She stared at Lev with his greatsword lifted like a cold moon, ready to sever Desty’s neck in one merciless arc.

She stared at the pulsing meat-mass beside her, swelling like a breathing tumor in drifting mist.

She stared at her own left arm, blood bubbling like a spring through torn flesh.

And Lucimia understood: the Devouring Authority wasn’t invincible; even iron gods crack like ice under the right blow.

This world brimmed with uncanny Authority Powers, each birthing horrors from a different angle, fear closing in like wolves from every compass point.

At least she’d only lost her left arm; if she’d devoured Lev’s head at the start, she would’ve died on the spot, like a moth in a forge.

Call it luck in misfortune? Maybe. It was also her own caution and craft, a thin blade kept honed.

Now, to live, to reach Yuna, she squeezed that blade of caution dry, even if it cut her palms.

“Die,” Lev said, voice flat as winter steel.

The greatsword fell; the blade skimmed Desty’s soft skin; her red-haired head rolled like a scarlet gourd through dust.

He drew the blade back and stared at her corpse for five full heartbeats, then slowly turned toward Lucimia, steps steady as a drum.

“Your turn.” The verdict fell like a bell.

He, like Lucimia, wouldn’t waste breath or questions; he knew not to gift an enemy time—finishers should land like thunder, not drift like fog.

The greatsword rose and fell again; Lucimia met the same end as Desty, headsman-sure and clean.

He let out a long breath; inside the helm it sounded like wind in a jar.

He turned his back on Lucimia’s corpse, faced the swelling meat-ball, and walked with sword in hand, a shadow pacing a storm.

Two steps in, he halted, snapped around, and hurled the greatsword at the empty ground to his left.

The racing blade tore the air, peeling fog like old paint—and Lucimia appeared inside the rent haze.

She lay on the ground and watched the sword come, calm as stone; just before it could pierce her brow, a Fuzzy Orb burst from the earth.

It leapt high, jaws yawning wide, gulped the greatsword, then dropped and burrowed back down, like a crocodile snatching a pigeon at the river-skin and vanishing.

Lev ignored Lucimia on the ground. He snatched a fallen soldier’s sword and slashed right.

A black sword aura shot out, cleaving mist; as the veil parted, Desty had just risen, blade in hand.

She couldn’t dodge or parry; a second Fuzzy Orb copied the trick, breaching up, swallowing the sword aura midair, then slipping back into dirt.

At the same time, Desty’s form turned thin as smoke and faded from Lev’s sight like dew at noon.

He swung left again—Lucimia was gone too.

“Hm?” Lev’s brow tightened. His gaze swept the haze; no figures, but his senses felt them near, like fish under a milky pond.

“Not Invisibility Magic…” he judged, voice low.

“Then what…?”

Sword ready, he watched the gray world. He remembered his palm getting devoured after he picked up a stick that turned into a Fuzzy Orb.

“Illusion? No—higher than illusion,” he murmured, as if tasting poison in tea.

He lowered his head a fraction and stilled, statue-still. Only mist drifted and the meat-ball crawled like a slow tide.

After a long beat, he snapped his head up and slashed left-rear; the sword aura leapt, and he stamped forward after it, ground cracking.

The slash split some unknown screen that hid them; beyond it he saw a red-haired girl holding up a black-haired girl, retreating down the slope like fugitives in rain.

He wouldn’t let them. He ran and cast lightning; two crooked currents darted from either side, two serpents lunging from cloud to earth.

Lucimia glanced back, breath tight; a Fuzzy Orb rose again and met the lightning head-on, swallowing thunder like hot coals.

“Tch.” Lev snorted. Most strikes failed; he stopped wasting strength—and did what neither Lucimia nor Desty expected.

He braked hard, set the edge to his own right arm, raised, and chopped. The blow was clean; his thick forearm fell like a felled branch.

Lucimia understood at once, dread knifing through her calm.

Her right arm came off the next heartbeat; blood sprayed Desty like crimson petals in wind.

“A—” The sound slipped from Lucimia at last; she sagged into Desty’s arms, a willow blown by storm.

“Lucimia!” Desty could only call her name; she didn’t dare strike Lev, afraid the wound would leap to Lucimia like a shadow.

Lev’s right arm regrew, flesh knitting like ivy on stone. He lifted the sword again and leveled it at his legs.

Lucimia caught it from the corner of her eye; fear first, then resolve; if he kept this up, she would die for sure.

She chose Reversion without hesitation.

White light bloomed in her eyes; her vision flooded white; when the glow thinned, she and Desty stood at the moment before Lev severed his arm.

The pain in her right arm still echoed like heat in a brand. She whipped a look back at the oncoming Lev, heart drumming.

No—keep running and he’ll stop again, and hurt himself to hurt me.

Stop Lev. Now.

She ran slow, drained by her left-arm wound; Desty slowed too, matching her like a shield in rain.

“We’ll be caught at this rate. What do we do?” Desty asked, voice tight; she scanned left and right.

Only a road sloping down, a few landscaping trees, no cover, no walls—just open ground and bad odds.

Lucimia set a Fuzzy Orb to gulp at the bleeding stump, staunching the flow like a plug; breath ragged, she said, “There… that tree. Cut it.”

“Huh? Cut it? It won’t stop him, right?” Desty’s head spun with questions, but she trusted.

Her sword flashed; a white edge bit clean; the trunk parted and fell with its crown, a small storm of dust rising.

Lucimia steadied her breath and fixed her gaze on the tree. She willed, and the Disguise Power answered.

In a blink, the three, four-meter tree twisted and swelled; bark writhed, colors ran, and a giant octopus body and head took shape.

Its branches stretched and reshaped, turning into a forest of tentacles, big and small, writhing like a living reef in fog.