Warmth bloomed as light broke, a spring tide running her veins. Strength returned; her spirit cleared like mist lifting at dawn.

Then she saw the giant worm before her melt away, like wax under noon sun. At the instant pain vanished, control snapped back like reins into her hands. She looked down; her left arm grew back in plain sight, cells knitting like vines. Her lower body followed; two flawless, moon-pale legs stepped into her view.

She wiggled her white, tender toes, like pear blossoms; her left hand closed on ghost air.

Recovered? Joy budded in Lucimia’s chest like a spring flower before rain.

She shot upright; bare feet met sandy grit, uneven ridges pricking like small thorns.

That sting anchored her to reality, a stone against desert mirage.

Desty mirrored her, bare soles on earth, blinking at Lucimia like a deer at a stream.

Seeing Desty restored too, Lucimia let out a breath, wind slipping through bamboo.

She turned; the massive worm was gone to sludge, and the mouse from its head had fallen. It crouched on the ground, watching the two girls with ember-red eyes.

As it had hinted, a veil lifted; she now guessed its identity like a mask unbound.

To command a giant worm, to sweep smoke aside, to mend wounds like silk threads—who else but Plague God Niral?

The method fit a Sacrifice: offer the worm, gain two restored lives, scales balanced on a blood altar.

“Do you know who I am now?” The mouse’s voice floated, airy as a flute in fog.

Unease pooled like ink in water. Why would the Plague God help? It spoke lucidly, calm as a still pond, yet she had thought it lost to madness.

She asked, cautious as a blade’s tip, “Weren’t you out of control?”

“Yeah.” The mouse answered as casually as reeds swaying in wind.

Confusion flared, a spark in dry straw; how could madness still hold a conversation?

“You… don’t seem to know anything.” It scuttled to her feet, coal-red eyes lifting.

She tasted the admission like old tea. She stepped back two paces, heart tight.

Questions flew like arrows. “Why help me? What’s your goal? Who’s the other Dark Deity? What are you doing here—fighting for energy? How are you out of control yet speaking clearly?”

“You ask a lot.” The mouse spoke slow, ash drifting from a dying ember.

“Answer me.” Frost gathered into an Ice Lance in her hand, winter jade aimed at the mouse.

Don’t blame her for bristling; rescue doesn’t make a saint. Motive prowled like a shadow. No kindness blooms from thin air; and it had slain many with plague Authority Power.

From the scraps she’d regained, Lucimia guessed Jaha Town hid two Dark Deities at war. One used a suspected “Transfer” Authority Power; the other was the Plague God; energy was their prize. The townsfolk were fuel and Sacrifices, lives fed like kindling into their fires.

No—not just Jaha Town. The whole Bannubi Empire burned like a battlefield map.

She suspected the smoke birthed disease, but that didn’t match “Transfer” at all. Even if smoke spread sickness and an addictive hallucinant, that veil couldn’t hide the blood. The Plague God had worms devour the residents’ organs, a truth carved in bone.

Even before her first Reversion, a beast tide battered the walls, and people were eaten—stone-hard facts.

“Wait, wait, Lucimia. It saved us, right? No need to target it…” Desty’s voice fluttered like a sparrow. “You scolded me before, said I wasn’t grateful when you saved me…”

She guessed the mouse might be the Plague God, and feared another clash with a Dark Deity.

Lucimia kept her magic drawn, glacier-cold. “Who spread the plague?”

“Me,” the mouse said, crisp as a knife. “I had the worms eat them.”

Her voice cut cold, like winter wind. “What does the smoke do?”

“Many things—but I know what you need most. Mystic Return Smoke doesn’t cure disease.” It doesn’t even ease symptoms; it’s just an addictive hallucinant. Users think they’ve recovered, but they haven’t; stop inhaling, and their bodies writhe like knots. To free them, I had worms eat them; I also absorb energy—two gains in one move.

“Good… at least now I’m sure you’re a Dark Deity.” Her words fell like frost.

“No, I’m not.” The mouse sounded earnest, a plucked string trembling.

“If slaughtering innocents isn’t a Dark Deity, what is?” she pressed. “Your thoughts are madness—and you wield Authority Power.”

“You’re right to say that. Yet I’m not a Dark Deity, and neither are you.” Its red eyes glowed like banked embers. “I think this way because I am out of control.”

“What are you even saying?” Lucimia couldn’t grasp such calm words, winter rain on stone.

The mouse sidestepped her question, tossing its own like a pebble into a pond. “Do you know what a Dark Deity is?”

Lucimia shook her head, hair like midnight reeds in wind.

“Do you know where a Dark Deity’s Authority Power comes from?”

She shook her head again, leaves falling in silent rhythm.

“Do you know what out of control really means?”

“Kind of…” Her answer wavered like a thin flame.

“No, you don’t.” The mouse denied it, firm as a drumbeat in fog. “Let’s trade. Help me finish my plan, and I’ll tell you everything you want.”

Bewilderment rippled through her eyes like rain rings on a pond. “Why?”

The topic jumped like a sparrow; she couldn’t tell where it would land.

“Why should I help you? I won’t aid a Dark Deity—neither you nor that smoke.”

The mouse went silent, a pebble swallowed by mist.

After a breath, it spoke again, thunder under silk. “You’ll help me, because I have what you want most. Only you can help me, because… you have Reversion.”

Shock slammed in; her eyes widened like twin moons. She stared at the mouse, heart hammered, a sky of lightning.

I have Reversion? How does it know? What is this? Questions buzzed like hornets in a jar.

“Huh? What’s Reversion?” Desty blinked, lost like a chick in drizzle.

The mouse bunched, sprang, and landed on Desty’s shoulder. She jolted like a startled cat, then froze, letting it perch.

“Want to know why I know? I can tell you now; it’s simple.” “From Shebelle’s village to town, you arrived in seconds, lightning over a four-day road.”

“The Empire holds anti-flight Magic Arrays; you can’t use a Flight Spell.” “Even if you could, it takes half a day.” “Instant Movement has cooldown and short hops.” “That leaves one door—you used Teleportation Magic.”

“But a Teleportation Array needs a mark. First time here, how did you mark?” “Obvious—you prepared the Magic Array beforehand, threads tied before the loom rewound.” “You did it before your first Reversion, then used Devouring Authority to stop the reset.”

With each sentence, Lucimia’s eyes widened, ripples spreading across a still lake. She stared at the mouse, disbelief a storm that wouldn’t settle.

The mouse tilted its head and met her gaze like a clear mirror. “Am I right… Lucimia?”