Blue rings flashed like azure halos over the octopus’s skin; its snarl was all teeth, and its flying tentacles sprouted backward barbs midair, a mirror of the giant Blue Ringed Octopus from the Town of Tranquility.

But this octopus wasn’t that one; it was a mask woven by Lucimia’s Disguise Power, a voiceless phantom that couldn’t speak like the town’s guardian.

In that moment, trees three or four meters tall were remade into a towering octopus over ten meters high; tentacles whipped like storm-lashed ropes, and its feral gaze fixed on Lev sprinting in.

Lev saw the behemoth, stopped cold, and lifted his head toward a falling tentacle like a guillotine of bone.

Bone-blades gleamed with cold light from within the suckers; Lev raised his greatsword on instinct, but the blade was split in two, sparks biting his armor as he staggered back to snatch another sword from the dirt.

He caught Lucimia slipping behind the octopus, ready to run; he cut the octopus from his mind and prepared a single stroke to sever his own legs, and Lucimia, heart clenching, shouted first, “Stop him!”

“Roar!” The octopus bellowed; a tentacle cracked across Lev’s sword arm, the jolt breaking his timing, yet his blade still carved past armor, and a blood-line opened on Lucimia’s thigh as the octopus’s strike thundered in.

Lucimia drew a sharp breath, a hiss like winter air flooding cracked lungs.

The pain was a splinter compared to her left arm; it barely touched her focus, and she hauled Desty backward, feet skimming like leaves fleeing a fire.

“Lucimia, isn’t that octopus the one from the Town of Tranquility? How is it here—and helping us?” Desty’s words fluttered like startled birds.

“It’s not the town’s octopus. Not now—later.” Lucimia gripped Desty’s arm tight, running like a stream breaking through stones.

She couldn’t keep masks on anymore; the Fuzzy Orb’s Devouring and this false octopus lay bare before Desty like secrets spilled under moonlight.

She used the Disguise Power to fool Lev, let him believe he’d killed Lucimia and Desty, while the truth hid under a shifting veil.

Desty played along without a sound; she took the moment to rise and brace Lucimia, the two moving like reeds in the same wind.

Even when the Fuzzy Orb swallowed the sword qi meant for her, she held her questions, choosing trust like a lamp in fog.

Lev couldn’t accept the slipping away; his heart hardened, and his whole body erupted in fierce lightning, a storm of arcs wrapping him, bright sparks skittering off armor like fireflies.

“Ahhh—” His scream ripped out, then cut short, because the hurt was already turning its path like a river redirected.

Teeth gritted, Lucimia shoved Desty aside; the lightning arrived on cue, stinging, numbing, burning, and pain spread through her thin frame like frost under midnight, dropping her to a knee.

“Pin… him, don’t let him… move…” Lucimia forced the words past clenched lungs, each syllable a shard of ice.

The Blue Ringed Octopus roared again; a rush of tentacles lunged to bind Lev, and Lev, breath steadying, hopped back, back, back, then swung a black sword qi.

Whoosh—the arc slid past bone-blades and bit into living tentacle flesh, severing several with a butcher’s clean rhythm.

But Lucimia’s Disguise Power kept weaving; severed tentacles budded anew like winter branches regrowing in frost, grasping again, only buying Lev another swing.

To match the octopus, Lucimia had Desty lift her; she aimed her right hand at Lev, and biting Frost spread from Lev’s boots like ice flowers, while cold crept into her own calves like night water.

Lev could transfer frostbite, but not the Frost that shackled him; his limbs stuck for a heartbeat, and the ice raced to glass over him like a second skin.

Across the field, the octopus seized its moment; several tentacles shot out, clutching for Lev’s four limbs like ropes thrown in a storm.

Girl and octopus moved in perfect sync; if Lev swung to sever tentacles, the Frost would freeze him, and if he shattered Frost, the tentacles would snare him like nets at sea.

He hung on a dilemma like a fish on two hooks; he hesitated, and tentacles wound his arms and legs, looping ring upon ring, then hoisted him high into the air.

Lev thrashed, muscles bulging like cables; against this colossal octopus, his strength was rain on stone.

Seeing Lev kept from self-slashing, Lucimia let a thin breath out; she glanced back at the writhing meat sphere and sighed like a tired bell.

“Forget it, we move first,” she said to Desty, voice low as a blade slipping into a sheath.

“Okay.” Desty answered, her breath a small gust under the din.

The two girls ran down the road like swallows diving, and the octopus heaved after Lucimia, its bulk flowing like tide.

To be honest, Lucimia racked her brain and couldn’t find the moment she became a Sacrifice; was it the smoke, a sly hand in the fog? Then why was Desty untouched?

Lev could’ve chopped Desty’s legs, left her helpless, and ended the chase like snuffing a candle.

Or could he choose only one Sacrifice? What rule carved that choice, what hand turned the coin?

It felt like a forced selection, terrifying as a decree from the sky; he held a supreme right to point, and the chosen had no shield to raise.

“Wait, wait—if it’s that forced, why are there Sacrifices who ran?” Lucimia caught a crack in the wall and pressed a finger to it.

If it’s that absolute, the Sacrifice can’t escape; if none escape, how does a god ever flare in anger?

What’s truly moving under this surface?

With that riddle gnawing like mice in grain, Lucimia and Desty finally reached the plaza below the town, breath tight as bowstrings.

Boom—behind them, a thunderous crash kicked the air like a drum.

They turned, and the blood-red meat sphere tore open, a gaping mouth yawning, and two trembling tendrils probed out, five or six meters long, and dread rose in Lucimia like smoke.

The tendrils swept the air, testing like blind whiskers; then the worm inside chose to emerge, its shadow swelling to drown Desty and Lucimia, and both pupils shrank like pinpricks.

Because the giant worm was larger than their fear could hold.

Its head was a crown of dense, jagged, colossal teeth, a ring that pulsed open and shut like a black flower.

The worm writhed and heaved itself free, then straightened, taller and taller, until it matched the far city wall’s height, and it screamed, a shrill, knife-thin cry that cowed the whole town.

“What… is that thing…” Desty’s voice trembled like a string in cold wind.

“Tsk, we should’ve dealt with it before it hatched…” Lucimia pressed her wounded left arm, measuring her misstep like counting beads.

In hindsight, she should’ve had Lev break the meat sphere, then made her move; she rushed, grabbing the good moment like a spark and letting it burn.

She wasn’t wrong, either; if Lev had died, she’d have crushed the sphere after, but no one expected Lev’s deathless trick, nor that he’d brand Lucimia a Sacrifice.

Hmm… a suspected Sacrifice, a mark like ink that won’t wash off.