Hearing that, Lucimia froze, like a bell struck in a quiet temple.

A dead man? In this tavern? The waiter?

She thought she’d misheard, like fog muffling a distant drum.

That waiter was tied to the Ouli case, a thread knotted to old blood.

She was sure she hadn’t left the room, sure her hands were clean as new snow, so the serial killer likely wasn’t her.

But Rexi had just stepped out, like a shadow slipping past a lantern.

With her heart tight as a drawn bow, Lucimia followed Luwens downstairs; the first floor was a hive of whispers, and enforcers stood outside like iron posts in rain.

Luwens led her into the back, a so‑called kitchen that was only shelves of cups and rows of bottles, like a quiet glass forest.

The familiar waiter lay in a pool of blood, a red mirror under broken moonlight; his head was gone, his limbs severed, and a dagger rested on the floor like a sleeping snake.

Rexi’s hands were wrenched behind her by two enforcers, their grips cold as shackles from a riverbed.

Anliena stood to one side, still as a statue in stormlight.

Rexi saw Lucimia as if seeing a lighthouse through fog and blurted, “Lucimia! Save me, they say I killed him.”

“What’s going on?” Lucimia’s mind was a blank scroll, ink refusing to flow.

Anliena stepped forward, her gaze like a blade. “You invited me. You said you had something to discuss.”

“Me?” Lucimia stared, a startled deer under leaves. “When did I invite you?”

Anliena flicked her eyes toward Rexi like a pointing fan. “That’s what she told me.”

Lucimia glanced at Rexi; Rexi blinked, her eyes a shuttered window, and said nothing.

Lucimia didn’t press, her brows knitting like tangled threads. “And then?”

“And then I came,” Anliena said, voice level as a ruler. “You were upstairs and needed time. She asked if I wanted a drink. I said whatever. The waiter wasn’t at the counter, so she went back to find him. A while later she came out with two cups.”

“I didn’t drink. She finished hers. You never came, and the tavern got crowded like a rising tide. No one saw the waiter. A few guests rushed the back and found him in that blood. So I suspected Rexi first—she was the last to see him.”

Lucimia nodded once, a stone dropped in a still pond, and looked at Rexi.

“Did you do it?”

Rexi shook her head, thin as a reed in wind.

“I want the truth.” Lucimia’s voice was quiet, a knife under silk.

Rexi stiffened, teeth on her lip like a trapped fox. After a breath, she exhaled and tossed it out like a pebble. “Fine, I did.”

The enforcers pressed harder; Rexi yelped, a string pulled too tight.

Luwens’ face darkened, a storm brewing behind stone, and he said nothing.

Anliena’s brows locked; her fists curled at her sides like coiled vines.

In her eyes, Rexi had killed the waiter. The serial killer had five victims already, and she saw Lucimia’s hand behind the curtain, making Rexi the scapegoat, clean hands by design.

After the Duel they’d Revert anyway, time washing blood like rain, so crime didn’t stick like mud.

Should she ride Rexi’s act and smear Lucimia now, like ink across a page?

She hesitated, her thoughts a knotted net. She’d feared Lucimia might frame her by “inviting” her, yet Rexi delivered herself to the trap like a fish jumping into a boat.

What was this?

Anliena couldn’t read Lucimia’s moves, a chessboard veiled in smoke.

Truth be told, Lucimia couldn’t read them either, yet a faint guess stirred like wind through bamboo.

“Why did you kill?” Lucimia asked, voice a steady drum under rain.

Rexi dodged the point and laughed thinly. “Heh, now I’m a guilty one too.”

Lucimia’s eyes narrowed, a shutter against grit.

Blood welled at Rexi’s lip, a red thread sliding down her chin to bead on the floor like crimson dew.

She opened her mouth and a gush of blood poured out, a spring bursting through stone and staining the boards deeper.

“Uwah…”

She spat the blood, dragged a breath, and grinned like a cut that refused to close. “The wine… was poisoned.”

She looked at the shocked Lucimia, eyes bright as a fever. “Hurts like hell…”

“What are you doing?” Lucimia asked, confusion coiling like mist over water.

“Heh… six now, Lucimia…” Rexi whispered, words falling like ash.

Anliena’s eyes widened, twin moons over a dark lake.

Lucimia was still lost. “Six what?”

“Kill… Anliena, and it ends… when it ends… buy me a drink…” Rexi coughed up more red, each drop a falling petal.

Then her body slackened all at once, a puppet with its strings cut, and breath left her like a lantern snuffed.

The enforcers glanced at each other, stunned birds in a storm, then slowly let go; Rexi dropped to the floor with a dull thud.

Back to everyone, Lucimia stared at Rexi on the boards, her mind a snowfield without tracks. The others were the same, faces blank as uncarved wood.

So was Anliena; she stood frozen, shock icing her bones.

Six? Already six?

The sixth was Rexi?

Who were the designated ones to kill, marked like stars on a map?

Right—Rexi had said it… guilty ones…

Cold pricked Anliena’s back, gooseflesh rising like a field of thorns.

Lucimia thought of Rexi faking a memory wipe, of Anliena’s certainty that she was an Investigator, of the merchant dying with his memory conveniently wiped, of six guilty ones like beads on a string.

The three merchants were guilty. The dockworker aided a killer and was guilty. The waiter, tied to the Ouli case, was guilty. Rexi had killed and was guilty…

And then—kill Anliena…

Anliena was a guilty one?

Why?

Am I the serial killer? The thought skimmed her mind like a black kite.

A black lock fell over Lucimia’s eyes, a curtain drawn. After a breath of stillness, she chose to trust Rexi and bent to lift the dagger, its blade a sliver of night.

Then—

She spun, a whip of motion, and snapped the dagger toward Anliena, the throw a lightning stitch through cloth.

Anliena, arriving at the same answer, reacted fast; her hand swept up and a stone wall surged into being, a gray wave between them.

“Sever!”

Lucimia’s shout cracked like ice. The dagger flared with the Sever Authority, bit through the stone like a scythe through reeds, and drove at Anliena.

The wall bought a breath; Anliena tilted her head, saving her brain, but the blade punched through her arm, a spike of winter.

“Ugh!”

Pain ripped her voice; blood gushed from the wound, a quick river soaking her arm scarlet in a blink.

It all happened fast, a thunderclap contained in a heartbeat.

As the dagger flew, Lucimia gathered a fireball in her palm, a red lotus blooming, and launched it in the same breath.

Anliena had already seen that ember in Lucimia’s hand and didn’t think twice. To dodge the spell and before Lucimia could bind her magic, she used Teleport and vanished from the tavern.

Boom!

The fireball struck where Anliena had been and shook the room; flames licked the wood, hungry foxes taking the beams.

Seeing Anliena flee, Lucimia felt for her mana ripple like a fish’s wake, then used Teleport and streaked out after her.

“Damn, what’s with these two Investigators?” Luwens had ducked behind cover when the fire bloomed, and now, with the tavern burning like a kiln, he shoved aside questions and ordered his team to use water magic.

Outside, Lucimia blinked into the night air; dusk had settled like indigo ink, and Anliena stood on the tavern roof before leaping off with a Flight Spell, her body an arrow in the dark.

Lucimia opened her Magic Eye, swept the rooftops like a hawk, and saw Anliena’s trail. She clenched her teeth and rose on her own Flight Spell, a streak chasing a streak.

The speed packed her ears with wind, a river of knives hissing past, and the cold bit her skin like sleet.

Lucimia flew cleaner and truer than Anliena, her control a steady hand on the brush—less mana bled, more speed sang—and Anliena soon sensed a shadow drawing close behind.

“Damn it… I can’t lose…” Her chest tightened like a closed fist.

Anliena guessed Lucimia needed a certain distance to smother her spells, so she couldn’t let Lucimia come near, like a moth dodging a lantern’s heat.

As she flew, ice lances formed around her, spear after spear until there were a hundred, glittering like a frozen constellation.

Lucimia’s view filled with those lances, a sky bristling with winter thorns.

Whoosh—

At Anliena’s command, they all streaked back toward Lucimia, a silver rain cutting the dark.

From the city below, it looked like a meteor shower, or a river of stars spilling uphill.

They didn’t touch Lucimia. Within ten meters of her, every lance shrugged off Anliena’s will and wheeled around, like swallows turning midair, and rushed back at her.

Under pressure, Anliena spun a rotating wind wall behind her, a grinding cyclone that chewed the lances to shards.

Ice dust feathered down from the sky; people below glanced up, thinking of snow.

“Damn…” A gray film spread in Anliena’s heart, as if ash had fallen there.

Lucimia couldn’t seize her spells from afar, but within ten meters she turned them like a tide, so they couldn’t stall her at all.

“Fight a monster like this… how?” The words tasted like iron.

The pace, the lances, the wind wall—her mana ran like water from a cracked jar.

Lucimia was closing, yard by yard, and Anliena burned with refusal, a coal that wouldn’t die.

She wanted her father back; she needed the Temporal Authority like a key to a locked gate; she couldn’t yield her Time Halt.

The rules said Lucimia had two hours of Reversion. Anliena had ten seconds of Time Halt. And Lucimia couldn’t use Devouring to avoid being frozen.

Now was the time to loose that arrow.

Anliena gritted her teeth, lifted one hand before her chest, palm down like pressing a seal, then turned to face Lucimia and drew a dark‑violet arc through the air.

In the same breath, she cried, “Halt!”

Vmmmm—!!

Lucimia’s mind rang, a gong in a still hall, and the whole world stopped in that instant, her body locked like a statue.

One second.

The dark‑violet arc before Anliena glowed like a longbow woven of starlight and mana.

She set the longbow sideways, a crescent of wood cradling the night.

Anliena gripped the bow with her left hand; her right teased a strand of magic and drew back. Power pooled. A dark violet arrow of starlight formed on the bow.

It shimmered like spilled constellations, and faintly, the arrow spun on its axis.

Four seconds.

Fear tightened her chest; Lucimia’s nullifying gift made close range death. She aimed from afar.

This Starlight Arrow was her signature, her own creation. It hit true from impossible range. Hard to stop. Any spell raised against it triggered a cloud of smaller arrows that intercepted and fed the parent shaft more power.

On impact, it bloomed into a blast, a starburst with brutal force.

Her Time Halt was selective. In a frozen world with Lucimia locked in place, she could exempt her magic. The shot would still move inside stillness.

Draw. Aim.

Six seconds.

Whoosh—!

Anliena loosed with a steady heart. The Starlight Arrow dragged all her power, ripped the air with a tearing whistle. She staked everything on that one shaft.

Eight seconds.

The distance was vast; the arrow had only crossed half the gulf.

Nine seconds.

It still fell short of Lucimia by a span.

Ten seconds.

The arrow arrived, bright as a comet, right before Lucimia’s face!

Time Halt ended!

Lucimia’s eyes flared wide. A shaft swollen with feral magic snapped into being before her.

Barely a meter away.

And moving brutally fast.

Panic bit first. She couldn’t shape a spell, couldn’t raise a ward. Her mind hadn’t even tugged at the Devouring Authority before her body moved on instinct—

She turned her head and leaned right, keeping her skull clear, but left side wide in the kill-zone.

Thunk!

The arrow punched into her left waist. Pain flashed. She grunted through clenched teeth.

It wasn’t over. The magic detonated on impact, swelling into a blast.

Boom—!

The sky cracked with sound, a bell of thunder.

As smoke peeled away, Anliena didn’t linger to see if Lucimia fell. She poured the rest of her Flight Spell into retreat, glancing back.

Lucimia’s left side was a ruin. Flesh blurred to pulp; a crater of meat gushed red.

The skin on her left face was torn, inner tissues shining wet.

But she didn’t die.

“An—lie—na—!”

Lucimia screamed through the pain at the fleeing silhouette.

Shock iced her gut. Lucimia had eaten the blast and lived. Anliena kept her head down, fleeing hard.

Hiss— Lucimia’s pain forced tears to leak. The ache crawled everywhere. Her ears droned; sound came muffled and far.

If not for the rule barring her Devouring Authority against Anliena, Anliena would already be dust.

She hadn’t expected Anliena to trigger Time Halt for a killing shot. She reacted, yet still took the hit.

Nor had she guessed the arrow would explode. And with force. A desperate ward had shaved off half the damage. Without it, she might’ve been blown apart.

This was her first time facing a Ninth Rank Mage head-on. Stripped of Authority, Anliena was formidable—at range, maybe an even match.

But Lucimia wasn’t fragile. She would answer in kind.

“Wind! Rain!”

Through pain, Lucimia drove her magic—

The world bucked to a headwind. The gale howled. Anliena felt drag bite; her speed dropped like a clipped wing.

Clouds knotted overhead. The wind went feral. Below, roofs tore free, tiles lifted, trees snapped like brittle bones...

Around them, a ring of spinning air rose, a newborn tornado. Anliena couldn’t hold her heading at all.

The wind itself cut. Thin lines opened on her skin, red threads blooming.

Dread pinched her throat. What spell was this? A human conjuring a calamity like nature itself? Impossible...

Rumble—!

Thunder ripped from above, like a wrathful thunder-dragon roaring, long and terrifying.

Anliena’s body shivered beyond her control.

Then came rainfall, dense as a swarm.

Raindrops, fat as beans, fell from the vault. She thought little of them—until they struck. Only then did she grasp the horror.

The drops carried a piercing force from nowhere. One punched through her forearm, boring flesh clean, leaving a bloody hole.

Terror crawled across Anliena’s face.

Pain couldn’t catch up. More drops followed, mad and relentless, hammering her body.

Arms. Legs. Back...

A drop pierced her back, then her organs. She coughed a gout of blood.

She rushed a ward, but even the shield was punched through.

Another drop fell, hit her finger. The drop was thicker than bone; the finger snapped clean.

Ugh— Anliena gasped in pain.

Fear flooded. She feared a drop would drill her skull.

She kept flying, wrestling her body, desperate to keep her head out of the rain.

But her body was a map of bleeding holes.

Lucimia closed the distance and called, “Lightning!”

Boom—!

A blinding thunder-dragon split the sky and struck her midair. No escape. The bolt hit square. Control of body and magic vanished.

She fell, a straight line toward earth.

Only shreds of thought remained in the girl’s head. She saw the vast spell raging above and Lucimia’s silhouette.

Lucimia’s black hair streamed in the wind. Black clothes draped a damaged body, eyes blood-red—like a black demon born of storm.

Lucimia gathered an Ice Lance in her hand. She flew hard, diving for the falling Anliena.

She didn’t throw it. She held it tight, ready to pierce Anliena herself.

The lance flashed cold. In the heartbeat before impact, it drove for Anliena’s brow.

Shhk!

The Ice Lance went through her brain. She hit the ground at the same time with a heavy thud, body shattered by the fall.

Lucimia kept the lance in her grip, pinning Anliena to the earth.

Defeat sank cold. As her awareness faded, she heard Lucimia say—

“You’re strong, Anliena... cough... I haven’t been hurt in a long time...”

The next second, Anliena’s awareness unraveled completely.

Anliena. Dead.

Serial killer Lucimia slew her first victim with her own hands. Memory wiped...

Seven marked targets—guilty ones—dead.

Lucimia. Duel won.

...