As Lucimia’s tentacles swept in like storm-tossed willow fronds, Rexi kept yelping like a startled sparrow.

“Hey, hey, not here, it’ll get wet!” Her voice skittered like rain on tile, face scrunched like a pinched blossom.

Oh. She meant her clothes.

“Quit wrapping me up! I’ve only got this outfit, and dirt makes me miserable!” Rexi’s shout popped like soap bubbles in a bath.

Mid-squawk, a thought drifted in like dawn mist: this was a dream. Stains in dreamland didn’t stick in daylight. The realization settled like calm water, and her resistance ebbed.

“Fine, whatever. I’ll wait for the dream to end on its own. Trying tentacles might be… interesting.” Rexi lay down, thoughtful, like a cat curling on warm stone.

“…” Lucimia fell silent, a ripple of speech drying into sand.

So this is the kind of Rexi you are? The disbelief fluttered like a moth against glass.

Nothing about her felt like a Dark Deity’s mask; the act didn’t cling like lacquer. She wasn’t Elyssus.

Lucimia disguised the Fuzzy Orb as a great octopus with her Disguise Power, then released it like a shadow loosed from a net.

The octopus spread a gaping, red-stained maw like a blood moon, and lunged for Rexi like a wave collapsing.

“Uwaah! Why’d it turn into a man-eating octopus!” Rexi thrashed like a hooked fish, but realization came too late, and the octopus swallowed her in one smooth tide.

Lucimia braided Devouring with a new thread—Devour Wakefulness—like ink added to water, and Rexi slipped into deep sleep as soon as she was swallowed, sinking like a stone in a lake.

Before that, Lucimia had already devoured her memories, harvesting them like grain in a moonlit field.

“Then, what’s in the memories after she wakes…” Lucimia closed her eyes, reading what the Fuzzy Orb had swallowed like a monk scanning sutras.

“…Still nothing.” The emptiness echoed like a hollow bell.

Lucimia opened her eyes again, shed the disguise like a screen of silk, and turned to Rexi with a grave look, heavy as rainclouds.

“Is it pollution? Is her corruption erasing her memories like wind scouring sand? But it shouldn’t be. She remembered Bevi finding her, and she could say it aloud… It can’t just vanish right now by coincidence, can it?” Her doubt coiled like smoke.

Lucimia paused to think, thought circling like a hawk, then decided to wake Rexi and check if yesterday remained.

Whatever her memory held next, Lucimia wouldn’t travel with her—too strange, too suspect—like walking into a fog full of hidden thorns.

If Rexi was bad, all this might be bait for trust, threads tangled with other Dark Deities; Lucimia didn’t want more entanglement—Elyssus, Ment, Nirael, and Vosh were already a storm to endure.

If Rexi was good, that was worse to drag along; staying with Lucimia was walking a cliff edge in night wind.

Lucimia stepped to Rexi, crouched like a crane at water’s edge, pinched her cheek, and kneaded firmly. “Up.”

“Eh… mm… ah…” Rexi blinked through a veil like dawn fog, slitted pupils meeting Lucimia’s gaze like two lanterns in the dark.

She didn’t speak first; she scanned the cave like a cat mapping a room, checking where she was like a sailor testing the stars.

From that, Lucimia saw Rexi still held the thread of the “dream” like a knot in her palm.

“Is it… morning?” Rexi rubbed her eyes like a child pushing away sleep grit.

“No. Who am I?” Lucimia’s voice was calm, cool as river stone.

“Huh? Why ask that all of a sudden? Oh—got it, you’re worried I forgot! I remember. You’re Lucimia Lancelot, right! I remember crystal-clear!” Rexi puffed with pride like a bird fluffing its feathers.

Lucimia nodded, then asked, “Do you remember being hunted yesterday?”

“I do.” Rexi gave Lucimia a weird look, tilted like a reed in wind. “What, did you forget? That shouldn’t be. Oh, if you did lose your memory, I’ve got a way to get it back!”

Lucimia chuckled, sound like a silver bell. “You can’t retrieve your own memories, and you want to retrieve mine?”

“Tch, if you don’t believe it, wanna try?” Rexi’s lip curled like a challenge flicked with a fan.

“Forget it. I didn’t lose mine.” Lucimia waved a hand, gesture smooth as flowing silk, then went quiet.

Rexi hadn’t forgotten last night. Then why was everything Lucimia devoured blank, like parchment never written?

She’d hoped for threads of information; she got an empty loom. It felt like wasting time, sand slipping through fingers.

Fine. Maybe she hadn’t lied. Maybe Bevi existed, a real person like a name carved on wood. Lucimia would ask in the city.

Rexi had a way to get Lucimia inside, but Lucimia had ways too; the Disguise Power kept proving handy, useful like a hidden blade.

“Keep sleeping.” Lucimia patted her thigh like tapping a drum.

“But… I can’t sleep now…” Rexi felt wide awake, bright as a lantern; no drowsiness, no soft fog.

“I’ve got a way to put you down fast.” Lucimia’s tone was light, cool as night dew.

“Really? What way?” Rexi’s curiosity gleamed like fish scales.

“Simple.” Lucimia snapped her fingers, and a black shadow darted from her hand like a swift at dusk.

“Wait—hey!” Rexi started to yelp, but the shadow spread over her like a curtain; her vision went dark, consciousness snapped like a taut string, and she flumped onto the blanket with a soft thud.

“Done.” Lucimia dusted her palms, the motion neat as folding paper.

“Time to go. I’ll head to Erwei City on my own.” Her decision landed like a stone in a clear pond.

At the cave mouth she paused, moonlight pooling like water underfoot, glanced at the girl on the blanket, memorized her face like tracing a portrait, then slipped away like a shadow.

With the Magic Array no longer caging the sky, Lucimia could cast her Flight Spell freely; she touched her toe to earth like a dancer, and rose like a gull on night currents.

She flooded mana through herself, speed peaking at the edge of what her body could bear, like a bowstring pulled to its limit. No more wasting time—Ment had to be cut cleanly, then she’d seek the Time Ability User.

She knew where Erwei City’s Cross stood, a spike in the city’s heart like a bone. She could assault the walls directly, or arc an attack from afar, and send the Fuzzy Orb, laced with poison, to contaminate the Cross like ink bleeding into snow.

Ment’s momentum had broken, tide gone out; a comeback was unlikely, like winter trying to bloom. He should be planning escape now, or clinging to the Purification Deity for aid. Normal means couldn’t touch Lucimia anymore, like arrows bouncing off ironwood.

Still, Lucimia wouldn’t smash the Cross at once. She’d slip into the city first, find Bevi, and fish for news like casting a line in deep water.

She chained teleport and flight, hopping like lightning and gliding like owls; after hours, she reached Erwei City as night thinned to gray.

Erwei City was truly larger than a town, footprint spreading like ink on paper. High walls ringed it like mountains, and from the sky Lucimia saw the clock tower spearing up like a needle. The whole city lay under thick fog, a woolen shroud that hid its face.

Lucimia thought it over, thoughts opening and closing like a fan, then dropped from high air to ground, cloaked herself in Invisibility Magic like a veiled moon, and sidled up to the city wall.

She wouldn’t go through the gate. No matter the disguise, the front gate questioned like an old magistrate, and cities this size loved their registries like ledgers bound in twine.

She wanted to try a newly unlocked ability—slip through the wall and enter the city like ink soaking rice paper.

She’d gained it by absorbing energy; now she could turn herself into shadow, sink like the Fuzzy Orb into earth and stone, and pass through them like water through reeds.

She set her right hand on the city wall, pressed gently like fingers into clay, and her hand blossomed into shadow, sinking into the stone like night into snow.

“What a strange feeling.” Her whisper drifted like a breeze.

With one breath and resolve like a drawn blade, she let her whole body become shadow, and merged into Erwei City’s wall like dusk swallowing the horizon.