Back then, her duel with Elyssus of the Town of Tranquility was blow for blow, like two chessboards glinting in stormlight.

Each side laid snares like hidden thorns, aiming to ruin the other’s next step, racing like rivers to reach their own end first.

With Jaha Town and Ment, it turned into a siege, one spear and one shield, like waves battering a cliff and a cliff holding fast.

In Nach Valley, it became attrition, water grinding stone; both sides leaned on analysis, reading tracks in frost and setting their pieces.

Now it seemed the Purification Deity had read deeper, like an eagle seeing mice under snow, foreseeing every counter Lucimia might make and setting the board early.

Panic thudded like a drum. “Analyze… analyze…” Lucimia’s thoughts tangled like reeds. “Analysis needs information, and I’ve got nothing, like a blindfold in fog.”

“I can only read Vosh’s layout for cracks from what I have, like picking seams in armor. Cracks… let me think…”

“No, wrong. The Blessing on Desty comes first, like a splinter under the nail… but I can’t see a way.”

“Wait, wait—where’s the Cross? After Devouring Lev and the others, I got their memories, yet no location. Is Ment the only one who knows?”

“Damn it, how do I break the smoke barrier? When the Purification Magic Array completes, what do I do, like standing on thin ice?”

“No, not just that. What’s wrong with Reversion? Is the time point restricted, like a gate that opens once? Only that? Nothing else?”

“And these changes in my body—are they really fine? Is there a way to cleanse them, like boiling away dregs?”

Her skull buzzed like bees. “So messy… my head hurts… create many pressure points to scatter my thoughts—was that her plan too?” Lucimia lowered her head like a flower in wind. “Why do that? Without the noise, would I spot a flaw like a crack in glass? Really?”

“No. No. I shouldn’t be thinking this.” Her chest tightened like a fist. Lucimia jerked her head up. “This isn’t the time. Lev and the others will chase us like wolves. Don’t stand still. We have to run.”

She grabbed Desty, burst from the water like a fish through ice, shifted into a maiden’s form, and cast Invisibility Magic like a veil of mist.

“Where are we going?” Desty’s voice shook like a plucked string.

“I don’t know… just run. They know where we are, and they’ll keep attacking, like rain that never stops, won’t let us rest, no way to hide.” Lucimia spoke, then froze as a spark flickered.

Constant pressure, no rest? Drain my energy dry like a leaking barrel? Or keep me on the road so I can’t think, like dust in the eyes?

Lucimia felt a thread in reach, like a fish nibbling the hook. It slipped away by a hair, and she couldn’t catch it.

They’d only taken two steps when Desty tore free, like a hand shaking off burrs.

“What is it?” Lucimia looked back, heart tight as a knot.

“Uh… I think… you can drop me and run,” Desty said, raking her hair like scratching thorns. “I’m a time bomb. If I get controlled again, then what?”

Lucimia looked at Desty, her gaze steady as a blade. “I still won’t leave you. I’ll watch for it. You’re my friend. I don’t abandon friends.”

“…But—”

“No buts. Come with me.” Lucimia didn’t give her the air to argue; she caught Desty’s hand again like a lifeline.

They were about to move when the water beside them boiled like a pot, and in a flash Lev burst out, greatsword raised, cleaving down like lightning.

Lucimia snapped to it, heart spiking like a struck gong, and cast wind, trying to blow Lev back like chaff.

Lev blocked with his greatsword. Smoke curled from the blade like black streamers, and it smothered the wind like a wet blanket.

But it killed his leap strike, his boots slamming down like stones.

The instant he landed, Lucimia cast again. The slush under him turned to a bog like sucking clay, and his lower body sank straight into the earth.

“Go.” She hauled Desty and ran, feet skimming the snow like startled deer.

If I can’t kill them, I can still pin them, like flies in amber. That should be fine, right?

But Lev read her like tracks in fresh frost. Watching her pull away, he sneered, and he lifted the greatsword flat like a cold bar, bringing it toward his own neck.

Lucimia saw it and her heart lurched like a misstep on ice. She knew what Lev wanted—he was going to trade wounds.

With who? Me? No. I shouldn’t be cursed, only Reversion is. Then who? Desty? When?

Wait. Was it… when his greatsword severed her last cycle, before the Reversion?

No. Stop him!

“Freeze.”

Lucimia skidded, spun, and gathered power like breath before a shout. Frost bloomed out of thin air on Lev’s hands, clamping down like iron, and locked him rigid.

But while Lev froze, Nat didn’t. From far off, Nat loosed an arrow like a streaking hawk, and it punched through the frost, then through Lev’s brain.

An instant later, Desty’s skull was also pierced, the wound switching paths like a mirror’s echo.

Watching the small red-haired body fall again like a cut poppy, heaviness pressed Lucimia’s chest like a millstone.

Lev clawed from the bog with Nat’s help like a beast from tar. Nat dropped from the sky like a dark feather and walked toward Lucimia.

“Yo. We meet again.”

Lucimia glared at Nat, eyes like knives.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m curious—why aren’t you running? Give up already?” Nat stood hands on hips, grinning like a fox.

Lucimia said nothing, her silence cold as frost.

“Why stand there? Won’t you use Reversion to save Desty? Oh, I get it. You think she drags you down, so saving her doesn’t matter, right?”

“Wrong,” Lucimia said flatly, voice like a snapped thread. “I’m not heartless like you lot, Dark Deity and lapdogs alike.”

Before Nat or Lev could reply, Lucimia triggered Teleportation Magic, her figure blinking away like a snowflake on a breath.

Nat and Lev traded a look, cold smiles like hooked blades.

“Heh. Foolish.”

“Yeah. A net across heaven and earth—how’s she gonna run?”

Lucimia reappeared on the narrow path where she’d first stepped into the hills, like circling back to a footprint in snow.

The place where she’d met that big white serpent hung in her mind like a pale coil.

She landed and her breath tore out in white ribbons, head ringing like a bell, limbs weak as wet paper; her state felt bad, very bad.

She found a spot and leaned on a wall crusted with frost like glass, then sank onto the packed snow, her slender legs buried and numb.

A dull ache swam up her left arm like sour wine; she had to press it with her right hand, eyes closed, breathing ragged.

She didn’t rush to Reversion. After a spell, she tugged her sleeve open like lifting a veil.

One look, and her stomach dropped like a stone. Skin that should be pure as fresh snow was stained with chaotic black, like ink spilled in milk.

In that chaos grew dozens of pupils, eyes like seeds in a night bloom, blinking on their own, outside her will, open, shut, open.

A few even turned to look at her, like eels under ice.

The sight jolted her, and she let the sleeve fall like a curtain.

“Is this contamination? Once I lose control, it’s not me anymore, like a puppet with cut strings…”

“Why does it feel like the contamination’s speeding up, like a fire catching wind? Is it punishment for breaking the Cross in Wasan Village?”

“Or after Reversion was cursed, did one clause hike the energy cost, like a tax that keeps rising?”

Lucimia didn’t know, like a traveler in fog. She didn’t know how to break the deadlock, not with so many thorns in the way.

She couldn’t carve out a quiet space to analyze, to think, like trying to read the stars in a storm.