Now, that feeling rose again, like a cold tide lifting out of the bones.

Head lowered, the man saw two colossal eyes bloom on the ground ahead, pale moons opening in dirt; he stood beneath them, at the maw.

Below was the Fuzzy Orb’s mouth, widened like a cavern waiting to swallow night.

“Fuck! Dark Deity!” he spat, panic flaring like a spark in dry straw; he tore a Spatial Rift, and it snapped shut like a candle snuffed.

“No. I can’t die. I refuse!” Fear hammered his ribs like drums; he tried to run, but with his first step, the earth gaped like a hungry throat, and half his legs plunged down.

“No!” Despair slashed like sleet; he raised his sword and cut off both shins, blood spraying like winter berries on snow.

Thud. He fell, a felled trunk onto cold ground.

His fingers hooked into the mud like roots clawing loam, inching toward the rim of the Fuzzy Orb’s shadow.

But the Fuzzy Orb’s Devouring was pitiless, a black river that erased shape; soon both hands vanished into it like sticks pulled under.

So he wriggled with his torso, a worm dragging through frost, shoulders grinding like stones.

“I can’t die, I can’t die, I must not die…” He kept chanting, breath frayed like torn cloth, as if a single belief held him like a nail in a storm.

Lucimia and Desty watched from afar; a weight pressed their chests like snow on pine boughs, sudden and bitter.

Why does this feel… like we’re the villains? The thought brushed Lucimia, cold as ash on the tongue.

No—he drove beasts to butcher so many villagers; death is a reckoning, a balance sheet of blood in winter light.

He had two Blessings; besides the Temporal Authority one, the other might be from a Dark Deity—faithful are like wildfire, crazed by mission, this reaction is common.

“I… can’t die…” His voice rasped like sand, yet he kept writhing, stubborn as nettle roots under ice.

Lucimia stared for a long beat, silence heavy as a bootprint in fresh snow; at last she sighed, breath drifting like mist.

“Forget it. We won’t kill him first. We Devour his Blessings, then haul him back to the village.”

“Huh? Oh—okay.” Desty nodded, trust settling like warm wool; choices rested in Lucimia’s hands, and she believed those hands.

The fight had been long; weariness pooled in her limbs like wet clay, so she sat right down in the snow, white and soft as sifted flour.

The Fuzzy Orb’s shadow slid over the man like ink across paper; soon his Blessings poured into Lucimia’s mind, raw knowledge like loose pages in wind—no system, just fragments to sort.

First Blessing: Spatial Rift, a notch carved like a seam in the air.

Lucimia’s rules shifted, letters freezing into place like frost on glass.

Under the Temporal Authority trial, her abilities now read: Reversion, Spatial Rift, two stars burned into a night map.

Rule One: words like cold iron—do not actively tell others your abilities.

Rule Two: like breath leaving a lantern—on death, abilities vanish.

Rule Three: paths divided like split rivers—do not cooperate with other trial-takers.

Rule Four: blades drawn in moonlight—seize abilities from other Temporal trial-takers.

Ability Rules: Reversion holders must not actively tell anyone what their Reversion contained, a secret folded like a sealed letter.

Spatial Rift overuse may lead to disintegration, a body flaking like ash on wind.

The content stood close to Lucimia’s Reversion rules, twins in a mirror; the man was also a Temporal Authority trial-taker, marked like a brand beneath skin.

Second Blessing: Monster Control, a leash coiled like a snake.

A Blessing under the [Control] Authority Power, stamped like a sigil.

Front rules were the same; the follow-up was stark: Monster Control users must eat raw flesh of magical beasts, the taste like rust and rain.

That rule chilled Lucimia, a shiver sliding like ice under nails.

“Let’s not use that one,” she murmured, shaking it off like a thorn.

She was surprised; she’d thought the first was a Temporal ability on trial, the second a Dark Deity’s favor—yet both were trials, two stones from the same riverbed.

Lucimia walked to the man, crouched, and smiled with sharp playfulness; two tiger fangs flashed like white knives, and octopus tendrils unfurled behind her like wet ropes.

“Two choices,” she said, voice soft as silk over steel. “One, I kill you and Devour your memories. Two, you answer my questions willingly.”

Blood loss fogged his eyes like smoke, but his breath sawed on, weak and stubborn. “I… won’t answer… a Dark Deity. Anything.”

“Dark Deity? You’re one of their preselected, and you don’t even know?” Her words fell like drops on stone.

“Heh. I’m not one of you slaughter-drunk Dark Deities. I’m human—different.” His glare cut like flint sparks at Lucimia.

Lucimia frowned, a crease like a shadow between brows.

He didn’t look like a Ment believer; and he had butchered so many villagers—how dared he call others monsters, a pot calling fire black.

“Why did you control beasts to kill villagers?” She skipped the bickering, blade to the heart, voice straight as an arrow.

“You Dark Deities—drop the act.” He spat blood, red on white like pomegranate on snow. “Don’t think I don’t know. That so-called Plague God is just a Dark Deity. Those Independents? Another lie spun by a Dark Deity.”

Lucimia blinked, surprise pricking like a thorn; he knew too much, a mouse with a map of traps.

“You Dark Deities want human souls—to refill your energy, like wells drinking storms. I won’t let you win! Humans can’t beat you anyway. So rather than let you harvest them, I’ll kill them myself. The dead give you no energy—right? If death’s a given, let it cheat you of your feast.”

He shredded his last strength into the words, teeth set like a clamp; his roar split the still air, and Lucimia’s expression darkened, clouds layering like bruises.

“I saw with my monsters—rats and worms are nearly here, a tide like rot. Everyone in that village will die! All of them! But I’ve already killed many, so the loss stacks on your side. If a Dark Deity suffers, I’m happy! Hahahaha!”

His laugh tore loose, wild as a wolf with fever, spiraling into winter air.

“Lucimia…” Desty’s voice wavered, a reed in wind; the man’s words tugged her heart like a rough hand, hard to name, only hurt.

He wasn’t wrong: the villagers would die, by a rat swarm Lucimia had led like rain to gutter; and if she hadn’t, Ment would sooner or later, fate scripted like names on a ledger.

He was an ordinary man who knew too much and could change nothing, hateful and pitiful, pushing back against Dark Deities with an ugly, helpless blade.

And are Lucimia and Nirael’s ways of resisting Ment not helpless, not hateful? Sad truth—both are, two stains on one sleeve.

Besides, she had her own stake burning like a lantern: she wanted Yuna back; she wanted home.

Lucimia didn’t answer; she stood, turned, and drew a long breath, cool as river fog. Her bangs fell, veiling her upper gaze like a lowered curtain.

After a while, she looked back down at him, voice like a quiet bell. “Sorry…”

High noon.

Two figures and two horses came from the distant forest, slow as shadows drifting across snow.

“Look! They’re back!”

“Really—and behind them, they’re dragging something, dark as a root.”

“That must be the one who controlled the beasts! Come on, let’s see who it is.”