“Die!” Cole twisted his broad blade, a cold crescent, toward the neck of Lucimia’s shadow.

Damn it. Run. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird before her legs even moved.

She gritted through pain and tried to shift, but her body tugged the shadow, and the shadow pulled the blade, carving her like a ripped seam.

Lucimia froze and switched to Instant Movement, a swallow flicking from branch to branch.

Luck stood with her; the second jump set her down on a safe stone amid a flood.

She broke free of the danger.

She dropped to one knee as she landed and pressed her shoulder, breath quaking like a thin reed in wind.

Her pale hand soaked in blood, white petals drowned in red.

...

Cold sweat slid across her brow. Her chest rose and fell like stormed surf.

That second Instant Movement drained her mana to the dregs, the well almost dry.

She was half-trained; the cost bit deep. With true skill, that jump would sip magic like tea.

Suddenly, a thought struck like flint in her skull.

In this world, do mages really lose to Swordmasters? Steel against storm—does steel hold the edge?

If not, why are the exorcists called Holy Knights, not mages? Some Knights wield magic, yet the name stays Knight, a banner in iron wind.

What sword art is this? Cut the shadow, cut the body; try to move, and the wound yawns wider like torn cloth.

Magic feels weak beside it—just elements flung like sparks, while craft magic is gears, not blades.

Lucimia’s mood sank like a stone in dark water. Maybe it’s her lacking mastery, not that magic fails.

Swordmaster or mage, stronger or weaker, the storm at her door doesn’t wait.

Any cards left to play? Her hand felt empty, a winter tree stripped bare.

She glanced at Ritch sprawled on the floor, a fallen kite with no wind, and shook her head. He wouldn’t help.

She closed her eyes and weighed the flicker left. Enough mana for three, maybe four spells—three cups in a near-dry well.

What spell cracks this lock? What key fits the iron gate?

Hit Cole and that magical quirk triggers—limbs dissolve, and octopus tentacles bloom back. Shameless, like weeds after rain.

She had to kill Cole with three spells, cut him down like a stalk.

If not, she’d use Reversion and rethink the hunt, tracing steps like tracks in snow.

Yuna’s Reversion could buy time to study more, blades honed in the dark, especially spells tailored to Cole, arrows bent for one target.

“...Then I’ll gamble once more.”

She counted the minutes, grains falling in the hourglass. Yuna’s appointed time was close.

If Lucimia didn’t return by then, Yuna would trigger Reversion, time rolling back like a tide.

Even if she died now, she’d be revived—death a revolving door she needn’t fear.

So push again, force out Cole’s hidden card, make him lay his steel bare.

Better yet, end him here and let the water still.

She turned the gears in her head, plotting how three spells could cut Cole down.

Ice Lance and Wind Blade wouldn’t do; they’d lop off limbs, and those would regrow like hydra heads.

Then pierce Cole’s skull? A needle through silk, simple in thought, hard in truth.

You don’t just toss a spell and land it. Cole’s no fodder, no dumb beast; he’s an elite, a blade seasoned in war.

He reads intent and breaks it, move serving move, every strike with more than one aim.

Don’t treat him like fodder. Imagine masters dueling; to hit his brain, she must lay a snare and set the stage.

While she thought, Cole kept moving, a storm walking on meat and hate.

“Hahaha! Didn’t expect that, did you?” Cole swaggered in, tentacled steps like a spider crossing wet stone.

The motion looked wrong, jelly over bone, eerie as moonlit marshes.

He moved again, and Lucimia rose to meet him, breath steadying while her gut knotted like a drawn bowstring.

Step by step, he splashed through pooled water, droplets jumping like broken pearls.

Water?

Lucimia let her gaze drop to the ground, eyes sharp as blades.

Small gutters veined the floor, dark channels carrying sewage like murky rivers.

It was a sewer plaza, of course, with paths for waste—ordinary as rain through alleys.

It reeked. Rot rolled up like swamp gas; who knew what swam in that filth.

Water. Stench. Two stones that anchor a bridge.

Those facts bit into her mind; a plan hooked and set.

She didn’t rush Cole. She turned and ran to Ritch, nudging him twice with her boot, a sparrow pecking a log.

“Hey, can you crawl up?”

Ritch clutched his belly and groaned, a bellows wheezing.

Was Cole’s kick that heavy? A hammer on ribs.

Good thing she hadn’t taken it. Her small frame was a candle; one stomp, snuffed.

“Forget it. Seven seconds. If you can’t get up, I’m leaving you.”

Whether he heard or not, she tossed the line into the water, then turned to face Cole’s tide pressing in.

“Heh. Bring out whatever’s left. Let me see what a self-proclaimed eighth-tier mage can really do,” Cole grinned, teeth like knives.

“Hmph.” Lucimia snorted coldly. A globe of water swelled in her palm, a moon of river light, and she hurled it.

“...That’s the first,” she told herself, a whisper under thunder.

Blade flashed, a silver fish. The water sphere split, and spray draped Cole like wet cloth.

Not done. Lightning flickered in her hand, a trapped stormbird flexing wings.

“...That’s the second.”

Cole was ready to sneer, “That all?” Then he saw the storm in her palm, and his face hardened like iron under frost.

He crouched and sprinted, blade driving straight, a spearhead hungry for flesh.

He couldn’t let her unleash an electric spell, or the river would carry the sky.

What Cole could think, Lucimia could too. She didn’t fire it straight to be cut or dodged. She slammed the lightning orb into the gutter at her feet.

Boom! The crack hit like thunder in a closed canyon.

Current raced along the channels to Cole’s feet, then crawled up his body like silver ants. In moments, he was wreathed in sparks.

Sizzle—

The sound rang clean in the stone throat of the sewer.

“Ahhhh!” Cole screamed, raw as flayed bark.

Electricity ravaged him; skin charred black like burnt paper. The magical quirk triggered—his body dissolved, and when skin went, octopus tentacles sprouted like night weeds.

In the end, even his head melted, reshaped into an octopus bulb, a sea thing wearing a man’s height.

A man-shaped octopus stood trembling, spasms jerking him like strings.

The current didn’t stop. New tentacles crackled under the surge, pop-pop-pop, and a faint char drifted like smoke over wet stone.

The magical quirk triggered again; those tentacles began to liquefy, flesh dripping like tar.

Even Lucimia shuddered at the sight, a chill moth beating wings in her gut.

“Ahhh! I’ll kill you!” The voice gurgled like water in a throat, but the meaning cut clear.

He forced his spasming limbs to obey, hate and slaughter boiling in his eyes. Arms whipped wild, body sheathed in current, and he charged at Lucimia like a feral aberration.

“What the hell?!” Lucimia jolted like a deer and turned to run, feet slapping water.

What monster of a man keeps moving like that, a storm that won’t burn out?