Lucimia chose to move early, like cutting into dawn’s mist with a sharp blade. She’d lay a Magic Array at her family estate, then check if the town’s Sacrificial Ritual still stood. If it did, she’d break it now, not wait till night; the location was etched under her eyelids like a map.

After a short rest, she’d fly along the road the church procession had taken, a swallow trailing their dust, and hunt for the Sacrificial Ritual Bazeroth had laid in advance. She’d tear that down too, like pulling rot from a beam.

It was the only thing she could do for now, her options thinned like late autumn leaves. Unless she went extreme.

Let Yuna run Reversion again and again, buying her time to raise her magic. Sharpen her super-tier spellwork until it was a thunderhead, then slaughter the whole city like snuffing lamps in a storm. If everyone died, Elyssus would have no souls to drink.

She’d then Teleport her parents away, and flee with Yuna like birds ahead of frost. Elyssus could cry to the empty sky; it would have to reset its plan and feed in another town.

By then, it wouldn’t be Lucimia’s concern. She’d be alive, and she’d never dreamed of saving the world; her ideals were a quiet shore and a low tide.

As for Olivya taking her body to resurrect—let that be tomorrow’s thunder. If they ran, they’d stall a few days where they could.

It was feasible in theory, a bridge that could hold. But after it, the weight would be heavy—guilt like a stone yoke—and she might live like a fox in winter, always on the run.

It clashed with the lazy, keep-your-head-down life she wanted, a sun-warmed rock and no ambitions.

And the promise to enter the Magic Academy with Yuna would crumble like chalk in rain.

“…Call it the last resort,” she said, lips dry as cracked earth. “At least it isn’t a dead end. We still have a chance… right?”

She told Yuna the plan for this Reversion, the steps like knots on a rope, and what they’d do if it failed.

“If we fail, we run, Yuna.”

“…Do we really have to?” Yuna’s voice dipped, a clouded pool, clearly unhappy.

“I… think… we shouldn’t run… if we can help it…”

Lucimia fell silent, the hush of a still pond. After a moment she said, low, “We’ll see.”

They didn’t linger on the topic; the thought slid away like rain off tile.

Lucimia cast an Invisibility Spell on Yuna and led her out of the estate, smoothing her appearance into the world like ink into water. Then she began laying a Magic Array around the family grounds, lines and sigils spiraling like frost on glass.

It was a large array, and as she worked, she felt a simple territorial Magic Array would be lacking, a fence too short for wolves. Vittor and Julie might be outside the estate. Even her own family might be away.

So she shifted to a designated Teleportation Array. Target the people by name, and you remove the variable of who’s inside the circle when the storm breaks.

She spent the whole morning finishing it, fingers moving like spider legs over silk. The trouble was, the array needed a link to each target.

To meet that condition, she had to go up to them in person, pluck a hair like stealing a single thread, and pat their shoulders to weave the contact. It ate time like fire eats straw.

With the array complete and lunch a brief pause under a pale sun, she headed to break the town’s Sacrificial Ritual.

But first, she needed to confirm one thing.

At the soldiers’ barracks, she pulled down her hood, her face unveiled like moonlight. She walked up, stopping before the sentry.

He spotted the noble girl from afar, beauty like a bright banner, and snapped straight with a crisp salute.

“Good day, miss. What brings you here?”

“Mm… who’s your captain?” Lucimia asked, calm as a still stream.

She was here to confirm whether Cole—erased last Reversion—would remain absent. The boy disguised by the Blue Ringed Octopus, and his fake mother—she had cut them down. They hadn’t appeared in the second Reversion.

“Oh, our captain!” The soldier brightened, pride swelling like drumbeat. “You may not know—our captain’s a true hero. He once fought off a monster incursion alone, strength deep as the sea. He’s a good man too, always checks on us, not like those stiff high-ups. And—”

“Stop.” Lucimia lifted a hand, slicing the air like a blade.

“I just need his name.”

“Oh. He’s called Jeff. Nice name, right?”

“Mm. It is. I got what I needed. Thank you. Goodbye.” She flowed away with ease, words neat as stacked tiles.

It was set—Cole was dead. Dead beyond Reversion, like a candle snuffed and the smoke gone.

That further confirmed it: creatures Lucimia cut down vanished from history, and whatever they had done became wind—never was.

She’d thought a Deceiver’s effects might fade on its death. It wasn’t that. It was her ability.

She didn’t know if it came from Olivya or from her Exemption. Her Blessing was Exemption of the Eldritch. If it was the Exemption, then what she held was an Authority Power.

She shelved the question like a book at dusk. Since Cole was dead, would the ritual still exist? Was Cole the one who laid it?

At the tavern’s back yard, she crouched by the manhole cover, eyes tracing the rim like a hawk’s gaze.

“Mm… no hairs trapped to check whether someone came. Good.”

She flipped the cover and dropped down, a shadow slipping into the earth.

This time she moved boldly, footfalls uncompromised, flying straight to the ritual site like an arrow.

She found the familiar Sacrificial Ritual circle. That meant Cole hadn’t laid it; someone else had planted this root.

“So… there’s more than one Deceiver in town?” She exhaled, frost on a breath. “Whatever. I’ll break the ritual.”

She didn’t waste thoughts on it. She smashed the array, simple and brutal, tearing it until it was unrecognizable, and left, satisfied as a clean blade.

She had just flown out of the sewer when she halted, mind turning like a wheel. She slipped back down.

At the corner of the ritual chamber, she left an Imagerecording Stone, a silent eye.

“Mm. At least I’ll learn who the other Deceiver is. If he comes tonight to start the Sacrificial Ritual, the stone will capture his face clear as daylight.”

Done, she flew out a second time. She set the cover back, swept dust from the yard and sprinkled it over, hiding traces like waves smoothing sand.

“All right. Rest a bit, then it’s time to break the Magic Array Bazeroth spent years preparing.” She clapped her hands, and rose into the high air.

She stared at the sky, blue and calm as still water, her face unreadable, thoughts like deep currents. It looked easy, smooth as silk, yet joy didn’t come. Not like the earlier Reversions, when confidence burned like a small sun.

Elyssus’s words kept echoing in her ears. “In a few rounds, I’ll make you despair.” The sentence coiled there, refusing to fade.

What would Elyssus do?