“Let’s go back in,” Lucimia said at last, her breath fogging like pale smoke in the snow-glass air as she turned to Desty.

“Huh? Back in to look how? Those beasts hit like avalanches, and I see us getting hunted like rabbits,” Desty grumbled, yet she rose from the snow like a shaken tree and brushed off the white dust.

“It’s fine. I’ll use the Disguise Power,” Lucimia said, voice steady as frost on bark. “We turn into mosquitos, flies, or small birds, and we kill one beast. I want to run a test.”

“A test?” Desty’s eyes flickered like sparks under ice. She thought a beat and snapped her fingers like twigs. “That monster-control ability, right? You just got it, so we could try it. Does it trigger by offing a beast?”

“No,” Lucimia shook her head, the motion quiet as falling ash. “Either way, let’s go back in.”

“Alright,” Desty said, a nod like a pebble dropping into a still pond.

She didn’t know what the Devouring Authority needed to start, like a key hidden under winter leaves. She only knew that man had the power to control monsters and to tear rifts like claws in silk.

Besides, the rules themselves were iron frost: no telling on purpose, no speaking the shape of it at all.

The two girls set off again, two shadows slipping toward the valley’s throat like birds riding a cold current.

Near the inner rim, Lucimia used the Disguise Power, and they shrank into two flies, their bodies light as chaff on the wind.

They beat their thin wings and flew into the valley, taking a new path like a branch diverging in a stream, heading for a flatter stretch ringed by lush green.

Snow-laden undergrowth crowded around them like a white sea, and ancient trees stood like dark pillars in a temple of winter.

They flew for a long while through the hushed green, and not a single beast stirred like a pond without ripples.

“Weird. Where’d the beasts go at this hour?” Desty peered about, eyes skimming like swallows over water.

“Not sure. It’s so quiet,” Lucimia murmured, the silence heavy as a sealed jar. “Let’s rest a bit.”

“Okay.” They landed on a branch, two black grains on a white brushstroke, and perched to rest.

“Beasts seem rare here,” Desty whispered, words like breath on frost. “Think the Cross might be close, and they can sense that weirdness and keep away?”

Lucimia scanned the woods like a hunter reading tracks. “But I don’t detect any trace of the smoke.”

“Mm… not impossible,” Desty said, thoughts weaving like vines. “We should mark this area as a priority patch.”

They rested and talked, words drifting like snowflakes, when a faint creak rose above their heads, thin as a twig’s sigh.

“Hm? Something above us?” Desty tilted her head, eyes bright as dew.

“Careful. Might be a beast,” Lucimia warned, slipping back a step like a leaf in retreat, gathering magic tight as a clenched fist for a killing stroke.

Desty started to pull away, but before she moved, the branch above suddenly dropped like a trapdoor, hanging straight before her. Snow slid off in a white sheet, and she flinched like a rabbit.

“Uh… this… maybe not a beast? Just snow snapping the branch?” Desty muttered, face pale as milk.

“…,” Lucimia exhaled, reeling the magic back like a line from a dark pool.

She had thought it was a monster, a thorn in the bark.

But as that thought settled like dust, it flipped. When she moved to fly back to Desty, the drooping branch raised its body like a snake lifting from leaves.

“Run!” Lucimia’s voice cracked the air like a whip of wind.

“Huh?” Desty froze, mind blank as empty snow.

She moved too late. The branch’s tip snapped and fired a tongue like a frog’s, only thinner than a reed. It stuck to fly-Desty with a wet slap, and her scream cut the air like a hairline crack in ice. The branch rippled like a human throat swallowing soup, and it gulped Desty down in two shuddering waves.

“???” Lucimia stared, stunned, like a statue in sleet.

A monster like that? It took Desty as prey, like a vine taking a moth.

Lucimia drank in its shape and perch, etching them like ink on rice paper, then triggered Reversion.

White light flooded her vision like a snowblind flare, and her mind sank as if wading into a cold, deep lake.

Usually it was a blink, a door opening on a hinge. This time it dragged like wading through mud, and her eyes burned like needles of ice. The world spun like falling leaves in a gale, and nausea clawed up like a tide.

What’s happening? Is it the contamination making the power hard to move, like rust on gears? Lucimia wondered, heart tight as a knotted cord.

She didn’t know why the change came, only that the stain in her bones might be the root like rot in a trunk.

The sickness gnawed for a full ten seconds, each heartbeat heavy as a bell. Then Reversion clicked home, and she was outside the valley under a sky like pale porcelain.

The vertigo and stabbing pain in her eyes lingered two or three breaths, then ebbed like a receding wave.

“What’s going on? Is Reversion no longer instant?” Lucimia whispered, clutching her head like a brittle bowl.

“Lucimia!” Desty yelped beside her, relief bursting like thaw. “You scared me to death! Without you I was already lunch!”

Lucimia glanced at the whole and breathing Desty and sighed like wind through reeds. “My bad. I didn’t detect it. A beast disguised as a plant, and even asleep it had no life ripple.”

“That’s not on you,” Desty said, waving her hand like a reed swaying. “I’ve never seen a beast like that either. Maybe it’s undiscovered. This valley really is a true no-man’s land, a garden for monsters.”

“Anyway… we go again, cut it down for your revenge, and I’ll run my experiment,” Lucimia said, voice cool as a blade.

“Okay,” Desty answered, steady as a stone.

They took bird-shapes this time, feathers light as dust motes, and followed memory’s path back to the resting tree like swallows to a nest.

Lucimia didn’t waste a word. She raised a Wind Blade, a crescent of air sharp as winter glass, and cleaved the branch-beast in half. Green blood fountained like burst sap, and its breath died at once like a snuffed candle.

“Looks like it’s not that strong,” Desty said, eyes narrowing like slits in snow. “Makes sense. It seemed built to eat gnats and flies.”

“Mm.” Lucimia drifted to the corpse like a leaf settling, shed her bird-shape, and crouched as a girl, gaze fixed like a pin.

Did a plant-type monster count as “raw meat,” like a fish on ice?

She wasn’t sure. She’d let the Fuzzy Orb try first, like a scout in the brush. If that failed, they’d find an animal to test. If that still failed…

It meant the bug couldn’t be gamed, and she’d have to use her own teeth, like a wolf at dusk.

Was raw meat really safe? Bacteria, viruses, parasites—little hooks in the dark—and she’d have to burn them out with the Devouring Authority, spending energy like oil.

She thought of the eye on her arm, a cold moon in flesh, and fear crawled up like ivy. She feared turning into a monster herself.

“Forget it. Don’t think about that. Run the test first,” Lucimia said, shaking her head like a bell to clear dust, and she formed the Fuzzy Orb, a small, humming cloud that devoured the plant-beast’s corpse.

When the Devouring was done, she closed her eyes and felt for Monster Control, like fingers searching for a hidden latch.

“How is it?” Desty asked, curiosity fluttering like a moth.

After a long silence, Lucimia opened her eyes and sighed, the sound thin as smoke.

“What’s wrong? It didn’t work?”

Lucimia looked back at Desty, gave a quiet nod like a falling leaf, and said, “Yeah. It didn’t work.”