Roll time back a little.

At the breath when the banquet hall went hushed like a lake at dusk, the false Kaeli, the false Vittor, and the crowd froze like statues.

As the false Kaeli moved like a startled sparrow, the false Vittor moved like a striking eel.

Compared to the cowardly octopus that tried to grab Regino and flee like a pulling tide, the false Vittor was brazen as fire.

Facing a sea of Holy Knights, he didn’t carry a speck of fear, like a cliff against waves.

He flung his arms wide, and his body swelled like an inflating bladder in storm wind.

Boom—his whole body burst like a ruptured gourd, spraying endless black liquid like ink across snow.

Where it hit the floor, it ate through stone like acid rain, opening a yawning pit like a mouth.

When the black torrent finally ebbed like a receding flood, it revealed an octopus Lucimia knew by heart—the Blue Ringed Octopus.

“Not good! It opened a hole; it’s trying to run!” a voice cracked like breaking ice.

Heh-heh-heh. “Who said I’m fleeing? This pit’s the grave to bury your bones,” it rasped like a saw.

The Blue Ringed Octopus hovered on four tentacles like a dark kite, and raised the other four like spears.

From the suckers, razor spines slid out like thorns after rain, cold and bright.

With a sly cackle like a crow, it whipped silver-lit tentacles like blades at a stunned noble.

It wasn’t running; it was hunting like a wolf at dusk.

A red silhouette flashed in like a streak of sunset.

Shing—steel sang like a lark, pure and sharp.

With that clear ring, the octopus’s swinging tentacle dropped like a felled branch.

Splat—the severed half hit the floor like a dead fish, limp and wet.

The red figure skated through the air like a swallow, landed, and slid, stopping with one hand braced like a dagger in earth.

It was the young Purification Knight—Desty, a spark of dawn in mail.

She had meant to cut down the false Kaeli like pruning a thorn, but Lucimia moved first like lightning.

So she turned her blade toward the false Vittor like diverting a river’s course.

She vaulted from her spot like a springing cat, used the banquet tables like stepping stones across a stream, and crossed half the hall.

Too fast to track with the naked eye, she flashed past the Blue Ringed Octopus like moonlight over water.

Her longsword left the scabbard like a swan’s wing, and one cut severed the tentacle like silk.

The whole sequence flowed like rain down eaves, clean and crisp as winter air.

The Blue Ringed Octopus froze like ice, stared at its half-remaining limb, then screamed a heartbeat later like a whistle.

“Damn you, I’ll gut you!” it roared like thunder trapped in a jar.

All its tentacles lashed at once like a storm of reeds, and Desty lifted her blade like a mast.

Steel met spine in close quarters, sparks snapping like fireflies.

Clang-clang rolled through the hall like drums, echoing off marble like ripples.

A tentacle chopped down from above like an axe, and Desty turned her wrist like a turning key.

Her sword flicked up, catching the heavy strike like a shield catching rain.

But one blade against eight arms is a lone tree in gale.

A side lash came like a snake, and the red-haired girl reversed her grip like flipping a fan.

She twisted her waist like winding silk and cut toward the second tentacle like cutting bamboo.

The Blue Ringed Octopus grinned like a slit, and a third tentacle came from behind like a shadow.

It hammered Desty’s backplate like a mallet, and she stumbled like a deer on ice, almost falling.

She caught herself on her sword like a staff, then sprang back to open space like a bird.

Her backplate bore a scored crack like a dry riverbed.

A jolt of shock rippled through her chest like cold water. Are those spines really this sharp?

Everything but the sword in her hand was butter under a hot knife; armor cut like tofu on a plate.

She couldn’t even tell if her back was grazed, a hot sting like nettles.

She couldn’t drag this out, like tar that only sinks the more you struggle.

Resolve settled like a stone. Desty drove her sword into the floor and closed her eyes like shutters.

Dazzling white light bloomed at her brow like dawn, then spread outward like ripples in milk.

It swelled into a white orb like a pearl, then split in two like a cleaved moon.

One half sank into her blade as enchantment like snow on steel.

The other drifted behind her and twisted like smoke, shaping into White Swords of light.

Eight White Swords formed in all, four to a side behind her like guardian wings.

As magic has forms like waves, a Swordmaster has sword arts like constellations.

She drew her sword anew like drawing breath and whispered, “Sword of Purification,” soft as ash falling.

The eight White Swords flew out together like swallows, and circled the Blue Ringed Octopus like a tightening gyre.

They began the kill, grinding in like millstones around grain.

The Blue Ringed Octopus panicked like a cornered boar and thrashed every tentacle to parry like flailing oars.

But this time the tide turned; its reach was bound like weeds in current.

With the octopus’s limbs delayed like snagged nets, Desty gripped her sword and stepped forward one stride like a stamp.

She set her stance like a rooted pine, unshaken.

White radiance pulsed along her blade like heartbeat, growing fierce as noon.

She gathered strength like drawing a bow and cut.

A wave of white sword-light surged out like a breaking tide, majestic and cold.

It tore through the octopus’s tentacles like wheat before a scythe, severing them all.

Deprived of its lift, the octopus crashed to the floor like a dropped stone and squirmed like a headless worm.

Only the body remained, trembling and crawling like mud.

Now it finally chose to flee, panic blooming like smoke.

It spewed black liquid like bile; the venom ate the floor like lye, opening a pit like a well.

It tried to dive in like an eel into a hole.

By then, the fight had reached the point where Lucimia finished her talk with her father, words fading like embers.

She recognized the octopus at a glance—the very Blue Ringed Octopus that had tried to seize her in the bookshop, a shadow from earlier.

Seeing it try to flee, she wouldn’t let it go, anger flaring like a spark and held in check like a bridled horse.

Mindful of her magic’s peculiar effects, she summoned an ice prison above it like a hanging cage.

It dropped and framed the octopus like frostbit iron, then kissed the ground like winter.

Frost spread outward like creeping ivy, and sealed the prison fully through its body like glass poured in place.

With that done, the night’s primary task settled like a stamp on wax.

But the plan hadn’t been explained to the other nobles, so they shook like leaves after wind.

Bazeroth stepped out at the right moment like a steady pillar and soothed them.

“Don’t worry, everyone. The Holy Water you drank earlier resists the taint of any Evil Entity,” he said like a calm bell.

“R-right,” someone breathed, relief fogging like warm air.

“Whew, then it’s fine. And no one was hurt, no one died,” another said like rain easing.

“Truly, luck inside misfortune. Praise the Purification Deity!” one lifted his hands like praying reeds.

“Praise the Purification Deity!” the rest echoed in one voice like a chorus.

Watching their pious words and motions like a tide, Lucimia felt a prickle of unease like ants.

The more she looked, the more the Purification Deity felt like a Dark Deity, mirroring her own Sacrificial Ritual like twin shadows.

Every Dark Deity has a different Sacrificial Ritual, like herbs with different scents.

Could “praise the Purification Deity” be the Purification Deity’s way to collect offerings like smoke?

No one knew; it was only a bold guess like a stone tossed in fog.

With both Deceivers subdued like nets drawn tight, the ring in Bazeroth’s hand flashed like a lighthouse.

White light wrapped both octopi like cocoons and sent them into his ring with a sweep like a tide.

She wasn’t sure if it was a Storage Ring or something else, the thought drifting like mist.

Likely not Storage, since living things die inside like fish on land.

If they meant to interrogate them, life had to be kept like a candle in a jar.

With the Church in town like a white flock, the Deceiver problem should be easy to resolve, right?

She had watched Desty’s fight earlier like a student watching a master.

She knew little of Swordmasters, but anyone who felled a Blue Ringed Octopus had real strength like steel.

With Executor Bazeroth sitting in command like a mountain, the Deceivers should be no problem.

Yet a doubt still tugged like a thorn. Fake Kaeli aside, fake Vittor had shown clear flaws, trying to lure Lucimia into a trap.

So why come to this trap of a banquet like a moth to flame?

Did it really think it could face many with one like a lone wolf?

As Lucimia’s defeated prey, it clearly lacked that power like a dulled blade.

It wasn’t likely dull-witted enough to walk in and die like a fly to honey.

An octopus cunning enough to set bait and toy with minds wouldn’t make that rookie mistake like tripping on its own net.

She couldn’t make sense of it, the knot tight as vine.

Unease lingered like fog, and Lucimia kept a sharper watch on the night like a cat with its back to a wall.