After Rexi read the memory, her expression froze in surprise, like frost on glass. “How could this be? So he sacrificed himself to refill energy?”

“Yes,” came the answer, flat as ash after flame.

Silence pooled between them like still water.

Lucimia patted Rexi’s shoulder, a steady drum, and said, “He doesn’t need to die now.” “Ment is dead, so Nirael no longer needs energy,” she added, like cutting a knot.

“...Right.” The sorrow in Rexi’s chest ebbed like a receding tide.

“How do you plan to handle Purification? After Reversion, is Vosh still in the Royal Capital?” Her words flew like startled sparrows.

“Relax. I’ve arranged it,” Lucimia said, voice like a sheathed blade. “By the timeline, reverting to before Bevi’s death puts Vosh in the Royal Capital.”

“Oh,” Rexi breathed, a pebble plinking into a pond.

“Let’s go,” Lucimia said, her tone a clear bell.

White light flooded their sight like winter sun, and Reversion swept them away.

—

Lucimia opened her eyes to Bevi trussed on the ground, ropes crossing him like a netted fish.

“Hold up. Hear my method before you decide?” Bevi blurted, panic fluttering like moths.

“Enough, Bevi,” Lucimia cut straight, voice like an arrow. “I’ll go to the Royal Capital, and you don’t need to die,” she said, a hand like iron.

“Huh? What do you mean...?” Bevi froze, like a deer in torchlight.

He hadn’t spoken his method, yet she knew he’d planned to die, like reading ink before it dries.

Lucimia folded her arms and sighed, a wind through pines. “Wait for Rexi to tell you. I can’t say it,” she murmured, sealing her lips like wax.

She dropped onto the felled trunk from their chase, a fallen pillar, and closed her eyes like shutters.

“??” Bevi stared, dumbfounded, eyes like question marks.

Lucimia ignored him and reached out to the Royal Capital’s Deceiver, her mind like a bridge of mist.

A familiar chaos unfolded, no up or down, no east or west, like drifting in a storm.

The golden-haired Deceiver knelt on one knee, reverent as a priest. Lucimia sat high on a throne, cloaked in depth like night.

She first gave the usual orders: taint the Cross, then grant his longsword the Authority Power of Sever.

This time, she didn’t tell him to let rats eat the Magic Array’s energy; she changed the current like turning a river.

“Use this sword. Swing at any part of the Magic Array,” Lucimia said, words slicing like rain.

The Deceiver, puzzled like a fox, still nodded. “Understood.”

“Mm.” Lucimia formed a Fuzzy Orb, a soft star, then cloaked it with Disguise Power as an octopus.

She tossed it to him. “Put this fur... this octopus into the array,” she said, smile thin as paper.

“Understood,” he answered, faith steady like a lighthouse.

He trusted Lucimia utterly, without a flicker of doubt, like a candle in steady air.

After the orders, Lucimia cut the link like snapping thread.

What was she doing? She was finding a way to strike the Purification Deity, like hunting a white tiger.

Elyssus’s Magic Array energy has an owner; it belongs to Elyssus, a locked well others can’t draw.

Unless Lucimia uses Devouring to absorb it, like draining a lake.

She doesn’t want that now. With Sever’s Authority Power, she can cut the array’s channel from Elyssus, like severing roots.

She could also use Devouring to swallow the link, but only in person; distance breaks the net like thin ice.

After cutting the link, she’d have the Deceiver place the Fuzzy Orb into the array, like planting a seed.

Don’t mistake her aim; she isn’t absorbing energy.

She has another use in mind; to deal with the Purification Deity, she must weave schemes like silk.

Lucimia had built a complete plan, a chessboard under moonlight, determined to make the Purification Deity pay.

Desty’s face flashed: red hair like flame, a soft “ah?” like a sparrow, and a will hard as granite.

These echoes rang through her mind like bells.

Lucimia opened her eyes as Rexi waved and ran in, arms windmilling like reeds in storm.

“I—huff—am—here!” Rexi panted, bracing on her knees, breath like bellows.

“Rexi? What’s going on?” Bevi pressed, words tumbling like stones.

“Wait, let me catch my breath...” Rexi rested, then straightened and snapped her fingers like flint.

“I’ll share the memory I saw with you,” she said, a thread spinning from mind to mind.

Bevi learned Lucimia’s Reversion. He learned Ment was dead. He learned the Purification Deity was in the Royal Capital, even trapped by Lucimia like a caged storm.

“You two...” Bevi stared, stunned like a statue. “So you came back from the future.”

“Exactly,” Lucimia said, voice calm as a lake. “I returned to set the board first, and to save you second. Ment is dead, so Nirael doesn’t need energy,” she said, words like closing a book.

“I see,” Bevi murmured, head bowed like a willow.

After a moment he lifted it. “Do you have confidence against Vosh?” His gaze was a blade.

“Well...” Rexi glanced at Lucimia, eyes like mirrors, since the plan lived in Lucimia’s hands.

“Relax. I already have a plan,” Lucimia said, a net cast over the sea.

“How will you do it?” Bevi asked, curiosity curling like smoke.

“Sadly, I can’t tell you,” Lucimia replied, her smile locked like a gate.

She waved, casual as falling leaves. “You’re saved. I’m leaving. Rexi, are you coming with me or staying?”

“I’m definitely going to kill the Dark Deity with you! How thrilling, how fun,” she laughed, sparks in her voice.

“I said—killing a Dark Deity isn’t thrilling or fun... whatever, suit yourself,” Lucimia sighed, shoulders slumping like dusk.

Bevi also shook his head, a pendulum in a quiet room.

Rexi looked at Bevi, and he simply told her to help Lucimia against the Purification Deity, words firm as nails.

Because if the Purification Deity kills Nirael, it gets dangerous like wildfire; helping now boosts her later plan to cull Dark Deities.

Once the Purification Deity breaks the seal, no one can face it except Devouring, like a lone cliff against surf.

Rexi nodded hard, her chin a hammer. “I’ll do my best!”

“Mm...” Bevi hummed, a low drum.

Rexi fell in beside Lucimia, footsteps like twin shadows.

Bevi watched the two girls depart and sighed, breath drifting like smoke.

“Seems it isn’t my time to die,” he murmured, a leaf spared by frost.

He sat on the ground, dazed like a moonlit stone.

Then he remembered. He glanced down and found he was still tied up, ropes like stubborn vines.

“Hey, wait, did you forget something?!” he shouted, voice tossing like waves.

He yelled toward their retreating backs, sound chasing like a dog.

No one answered, silence thick as snow.

—

The two girls rode their familiar magic flying carpet, cutting through high sky like a silver fish.

“Lucimia, what’s the plan?” Rexi asked for the umpteenth time, her voice circling like a kite.

“I can’t say the full plan yet,” Lucimia replied, words tucked like blades in cloth.

“Why?” Rexi blinked, eyes big as moons.

“No reason. I’m afraid you’ll leak it,” Lucimia said, tone cool as shade. “You wear everything on your face, and Vosh will read you like open pages,” she added, a warning bell.

“O-okay~” Rexi said, not angry, just awkward, hands spreading like empty wings.

“But I can tell you the next step,” Lucimia offered, a lantern in fog.

“Mm? What will you do?” Rexi leaned in, curiosity like a cat.

“I’ll force Nirael to come out,” Lucimia said, gaze steady as steel. “I want Nirael to know the situation, then appear quietly before me, like moonlight. Don’t make a grand entrance in the Royal Capital,” she warned, voice a thin blade.