All she could do—for now—was run.

Panic fluttered in her chest like startled sparrows. She wanted to soar, but fear of losing control pressed cold fingers to her throat, so she used Instant Movement and vanished in staccato flashes.

After several jumps, the world settled. She landed in a fresh forest, bark rough at her back, and slid down a trunk to breathe, like a tired leaf dropping after rain.

“Here… the rats will need time to sniff me out,” she murmured, voice a low wind. “I can rest a bit.” She drew a slow breath and fished a map from her Storage Ring, the metal chill like moonlight on water.

She unfolded the map across her knees. She blinked once, twice. The lines split into ghosted doubles, the colors turned mosaic dust, like fogged glass and rain-blurred streets.

“My sight… still hasn’t come back.” The frustration pricked like nettles. She whispered, then pushed Devouring to swallow the flaw in her eyes—but the dark tide didn’t bite, and her vision stayed smeared like smoke.

“Why? Pollution?” Her sigh was a thin reed in the wind. “Not just some curse, then.”

If it was pollution, Devouring couldn’t scrub it clean. Not the eyes, not the face-markings like inked branches, not the tail coiling behind her like a shadow serpent.

Her heart thumped; the tail stirred, obedient as a trained kite. She flicked it around to her front, pinched the scaled ridge, and felt a real shiver echo back, like touching live wire.

Trouble crouched like a hunting cat. One glance at her now and anyone would call her a monster, drawing noise and knives she didn’t need.

Luckily, Elyssus’s Disguise Power lay coiled in her hands, a veil like river mist ready to hide her edges.

Even so, the thought chilled like dawn frost. She’d just made a storm; Ment would never let her in a city again. The next two places might wear her wanted posters like banners, her portrait nailed to every gate.

And the next target was—

She lifted the map, squinted until the blur threaded into lines, like pulling silk through a loom.

“Mm… Erwei City next. Head north, cross mountains like sleeping whales. There are smaller towns dotted nearby, little fires in the dark.”

Gendi’s memories surfaced like bubbles. Erwei City carried a giant bell tower, a spine of stone. The city kept a rite: right before the hour struck, people spread smoke, ash drifting like incense.

Some burned things to make a smog of embers. Some used special powders, mist blooming like pale chrysanthemums.

They said it warded disaster, a charm against bad winds.

She didn’t need to guess. It was Ment’s smoke, a net of breath.

The Cross sat on that bell tower, iron quiet as a nail in the sky. At each chime, the smoke rolled like waves, a gray sea that drowned every street.

An academy stood inside the walls. Its dean was a Ninth Rank Mage, a mountain under robes. She didn’t know if he prayed to Ment, or walked blind like a sleepwalker.

Getting into Erwei City to break the Cross would be thorny, a hedgerow of knives. Ment would have more tricks, and there was that gray fog warning back in Wasan Village, a whisper that still clung like cobwebs.

Her pride cooled; she’d absorbed a lot of energy, but that didn’t mean she’d gorge without thought. This time had been necessity, a bitter herb.

Besides, Devouring Authority ate more than the others. Its cost was heavy, a furnace that drank coal faster than fire.

Use it only when needed. Still, don’t be stingy like before. To finish faster and cleaner, some Authority Power would be allowed, a measured pour instead of a flood.

She had also touched the real edge of Devouring Authority. Maybe it wasn’t for fighting head-on like a battering ram.

Maybe she should fight using the Authorities she devoured, and reserve Devouring for plunder—a theft of light rather than a blade.

She’d noticed this: powers taken by Devouring burned less fuel than Devouring itself, like lanterns that came with their own oil. A gift in the thief’s bag.

It felt like holding many energy spheres. Devouring’s sphere was full to the brim, a 100% reservoir. The other Authorities’ spheres sat at half, a 50% pool.

Devouring spent from its own pool to swallow; the other Authorities ran on their attached oil. Only when that oil guttered would she tap the Devouring reservoir.

And the pollution? It didn’t stack into one sludge. Each power brewed its own storm, separate clouds, separate gauges—parallel progress bars creeping like shadows at different speeds.

This felt newly learned, or newly unlocked, a door she hadn’t known was there now swinging open.

The more energy Devouring Authority drank, the more terrifying it grew, like a river turned flood. But the holder’s self ebbed away, a shoreline eaten grain by grain.

She rested awhile, heat leaving her bones like steam. When a breath of strength returned, she rose with a hand on the trunk, bark rough as sand.

The distance was long, horizon stretched like a taut bowstring. She planned to ride. Habit tugged her hand to her waist—and caught only air, cold and empty.

She glanced down. The bottle that hung there was gone, the one that hid her horses as turtles, little secrets in glass.

“…Uh. The horses didn’t make it either.” She froze like a statue, then swallowed a dry laugh that tasted of ash.

She had bought those mounts with care, expensive as gold leaves, intending to protect them like treasures—and turned around to find emptiness, a cut string and no kite.

Desty had chosen them, two good horses with bright eyes. She felt the memory like warm tea.

“Desty…” Her eyes fell shut, dark and quiet as a pond.

When she opened them, resolve was iron in her spine, a bell struck once.

She would finish the mission fast, then go to Nirael for intel on the temporal adept. She’d seize Temporal Authority, and find Yuna and Desty, like stars reclaimed from night.

Elyssus could wait. Priority was Temporal Authority, the road of time like a silver river.

Speaking of Elyssus, the energy she’d swallowed stirred a bold thought, a strange fish surfacing.

If she grew strong enough to stand eye-to-eye with Elyssus, could she simply devour its remaining [Fraud] Authority—without swallowing the octopus-like body beneath it?

A question rippled like wind through wheat.

Aside from the true Dark Deities, the ones on this continent were essentially bearers of Authority Power; strip the crown, and they weren’t much different from people.

So if she devoured only [Fraud], what then? Would Elyssus vanish like smoke? Or slump into a brainless giant beast, muscle without mind?

Or—

We all know Dark Deities began as humans. Pollution deepened, faces warped like bark, minds splintered, and their old selves fell away like shed skins.

That means Elyssus is the out-of-control shape. If it loses its Authority Power, it’s no longer a Dark Deity. Will the pollution still cling to its bones?

She didn’t truly understand; it was only a strange conjecture, a paper boat on a river.

With Authority Power in her now, her pollution wouldn’t fade—like ink that wouldn’t wash out. Without Authorities, would it? She guessed probably not, a low-hanging cloud that wouldn’t lift.

She also weighed how to end Elyssus, the octopus dragging her steps like seaweed.

Two paths lay like forked roads: first, devour the existence of the Magic Array’s builder. Second, devour Elyssus’s energy, then turn the full reservoir into a counterkill, a tide against a tide.

She let the thoughts settle while she walked. She didn’t cast a Flight Spell; instead she moved with measured steps, like pacing through mist, saving wings for later.