrist pulsed once. Hot, sharp, like a bee sting.
Global System Announcement: Seven-day Novice Protection Period has officially concluded. Environmental Status: Ether Turbulence Phase 1 initiated. Raw atmospheric mana density has exceeded safety thresholds. Spell stability across all unregistered outdoor sectors is reduced by 85%.
Corinne’s eyes widened behind her black frames, but before her brain could fully process the phrase spell stability, the warm, water-like cushion of air supporting her ribs vanished.
It did not taper off. It did not flicker. It snapped.
Gravity, cold and indifferent, slammed into her body with the force of a falling iron beam.
“Ah!”
The scream caught in her throat as she plummeted straight out of the sky.
The drop was only twelve feet, but twelve feet when your legs are dead weights hanging beneath you is an eternity of pure terror. Corinne could not absorb the impact with her knees. She could not land on her feet, flex her ankles, or roll out of the momentum like a trained athlete. She was just two hundred pounds of bone, meat, and iron-bucket dropping like a bag of wet laundry.
A sharp crack snapped through the still air.
Her knees hit the exposed, moss-covered granite root first, making a sickening, dull sound. The rest of her body whipped forward, slamming her chest into the damp earth while her forehead smashed sideways against a sharp piece of quartz embedded in the mud.
The oak bucket flew out of her hand, crashing against a stone five feet away and splintering into four jagged wooden staves. Water splashed across her face, icy and full of gravel.
For five seconds, the world was nothing but a high-pitched ringing inside her ears.
Corinne lay flat in the mud, her face pressed into crushed pine needles and cold silt. She could not feel her legs. She had not felt them in five years, so there was no pain down there, but her chest felt like someone had driven a wooden fence post through her ribs. Her lungs refused to pull in air, rattling in dry, shallow hitches.
Then came the wet warmth spreading down her right eyebrow.
Blood. Hot, thick, smelling strongly of copper, running down the bridge of her nose and pooling in her right eye socket, blinding her in a blur of crimson.
She tried to push herself up. Her elbows dug into the wet mud, her hands shaking so violently she could not spread her fingers wide enough for leverage.
Zephyr Float, she screamed internally, her mind clawing frantically at the leaf-mark on her right hand. Zephyr Float! Activate! Activate!
Nothing happened.
The leaf-mark stayed cold, dark, and lifeless against her skin.
A wave of icy, paralyzing terror rushed up from her stomach, colder than the mud soaking through her white dress. It hit her harder than the fall had. It choked her.
It’s gone, her mind shrieked, the old, terrible voice from Sector 9 echoing in her skull. The magic is gone. The system broke. You’re back on your back. You’re stuck in the mud. You can’t move. You’re just meat.
“No,” she wheezed, her voice a pathetic, gurgling raspy whisper. “No, no, no.”
She clawed at the dirt with her fingernails, hauling her upper body forward six inches by her arms. Her dead legs trailed behind her like two sacks of wet sand, snagging on thorn bushes and jagged stone edges. The sharp thorns tore through the thin cotton of her dress, scratching her thighs, but she could not feel the cuts. She could only feel the heavy, dragging friction of her own useless flesh being pulled across the ground.
Ten inches. Eight inches.
Her breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps that tore at her throat. Mud caked her chin, filling her mouth with the bitter taste of dead moss and worm castings.
A shadow moved in the brush twenty feet ahead.
Through her clear left eye, Corinne saw two pale, yellow eyes staring at her from the thickets. A lone, hungry forest hound, attracted by the fresh smell of her blood. It did not rush in. It took a slow, cautious step, sniffing the air, its dark lip curling back to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.
Corinne’s right hand flew to her waist, her muddy fingers reaching for the hilt of the Moonstone Carver.
Her grip slipped twice on the smooth, blood-slicked leather wrapping. On the third try, her fingers locked around the handle, pulling the transparent crystal blade from her belt.
Strength +30.
The warm, heavy jolt of raw physical power rushed up her arm, stabilizing her chest muscles enough for her to haul herself another foot forward.
“Come on,” she snarled through her bloody teeth, glaring at the hound through her one good eye, her crystal blade raised in a shaky guard. “Come get a taste, you ugly bastard. Come on!”
The hound let out a low, vibrating growl, crouching its hind legs to leap.
Corinne dug her elbows into the mud and pulled her body over a smooth, moss-covered granite ridge. The outer boundary stone where her treehole’s protective ward began.
The outer boundary stone where her treehole’s protective ward began let out a low woosh; the heavy, violent pressure in her ears vanished.
The raw, chaotic howling of the wind twenty feet outside the ward line softened into a quiet, distant rustle. The ambient air inside the perimeter turned calm, warm, and still, smelling purely of pine sap and dry timber.
The leaf-mark on her wrist flared with a bright, steady green light.
Zephyr Float.
Her mass vanished. Her torso lifted six inches off the damp earth, floating effortlessly above the sharp rocks and mud. Her dead legs untangled themselves from the thorn bushes, dangling freely beneath her once again at their loose, slack angle.
The hound leaped, but it hit the shimmering, invisible barrier of the shelter ward ten feet out, bouncing off the hard air with a pathetic yip before scrambling backward into the brush and disappearing into the dark.
Corinne did not chase it. She did not move.
She stayed suspended in the air three inches above the dirt, her chest heaving, her hands clutching the crystal knife so hard her knuckles turned white under the mud. Blood still dripped from her eyebrow, dropping off her chin onto the white cotton of her dress in heavy, wet splats.
Her mind was a chaotic storm of shock, rage, and lingering, bone-deep terror.
It had not been a loss of talent. It had not been a permanent breakdown of the system.
It was the environment. The Ether Turbulence mentioned in the global alert had turned the ambient magic outside the shelter boundaries into a violent, unrefined tempest, disrupting any low-tier spell cast in the open wild. Inside her shelter’s ward, the ancient tree’s protective array filtered the atmospheric noise, keeping the internal environment stable.
She was safe inside her boundary. But outside, the sky was a trap.
Corinne wiped her bloody eye with her sleeve, her hand shaking so hard the Moonstone Carver rattled against her belt buckle. She looked at her splintered oak bucket lying twenty feet away outside the ward line, its dark wood split down the middle, its iron band twisted into a useless oval.
She did not laugh. She did not cry.
She let the crystal knife slip from her grip into her lap and watched her own blood keep falling, one slow, fat drop at a time, onto the white cotton of her dress.
— Origin Witch —