Lucimia crouched behind a bookshelf, shivering like winter leaves while she stared at the blood-slick scene.

Fear pressed on her chest like cold river water. Help the blond, or slip out the window in the chaos?

Her heart leaned hard toward escape, like a sparrow veering from a hawk. She only wanted good food, easy drink, simple fun—no more storms. Two-on-one had teeth; what if she lost?

She wanted to live, pure and simple, like a candle guarding its last flame. With their strength unknown, the rational move was retreat.

Sorry, Goldie, she thought, a dry laugh like wind over tombstones. I’ll burn you extra joss paper once I’m out.

“Hm? What are you doing here?”

“?!”

Goosebumps skittered over her skin like a spider’s cold feet. She flinched, then darted two steps forward to open space, turning like a deer under a falling branch.

The boy in black had ghosted behind her, silent as ink soaking into paper.

She flicked a glance at the blond. He still fought, like driftwood battering a whirlpool. The woman gnawing at him needed time and force to swallow him whole.

No choice, then. Help him. Another body meant another sliver of survival, like one more reed in a flood. Worst case, sell him later.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” The boy smiled, a sawblade grin cutting like frost.

“Oh,” she said, voice light as mist, “I was about to ambush you.”

“Heh heh. Aren’t you a sheltered lady from your family? What are you ambushing with—your tattered book?”

Lucimia held her tongue, chin lifted like a cat on a wall. She slid her right hand behind her back, slow and poised, as if palming a secret charm.

It worked. He stopped, caution blooming like a thorny hedge.

Maybe she wasn’t soft at all. Maybe her family had released a wolf wearing silk, he thought, doubt coiling like smoke.

“Hmph. Let me test you and I’ll know.”

His five fingers lengthened like knife-thorns. He hunched and burst forward, claws aimed at her throat like crescent moons.

Lucimia frowned, a ripple in moonlit water. She mirrored his crouch, posture taut, right hand poised to snap forward, a bowstring ready to sing.

She looked too steady to be bluffing, like a mountain that wouldn’t move. He slammed on the brakes halfway, fear needling his spine.

He imagined her blade splitting him the moment he stepped in, because her calm was a still lake hiding deep currents.

He stopped. Lucimia didn’t.

Her right hand cut forward, and a spear of condensed water bloomed in her grip like moonlight hardened to glass.

She gave it a dramatic name, voice ringing like a bell: “Spear of the Azure Moon!” The point leveled at him, sharp as winter.

His instincts cheered his caution. He gaped his mouth and vomited black mist, a tar curtain rising like a storm wall.

He braced, shielded, like a crab tucked inside its shell.

Lucimia feinted at him, pressure like a hawk’s shadow forcing his attention. Then she spun, wind in silk, and hurled the spear at the woman.

Whoosh.

The spear punched into the woman’s body with clean, wet force, like a stake through river ice.

“What?!” The boy’s focus stayed glued to his shield, blind as a horse in blinkers.

“Ahhh—!” The woman screamed, a sound like glass splintering. She dropped the blond and clawed her own face, tearing while shrieking.

“Ahhh, it hurts, it hurts!” Her nails carved her cheeks like knives through wax, stripping skin in ribbons, exposing bloody flesh and pale bone. Her body-suit melted like butter in a hot pan.

Her true form spilled out: an octopus the size of Lucimia’s head, tentacles flailing in midair like whipcord, ink coughing from a jagged mouth.

Lucimia stared, stunned, mind blank as fresh paper.

She’d never expected her basic water spell to hit like that. It was only ordinary condensation—just meant to mess her up so the guy could bolt. How did a spear yank out an octopus?

“Youuu! It’s your fault! You ruined my body!” The octopus rasped like rusted iron. “I’ll kill you! I’ll take your body!”

It sprang up and floated, eight tentacles thrashing like snakes in a storm. Each swelled as if flooding with water, growing thick and ugly.

Lucimia saw those tentacles and remembered certain illicit comics from her past life, images writhing like shadows. A chill crawled over her spine.

She refused to be that kind of protagonist. She pulled water again, calling it like rain to a cupped hand.

This time the boy refused her preparation. He’d tasted the water’s bite. He didn’t know why a simple spell pierced a Deceiver’s veil, but fear pooled in him like night.

He dropped the act. His right arm ruptured, replaced by a thick tentacle, suction cups cramped together and pulsing like a heartbeat.

He snapped it toward her right hand, aiming to shatter her casting like a stone through a window.

Lucimia caught it in her peripheral, cool as moonlight. She couldn’t let him break her flow. An idea flickered like a firefly.

She lifted her gaze past him and shouted, wild as a fox: “Go, Goldie! It’s yours!”

“What?! An ambush?!” His nerves jerked like reins. He braked again, whipping his body in a spin so the tentacle dragged behind him.

Thump. The tentacle smacked wood, a dull knock like a drum.

He blinked. No blond behind him. Just rows of shelves like dark cliffs. The blond still lay unconscious by the front desk, a fallen reed in the corner.

Realization cut him, sharp as sleet. Tricked twice by the same woman.

“Mother—!” he spat, anger spitting sparks.

If he didn’t know she was the Exorcist Family’s daughter, he’d suspect her as a follower of Elyssus—his Blessing gave disguise, hers felt like pure deception.

Those heartbeats were enough. Lucimia drew only a compact water orb this time, speed quick as a tossed pebble.

She flicked her finger. The orb shot at the octopus, snapped against a tentacle with a wet pop, and that limb blew apart like a burst hose.

The octopus swelled, then deflated, body collapsing like a punctured balloon. It shrank to a thin sheet of paper drifting down, touched floor, crumbled into powder, and water washed the grit away like rain polishing stone.

Dead. The Deceiver died so clean that even ash went with the flow.

Lucimia stared at her own hands, disbelief fluttering like a trapped sparrow. Her magic had roared like a storm.

That beginner’s condensation spell had landed like a Grand Magus’s sixth-tier strike.

She’d expected a grueling brawl, tricks spent, breaths traded, and an escape only after selling Goldie like a pawn. Instead, one enemy fell like a leaf.