A question crawled under her skin, like a gnat in lamplight.

After gaining energy, Elyssus wore a phantom and two tentacles, like night vines unfurling from a drowned pool.

Do they exist without a ritual, or only when the ritual sparks like kindled incense?

In the second Reversion, the summoning shifted forward, like a clock dragged by unseen hands into the dark.

Why did the ritual step ahead, like a fox stealing over the threshold?

Clearly, Elyssus with memory spoke to someone, pushing them to set the altar early, like a whisper tilting a balance.

So does that answer the earlier doubt? Those shadow-limbs didn’t need the ritual; they reached like cold wires to the Deceivers.

The Deceivers took the news and advanced the ceremony, like boats launched before dawn fog lifts.

“No.” Lucimia’s breath chilled, like water seeping through stone, and she denied her own guess.

She looked back at the two Reversions, like turning pages under winter light.

At the end of the second Reversion, Elyssus’s words stuck, like a thorn under a sleeve.

“Your name… Lucimia? Right? Surprise?”

That line shows Elyssus knew Lucimia carried memory into the Reversion, like seeing footprints in fresh snow.

By logic, Yuna triggered the skill; it should think only Yuna remembered, like one lamp kept alight.

For Elyssus to say that to Lucimia, there’s one path: it confirmed her memory before the summoning, like testing a lock before opening the gate.

That means, before the summoning ritual rose, Elyssus already had a way to reach someone, like a thread cast across a river.

It wasn’t direct speech; in the second Reversion, many octopi opened the door first, like hinges gritting in salt wind.

Before absorbing any octopus, its phantom and tentacles already showed, like shadow and surf preceding the storm.

So, before the Exorcism Ritual even began, there had been a Sacrificial Ritual to Elyssus, like a hidden altar lit at midnight.

The octopi opened that door and earned a chance to speak, like swimmers slipping through a kelp gate.

Elyssus then sent several octopi to verify Lucimia’s memory, like scouts with wet lanterns checking names.

How to confirm it…

The second Reversion had two changes, like twin ripples on a pond.

First, the boy’s spot on day one and the missing woman; second, Vittor on day two, replaced even when Lucimia didn’t provoke the Blue Ringed Octopus.

The first felt off, like a false echo; the second fit, like a key biting true.

Lucimia exposed a flaw there; she used the same line from the first Reversion to probe Vittor, like repeating a password at a different gate.

The false Vittor likely had orders; he reported that line back, and Elyssus judged she held memory, like a judge reading ash patterns.

How do we explain Vittor being replaced when Lucimia never poked the octopus, like a trap sprung without bait?

It means on the first night, toward the second dawn, Vittor really carried food and wine to find Julie, like a small procession in alley fog.

On the way he found the octopus’s secret; to silence him, the octopus replaced him, like a mask sewn over a face.

Or for souls needed in the first Sacrificial Ritual, it took Vittor, like netting a fish for the altar.

After that, Elyssus woke and used Vittor to test Lucimia’s memory, like a hand tapping glass to watch a reflection twitch.

The false Vittor reported back to Elyssus, like a courier dropping a sealed leaf into dark water.

So we can fix the time: the first night is when Elyssus can speak with Deceivers, like owls talking under eaves; daylight stays mute.

“So I need to stop the octopus’s ritual on the first night, and swap out the tainted Holy Water.” Resolve tightened in Lucimia, like silk pulled taut.

If she cuts the contact between Elyssus and the octopi, the tale will run like her first time, even if Elyssus keeps memory.

When that hour comes, knowing the Deceivers’ plan and holding strength, Lucimia won’t fear them, like a blade set firm.

Just block Elyssus’s talk and replace the tainted Holy Water; that would be enough, like moving two stones to divert a stream.

But regret pricked; problems still coiled, like snakes under reeds.

First, how was the Holy Water polluted, like clear spring clouded with ink?

Was it swapped the night the church convoy brought it to town, like barrels traded in shadow?

Second, the ritual still has issues, like lines misdrawn on a talisman.

Take the second first: in the second Reversion, Lucimia and her father Bazeroth checked the ritual’s correctness, like carpenters testing beams.

Even so, the summoning was held that night, and the Exorcism Ritual’s Magic Array was used for summoning, like a temple veil flipped into a snare.

If the arrangement was correct, it couldn’t be altered in a blink, like a garden remade between breaths.

There’s only one path: the Exorcism Ritual is the summoning ritual, masked by some method, like poison painted beneath lacquer.

Back to the first: the Holy Water was likely tainted the night it reached town, and Bazeroth guarded it, like a watchman beside a well.

The ritual’s layout was under Bazeroth too, and he did the checking, like a scribe reading his own script.

Wait—both in the first and the second Reversion, the initiator of the summoning was Bazeroth, like a bell struck by the same hand.

Bazeroth is a Deceiver?!

No—wait!

When Elyssus absorbed octopus souls, their skins dissolved and their true bodies were taken, like shells melting in acid.

Only Bazeroth wasn’t, like a rock untouched by tide.

I get it! I know it now!

Clarity surged in Lucimia, like dawn rinsing soot from roofs.

“Damn it, how did I forget that!” She slapped her forehead, like knocking dust from a book.

She had fallen into a trap of thought, mistaking octopi for followers, like calling waves the moon.

It sounds odd at first, like hearing drums under water.

But recall the knowledge on Dark Deities; then it’s plain, like script revealed with heat.

A Dark Deity holds two forces: Evil Entities and followers, like claws and priests under one shadow.

Remember: Elyssus the Deceiver, Authority Power—Disguise and Deception, like masks laid over mirrors.

See it?

The octopi are Evil Entities, and Elyssus’s followers are Deceivers, like players behind curtains.

Lucimia understood completely, like knots undone with one pull.

Bazeroth is Elyssus’s follower, a Deceiver by name, like a fox wearing a robe.

That perfectly explains why only Bazeroth didn’t become an octopus when souls were absorbed, because he never was one, like a lantern among fish.

Why was Holy Water tainted under Bazeroth’s watch? Because Bazeroth did it himself, like a hand salting the well.

The ritual clearly had issues, yet no one saw them, because the Deceiver’s Blessing blurred our sight, like mist drawn over eyes.

Bazeroth is clever; while the Blessing veiled vision, he also used physical covers to hide more, like screens stacked behind screens.

Exemption checks only clear the evil taint; solid obstructions still block the gaze, like walls stopping wind.

She thought octopi were followers because of Elyssus’s words in the first Reversion, like honey poured into the ear.

Elyssus had said, “Are octopi impressive? Want to become one of us?”

That made Lucimia assume followers of Elyssus would be turned into octopi, like men carved into coral.

She took it for granted, like walking the same worn path.

Now, thinking again, that was Elyssus luring her, like bait gleaming in a black pond.

This chain of thought answered many doubts and lined up the logic, like stars set into a clean constellation.

This Reversion helped her, like a whetstone to a restless blade.

In the first Reversion, she fought an octopus in the bookstore; she once conned the Blue Ringed Octopus by posing as a Deceiver, like a smile laid over a dagger.

The Blue Ringed Octopus was simple and believed it, like a big fish biting bright foil.

That shows on day one the octopus hadn’t struck a pact with the Deceivers, like boats drifting without signals.

On day two, that ambush against Lucimia—she thought the Blue Ringed Octopus planned it; now it’s clear it wasn’t the octopus, it was the Deceivers, like spiders weaving at the rafters.

Only Deceivers could craft that trap, the kind that plays on human minds, like nets sewn of whispers.

As for the Blue Ringed Octopus? It might just be a real blockhead, like a rock wearing blue rings.