“Hmm… this smoke’s wrong.” Lucimia watched the haze thicken like ink bleeding through water.
“Heh, you caught it.” Lev’s voice slid like a knife, and his body snapped into motion.
He hefted a sword over a meter long and charged like a lion breaking from its cage, pressure rolling at Lucimia like a stormfront.
Panic bit first, a tight choke in her chest, then steadied breath; her will flicked, and she vanished as the blade fell.
The giant sword slammed into a crumbling wall, old stones coughing dust as the last solid bricks shattered.
Lev whipped around and saw the girl bloom from nothing amid the soldier ranks, mid-air before one helm; a Frost longblade formed in her hand and carved an azure ripple that took the man’s head clean.
She let wind magic carry her like a gust through reeds, pulling distance so the ring of steel couldn’t close.
Boots skidding, she slid back two meters. She straightened, eyed the ice blade, then the fallen soldier like a toppled scarecrow.
“No blood.” Her face went cold, a winter moon behind clouds.
Black flames wrapped the soldier like tar, and he unraveled into smoke.
The chill thought came hard: maybe none of these soldiers, Lev included, were truly human.
Under that pitch armor, was there anyone at all?
No—wrong.
She remembered the Fuzzy Orb’s ambush, Devouring his right hand; blood had geysered out. That Lev had been himself, flesh harmed, life spilling.
So this Lev wasn’t the original? Maybe. He could be swapping bodies, switching with a Sacrifice at any moment.
Yet that dead soldier didn’t revive, and no stand-in replaced him.
Wait… could it be—
Lev noticed her realization and showed no panic. Calm as dusk, he raised a black Cross like a coffin nail.
Lucimia saw the Cross and remembered its bite. That thing had silenced her magic like rain doused by sand.
If her spells died, she’d have to fight with Authority Power. She feared the slip—loss of control, corruption seeping in like oil—unless there was no other choice.
She had to stop him using the Cross. But distance yawned like a canyon; she couldn’t rush it. Any long-range spell would meet his guard, time stretching his reaction like elastic. No sneak this time.
As the Cross gathered light, a white blade sang from Lev’s flank. He sensed it but was late; the White Sword took his wrist clean, and the Cross clattered to stone.
Lucimia seized the beat and sent an Ice Lance screaming at his face, cold streaming like winter wind.
Lev froze in surprise, still puzzling why the White Sword bit armor that it had only scratched before. The Ice Lance rode a tide of chill; he hurled himself forward, diving for the Cross. Bone and sinew knitted, a new hand snatching for it.
Too bad. The White Sword flashed back and batted the Cross away like a star flicked from the sky. Lev’s grab closed on air.
Lucimia saw a soldier’s right hand vanish in the same breath and knew—every soldier here was Lev’s Sacrifice.
She chose to erase them first. A deep breath steadied her, halls of cold gathering; her right foot tapped the ground like a drumbeat.
Boom—raw mana throbbed out of her small frame, a wave of winter. Frost seized the soldiers in an instant, and Lev’s sword beat the ice from his torso, but his lower half locked in a glacier’s grip.
“Whew.” She let the breath go, lifted her arm, and gripped the empty air like snow closing a fist.
Bang! The entire squad shattered—bodies blown to glittering motes of ice, star-sparks whirling on the wind that lifted her long hair like a dark river.
Desty dropped from a rooftop with a hawk’s clean plunge and saw Lucimia’s magic in full bloom, awe pooling in her chest.
She knew Lucimia was strong, but she hadn’t pictured strength this smooth—cast and done in seconds, elegant as silk.
Landing, she spotted Lev struggling up from the frost, took a single step, and drove her sword for his throat. Lev didn’t dodge, didn’t even raise a guard.
“Wait, don’t kill.” Lucimia’s urgent call cut across the square, and Desty yanked her blade still.
“Why? It’s the perfect chance. If we don’t kill him now, when?”
“You—” Lucimia covered her face, anger buzzing like bees. “Kill him and he just revives. It’s not only here he has soldiers. If he respawns elsewhere, we lose the fight.”
“Oh… right.” Desty blinked and felt the foolish heat of a misstep.
Lucimia strode to Lev, hand outstretched. A Fuzzy Orb slipped from her palm, mouth yawning like a black hole. With its disguise on, it looked like a simple attack spell to anyone watching.
She aimed to let the Orb Devour Lev’s very existence, to bar any revival. She wouldn’t grant him a single opening. She wouldn’t start asking questions or pry off his helm to check the face beneath. There’s a saying—villains die because they talk too much.
That doesn’t make her a villain… well, on paper she is, but not in how she moves.
So she’d finish fast and smother variables like embers under snow.
With Lev, you don’t let him set the tempo. Keep the rhythm yours, and he’s easy. Let him lead, and you suffer.
Her plan had been simple: mask up as a soldier, melt into the crowd, then strike from a feint. If it worked, great. If not, no matter.
As long as her magic wasn’t silenced, Lev was manageable. That earlier choke had come from ignorance of a magic-suppressing tool.
To stop him from using the black Cross again, she’d put Desty in the shadows, eyes sharp for the draw, ready to cut his hand the moment he raised it.
For that, Lucimia overlaid Desty’s White Sword with Devouring Authority, letting the blade pierce Lev’s armor like moonlight through mist.
The Fuzzy Orb pushed free, mouth gaping, eager to swallow Lev in one bite. But Lucimia saw him utterly unresisting and felt dread clutch like frost at her heart. Her hand halted, and the Orb hung, teeth bared to stillness.
