No—!!

Staring at the shattered lantern in his hand, and the rats surging in like hungry tigers, the man screamed, panic icing his breath.

“Don’t come! Stay back!” He swung his longsword in sharp arcs, steel hissing like wind through reeds, trying to beat the tide away.

He hacked and hacked, then felt the chill truth: the swarm wasn’t pouncing. It was gathering around him, like storm clouds closing ranks.

He looked to the lantern. The glass was crushed like frost-bitten crystal, yet the Purifying Light hung there, a pale moon afloat. It drifted where his arm moved, unquenched.

“Ha… haha…” Relief spilled out of him. He laughed with the weak tremor after fear. “Hahaha—no wonder, it’s my Lord’s might—hahaha…”

Splat!

Mid-laugh, his hand flew off like a severed bird. Blood fountained, hot and scarlet, a sudden rain across the night grass.

His lantern and hand spun into a tangle of weeds. A few slow rats touched the light and vanished, cleansed like mist at sunrise.

The light source slid away from him. Darkness poured in like ink from a broken bottle, and a ring of red eyes burned around him.

The swarm had been watching like hawks. Without the Purifying Light barring the way, they rushed him, a gray river breaking its dam.

“No… no… no! Quick—get me to the light!” Terror seized him first. He bolted, legs pumping, but the rats were a rolling wave. He took two steps. They latched onto his calves.

He stumbled, legs chewed to firewood. He crashed to earth, and the tide climbed his body, crawled toward his brow like cold ants.

“No! Save me! Help!” He yelled to his comrades in the near distance. Horror froze him as they stared past him like statues, deaf to his pleading.

“No!!”

His scream shredded into a ragged wail. The rats ate him bite by bite, carving him down to bone as if snow were scraped from stone.

Only then did Lucimia slip out of the first thicket, shadows clinging like damp silk. She saw the white bones, and guilt pooled in her chest.

He was a Holy Knight of the Purification Church, yes. But he was a swayed foot soldier, ignorant as fresh clay. He didn’t mean evil. Yet he had to die. If not, he’d be trouble to Lucimia.

She had to do it.

“Lucimia…” Desty stood behind her and touched her shoulder, a palm like quiet rain. “It wasn’t you alone. We did this together…”

“No…” Lucimia shook her head. The feeling came first; the words followed. “Objectively, it was all me.”

She had used Invisibility Magic to slide into the brush, then dropped it and snapped it back, making the swarm surge for the thicket, then halt like tethered hounds.

He’d pushed in, curious, and found only a dead beast Lucimia had staged earlier, its stink like old iron.

Later, when he turned, she cast a spell to shatter the lantern and snuff the light. She hadn’t expected the Purifying Light to bite back—her spell cracked the glass, then got Purified to nothing.

So she adjusted. A clean cut to the hand was better, swift as a falling guillotine.

When he begged as the rats ate him, she used her Disguise Power, and the others saw a false scene, a quiet watch, not the true feast.

So his cries met silence. They weren’t cruel; they were blind to him.

While the rats worked, she sent the Fuzzy Orb to share the meal, Devouring his memories like warm broth. Then she learned he was only a low-tier Holy Knight, still young, with a wife and a newborn. He knew nothing of where the Cross was hidden.

That’s why guilt pricked Lucimia like thorns under the skin.

“Looks like none of these Holy Knights know anything about the Cross.” Her voice steadied after the storm. “But they do carry locations of Knight posts. We’ll follow those routes, ride the Purifying Light they wear, then cut through the deep woods. We’ll clear as many ‘eyes’ as we can en route, and ease our trouble.”

“Alright.” Desty nodded, quiet as moss.

Lucimia thought, the worry settling before the plan. Thinning their numbers would cost energy. But less than fleeing from Nat across the sky.

Either way, she’d spend energy. Maybe that’s exactly in their book. Maybe… even this choice to trim their ranks is what they counted on…

“Are all these Holy Knights and soldiers just sacrifices?” Lucimia’s mood sank like dusk.

The Church and Ment had set them up as offerings. If Lucimia didn’t kill, she’d get spotted and hunted, bleeding energy by fighting and running. If she did kill, she’d still spend energy, and then the Church would trumpet that she’d slaughtered them, smearing her name into mud.

It was an open scheme, a blade in daylight. Lucimia hated such sunlit poison. It was filthy. Though, yes—she’s used it too.

She kept at it, same pattern, clean as a whetted edge. Lucimia killed the remaining six Holy Knights, then used other post Knights as anchors, moving by their light like stepping-stones across a dark river, cutting down “enemies” along the way.

Her hands were fast, no loose ends, no trailing threads. She knew the sky’s Nat might notice. Her Disguise Power painted the scene as calm, no ambush, no struggle.

But she didn’t know how far the Purification Deity’s borrowed gift reached. Would he see through the veil?

“No! Damn it—don’t eat me!” The last black‑armored soldier’s howl tore through leaves, then guttered out like a candle.

Lucimia and Desty leaned against a trunk, lungs burning, breath rough as sawed bark.

“Ho… how is it?” Desty recovered quicker, steadied like a drawn bow.

“No… nothing.” Lucimia spoke between breaths, thoughts flickering like fireflies. “None of these soldiers carry the Cross’s location. I’d bet only Lev and Nat know.”

As she drew breath, she chewed the worry. They hadn’t been attacked at all. Could they really not pierce her Disguise Power? That felt wrong. Would the Church forget a step like that?

The more she thought, the colder it rang. Maybe she’d already walked into a laid trap.

If she waited and got found, a chase would bleed her dry.

If she struck first and trimmed them, she still bled.

Maybe they’d seen her, and were letting her finish the set—then…

“Tch.” Being calculated down to the last step left a bitter taste. “Aside from Elyssus, this is the second time, isn’t it?” Lucimia pressed her forehead, the ache pulsing like a drum.

Laughter spilled from the sky, sharp and mocking, like bells with edges.

“Hahahahahahaha—Lucimia, do you know? Nach Valley will be your burial ground.”

Nat floated out of the high air, contempt curled on his lips, like frost on steel.

Lucimia lifted her face, eyes to the sky. The feeling settled first. Her voice was a whisper only she could hear. “So that’s how it is…”