“Fuzzy Orb died?” Shock hit Lucimia like ice water, a crack of frost across her chest.

It was her first time seeing an Evil Entity die, like a shadow snuffed by dawn.

What was that Cross, that ink-black monument like a nail in the sky? Lev had one too, a bone-white thorn in his palm.

He’d used it to forbid his own magic, like clapping a lid on a boiling pot.

“That thing—what is it?” Lucimia’s throat tightened like a knot of reeds; her mind spun like leaves in a gust.

“Is that why they dare face Evil Entities and a Dark Deity, and preach the Independents like a bell on a tower?”

But if so, they still lost, like a levee breaking; before the first Reversion, beasts flooded the town, and people fell like cut wheat.

That eerie surge still clung to her, like unseen eyes pricking her skin; a boulder sat on her chest, and breath came like thin winter air.

She exhaled long, like steam in cold dawn; once her pulse steadied, she weighed the fallout like stones on a scale.

If Fuzzy Orb died, would those inside sense the intrusion, like ripples telling the pond of a thrown pebble? Was Reversion the better tide?

Yes. The answer landed like a clean blade.

No more words. Lucimia triggered Reversion with a flick, rewinding the river to when Fuzzy Orb first slipped inside.

She steered Fuzzy Orb back to the production house, like a moth to a lamp; then split it into several, beads scattering like dew.

They watched in a 360-degree ring, no blind spots, like lanterns circling a shrine; through them, she set a Teleportation Array, neat as runes on jade.

Done, she cut the shared view like snuffing a candle’s twin flame.

“All set.” Lucimia dusted her palms, the sound crisp as bamboo, and glanced at Desty beside her.

“All set?” Desty blinked, foggy as dawn mist. “I didn’t see a thing.”

“Good.” Lucimia’s face was calm as still water. “I’m an archmage; my spells go quiet, like ink sinking into silk.”

“Let’s head for the city wall.”

“Okay.”

Before leaving, Lucimia looked back at the count’s manor; the massive black Cross stood there like a thunderstruck tree burned to coal.

—

The city wall was easy to find, a mountain ridge rising behind the manor; it bit the sun in half, its shadow a river across stone.

Lucimia glanced again at the manor; the production house crouched near the wall, like a barn by a cliff.

While Desty looked away, Lucimia slipped out a Fuzzy Orb, soft as a drifting seed, then she moved to her friend’s side like a quiet gust.

Desty ran her palm along the wall, tapping here and there like a woodpecker; she rapped with her sword hilt, iron speaking to stone.

“It’s solid through,” she murmured, awe bright as starlight. “So strong—did that Ninth Rank Mage make this? It spans the continent like a spine.”

Lucimia pressed her hand to it twice, feeling the Ninth Rank Mage’s handiwork like grain under bark.

“Rough, yet hefty,” she judged, like packed earth under an old road.

She thought a beat, then stepped back two paces, her shadow folding like a fan. “Behind me,” she told Desty.

“Eh? What are you—don’t tell me—”

Lucimia didn’t wait. She grabbed Desty and drew her behind, a shield against a gale, then forged her strongest strike, a sphere of pure mana bright as a small sun.

Boom—!

The launched orb kicked up wind like a storm at sea, their hair and skirts snapping like flags.

Thump!

The sphere struck, and the blast roared like thunder underfoot; the ground trembled like a drumhead.

With that force, the wall should crack, leave a crater, like a bite taken from bread. That was her expectation.

But the wall flared white, a clean blade of light; it drank her attack like sand swallowing rain, then quieted, the force dissolving like mist.

Silence fell, light as snow.

“So… tanky?” Desty gaped, mouth round as a coin.

“Very tanky,” Lucimia frowned, a crease like a drawn string.

Ninth Rank power, indeed; a single step up from Eighth, yet the gap felt like earth to sky.

To keep the noise from drawing wolves, Lucimia triggered Reversion again, a smooth reset like rewinding a spool.

She set the watching Fuzzy Orbs and the Magic Array, knots in a net, then tugged Desty away like wind leading a leaf.

“Where do we hide?” Desty asked on the road back, her voice a cautious footfall.

Lucimia weighed options like stones in her palm. “We try to find the other two Plague Followers,” she said, “and we check the jail for the innkeeper suspected to be Gene.”

“The jail?!” Desty’s shock flared like a match. “We’re wanted. Going there is walking into the net like a fish.”

Lucimia didn’t find her reaction strange; her tone stayed level as a pond. “We can go invisible. We can shift forms. We won’t get caught like rabbits.”

Unless we meet Lev, she added in her heart, a quiet thorn under the leaf.

Desty still looked uneasy, clouds tugging her brow. “This seems—”

“If we want to cure the town’s plague, we have to do it,” Lucimia said, voice a steady bell. “If the innkeeper is Gene, he wouldn’t get caught so easily.”

“He might’ve gone in by choice, with a plan tucked like a blade in the boot.”

“And Lev isn’t a fool,” she added, iron under silk. “From how he feels, he might kill Gene on sight, skip questions like tossing chaff.”

“If the innkeeper is Gene, he’s not a fool either; he either has a life-saving talisman, or…”

She let the words hang, a fruit ripening in the air.

“Or what?” Desty leaned in, curiosity like a cat at a door.

Lucimia cleared her throat, the sound neat as a gavel. “Or he’s ready to die, using himself as a medium, spreading disease like smoke from a brazier.”

Desty froze, thoughts like birds scattered.

On second thought, it wasn’t impossible; a mad cultist of a Dark Deity would burn like oil for their god.

“Self-detonation?” The word popped in Desty’s mind like a spark.

“Yes.” Lucimia nodded, firm as a seal on wax.

“That’s… insane,” Desty breathed, a shiver like rain along a roof. “But it fits a cultist’s mask.”

“Then we go to the jail first.”

“Okay.”

—

Underground prison, interrogation room; damp air clung like moss, and lantern smoke curled like snakes.

The innkeeper, honest-faced as a worn coin, sat shackled wrist and ankle to a wooden chair like a stump.

He spread his hands, helpless as a man in rain. “I told you, the guest was a red-haired girl; I never saw that black-haired one.”

Opposite him sat Lev’s adjutant, the same one from the office, calm as a sheathed blade; Lev stood behind like a shadowed pillar.

Lev lifted his right hand, turned it palm and back like checking a tool; he closed and opened his grip, testing air like clay.

His right hand, once taken by Devouring, had returned like a limb regrown in spring.

“Any proof? A witness,” the adjutant asked, voice cool as steel.

“Sure,” the innkeeper said. “She took the key and went upstairs; some merchants were chatting in the hall on the second floor. Ask them.”

The adjutant glanced at Lev, found no ripple, and went on, words neat as stacked bricks. “The merchants returned to their ship overnight.”

“We asked them to testify and got refused; the ship flies a foreign flag, and we can’t use force like pirates.”

“Then that’s not on me,” the innkeeper said, easy as a man over tea. “The rally called for purging the Deity Loyalists.”

“Most merchants are foreigners and follow the Purification Church; for safety, they fled back to the ship like birds to a mast.”

“They fear you’ll lure them ashore and bar them returning, like closing a harbor gate.”

“You seem to know a lot,” the adjutant cut in, a cold wind through reeds.

“Heh.” The innkeeper stayed loose, like a cat in sun. “We talk often; knowing this is normal, like knowing your neighbors.”

The adjutant nodded, letting the thread drop like a spent line. “In that case, no one can guarantee you’re not a Plague Follower.”

The innkeeper’s mood soured, a cloud over noon. “Hey, why should I prove I’m not a Plague Follower?”

“Do you have proof I am one?”