Let’s roll time back like a retreating tide, and fix our gaze on Elyssus like a hawk on dusk prey.

After Elyssus crippled Yuna’s Reversion, it needed one last surge, a storm crest, to shatter the iron cage around it.

Lucimia and Yuna slipped away like sparrows from a net, but Elyssus watched its believers spark the ritual like coals, and its fever rose like wildfire.

“Hahahahahaha—! I, Elyssus, finally—finally return to descend!” Its laughter cracked like ice under boot.

“I’m faster than those fools!” Its pride flared like noon sun on steel.

The sky split like torn silk. Elyssus’s bulk squeezed from the wound like a leviathan breaching a black sea.

Almost there. So close. The shell was cracking like spring ice under current.

It saw the town below, like a painted map. It saw the panicked crowd, like scattered leaves. It saw armed figures braced like stakes in the wind.

“Hahaha, you can’t stop me!” Elyssus raised its tentacles like banners and declared its descent like thunder over a plain. “I, Elyssus, descend again today!”

A shriek lanced the air like a needle. The scene flickered like a failing lantern—

The prosperous town drowned in ink, a canvas turned pitch black.

“Hm?” The sound was a pebble dropped in a well.

Elyssus scanned the void like a blind beast sniffing rain.

No. Wrong. What’s this?

It felt the bars again, cold as winter bones. It was back in the cage like a bird after a dream.

“What?!” Rage surged like a volcano. A tentacle slammed the air, and a shockwave rippled like an earthquake across water.

Reversion? You’re telling me it reverted? The thought burned like acid.

“So close—raaah!” It raged like a forest fire, then the flame guttered like a spent wick.

Impossible. Didn’t it jab—hiss—whose eye did it jab? Oh. It jabbed Lucimia’s eye, a red flower smashed in snow.

She shouldn’t be able to Revert. How did she pull that off? The doubt coiled like a snake in grass.

“Hmph. Whatever.” The anger rose like lightning and faded like rain. Calm returned like a deep lake at night.

It ordered the believers to start the ritual again, embers stoked like bellows. But as it edged out of the tear, Lucimia Reverted, snapping time like a whip.

“Hmph. Doesn’t matter. We’ll do it again.” Confidence stood like stone. “She can’t possibly solve this.” The sneer was a blade’s glint.

After all, it had woven the plan for centuries, threads tight as a spider’s web. A mere girl couldn’t tear it.

To descend, it had counted every variable like beads and set contingencies like traps in frost.

Absorbing souls of those with the Blessing would feed it, bright fuel like oil to flame. So it set its eye on the Town of Tranquility, a calm pond masking depth.

There was an Exorcist Family there, many in number like trees in a grove.

At first it struck when most left on missions, ambushing like a night blade, and drank them for power like a thirsty ghost.

As the family thinned, the threat shrank like a shoreline at low tide.

Still, doing work under an exorcist’s nose was walking on thin ice. So it chose an Exorcism Ritual, a mask worn like lacquer.

It planted moles in the church like seeds. It laid multiple Magic Arrays like nets, even along the road from church to town like thorns in a path.

When the season ripened like grain, it moved to replace the entire town like actors swapping masks.

It would absorb every soul in town like a harvest. Then it would let the octopus keep appearances like a painted screen, and use the replaced Exorcist Family to push deeper plans like roots spreading.

That had been the design, a loom of shadows humming like bees.

Then Lucimia’s Reversion snapped the weave like a gust, and it had a headache like a splitting drum. With Reversion, how do you fight? The question bit like frost.

Soon it discovered a mirror’s trick. It could use Deception Power to cheat the reset, carry energy across Reversions like smuggled wine.

That revelation thrilled it like drums before battle. A darker plan bloomed like night jasmine in its mind.

It would ride Reversion, absorbing energy again and again like tides filling a bay.

It could guess what Lucimia would do after each Reversion. So it laid ahead of her, a path of traps like needles under silk. That was why reversals kept flipping like pages.

Across countless Reversions, Elyssus probed more secrets like a fisherman testing currents.

It found it could use Deception Power to cheat other things’ resets, a fox’s paw over fresh snow.

What did that mean? Simple as chalk on slate:

Before Reversion, the summoning ritual sat at 100%. After Reversion, it dropped to 0%, a cliff into fog.

With Deception Power, a half-built ritual at 50% would return as 5%, a ember saved from ash.

In other words, the Magic Arrays built in one loop could carry a slice to the next loop, a shard of ice surviving dawn.

Not fully, because it couldn’t overstep the world like a bull in a shrine. Preserving 5% was already gold in dust.

So each Reversion, besides countering Lucimia, it kept believers building the summoning ritual, bricks laid like ant trails.

Now, after the last reset, the ritual sat at 85%, a moon nearly full.

That’s why Elyssus could appear so fast, a shadow cutting daylight. Lucimia couldn’t guess it if she cracked her skull thinking.

Even if Lucimia Reverted, Elyssus feared nothing, a mountain in storm. It would just have believers start the Magic Arrays again, sparks to flame.

With that thought steady as iron, Elyssus reached out to Bazeroth, its call echoing like a conch in the void.

Bazeroth’s figure formed in the emptiness like mist. He saw Elyssus and dropped to his knees like a reed, voice devout as incense. “My great lord, what are your orders?”

“Je-je-je.” Elyssus’s laugh crawled like spiders. “Bazeroth, go to the ritual site now. Start the Magic Array. Also, kill Desty. Use her soul as the offering. I’m about to descend.”

“I understand, great lord—” Bazeroth’s answer rang like a bell.

After Bazeroth left, it reached other followers among the Evil Entities, adding threads to the plan like stitches, and setting counters like stones on a board.

It was cautious, a hunter before dawn. Even one step away, it didn’t relax, not a breath.

When everything lay in place like a chess set, it alone—no, an octopus—closed its eyes like shutters and waited in the void like deep water.

Yet—

“My great lord, what are your orders?” Bazeroth knelt again like a shadow at its feet.

“Hm? What’s going on?” Elyssus opened its clouded eyes like old glass and stared at Bazeroth, puzzled as fog.

This… was Reversion? The thought pricked like a thorn.

What’s that girl Lucimia doing? Suspicion coiled like smoke.

It felt a flicker of doubt, but it didn’t care, a wolf shrugging off rain. They had repeated Reversions before. Lucimia was just moving pieces. Elyssus feared nothing.

It gave Bazeroth the plan again, words clipped like knives. Then it told the other Evil Entity followers, a chain of whispers like wind through reeds.

While it spoke—

“My great lord, what are your orders?” Bazeroth knelt again, devout as stone.

“?” The silence was a cold pond. Another Reversion? This time quicker, like a trap springing faster.

Last time it finished the lay and waited a breath. This time it didn’t finish before the snap.

Elyssus still didn’t care, pride firm like granite.

Back when Lucimia learned magic, she had repeated Reversions many times like beads on a string. Elyssus guessed she was learning more tricks now, little sparks in a storm.

“Hmph. Learn your little plays. You think you can handle me?” It snorted, a boar’s breath in frost. This time it used simple words, clean as steel, to brief Bazeroth.

It reached the rest of the Evil Entity followers again, but halfway through the message, Lucimia Reverted, the interval even shorter, like waves slapping faster.

“My great lord…” The phrase fell like rain.

Elyssus eyed Bazeroth and switched to pure intent, a blade in the mind. It flooded Bazeroth with the plan like ink. Bazeroth understood and left like a shadow.

It repeated the steps, all by intent, a silent river through stone.

Elyssus had just sent the thought, and Lucimia Reverted again—again—again, time buckling like thin ice.

Bazeroth kneeled again—again—again, devotion ringing like a bell on loop.

“…Hmph.” Elyssus snorted, iron in breath.

It gathered every follower among the Evil Entities, a flock of ravens, and delivered all orders at once like a drumroll.

It closed its eyes, lids heavy as night, and a voice rose at its ear like a reed flute.

“My great lord…” The words returned like echo.

Elyssus glanced at him and repeated the routine like a mill wheel.

Finished—Reversion.

It did—she Reverted. It did—she Reverted. The loop spun like a lantern in wind, over and over.

Until one time, its intent hadn’t even finished, and Lucimia already Reverted, the snap faster than thought, a knife in breath.

“No.” Elyssus felt the wrongness like grit in teeth. “Not right.”

“Why? Why are her Reversion intervals getting shorter?” Suspicion gripped like frostbite. “What is she doing? If she’s learning magic, the gaps shouldn’t vary this much.” The doubt throbbed like a drum under ice.