Could it be… the Holy Water really is wrong?

Even if it’s Blessing-grade, it shouldn’t clash with Reversion. At most, the currents should ripple, not tear. There should be some pull, some drag.

Lucimia made up her mind. No sleep tonight. She’d sit like a lantern in the fog and watch what the night tried to hide.

Under Bazeroth and Father’s eyes, the ritual finished without a hitch. The same blue circle spread like a quiet tide and capped the city like a dim lid.

People drifted off, houses swallowing them one by one. Laughter thinned like smoke in wind. The town fell still, a pond with no ripples.

Yuna sat on the bed, arms around her knees, a small island hugging itself. Lucimia stood by the window, arms folded, eyes like knives tracing the dark street.

She wanted to see it. If the whole city got replaced again, how would the swap creep in this time? Silent as dew? Sudden as thunder?

If the Holy Water is wrong, how does it reach those under a Blessing? How does it slip past armor and nick the heart?

The question gnawed like mice in the rafters. It set Lucimia on edge.

Yuna sat wordless, as quiet as a held breath.

“Do you feel anything off?” Lucimia asked, voice low, like a pebble dropped in a well.

“No…”

At that, Lucimia let silence settle back over them, thin as frost.

She watched the street through the window. The town lay calm, a stretched hide under moonlight. No sudden twists. Only a few drunkards tottered by, their tongues loose, words spilling like sour wine.

Lucimia waited a long time. Nothing sprouted out of the dark. Yuna didn’t feel any change either.

Was the octopus crisis truly solved? Was the Holy Water clean, and she was chasing shadows?

But why did Yuna have no reaction at all? She didn’t have the Exemption Blessing.

Both ends were bugs in the code. Holes in the logic. The net held nothing.

Time dragged like wet cloth. Lucimia’s eyelids fought, upper and lower blades clashing. Once, she dozed standing, head tilting like a flower bowing to wind. The next heartbeat snapped her awake.

She slapped her cheeks. Fire in the skin to chase the mist in her head.

Don’t just stand. Move. Do something.

“Yuna, are you asleep?”

“No, Sister Luci,” Yuna answered on cue, soft as a moth.

“Anything feel wrong?”

“Still… nothing.”

Lucimia stared at Yuna. A thought clawed up from the dark like a cold hand.

What if Yuna has already been replaced?

She drew a sharp breath, as if ice crawled down her spine. Then she smoothed her tone, set the surface calm. “Yuna, tomorrow morning let’s have sandwiches.”

Yuna tilted her head, like a sparrow listening. “Sister Luci, didn’t you say… roast meat?”

Relief spilled through Lucimia like warm tea. The knot eased.

It was their code, agreed upon before drinking the Holy Water, before the circle rose. Lucimia asked. Yuna answered roast meat. Memory as a mirror to catch the false.

She’d scared herself. If replacement came that quietly, like a thief wearing your face and breath, that would be the true terror.

Thank the stars it wasn’t.

Lucimia thought a moment. “I’m going to check my parents. See if anything’s changed. Come with me.”

“Mm.” Yuna nodded, a small wave on the sheet.

This time, the change came.

“Eh?”

Yuna tried to push herself up with her hands. Her face froze. Her arms wouldn’t listen, like ropes wet and slack.

“What is it?” Lucimia turned, a frown slicing her brow.

“I—I… can’t move.” Yuna’s voice shook, a leaf in wind.

“Pins and needles?” Lucimia stepped in, reaching to help her sit.

Her fingers closed on Yuna’s forearm. She lifted—and froze. Gooseflesh surged over her skin like a field of needles.

Yuna’s arm had sprouted pits. Round, small and large, a honeycomb of hollows stippled from wrist to shoulder. Dense. Merciless.

A trypophobe’s hell.

“What is this?” Lucimia’s eyes widened. She grabbed Yuna’s other arm. The same sea of holes stared back.

The pattern clicked like a lock turning. Suckers. The kind that ring an octopus’s tentacles.

So the Holy Water really is tainted?

Lucimia yanked off Yuna’s black blindfold.

“Don’t open your eyes yet. I need to confirm something else.”

“Mm…”

Lucimia slung Yuna onto her back. Then she whispered a levitation spell. Her body lightened, floating like a willow seed on a draft.

Hovering, she arrowed toward her parents’ room. Hurry. Hurry.

Anxiety nipped her heels like dogs. She needed to know if her parents were the same.

She skimmed down the hall, whipped around a corner. Left side ahead—her parents’ door. She turned her shoulder and hit the wood, hand twisting the handle. The door flew like a startled bird.

Inside, she rushed to the bed. Her parents lay there, faces ashen, brows knotted like tangled roots. Sweat beaded on their foreheads and ran in threads.

She lifted their arms. The same. The same crawling pattern.

Damn it. A Blessing-tainted Holy Water shouldn’t affect those under Exemption. Why?

Is the Holy Water’s pollution Authority Power-grade? But where would Authority Power contamination come from? Elyssus wasn’t summoned. Was he?

Lucimia’s thoughts tangled, a skein pulled too tight. She couldn’t find the broken thread.

She called to her parents. No answer. Only their misery breathing through clenched teeth.

She remembered what Yuna said—holding her to sleep to dodge replacement?

She hugged her parents too, a desperate circle of arms. Nothing changed. The cold stayed.

It made sense. If the ritual is fine and the Holy Water is the rot, holding Yuna wouldn’t matter. Yuna never drank the Holy Water at all. Replacement wouldn’t touch Lucimia either way.

Was that clue false?

Lucimia glanced back at Yuna. Pain had bloomed on the girl’s face, pale petals crushed by an unseen heel.

No. Reversion. Now.

She opened her mouth—and pain slammed her skull like a hammer. The room spun like a wheel flung downhill.

She staggered two steps and caught the wall, fingers digging into plaster to keep from falling.

She lifted her head. What she saw yanked her breath, chilling and familiar.

Outside the window, a figure rose on a forest of octopus arms. Bazeroth.

They bore him into the sky. He spread his arms like a cult statue and chanted in a tongue that made the air ring. The sound rolled like thunder, echoing across the whole sky.

Above his head, a black chaos orb gathered again. Blacker than the night around it, a bruise on the heavens. You couldn’t miss it.

This time, when the orb finished coalescing, a face pressed against the chaos from within.

An enormous octopus head filled the sphere. From its back, countless tendrils writhed like a storm of snakes. Its face was punctured with gaping pits, a constellation of holes.

Elyssus.

Hee-hee-hee!!

The laugh slid from its mouth, a crooked blade. It spread over the town like oil, then seeped through walls into Lucimia’s room.

By the end, the laughter felt like it was blooming inside her skull. A hive buzzing where her thoughts should be.

Heh-heh-heh!!

Ha-ha-ha!!

This time, Elyssus wasn’t a mere shadow. Two tentacles pushed out of the chaos, thick as towers.

They drove into the ground. The impact shuddered like an earthquake. Lucimia could see the suckers, each larger than she was, crawling across the flesh. In a shiver of vision, they looked like eyes. Watching. Blinking.