Lev didn’t take Nat’s words to heart; his patience felt like frost-bitten rope, and he couldn’t be bothered to answer straight.

His tone cut like a cold wind. “Spare me. If you hadn’t botched it and let Lucimia through, we’d have strangled Nirael already. Two Dark Deities losing to a girl—what a joke.”

Nat’s face darkened, like clouds bruising before snow. He snapped, “If my lord weren’t sealed, forget Lucimia—you wouldn’t beat any of us.”

“Tch. Trash.” Lev folded his arms, a stone statue daring the storm. “Weren’t we sealed too, fighting Nirael? We cracked our bonds with our own strength. You? Heh—played in the palm of a little girl.”

“You—!” Nat’s fists tightened like iron knots. Anger thundered, but he couldn’t refute; the truth stung like ice.

Their partnership split with a hairline crack, two blades refusing the same sheath.

Lev hefted his greatsword and walked off, a lone shadow moving through white breath.

“Where are you going?” Nat asked, voice thin as smoke.

“What else? Stop the girl.” Lev didn’t look back; his steps beat a war drum into the snow.

—

After all that circling, she returned to the first question, a needle threading her mind—where was the Cross?

Grief pressed on Lucimia’s chest like wet snow, yet she kept moving, boots whispering over drifts as her thoughts churned.

Three zones had no Cross—no sign on the surface, none underground. Even when she rode monsters through the sky, the clouds held nothing.

So where? In a monster’s belly? The idea felt wrong; the Cross carried Dark Deity aura, thick as pitch. A normal beast would choke on that taint and die.

She couldn’t see it, so her mind wandered like wind through reeds, clutching at stray threads.

“If Ment drew the energy back from the Cross, what would happen?” The thought sparked like flint in the dark.

If he pulled it, she couldn’t Devour; Ment wouldn’t fear Nirael’s poison, a shield tight as iron bark.

But he hadn’t done it.

“Uh…” Two heartbeats, then clarity broke like sun through fog.

Because Ment couldn’t draw it back.

He wasn’t here—he sat in the mist domain of Royal Capital Luo, his defenses coiled around Nirael in the Royal Capital like a serpent.

Even if he could pull it, that’d be perfect; she’d walk a clean path and join Nirael, and they’d cut him down like wheat.

The “Curse” Authority Power was peculiar; a curse needed a medium and a form, like a vessel and a rite.

It wasn’t wordcraft—no spell you toss with a mouth; it demanded a doll to bind or a circle to mark, a key to turn the lock.

That was his Authority’s limit, a chain humming with risk, like Lucimia’s Devouring—easier to slip, easier to stain.

The Cross was his medium and his ritual, a brazier that needed fuel; with enough energy, he could cast anywhere without setting the stage each time.

Maybe his ambition was to seed Crosses across the world, a forest of black spires swallowing the horizon.

“…If that’s true.” Lucimia lifted her chin, eyes skimming the smoke wall draped over the valley like a shroud.

“I’ve always wondered—if Ment isn’t here, where does this smoke come from?”

Unless he possessed a soldier, standing beyond the gorge, setting his array, then, through that body, channeling the valley’s death-energy to push the haze.

That was one path.

Another: the smoke spread from a Cross itself, miasma blooming like ink in water, with Ment only nudging the flow.

Either way, her answer stayed the same—Devour the Cross’s energy, swallow the root, not the branches.

But that second path tugged a thread; her fingers brushed a truth, yet it slipped like fish through water.

“The guess that the smoke comes from a Cross is strong. The last two Crosses both oozed thick smoke.” Her words were a murmur, a hand rubbing temples. “But it feels wrong. What’s off?”

She walked and thought, eyes drifting over bark and drift like a compass looking for north that wouldn’t show.

Under a tree’s shade she sat. The trunks were tall, so the ground held little snow; a few kicks cleared the cold like dust from a rug.

She plucked a broad leaf, shook off the glittering frost, laid it down, and settled, a quiet figure in a green patch on white earth.

She hugged her knees, thoughts circling the Cross’s hiding place and the oddness in Ment’s smoke barrier, worry a moth beating at paper.

Lev and Nat coming didn’t scare her; luxury tasted sweet—she could stalemate with Devouring and keep her Disguise Power from being Purified and seen through.

Thinking, she picked a stone and dug at a small mound, sometimes carving, sometimes scribbling, little acts without meaning, like rain tapping eaves.

Digging deeper, a swarm of ants burst out, white-marked abdomens gleaming like milk under moon. They were beasts by breed—call them demon-ants.

She’d cracked their nest. Dirt and clods piled at the base, and her fidgeting sent soft sand and snow sliding, pouring into their halls like a sudden flood.

The demon-ants took it for attack; they surged out, some bristling to seek the foe, some frantic to relocate, a black river in panic.

But she’d stacked the dug earth high around the entrance, a wall like a low cliff. The ants ran and ran, lost in circles, no path found.

They only needed to climb, and they’d be free, yet not one tried to rise; instinct pinned them like weights.

Lucimia watched. Confusion drifted like mist; then her brows knit, a bowstring drawing tight. A heartbeat later, her eyes flashed open, and her heart jolted like a drum’s strike.

She knew roughly where the Cross was.

She stood, face tilted to the smoke blanketing the valley, a lid pressed to a pot that simmered.

Her mind flicked to the Cross in Wasan Village’s well—the smoke there only filled the well’s bottom, a pool of shadow.

And to the small Cross in Lev’s hand, a shard of omen carried like a knife.

She’d fallen into habit—she’d assumed Ment’s Crosses shared one size, man-high, one shape, one mold.

But Lev’s small Cross proved there’s no size limit; maybe there’s no limit in material or form, a chameleon of ritual.

Because the first two Crosses looked alike, her mind had glued them all together, a false mirror.

Lucimia’s insight bloomed, a lantern brightening a cave—give her time, and she’ll analyze, deduce, and cut the knot clean.