While Lucimia wrestled Elyssus in the sky, the town below seethed like a hornet nest.

A Dark Deity descending was doom; Alvis braced for a death fight.

Then shock hit like ice: the deity was his daughter.

And her state was wrong, struggling against an invisible foe like chains.

He couldn’t spare a breath for Lucimia; the rioting octopi clawed at the town like storm‑tossed nets.

Their power had surged; after Elyssus lifted their shackles, she fed them like a dark tide.

Each now fought like a Blue Ringed Octopus; and the Blue Ringed Octopus grew fiercer still.

A massive Blue Ringed Octopus sprawled over rooftops, spewing thick venom like storm rain.

In a blink, the venom ate houses, earth, and people, like acid gnawing bone.

Don’t doubt why Lucimia hadn’t slain it; she needed Blue Ringed Octopi to swap souls, so Ritch could trigger the Magic Array.

Alvis cut toward the largest Blue Ringed Octopus, but a shadow stepped into his path.

It was Ritch, a shadow with a grin.

Ritch knew the one descending wasn’t Elyssus; he wouldn’t let Alvis slay the Blue Ringed Octopus.

Alvis drew his longsword; lightning danced along the blade like chained storms.

Ritch unsheathed his rapier; black mist coiled around it like smoke from a pyre.

They moved at once, steel kissed close, and clashed like thunderheads colliding.

…

Desty arrived with a band of Holy Knights; seeing the wicked octopi, she finally grasped Lucimia’s promised “payment,” sharp as salt and iron.

Exorcism—driving out rot like smoke from a house—had been their work all along.

Desty split them into squads to cull the small ones; she took two elite Holy Knights to sever the Blue Ringed Octopus.

The White Sword flashed; in tandem, Desty and the Knights sliced off the Blue Ringed Octopus’s limbs like cattails.

The Blue Ringed Octopus glanced once; a whip of tentacle shattered the White Sword’s arc midair.

Another sweep, and all three Knights were hurled away like leaves.

Its severed limbs flexed and pulsed; in breaths, the stumps budded and regrew like vines.

Desty stared, solemn as stone. “This payment… is a bit hard to afford.”

…

Frustration pricked like thorns; Lucimia saw everything below, yet she couldn’t help.

She focused on Elyssus’s black mist, and nothing else.

She devoured the mist bit by bit; Elyssus thrashed wild, tossing Lucimia’s stance until she wavered in the air like a lantern in wind.

Alvis and Ritch fought tooth and nail.

Credit where due: Elyssus’s priest matched Alvis blow for blow like mirrored steel.

So that talk of being a third‑tier Swordmaster had been smoke.

He’d even played dead on the ground earlier, slacking like a cat in sun.

Elsewhere, Desty’s battle with the Blue Ringed Octopus wasn’t a stalemate; the red‑haired girl was clearly pushed downhill like a rolling stone.

Her strikes were effective; the Blue Ringed Octopus’s healing was monstrous, undoing cuts like water mending clay.

It spat twin gouts of venom, slowing Desty’s limbs.

In a war of attrition, the side with mortal lungs loses; that side would be Desty.

Sure enough—just as Lucimia thought—Desty twisted a foot dodging the spray, and crashed to the ground like a felled sapling.

No surprise; long fighting drained her like a leaking cask.

Her stance wobbled, her focus frayed like worn silk.

Pain hissed through her teeth. “What in the world is this monster?”

Desty scrabbled up and grabbed her fallen sword like a drowning hand gripping driftwood.

The Blue Ringed Octopus didn’t waste the opening; a tentacle hammered Desty’s back like an iron bar.

The blow snuffed her consciousness like a candle.

She crumpled to the dirt.

Its beak gathered power, venom pooling like ink.

It aimed to finish Desty.

Lucimia clicked her tongue like a spark.

With Desty about to perish like a wilting flower, Lucimia felt the need to intervene.

She’d hauled the girl here early; letting her die for that would taste wrong as ash.

Holding Elyssus at bay, Lucimia flicked a small hand.

A shadow mass fell from the sky, wrapping the Blue Ringed Octopus in one breath.

Devouring Authority bloomed.

Lucimia swallowed the Blue Ringed Octopus with effortless Devouring.

But that sliver of attention opened a crack, and Elyssus slipped a knife through.

Her skull reeled, drilled by a raging auger.

Agony bloomed; Elyssus was pushing for a breakout.

Countless resentful voices rose in her mind like a swarm of crows.

Clarity hit like cold rain.

Elyssus wanted her to lose control, then seize her body in reverse—like in Yuna’s memories, where Olivya took her after a break.

What now? This path was a dead river.

Lucimia wrung her thoughts like wet cloth, and a method surfaced.

Sigh. “Looks like the slacker life will have to wait.”

Lucimia cast a Flight Spell, angling for the city’s edge like a swallow cutting wind.

On the way, she glanced back at Desty.

Desty had dodged one scythe, but unconsciousness left her bare.

The small octopi surged like tide, hungry to finish her.

The other Holy Knights had no spare breath; they were locked with the swarm like oars in heavy surf.

No choice—save a life, see it through, like carrying a friend across a river.

Lucimia wheeled back, dove from high sky, scooped the red‑haired girl into her arms, then soared for the river outside.

She flew to the river’s height and whispered, “Devour… consciousness…”

In the next heartbeat, her mind went blank as snowfall.

Consciousness sank.

The voices vanished.

She flipped the table and slipped the taint entirely, like stepping out of a rigged game.

“Lucimia…” Elyssus’s last voice rang by her ear, “I won’t… spare you…”

Her awareness dipped; the world went black.

Holding Desty, Lucimia fell from the sky and plunged into the river.

The current caught them and swept them away like drifting reeds.

…

Who knew how long passed; the sun slid toward the hills.

The Town of Tranquility finally wore a rough peace.

At the same time, it lay ruined, like a spent battlefield.

Blood slicked the streets.

Corpses everywhere.

Octopi hacked into pieces like scattered kelp.

Survivors crawled from hiding at last.

Seeing the shattered town and dead kin, they broke into raw crying like rain.

The Holy Knights cleaned the field.

Town of Tranquility soldiers helped, dragging the dead to the square like logs.

Their count stunned like frost: five in ten were dead.

Half the town gone.

Thirty percent had burst at the start, shells cracking as octopi bodies crawled out, like nightmares hatched.

Alvis heard and his face darkened like stormcloud.

He had no idea what truly happened, fog in his head.

It all hit like a lightning strike.

No help for it—he’d question the green‑haired brat, like yanking a thorn.

Sword in hand, Alvis strode to Ritch.

Ritch had been taken alive, trussed up tight like a hogtie.

He set the blade under Ritch’s chin. “Spill it. All of it.”

Ritch’s fine features were a map of bruises, blood at his lip.

He laughed through the wreckage.

“Ha. Spill what? Don’t you know? Wasn’t it all Lucimia’s doing? She’s a Dark Deity; I’m her follower. Simple as that. Aren’t you the same? Dark Deity family, right? Didn’t you ask me to cooperate?”

Alvis frowned at the babble and drove a boot into Ritch’s ribs.

Ritch folded to the ground, back arched, teeth clenched like a trapped dog.

Dark Deity family? All this was Lucimia’s fault—words like ash in his mouth.

Resolve iced his blood; he didn’t believe it.

He’d seen Lucimia’s abnormal state from the start, struggling in the sky like a kite in gale.

She’d slain the Blue Ringed Octopus and saved Desty from the swarm.

How could that be a Dark Deity’s cruelty?

Lucimia must’ve been caught in something.

No matter what, Alvis would never believe his daughter was a Dark Deity, steady as a mountain root.