Elyssus slid its monstrous face up to Lucimia’s, grinning like a festival mask lit by cold moonlight.

“So, the one controlling Bazeroth has always been me, got it? I used my Deception Power, a curtain of smoke and mirrors. No matter how you watched, I fed you only the scenes I wanted.”

“No way… I—aren’t I supposed to be immune? Otherwise I wouldn’t be seeing what others can’t.” Her voice trembled like a reed in winter wind.

“Mm, you’re right, Lucimia. But…” Elyssus leaned even closer, breath damp like a cave, its mouth brushing her ear.

“But… you’re a Dark Deity who hasn’t awakened yet, you get me? Hee-hee.”

“What?!” Her heart skipped like a startled sparrow taking wing.

What is it saying? An unawakened Dark Deity?

“Heh-heh, look at that face—you didn’t know, did you? I kept wondering why you could loop with memory. Now I do. You’re a Dark Deity too, but your power hasn’t fully bloomed. So when you face my Authority Power-tier ability, as long as I keep the veil flowing, your power fails.”

“Listen well, Lucimia.” Elyssus lowered its voice, like thunder smothered under deep ocean tides. “If I absorb the soul of an unawakened Dark Deity, I meet the energy I need and descend into this world at once. You understand?”

Its whisper rang in her chest like a temple bell struck in fog, a warning carried from abyssal waters. Fear crawled up her spine like frost on bare branches.

Her body began to shake; she didn’t want to be swallowed by Elyssus.

“Hahaha, relax. I won’t absorb you now. After all, you can Reversion, can’t you?” A tendril pointed like a black reed at the pink-haired girl behind her.

Lucimia snapped to, like a lantern flaring in a gust.

Right. Yuna’s still here.

They could still Reversion, strike before Bazeroth launched the Sacrificial Ritual, and bar Elyssus’s descent like sealing a storm behind a dam.

“Yuna!” Lucimia called, hope fluttering like a moth around a candle.

Yuna reacted fast, hand flashing up for her eyepatch like a knife to a knot.

Shunk!

But fate bucked like a wild horse. A tentacle speared down from the sky like a lightning-black vine, stabbing Yuna’s chest. Two more snapped like traps, binding her arms tight.

“Yuna!” Panic flooded Lucimia, a tide breaking through a brittle dike.

Shunk! Another tentacle punched through Lucimia’s chest like a cold stake through wet earth.

“Ah—ugh… cough…” Blood flooded her mouth, hot and iron-sour, like a river turned red.

“Ay, don’t rush. Let me finish, will you?” Elyssus drawled, voice oily as rain on stone. “Ah, so much blood. Don’t blame me. I didn’t plan to hurt you. You were about to Reversion, right? If you rewound, I couldn’t say my piece. That won’t do.”

Lucimia’s teeth chattered like wind-clacked chimes; breathing burned like torn lungs scraping gravel. Pain knifed her with every rise and fall.

She forced the words out through iron thorns. “What… do you… want… to say?”

“I told you already—I won’t absorb you now.” Elyssus bent low, its right eye a giant, murky pond where no reflection lived.

“I want to work with you.”

“Co… operate…?” Each syllable cost her a mouthful of blood foam, words dripping like crimson petals.

“Exactly. Cooperation. You’re a Dark Deity. So am I. Why not join hands, like two shadows sharing one moon?”

“Why… should I… trust you? Cough…” More blood spilled, a red veil on her tongue. “Dark Deities… are enemies… aren’t they?”

“Heh-heh, you’re not wrong. But that’s other gods. I’m very friendly.” His voice smiled like a cat under eaves. “You help me return to the world. I help you get what you want. How’s that?”

“…Heh. You think… I’ll buy that?” Every few words she had to pull in air, like drawing water from an icy well. “From a Deceiver’s mouth… no less…”

“Don’t be hasty. Hear me out.” Elyssus sounded patient, like rain talking to stone.

“You and the pink-haired one help me absorb more souls. When I return to the world, I’ll grant your wish.”

“I know your wish. You want a peaceful life, nothing but pleasure, right? I’ll build you a paradise of your very own. You can do anything inside it, and everyone will bring offerings to you daily, like a river feeding a lake.”

“In there, no one will block you, no law will bind you. In the Kingdom of Sipan, killing’s illegal, yes? In your paradise, if you want to kill, you kill. No judgment, no chains.”

“Money? Don’t fret. The paradise is yours head to toe. Eat what you want, play as you want, reshape it as your heart paints it. If you like women, they’ll dress as you wish—or not at all. If you like men, same brush, same canvas. Everything bends to your will. Isn’t that sweet? Doesn’t your pulse stir? So—will you cooperate?”

Lucimia fell into silence, a pond without ripples under a cloudy sky.

She had to admit—the picture Elyssus painted tugged at her, like honey on the tongue.

A paradise shaped to her whim, a garden-season of delights—dream made flesh like mist turning to rain.

A world brimming with lust-red boudoirs, or a garden sugared with candies and laughter—both at a single thought.

She wasn’t noble. She fought Elyssus for a lazy, quiet life, not for some blazing creed of “banish evil, shelter mankind,” banners snapping like righteous flags.

That creed lived in her father, her second brother, and Desty. Not in her—and not in her mother.

“How’s the thinking going?” Elyssus asked, words pattering like soft rain.

“How did… you know… what I wanted?” She dodged the answer, voice thin as thread.

“Just a little trick. A special path through the reeds.” Elyssus’s tone smoothed, like a hand sliding over silk. “You know my Authority Power is Deception, and deception is a concept. To fulfill that concept, I can copy someone, use a double to fool others, or fake an alibi in murder, like smoke hiding a blade.”

“As long as my actions serve the concept, I can weave other abilities into the loom. That’s mastery of Authority Power—it’s not just the word carved on the gate.”

“I copied you, then read your memory. Most of it’s a fog bank, but the last two days are clear enough to fish.”

Elyssus kept that wicked smile holstered, and spoke like an elder Dark Deity guiding a junior, voice steady as an old pine in snow.