Let’s hazard a bold guess: the Mystic Return Smoke is the real carrier, a gray serpent slipping through lungs and sowing sickness.

If so, the knot loosens. Shebelle could pray to Lucimia to purge the plague, yet call the Plague God righteous—because the one making plague isn’t the Plague God at all.

It also explains why Anjelo, an Independent by banner, is still hunted—his smoke might truly heal like clean rain, while the town’s smoke is ash that can’t cure.

Those terrifying worms? Maybe they’re just eating the illness, blind maggots chewing rot in a tree to save the trunk.

And it would explain why Kess keeps helping others, a small lantern in an alley of fog.

This guess irons some wrinkles flat. But it wrinkles others deeper, like tugging one thread and tangling three more.

For one: why did Lucimia get sick before the first Reversion?

Back then, she never inhaled Mystic Return Smoke, and her Devouring was always up, a shield of night against intrusion.

Before that first Reversion, she only helped Dori and locked eyes with a worm. The speed of the flare-up felt pushed—like the long-haired girl with pale green locks used an acceleration trick.

Unless both worm and smoke can forge disease. Maybe the Plague God knows the true maker and strikes back… but then why strike Lucimia, a stray moon in another orbit?

And what about the townsfolk who were duped, a flock driven by a fake shepherd’s whistle?

Another snag: if smoke is the source, why did people on the road ease after a single puff, like frost thawing under a timid sun?

Why was the smoke used first at all? To seed a plague—toward what end, toward whose harvest?

You could patch these holes with other guesses. But there’s one hole that won’t patch, a crack that won’t take mortar.

If the smoke is the source, and the Plague Followers truly mean to save, then why proclaim, “Spread disease to appease the god,” like crows shouting fire?

They could simply say, “They’re the ones spreading disease; we’re saving people,” and prove it on the spot, daylight cutting fog.

Right—why didn’t they? Isn’t that staggeringly stupid?

And now they’re really setting charges to blow the city wall and smash the Mystic Return Smoke workshops, night moving like a black tide at their heels.

This won’t do. The logic won’t lock; too many contradictions, too much noise. Irritation rose first, hot as steam; then Lucimia clutched her head.

“Who’s actually spreading disease, who’s sculpting this plague?” Frustration spiked; she raked her hair and tore out strands like withered vines. “And who’s actually saving?”

Her thoughts frayed into static.

Is Emongaha’s Mystic Return Smoke normal or tainted? If tainted, what’s his aim? Why cast sickness like seeds to the wind?

Is this a staged board? What if Emongaha and Lev, along with Gendi, Kess, and Pete, are all Plague Followers, letting both spread and cure feed the Plague God like twin mills?

Lev’s right hand reappeared, while a passerby’s right hand vanished—did they exploit the so‑called Sacrifice, shifting flesh like coins in a rigged cup trick?

That circles back: then the Plague God is still a Dark Deity, a shadow with teeth.

What’s the shape of this, really?

“Ugh. Maybe I should just run.” The impulse hit first, a gust in her chest. She mauled her hair, then slumped into the chair, thoughts going slack.

Just then, the Fuzzy Orb pulsed and fed her its sight, a cold eye opening in the night.

Several Plague Followers slipped through darkness, ready to wreck the smoke works and the built city wall, like termites under floorboards.

Lucimia didn’t teleport at once. Hesitation spread first, heavy as damp wool; then she hovered, unsure whether to act—or whom to aid.

She couldn’t tell enemy from ally; maybe both sides were knives aimed at the same throat.

If both are enemies, helping either is useless. The town—no, the whole Bannubi Empire—would become fodder, a field of wheat milled for the Plague God’s energy.

Only killing the Plague God would cut the root and dry the spring.

But killing a Dark Deity is Everest in a storm; even Elyssus hasn’t been fully handled yet.

“Absorb energy… absorb… energy…” She repeated the words like tapping a drum. Then a spark—“Wait. Absorb energy?”

A question burst up like a fish breaking water—how does the Plague God absorb energy?

This town has no sewers. Magic Arrays—whether for sacrifice or summoning—need their rings and runes. She found none within the bounds.

She’d searched carefully. Apart from a sensing Magic Array in the sky, there wasn’t a scratch on the earth.

So where does the energy gathered by Plague Followers flow? Through what river, into whose sea?

Two options: first, the Plague God can’t absorb it at all.

Second…

“The Plague God… doesn’t need a Magic Array to absorb energy.” The words left her lips low, like a match catching.

There’s only one world where that’s true—the Plague God is in the real world.

The thought hit like ice water; she sucked in a sharp breath, and gooseflesh raced her spine.

Like Lucimia herself—a Dark Deity present in reality. She needs no circle; the Fuzzy Orb’s Devouring is enough. Likewise, the worms siphon for it like roots drinking rain.

But then another stone in the shoe.

If it’s already descended, why hoard so much energy? For the simple pleasure of despair? To watch human misery like theater?

What is a Dark Deity, stripped to bone? Only that? Pure malice?

By human measure, those who delight in others’ despair are mad—fevered minds, reason gone thin as paper.

Sure, you could say a Dark Deity is inherently mad. But Lucimia isn’t.

Right now she’s steady, aside from the occasional stain of mental pollution. She’s just a person with a blade of power.

She can solve plenty with it. There’s no need to torch the world. No motive. It’s wrong, like a sour note in a lullaby.

She dredged up Yuna’s memories. In them, Lucimia was normal—at first. But with repeated Authority Power and absorption, she drifted, then slipped, then fell—lost reason, became a thing that devoured everything, a mouth without sky.

“Has the Plague God already gone mad?” Her guess rose like smoke.

Madness blooms after too much Authority Power, too much energy—like a vessel cracking under boil.

“Tss—looks like I’ve got a thread again.”

Maybe the smoke really is the source that forges disease. The Plague God once healed frantically, overused Authority Power, went mad, and began spreading disease like embers in wind.

That would stitch everything together.

Shebelle could beg for the plague’s end yet call the Plague God upright. The smoke feels wrong. And in a town where the Independents hold sway, Anjelo is still hunted, though he’s one of them.

Because Emongaha isn’t truly an Independent at all.

“At least I can pin one point: the Plague God and the Plague Followers aren’t in league with Emongaha.”