"What are they going to do to us?" Desty asked, her voice a taut string in a cold room.

"Not sure..." Lucimia hesitated, her thoughts drifting like winter clouds. She weighed Reversion now, or wait and watch to harvest clues.

She thought, her mind a forked path through fog, choosing one branch over the other.

The Cross could forbid my spells; maybe their Authority Power is Prohibition. If it bans my Authority Power, Reversion included, then escape is a closed gate.

But if it is Prohibition, Lev’s wound-swapping wouldn’t land, like a blade blunted by oath-runes.

Could it be Transfer? Maybe Lev’s forbidding Cross wasn’t a lock, but a hand that moved my casting rights elsewhere, like a key passed silently.

And Lev’s self-maiming just now shifted his wounds onto me, like a shadow stepping onto my skin.

That fits, and it explains why the swap is forced, unlike a Sacrifice; it’s a tide that drags you whether you consent or not.

No proof, but if that’s true, the situation’s a cliffside in rain, slick and deadly.

It means while I mulled it over, they might’ve already moved my right to use abilities, like a thief palming a ring.

Damn—like a lantern snuffed in a gust.

Realizing it, cold sweat beaded like dew. Lucimia tugged her inner mana corridors, a harp of frost. She tried to shape an ice blade for those eyes. At once, she found her magic was a locked well.

"Desty! Try any sword technique. Hit those eyes!" Lucimia called, her voice a bell in storm.

"Okay." Desty raised her longsword like a moonlit mast. As she swung, her face froze. "I... I can't trigger a technique."

"Figures...?" Lucimia drew a breath like a winter swallow. She turned her will for Reversion, but nothing answered; Reversion lay sealed, and she stared helplessly ahead.

"Done..." Lucimia covered her eyes, her plans crumbling like dry leaves.

Her Devouring Authority should’ve countered it, but she’d kept the costly passive sealed. She had to fight Elyssus ceaselessly, so Devouring Everything slept like a buried furnace.

Back in the Town of Tranquility, it auto-triggered in the dark like a watchful guardian. Now, that safeguard was gone, and unknown blows could slip in.

Now she didn’t even have the right to switch it on; she was just human, a frail woman in a storm, unable to beat anyone.

Desty still had a Holy Knight’s basic grit. Even without techniques she could swing, a candle against the wind, yet still a flame.

So... it’s over? Lucimia watched the eyes close in like drifting lanterns, and a strange calm pooled in her chest.

The panic she expected didn’t come, like thunder that never breaks. She drew a plain longsword from her Storage Ring, holding it before her heart.

"We might be done," she told Desty, her voice a quiet stream under ice.

"Mm... sorry..." Desty understood, guilt rustling like dry reeds. "It’s on me. I was stubborn. If we’d run at the start, maybe not this."

"Not the time," Lucimia breathed in like drawing winter smoke. "I got arrogant. I had special tricks and beat Elyssus, so I lost caution. We scouted too little. Time was short, sure, but I overreached."

"Abilities..." Desty mused, thoughts drifting like fireflies. "So that Fuzzy Orb is your ability?"

"Mm." Lucimia nodded, like a reed in wind. "That’s my Authority Power."

"Authority Power... wait, you said Authority Power?" Desty’s eyes widened, disbelief flickering like a storm-lit window.

"Yeah, Authority Power. If I say I’m a Dark Deity, will you buy it?" Lucimia glanced at Desty, her face a struck bell.

"I..." Desty went mute, her words tangled like vines in rain.

While they spoke, the eyes burst into strobing light, like camera flashes at midnight, forcing them to shield their faces with trembling arms.

The flashing poured down like white rain. Their limbs slipped out of control; they fell with a thud. Through a slit of sight, they saw their legs melt like popsicles, slumping into puddles; their bodies followed, and time crawled toward their heads.

"Sigh. I just wanted a laid-back slacker life, like a salted fish on a pier. Why keep running into messes?" Lucimia murmured to herself, like talking to steam.

At last, she glanced at the red-haired girl beside her, a ember in ash, then closed her eyes to meet death.

As moments dripped by, she felt her body melting, like wax by a hearth. She kept her eyes shut, sent her thoughts drifting to her home in the Town of Tranquility—good food, soft music.

Boom—like a mountain drum snapping the sky.

Suddenly, a thunderclap tore her daydream like paper.

She opened her eyes, like a diver breaking the surface.

The first giant worm burst from the smoke, a living cable. It spewed thick green fluid into the air, then smashed into the ground before Lucimia and Desty. This time, a hard wind rose like a river and blew the smoke away; the eyes vanished with it, and the melting ceased like frost in sun.

The worm shrieked, a knife-note, and writhed midair like a rope in storm, agitated and raw.

"Quiet." A bell-like voice rang in the air, bright and airy, like wind through crystal.

With that word falling like snow, the raging worm stilled, motionless, its head dipping a fraction like a bowed mast.

Who? The thought rose like a bird from her throat.

With the glare gone, Lucimia squinted and swept the surroundings, her gaze a lantern beam through mist.

Her viewpoint sat low, like kneeling in mud; her legs had melted away.

She scanned in circles, like a hawk tracing rings. Aside from the massive worm, no person, no creature appeared.

"I’m here." The airy voice drifted from above, like a flute over cold water.

Lucimia lifted her head to pitch-black sky, a velvet veil, and saw no one.

"I’m on the worm’s head." She finally gave Lucimia a true bearing, like a compass clicking north.

Lucimia shifted her gaze down to the worm’s massive head. She squinted, studied hard, and found a mouse climbing there, like a scrap of dusk.

A mouse that talks? Am I seeing things before death, like heat ripples over sand?

"Who are you?" Lucimia asked, her words floating like maple leaves.

"Me? Heh, you’ll know soon," the answer came, like laughter inside a mask.

The mouse even laughed; maybe I’m not hallucinating—then again, octopi laugh too. Fine. That tracks, like tide math.

Lucimia’s body felt boneless, like kelp in surf. She kept silent and let her thoughts storm.

The mouse whispered, a thread of sound she couldn’t catch. Then its whole body lit green, like moss-fire. The glow widened and draped the giant worm, and green light bloomed over Lucimia and Desty as well, like spring rising.