"What on earth are you talking about?" Lucimia’s fear surged like cold water.

"Look at your arms. Don’t you see your flesh caving in like pits in wet sand, forming rings, turning into suckers?"

Heads dipped like reeds in a gust as everyone looked down at their arms.

"No, looks normal. Lucimia, didn’t you sleep? Go rest. I’ll take you," Alvis said, voice placid as a still pond, stepping forward like a shadow to take her home.

But Alvis changed again, like a mask sloughing off and a sea‑beast surfacing. Half his face became octopus, his right hand a full tentacle, ghastly as a night tide.

He extended that tentacle like a wet rope, trying to seize Lucimia’s wrist.

Lucimia stepped back two paces, deer‑swift at a crack of thunder.

"What’s wrong?" Alvis wore a monster’s face and spoke in a human tone, calm as ice laid over fire.

Her breath snagged like a net; her head spun like a drum. She bit down hard.

"You really don’t see it?" Lucimia pointed at Elyssus in the sky. Elyssus’s smile watched her like an oil slick on water. "Look. Look closely. What is that in the sky?"

"What thing? Watch your mouth." Bazeroth bristled, stepping forward like a guard dog. "That’s not a thing. That’s our deity—the Purification Deity Vosh!"

Lucimia ignored Bazeroth and turned to her father, eyes thrown like an anchor toward shore.

"What’s above is indeed the Purification Deity," Alvis said slowly, drops of water from a eave. "A woman’s graceful form, a nun’s habit, just like the records. No issue."

Lucimia’s pupils quaked like struck bells.

"What Purification Deity? That’s a Dark Deity—an ugly octopus. Are you blind?" Her voice scraped her throat like sandpaper.

"Show some respect. Dark Deities are all vile—could one be this beautiful?" Bazeroth’s beard shook like a broom in wind.

Even Alvis looked embarrassed, brow tightening like a drawn bowstring. "Enough, Lucimia. Go sleep. Leave this for now. I’ll take you back," he said, voice cool as winter.

"I won’t." Lucimia flicked off Alvis’s tentacle like shaking off brambles, grabbed Yuna, and shot away like a streak of flame.

"Hey—where are you going? Hey." Alvis set down his wine cup with a bell‑soft clink, apologized to Bazeroth, and hurried after like a gust.

Flying, Lucimia kept her eyes on Elyssus above. Wherever she flew, the octopus eyes swiveled after her like greasy lanterns.

Certainty settled like a stone dropped into a deep well. She hadn’t misseen, wasn’t sleep‑starved, wasn’t hallucinating. What she saw was real.

Her father and the others were the blinded ones, eyes wrapped in fog. Elyssus had used Deception Power, hijacking their perception and sight.

Fresh questions rose like smoke.

How did Elyssus descend, storm from a black sea?

Wasn’t the Holy Water replaced? How did he taint the crowd like ink in milk?

Wasn’t the ritual broken? How did he complete it?

Lucimia flew up to Elyssus’s face and met those turbid eyes, stagnant as two mossy pools.

"Heh‑heh." Elyssus laughed, bubbles rising in a swamp. "Heh‑heh, Lucimia. Your shock and bafflement delight the octopus."

Grim resolve tightened on her face; her lips were dry as paper. "How did you descend? I broke the Sacrificial Ritual, replaced the Holy Water, altered the summoning. How did you descend?"

These questions only Elyssus could answer; her knowledge hit a wall like birds to glass.

"Heh‑heh, ha‑ha‑ha, hee‑hee." Elyssus laughed with smug ripples. "Want to know? Become an octopus. Become one, and I’ll tell you. Keh‑keh‑keh."

"...Get lost." Lucimia bit her lower lip, then raised her hand and hurled a spell like a flare at Elyssus.

A fireball smashed toward him. Elyssus’s mouth curved; with a casual flick he swatted it aside like a moth to ash.

"Ah, don’t be so mad." Elyssus extended two tentacles that circled Lucimia like twin snakes, menacing and cold.

Her nerves were taut like wire; magic gathered in her hands like storm‑light.

"I have to say, Lucimia, you’re impressive. To get this far is remarkable," Elyssus said, silk over a blade, choosing words over strikes.

"You guessed I could commune with the Deceiver, so you preempted the Sacrificial Ritual, severing my thread to the faithful. You replaced the Holy Water, altered the rites. You did all you could. I respect that."

"But guess what? I still communed with the Deceiver. The Deceiver still held the Sacrificial Ritual for me. Guess how?" Elyssus raised a tentacle like a black banner and smiled at Lucimia.

"The Deceiver still held the ritual?" The thought hit like cold rain.

Lucimia followed that line of thought, names clicking like beads. Besides Cole, Bazeroth was a Deceiver.

Did Bazeroth hold the Sacrificial Ritual and commune with Elyssus? The question hung like a blade.

But how could he do it, threading a needle in a storm?

In town, Bazeroth was watched the whole way, eyes on him like nets. He had no chance to hold a ritual.

Wait—did he hold it on the road into town? The idea flickered like a match.

But that still doesn’t fit. A Sacrificial Ritual needs a massive Magic Array, a city of lines. He couldn’t set it up alone so fast. And the others from the Church were there like lanterns watching. Could he start it unseen?

Heat of anxiety pricked her heart like thorns. She gnawed her finger and thought furiously, thoughts tangling like weeds. No matter how she turned it, she couldn’t see how the other Deceiver had reached Elyssus.

"Ha‑ha‑ha." Elyssus laughed, stones rolling down a slope. He laid a cold kelp‑slick tentacle on Lucimia’s shoulder and began to explain.

"It was Bazeroth who held the Sacrificial Ritual and communed with me. Do you understand? Plus, the last cycle fed me plenty of power, tide upon tide. I could reach further into this world. So through the ritual, I possessed Bazeroth, ink soaking cloth."

Bazeroth? Doubt pricked like thorns. "Where did he find time to lay a Magic Array and start it?" Lucimia thought.

"Don’t rush. I know what you’re thinking," Elyssus said, words coiling like smoke. "You’re asking how Bazeroth started the Sacrificial Ritual, right? You think he lacked time on the road to lay a massive Magic Array, don’t you?"

Lucimia didn’t answer; her silence was a nod in shadow.

"Heh‑heh. You’re not wrong, but you missed one key, Lucimia." Elyssus waved a tentacle in the air like a metronome.

"...What key?" Her voice tightened like a string.

"Time," Elyssus said. "I’ve existed in this world a hundred years. To descend again, I laid plans for a hundred years, slow rain and deep roots."

"Isn’t there a possibility that on each month’s Exorcism Ritual day, Bazeroth laid a little of the Magic Array along the way? Month by month, it adds up—cobbles set one by one—until he completes it alone. As for the souls for the sacrifice, weren’t they prepared long ago, jars lined on a shelf? What do you say? Mm? Heh‑heh."

Elyssus tilted his head, a wicked smile bending like a mask in candlelight.

Only then did clarity break like dawn, and then her heart shivered like wind through bamboo.

She had missed a piece. She’d thought the plan began only days ago, with Bazeroth merely lying low before that, a thin veil over truth.

In truth, they’d been laying threads for ages.

Put like that, everything clicked into place, pieces dropping into a mosaic.

Lucimia swallowed hard, throat knotted like rope. She wanted to speak, yet no words came. She stood there, wooden as a post.