Now wasn’t the time for Lucimia to drift. She knotted her mood like a tight sash and fixed her eyes on the moment.

Bang, bang, bang.

The tremor ran through the shop like thunder under floorboards. Goods toppled. High shelves shed their cargo in a rain of clattering steel.

Luck held like a thin awning. Nothing split their heads.

“Lucimia, what do we do?” After Lucimia explained the situation again, Desty—fire-red hair like a banner—asked again.

Heat pricked her chest first; she pressed it down, then thought. Lucimia didn’t answer at once.

The target had shifted. The Plague Followers had become worms. Desty couldn’t handle worms that split like raindrops on stone. So Lucimia had to keep her close.

Through the Fuzzy Orb’s feed, images rippled up. Rats and worms burst from the prison entrance like a flood of night. The adjutant drew soldiers into a hard line, a reef against the tide, and began a massed block.

Magic flared overhead like drifting will-o’-wisps. The town and the empire weren’t gifted with spells, but they knew the basics. Fire still answered when called.

Lev strode with a greatsword on his back and an iron ball at his hip, walking toward the giant worm like a mountain moving.

What do I do?

The question rose in Lucimia like a dark bird beating its wings.

She could send Desty to cut down the adjutant. But then those splitting worms and rats would have no dam. Danger would take her. The townsfolk would drown with her.

And the adjutant might not hold long. When fire licked the rats and worms, they melted like candle wax. The dripping flesh beaded, then birthed new rats and worms.

In the end, the flame-wrapped rats would rush the line like burning hail.

On the other flank, Lev had started culling the giant worm, trying to stop its forming.

Lucimia weighed it all like stones in each palm. Then she made her call…

—

The count’s manor. The Mystic Return Smoke works.

Rows of heavy infantry raised black shields, a midnight wall braced at the front.

They moved with drill-sergeant precision. The front rank sagged, and they rotated like gears. Mages struck from the rear. Cavalry harried the flanks like wolves.

Their methods showed long winters of experience. Most lines would’ve shattered like ice by now.

But the Plague Followers weren’t ordinary.

They were cunning. They were organized and strict. They used their Blessings like siege hammers.

They sent a suicide detachment first, leaping from above. A heartbeat before contact, they chose to explode. Blood and meat blossomed, then turned into worms, a shower that seeded the ranks.

Next, several Followers at the front belched green sewage straight from their mouths. It was thick as swamp, and it glued itself to shields.

The black shields hissed and dissolved like frost in lye. The stench rose like a swamp in summer. Sprayed soldiers gagged helplessly, as if a hand squeezed their guts. They vomited, then retched dry, then water, then acid, then blood, until death.

The line broke like rotted rope. The remaining Followers rushed in and chose to explode quick, giving no time for a reply.

Cavalry on the flank saw and could only fret like horses at lightning. They tried to intercept, but the Followers had doused themselves in that sewage. The stench spooked the mounts. The horses veered away like leaves from flame.

No one knew why the Followers themselves didn’t vomit.

The field slid out of control. Victory’s scale tilted toward the Followers. Then a massive thunder-sphere arced from the sky, a perfect curve like a comet, and dropped into their midst.

Lightning wrapped that sphere. Bodies jerked and locked, puppets on burning wire. A few breaths later, the air smelled of char. They dropped and didn’t move.

The sewage sizzled clean under the current.

Soldiers drank a long breath, then drew ranks tight by habit, like a zipper pulled shut.

Confidence returned like dawn. They knew Lev had come.

Lev walked up from the rear of the Followers, step by step, footprints like stamps in wet clay. The survivors turned. His calm face made their hearts shiver like reeds in a cold wind.

They knew the strongest blade of Jaha Town. That fear was why they launched a raid, hoping to finish before Lev arrived.

They’d watched his strength too hard, and missed that Lev was a strategist. He had read their plan like script long ago.

“Heh. Something important slowed me. I’m late.” He wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. He reached back and drew the greatsword. Steel dragged and carved a crack in the earth, a black seam. He closed in. His left fist stayed clenched, as if gripping a secret.

One Follower sensed it and shouted, “Now! Everyone explode! Get the worms formed!”

The rest ignored spacing and braced to blow.

Lev raised his left hand the moment the shout began. A pitch-black Cross lifted above his head. Light flashed like frost on a blade. The Followers froze, eyes wide.

They couldn’t explode.

“You—!” The one who warned him glared at Lev, fury like sparks.

Lev lowered the Cross and chuckled. “Your explosions are mostly magical. So I banned your right to use magic.”

A chill poured down the Followers’ spines like well water. The caller recovered fast and yelled, “Then we cut ourselves! Do it by hand!”

He yanked a dagger and drove it into his throat. Blood sprayed like a torn wineskin, then wriggled into worms.

The rest saw and mimicked like swallows turning. Steel flashed. Red fell. Worms writhed.

“Madness,” Lev said, shaking his head, wind in a graveyard. “Is it worth it?”

“Heh…” The Follower with the knife in his throat rasped through torn reeds. “The real madmen… are you. We… are saving. This is… a glorious sacrifice.”

Lev snorted, cold as iron. His left foot stamped. His right hand drew the greatsword into motion. He turned once on the spot, then stepped forward with his right, and swung.

A colossal black sword-arc leapt out like a new moon fallen. It sheared through every Follower present. No blood spilled. Black fire bloomed instead, Devouring them, until they thinned into mist and drifted.

The arc passed through them and died right before the shield wall. The front rank felt only a hard wind. Nothing else touched them.

They marveled. Their commander’s sword was a scalpel in a storm. Relief came like cool rain.

They had sweated rivers against these Followers. Their commander arrived and ended it in heartbeats.

Several soldiers stepped up to greet Lev.

“Mm.” Lev nodded. “It’s not done. Don’t relax. Half of you, support the adjutant. The rest, with me. We end that unformed giant worm.”

“Yes, sir!”

The column split fast, crisp as cracked bamboo. Half rode off under the cavalry. Half fell in behind Lev, lines straight as ink.

A soldier who looked like a squad leader stepped up, saluted, and asked, “Sir, report on current positions?”

“Good.” Lev kept his back to him and stared at the lump of meat ahead, the unformed giant worm like a swollen heart.

The squad leader obeyed. He produced a map and papers and held them out. “These spots are swarmed by worms. I marked them.”

Lev nodded and lowered his eyes, studying the points like stars on a cold chart.

The next second, a black Fuzzy Orb poked out from the paper like a bubble from tar. Its maw split wide and lunged for Lev’s head.

Lev’s heart jolted like a struck gong, but he had no time to move. Even if he reacted, there was nowhere to slip.

The Fuzzy Orb took its prize. It Devoured Lev’s head in one bite. The headless body toppled like a felled pine.