With iron control over magic, every falling raindrop became Lucimia’s blade.
Within a dozen meters around her, every drop—except those guarding her—sharpened like needles.
They knifed through octopi large and small; bodies shriveled dry, then burst to ash.
Countless octopi flung viscous tendrils, their roars a wet chorus, yet every grasp was swatted down before touching her.
The fight froze into stalemate, like ice locking a river.
Unease pricked her. Lucimia glanced back to gauge the swarm behind her.
One wave melted away; another surged in, like tide chasing tide.
She saw her parents, twisted into octopi lunging for her.
She saw Regino, who vowed to become a Holy Knight and catch up to her.
He fell before his first victory, now an octopus slashing toward her.
Familiar yet estranged faces turned inhuman.
Greed rode every tentacle; bloody maws yawned, set to tear her small body like paper.
Fury tangled with dread. All she could squeeze out was, “...Damn it.”
Regret stung: If only I were strong enough, Lucimia thought.
If she could cast super-tier magic, a sweeping AOE like a storm across the board, she wouldn’t fear these octopi.
She wouldn’t flee in disgrace.
Another wish cut cold: If only I knew my own Authority Power, Lucimia thought again.
A Dark Deity, yet blind to her Authority Power, hounded by another deity’s follower—what shame, like a crown slipped into mud.
Is this how a Dark Deity should look? Lucimia asked herself.
Clearly not.
A Dark Deity should terrify, veil itself in secrets, drive minds to madness—such is the shape of night.
Yet she couldn’t.
All she could do was run—leave this town like wind slipping through alleys.
Tell someone what happened, and, if fate allowed, learn magic for revenge.
Would the octopi grant her that wish? Obviously not.
Their net was closing; the sea refused her passage.
When the swarm couldn’t get close, they shifted tactics.
They bunched up, then dove downward.
Lucimia followed the motion and spotted the only non-octopus, the Deceiver—Bazeroth.
Bazeroth stood on a muddy road.
The octopi burrowed into the ground.
Moments later, the earth shuddered; cracks snapped open in a ring around him.
He stood upon a diamond-shaped slab.
A cluster of octopi raised him high, and Bazeroth spread his arms like a black altar.
They climbed higher and higher, surpassing Lucimia.
She had to tilt her head to see.
Bazeroth, lifted by tentacles, eyes shut, arms open, faced the sky like a supplicant.
What is he doing?
Confusion pooled like fog, but she kept moving, flying fast.
“Ah—great Elyssus—”
The words rang overhead like a temple bell.
Black light seeped from Bazeroth’s arms like tar.
At the same time, Lucimia sensed a wrongness below.
As his prayer fell, the five Magic Arrays used for the Exorcism Ritual flared again.
Not blue like last night—black, shot through with chaos, eerie as stormwater.
What’s happening? Aren’t those the Exorcism Ritual arrays?
When were they altered? Can arrays that vast be rewritten in one night?
Dread frosted her heart.
His chant made it clear.
They were either triggering Elyssus’s Sacrificial Ritual or calling Elyssus forth.
Most Dark Deities had been driven from this world, leaving only devotees.
Those devotees live for one task: bring their god back.
Lucimia had learned that from later readings.
Ahead, Bazeroth’s rite—sacrifice or summoning—was nothing good, a storm with knives in its rain.
Should she keep running?
Could she even get out?
Should she break Bazeroth’s work?
Two heartbeats later, she chose.
She would break it.
Since the octopi had stopped chasing her to help him, the rite must either trap or erase her.
She couldn’t wait for the blade to fall.
Lucimia flipped from face-down flight to face-up, aiming at Bazeroth in the sky.
Bazeroth kept chanting like a monk reciting sutras.
Clouds thickened like ink; the gray-blue sky turned pitch black.
Below, the black Magic Arrays breathed black currents.
They coiled above Bazeroth, whirling into a darker, chaotic sphere.
Octopi beneath him launched, one after another, into the sphere.
The chaotic sphere Devouring them without effort.
With each Devouring, it swelled, until it filled her sight, shapeless at the edges.
All under five seconds.
Too fast.
It was nothing good—break it now.
Lucimia acted, lifting her hand, palm leveled at the chaotic sphere.
She knew no super-tier spells, so she poured almost all her magic into her palm, drawing her inner well near dry.
What remained would barely keep her and Yuna airborne.
A light orb bloomed in her palm, mostly white, but shimmering with stray rainbow hues—a pearl of raw, primal magic.
She aimed, and fired.
The orb released a massive beam of light.
She didn’t aim at the sphere; fear whispered it might Devour even her attack.
She targeted the ritual’s driver—Bazeroth.
The beam streaked for Bazeroth—and even passed through him, and then the unexpected hit.
His body turned insubstantial; by the time she blinked, his position slipped to the other side like a mirage.
What’s going on? Was the rain corrupting her sight?
Lucimia shut her eyes, opened them, aimed, fired again.
The same mirage trick returned.
She refused to bow.
This time she shot at the octopi under his feet—if the sphere grew by Devouring octopi, she’d cut off its feed.
Yet the phantoms danced again; even the octopi shifted positions.
She had to accept it wasn’t aim.
He had some way to dodge her strikes.
Damn it—no choice left.
If the driver and his swarm couldn’t be hit, she’d hit the sphere.
She loosed the rest of her magic.
This time the beam struck true, drilling into the sphere.
Sadly, the light sank like a stone into deep water—no ripple, no answer—until the magic in her palm bled out to nothing.
