"Lucimia..." Elyssus’s face went dark like storm glass. "When did you get here? I walked in and saw nothing. Invisibility Spell? Then how did you arrive?"

Lucimia tilted her head like a curious sparrow and laughed. "Guess."

Across the room, Bazeroth watched with eyes dull as wet stones. Without his Magic Eye, Lucimia under Invisibility Magic was air.

Robin jerked as a blade of night bit him, blood blooming like a crimson flower. Only when Lucimia’s laugh rang did her shape ripple into view.

"You brat, you dared to ambush my master—vile and shameless. I’ll carve you up!" Bazeroth jabbed a finger and lunged like a loosed hound.

Magic sparked like flint; a lightning lance speared toward Lucimia, bright as shattered glass in rain.

Lucimia just flicked him a glance, cool as winter water. A clot of shadow bloomed and Devoured Bazeroth’s lightning.

"Mm. Good magic. Have it back."

She sifted the spell’s threads like silk through fingers. After Devouring, she held it with ease.

Her hand cut the air; stronger lightning flew like splintered spears and drilled straight into Bazeroth.

"Ah—ah—ah!" Lightning chewed him like wild dogs. When death pressed close, Elyssus whipped out black mist like a storm front and dragged him back.

Bazeroth sat on the floor, gulping air like a man hauled from wreckage.

Elyssus looked up at Lucimia, who hung above like a bright moth. The surprise faded; calm pooled like still water.

It grinned wickedly, voice thin as a blade. "Lucimia, you’ve grown, haven’t you? Awakened an Authority Power? Think you can beat me and came to kill me?"

"Did I ever say that?" Lucimia blinked, playful as a cat in sunlight. "I’m here to confirm one thing. That’s all."

She switched her crossed leg, swinging in midair like a girl on a porch swing.

"I kept wondering about that false Bazeroth and the fake Magic Array I Devoured in the forest. How did they exist?"

"Clearly, you used Authority Power. But using Authority Power needs possession, and possession needs a Sacrificial Ritual."

"Back then, time was short like a cut wick. I didn’t believe you could start an array instantly. So—"

She paused, her eyes deep as a moonlit pond. "So I guessed you had a way to possess and use Authority Power without a ritual."

"Looks like I guessed right. You wouldn’t let Robin or Bazeroth die, so you had to save them. Which means you lied to me."

"Well, think about it. A cautious octopus wouldn’t be so arrogant as to tell me everything."

"You told me you can possess, sure, but only half the story. You wanted me to misjudge, so you could script my next step."

"Then flip it, make me keep doing Reversion, and let you repeatedly absorb energy like tides hitting a shore."

"In plain words, you gave me a sliver of hope, so I’d keep Reversion to crack the game instead of killing myself."

"If I died, you’d lose the dividend of absorbing energy again and again." Lucimia spread her hands like a stage performer done with lines.

"Heh." Elyssus’s laugh was cold as iron. "Even so, what then? You know this, so what? You won’t stop me."

"Don’t think only you can guess my information. I can guess yours. You must have a method to erase an existence, right?"

"Even erase the impact of what they did."

Elyssus watched her face, hunting for shock or a heavy stare like storm clouds. He found only a carefree smile bright as spring.

"Of course I know you’d guess," Lucimia said lightly, words as casual as drifting petals. "You’re sly."

"You’d notice a flaw in your plan like a torn net. With your nature, you wouldn’t blame yourself first."

"You’d suspect I did something. That’s normal."

"Or you’d find the logic off. Like, hey, I clearly stabbed out Lucimia’s eyes. Why can she still do Reversion?"

"There must be a problem, right? Something must have been erased, right?" Lucimia’s performance was flamboyant as theater.

Elyssus fell silent, the room suddenly cold as damp stone.

Now gravity settled on Elyssus like a winter cloak. It couldn’t read the girl’s mind anymore.

She felt like a different person, no longer that naive girl from before. Cute in shape, yet her eyes held a killing frost.

It was a gaze that wouldn’t rest until Elyssus was hacked into pieces and scattered like ash.

But with a turn of thought, Elyssus’s fear thinned like smoke.

Why? Because even if she knows, so what? Elyssus had too many hands to play.

Magic Arrays would be started, energy would be absorbed like rain into soil. Could Lucimia really stop it?

Even if she broke a Magic Array, it didn’t care. It had arrays set up beyond counting, like stars.

And it didn’t fear her human-swallowing trick either. Its Authority Power skill outstripped hers.

Deception Power could fool it. No fear at all.

With that thought, Elyssus straightened, head high and chest out like a commander.

"Heh heh. Lucimia, you are a bit clever. Not bad to reach this point. But how will you stop me?"

"Planning to use that Devouring Authority Power to swallow me?"

"Hm? I said I didn’t say that. But, I do want to try."

Smiling like a blade hidden in silk, Lucimia raised a hand. A shadow budded above Robin’s crown like spilled ink.

It spread and wrapped Elyssus completely, walls melting into pitch-black chaos. Outside vanished like a snuffed lantern.

"Parlor trick." Elyssus shook out black mist like a thunderhead. The shadow burst, and the bedroom snapped back.

"Impressive," Lucimia said, the praise thin as ice.

"Heh heh, Lucimia. Now you see our gap?" Elyssus grinned, testing her Authority Power like a finger on a wire.

Finding the threat small, it grew brazen as wildfire.

From behind Robin, a tentacle surged like a serpent, suckers packed tight like honeycomb. Anyone with trypophobia would flinch.

"Talking to you is a waste. Time to erase this variable."

"Erase?" Lucimia tilted her head, a hand over her mouth, giggling like silver bells.

"What are you laughing at?" Elyssus asked, confusion prickling like needles. A beat later, its heart clenched like a fist.

It spun to look behind, eyes sharp as knives.

Behind it—no one. Empty as a bare field.

Where was Bazeroth?!

Wait. Lucimia’s fake Devouring of Elyssus had actually Devoured Bazeroth?

Damn. Her eerie show had fogged its thoughts like mist, and she slipped a blade through the gap.

Thinking fast, Elyssus used Deception Power on itself, a veil to keep Bazeroth from being forgotten.

Bazeroth was dead, beyond saving, like a snuffed candle. But memory’s erosion needed time.

It was still in time to keep its memory from being erased again.

If what happened here got erased, Elyssus feared falling into a passive trap, like a fish in a dry net.

"Good, good, Lucimia. You’ve really grown. Playing psychology now."

"Mm-hmm." Lucimia said nothing more. She watched Elyssus in quiet like moonlight on water.

After a few seconds, she spoke, voice steady as a plucked string. "I confirmed another thing."

"I wondered, with your caution, even if I truly killed Bazeroth, would it barely affect you?"

"Now it seems so. Your energy didn’t drop much, like a cup missing a sip."

"So, you have other believers hidden. You didn’t put all your eggs in one basket."

"Lucimia..." Elyssus’s voice sank like a stone in a well. It was its first real setback.

The impact was small in substance, yet the blow to its heart was hard as a hammer.

"Die." As the word fell, the tentacle smashed toward Lucimia like a falling tree.

Lucimia only smiled, calm as snow. "What needed confirming is confirmed. Then, goodbye."

White light took her like a paper lantern flaring, and she vanished as the tentacle struck.

CRASH—!

A shriek of shattering glass tore the air like a hawk’s cry.

It wasn’t the window; something else fractured, quick as frost cracking.

Elyssus leaned in, gaze sharp as awls. On the spot where Lucimia had sat, magic circuits coiled like vines.

Complex geometric figures stacked like layered talismans, glowing faintly.

This was—

"...a Teleportation Array," Elyssus murmured, voice cold as steel.

Its heart chilled like water under ice. It knew what Lucimia’s repeated Reversions had done.

Elyssus could use Deception Power to fool a Magic Array’s progress. Lucimia could too.

By Devouring away a Reversion’s reset, she kept the array intact like a knot that wouldn’t slip.

Thus, a Magic Array set before Reversion still existed after the turn.

She used that method, reverting again and again, until the array nestled in Robin’s bedroom like a hidden trap.

It explained why her Reversion intervals grew shorter. At first, she still had to fly like a migrating bird.

Later, she could teleport directly, quick as a snapped string.

She appeared in Robin’s room by this, and backstabbed Robin like a knife from the dark.

It was a mind game she played, a mirror maze by intent.

Earlier, when Lucimia learned magic, she did short, repeated Reversions. She seized that pattern like a handle.

At first, Elyssus thought she was learning some new magic to counter it, a branch against the wind.

When it noticed the shortened intervals, it was already late; the array finished like a beaten drum.

The later Reversions kept baiting it. A cautious Elyssus would show itself, refusing to let variables live.

Once it appeared, Lucimia could unknit her doubts like threads.

After she got her answers, she left at once, not meeting it head-on, a swallow gone from the eaves.

"Laying a board, are you...?" Elyssus sank into a chair, voice low as smoke.

What would Lucimia do with this knowledge? Seek other believers, kill them, and break arrays?

Use the same method, a net cast wide?

Would she try this across the whole world, hunting believers like stars? Was that possible?

"Hmph." Elyssus snorted, sharp as flint.

No fear. Elyssus only needed to accelerate the summoning ritual, driving it like cattle.

If, after Reversion, the progress stayed at one hundred percent, it could descend without thought, like rain.

It had ordered believers worldwide to do the same, threads woven across the map.

You think it was that dumb—using Reversion only to absorb energy in the Town of Tranquility?

It had laid deeper backhands across the world, cards up sleeves like hidden blades.

As long as Magic Arrays kept advancing, the octopus clan swapped souls madly, a churn of tides.

Lucimia would spend time finding people, sand slipping from her palm. The advantage stayed with Elyssus.

This time, it could absorb souls swapped across the world, rivers feeding one sea.

Progress differed by place, but once every Magic Array hit one hundred percent, Elyssus would drink the world’s energy like night.

For now, it needed to start the fastest-completed array, a draught to refill its reserves.

After all, using Authority Power to meddle with the world demanded a price, heavy as iron on the back.