Origin Witch - Outcast Witch, Flying

Mist off the high canopy smelled like wet spruce needles and cold stone at five in the morning.

Corinne hovered at the very top of The Spire, fifty meters above the forest floor, on the broad high observation terrace of her third-floor tower. She didn’t use Zephyr Float to roam. Her dark linen tunic hung straight down past her hips, leather belt cinched tight at her waist, holding the Moonstone Carver and two padded pouches of volatile yellow throw-vials. Her bare soles hovered an inch above the sun-warmed timber floorboards, five inches apart, ankles locked, knees steady on her weightless lift.

She was upright above her own legs, looking out over her kingdom. To the south, Garrett Thorne’s war-band held the narrow granite pass at the Southern Canopy Gate, stone fortresses like gray crowns atop the ridge. The Iron-Ridge Coalition under General Caldwell had completely withdrawn, sending trade wagons down into the ford to swap copper ore and obsidian blocks for Corinne’s anti-acid salves.

To the east, Jasper Finch’s central clearinghouse buzzed with activity. Dozens of trade teams hauled timber, stone, and iron into his warehouses, every transaction priced in Red Vials and Blue Vials, the central currency of Sector 666. To the west, Piper Bell’s log cabin kitchen sent up three steady plumes of white wood-smoke, preparing hundreds of clay pots of Volcanic Fish Stew to feed the Syndicate’s border patrols.

Four miles of giant oak forest. Three thousand surviving outcasts. Every single one tied directly to the high tower of The Spire.

Thirty-nine days ago, Corinne Mercer had woken on a bed of cold straw in a treehole, her legs dead weights beneath a dirty hospital gown, abandoned in a rat-infested slum shack on Earth to starve in the dark. Now she ruled Sector 666.

Her Magic Desk interface projected a private message into her black frames. Jasper Finch reported that the morning trade ledger was locked. They’d accumulated another sixty thousand wood units, twelve thousand stone blocks, and eighty Grade-E monster cores. Sector 666 was completely secured. When she asked about the inner rings, Finch said his scouts on the Sector 600 border ridge reported the high-tier factions on the floating marble islands were desperate for high-purity potions. The regional bounty on ninety-three percent pure health vials had doubled to one hundred thousand trade units. They were asking for the Origin Witch by name.

Corinne didn’t smile. She adjusted her wire frames, dark eyes looking north toward the floating marble islands of Sector 600 hovering above the cloud layer. She sent word that the price was three D-Rank Fire Element Essences per case, and if they didn’t like it they could drink creek water. A pleasure doing business with them.

She closed the messaging thread.

SCREEECH.

A thunderous iron-clad shriek cut through the morning sky. Steelwool swooped down out of the high clouds, massive eighteen-foot steel wings beating the cold air with a heavy, rhythmic pounding that blew pine needles across the terrace. The Glacial Strix landed heavily on the high balcony railing, six-inch iron talons gripping the timber, broad metallic feathers gleaming like polished gray armor under the morning sun. Across its thick shoulders rested the custom double-layered boar-hide saddle, fitted with copper stirrups and heavy leather reins.

The owl turned its massive steel-plated head, honey-colored eyes fixed on Corinne, letting out a low vibrating purr that shook the balcony railing.

Corinne drifted across the terrace floorboards. She didn’t limp. She didn’t hesitate. Her bare feet moved with smooth unhurried precision, soles skimming the wood, heels never striking hard. She reached the giant bird, swung her left leg over the broad leather saddle, and settled into the seat. She slid her bare feet into the custom copper stirrups, knees clamping tight against Steelwool’s steel-plated shoulder feathers, gloved hands gripping the heavy leather reins.

She reached into her spatial bag, pulling out the six-sided glowing Grade-C Magic Core she’d synthesized in her cauldron the night before. She slotted the purple gem directly into the master socket of Steelwool’s flight harness.

The great wings beat once more, and the cold air rushed past in a steady gale.

The Glacial Strix’s steel feathers erupted in a blinding pale-blue flare of pure elemental energy. Its wings expanded to twenty feet, cutting the high mountain wind like two broad blades of forged iron.

Corinne looked out over Kaelum. Far to the north, beyond the floating marble islands of Sector 600, the giant obsidian silhouette of the Origin Citadel pierced the upper atmosphere, radiating a slow eternal pulse of golden magic across the cosmic sky. She wasn’t a paralyzed orphan on a pipe-frame cot in Sector 9. She wasn’t a helpless girl hiding in a hollow oak tree. She had built her spire. She had mastered her alchemy. She had reclaimed her reach.

“Steelwool,” Corinne said softly into the roaring wind.

The bird tilted its massive head, honey-colored eyes glowing with fierce predatory light. “Fly.”

The giant Glacial Strix launched off the high railing of The Spire, massive steel wings beating the cold air as it shot straight up into the endless sunlit sky. Corinne Mercer rode tall in her stirrups on the owl’s back, dark tunic fluttering in the gale, black wire spectacles reflecting the golden horizon ahead. No longer an outcast, no longer a victim, but the Origin Witch of Kaelum, taking flight into the infinite beyond. Below her the canopy shrank to a green carpet, the Spire a single dark tooth among the trees, and the inner rings opened before her like a map she had finally earned the right to read. She banked the owl’s path northward, toward the marble edges of Sector 600, and did not look back.