No matter how humans thrash, they’re ants under a storm; they can’t fight a Dark Deity. So… use a Dark Deity to beat a Dark Deity?

Fine, set Olivya aside; the last few words on the book cover struck like cold lightning and left Lucimia both thrilled and confused.

What does “Resurrection Plan” even mean, like a seed buried in winter soil?

Is it just a summoning ritual, like smoke curling from a hidden brazier?

Who wrote this book, like a shadow hand behind a silk screen?

Questions bubbled up like a boiling spring, one after another in Lucimia’s chest.

If it’s Olivya’s summoning ritual, why did Lucimia end up here like a leaf blown off course? The offering actually ran to her side, and Yuna said she truly had Authority Power.

A bad feeling slid over her like a hawk’s shadow crossing the sun, sharp and cold.

She looked again at the black-haired maiden high above, a mirror hung in the sky.

“No way…” she breathed, like she’d stepped onto a stair that wasn’t there.

Could she be some reincarnation of Olivya, a soap-opera twist scribbled in bloodline ink? Reborn down the line into her own junior?

But Lucimia herself was a reincarnate, a wanderer washed onto another world’s shore.

Could this body hold two souls, like two moons sharing one night—one her former-life Lucimia, one the Olivya of before?

For real? That absurd, like a fish leaping into a tree?

Lucimia didn’t buy it; another guess rose like mist over a marsh.

What if… Olivya is borrowing Lucimia to revive, like a sprout feeding off an old root?

Then Lucimia isn’t the Dark Deity at all, but a vessel for Olivya’s return, like a clay jar waiting for wine.

That fits better than melodrama, like a road that actually meets the map.

She is Lucimia’s ancestor; an ancestor borrowing a descendant’s body feels natural, like water flowing downhill, no harsh rejection.

But why do they look so alike, like twin swallows under one eave? Is that Lucimia’s grown-up face, or just blood singing the same tune?

If it’s the latter, does that mean Lucimia’s own self will be wiped, like ink washed from rice paper?

Her heart stumbled and her hands went cold as well water, lost and small.

How did it come to this—reincarnated and still can’t lie flat, like a stone that can’t sink? Does this mean she can’t even run, like feet caught in mud?

“Why do this to me,” she exhaled, a thin thread of air in a winter room.

Should she… kill herself, like blowing out a lamp before the wind does?

Either way she dies: get absorbed by Elyssus like rain swallowed by the sea, or get overwritten by Olivya like paint over a faded mural.

Her so-called Authority Power isn’t hers, just Olivya’s echo; can a handful of spells win a war, like sparks against a storm? Obviously not.

What else can she do; better to flop and sleep, like a log on a river, drifting one day at a time.

“Wait, wait, calm down,” Lucimia breathed, like cooling tea in a quiet cup. “It’s just a guess, don’t spook yourself; what if it really is reincarnation?”

Now she actually hoped the ancestor-into-descendant cliché was true, like praying for rain under a clear sky.

Focus on Elyssus first, like tightening a knot before the wind rises.

But there’s a problem: how does she get out, like a moth trying to find the window? When will she wake on her own bed? Where’s Yuna?

With nothing else to do, Lucimia looked up at the girl in the sky, like watching a moon resting in still water.

The more she looked, the more it felt like a mirror, twin ripples in one pond.

Suddenly the girl’s lids and lashes trembled, like a butterfly testing its wings.

“Huh? She moved?” Lucimia’s eyes widened, round as lanterns in the dark.

After a moment, the girl slowly opened her eyes, and black mist seeped into Lucimia’s vision like night crossing a field; her mind grew heavy as rain.

That was the sign she was leaving and about to wake, like a boat turning toward shore.

“Mm…” She held her sinking mind together like clutching a fraying rope, eyes locked on the girl.

The girl’s eyes half-opened, showing half a black pupil, drowsy as dawn fog.

She blinked; clarity rose like the sun over ridges; then her eyes opened fully, bright as wet ink.

She saw below her another black-haired girl staring up, two stars aligned on a single line.

Her lips curled; a gentle smile brushed Lucimia like a spring breeze, and her heart thumped like a startled deer.

Her rosy lips parted, and a soft, lilting voice spilled like a stream over pebbles—“Hello, Lucimia…”

“Hello, Olivya…” another voice chimed, two bells in one wind.

Two voices spoke at once, and Lucimia thought she’d misheard, like echoes chasing each other in a canyon.

“Lu…ci…mia…” drifted one, syllables falling like slow rain.

“Oli…vya…” answered the other, beads of sound on a silk thread.

“Lu…ci…mia…”

“Oli…vya…”

The two voices kept repeating, circling her ears like swallows around a tower.

“So noisy,” Lucimia muttered, palms over her ears like lids on pots, but the sound rose from inside her skull like a drum under the ribs.

At last, the black fog closed in and swallowed her, and Lucimia’s consciousness sank like a stone into deep water.

“Mm-hm-hm~” came a hum, soft as velvet in dusk.

“Hee-hee-hee~” came a laugh, like silver bells skipping on ice.

Just before the cut to black, Lucimia heard that bell-like laughter, bright as sun on snow.

…

“Lu…ci… sis…” A familiar soft voice brushed her ear like warm cotton.

“Ah…” Lucimia lifted heavy lids like shutters in morning wind and found Yuna shaking her like a twig in a breeze.

“Don’t shake, don’t shake, I’m awake,” Lucimia sat up from the bed, breath fogging like a window in winter.

Yuna stopped and asked, “Lu-ci, sister, why… wake up so late?” Her words clung like honey.

“Is it late?” Lucimia rubbed her dizzy head like smoothing wrinkled silk and looked out the window, where sunlight was about to spill into the room like gold.

It was later than before, time slipped like sand from a cracked jar.

Before, she woke at dead night; now it was full morning, and Yuna had been calling her like a bird at the eaves.

Was it because she stayed at the altar for a while, like a traveler lingering at a shrine?

So what happened at the altar actually took place after Yuna’s Sacrificial Ritual, like thunder after lightning?

Before, her consciousness returned with Yuna right after the Sacrificial Ritual, like two boats docking together; she didn’t know what followed.

No wonder the black-robed ones started kneeling from the start, like reeds bowing to a finished wind; the offering had already been done.

Did that figure appear after the sacrifice as well, like mist rising off wet stone?

“Lu-ci, sister?” Yuna’s call touched her sleeve like dew.

“Forget it. First, we think how to deal with Elyssus…” Lucimia bit her finger, thoughts circling like swallows under the rafters.

“Mm…” Yuna sat quietly on the bed like a small cat, not disturbing her.

Lucimia thought for a long time, ideas sifting like tea leaves in a pot, and found only one path: don’t let Elyssus descend into this world like a storm breaking the ridge.

If she holds that line, the octopus and the believers are just waves against a seawall, not a tide to drown her.

But will Elyssus let her block it so easily, after swearing to break her in a few rounds like a chess master toying with a novice?

What should she do, when the sky holds its breath like a drum?

She didn’t know how much Elyssus could meddle this time, after feasting last cycle like a leech swollen with blood; if it no longer needs a Sacrificial Ritual to speak to its followers, what then?

No choice; try one or two more times, like throwing stones to test a river’s depth.

If that fails… run, like a bird before winter. Take Yuna. As for her parents, they won’t be deserters, steel planted like old trees; her father might send Lucimia away, but he likely won’t flee.

She can’t leave this life’s father in danger like a lantern in the wind; so she’ll set a great Magic Array to cover the entire clan, a net of light over a valley.

When she runs, she’ll slip the family through it and teleport them far away, like seeds cast on a safer field.

As long as she helps them dodge Elyssus’s first wave of soul-harvest, like ducking the first scythe swing, that’s enough; the rest is beyond her net.

She’ll take Yuna and run far, disappear like geese into the clouds, and live a quiet slacker life in peace.