At the instant the Ice Lance pierced Anliena, like winter shattering a frozen lake, Lucimia slew her first target; memory wiped clean.

Dazed, like fog lifting after dawn, Lucimia found the Ice Lance in her grip, and Anliena dead at her feet.

“What... happened—” her voice splintered like brittle ice.

Lucimia froze like a stag under frost.

She stared at dead Anliena, and a cold realization pricked her like a needle of ice.

A beam of light rose beside her like a pale pillar; the glow broke, and Auril stepped out.

“You won. Revert to the day of your Duel,” Auril’s face stayed a still pond, no ripple of emotion.

“How long did the Duel last?” Lucimia felt lost like a boat in mist.

“A day and a half,” Auril said, the words dropping like stones into still water.

“That fast—like a candle snuffed in a gust?”

She still couldn’t stitch events together like torn silk in wind; a vague guess flickered like a wan flame: she killed Anliena, then lost her memory.

Which meant the first six weren’t her kills, like shadows borrowed from someone else’s night.

Lucimia looked around; the green silhouette was gone like dew vanishing at sunrise.

“Where’s Rexi—” the name left her mouth like a drawn bowstring.

“Dead,” Auril said, the word cold as ash.

Her heart jolted like thunder under a quilt; she steadied fast like a stone in rain and asked, “How did she die?”

“You made her take poison and commit suicide,” Auril said; he paused like a cloud snagged on a peak, then added, “Reversion—let Rexi tell you the answer.”

Lucimia fell silent like snow settling over pines.

She glanced at lifeless Anliena and felt a current of energy leaving her like a pale river, pouring into her chest.

A thought surfaced in her mind like a rising bubble: Time Halt.

Lucimia chose Devouring to stop Time Halt from resetting, like anchoring a drifting skiff, then triggered Reversion like turning the stream backward.

White light flooded her vision like a tide; in the next heartbeat, she opened her eyes inside Anliena’s office again.

Anliena sat across from her; Rexi and Auril stood beside like two shadows flanking a gate.

Anliena’s eyes were full of doubt like clouds veiling a cold moon.

Because Lucimia had killed, both sides had their memories wiped clean like sand erased by a wave; none knew what had happened.

Both only remembered Auril setting rules like ink briefly drying; only Rexi knew the details like a sealed letter.

On the other side, as Rexi’s awareness returned, she patted herself like a cat checking its fur, confirmed she was intact, and breathed out like wind through reeds: “Oh wow, I’m alive.”

She smiled, looked at Lucimia and Anliena, and snapped her fingers like flint striking in night—

In an instant, a torrent of information surged into both minds like a river in flood.

Anliena saw her own identity—Investigator—like a stamp hammered into iron.

While she used an Imagerecording Stone to confirm it, a report came like a bell: Lucimia had killed three people.

She wondered why a serial killer’s memory hadn’t been wiped like a mirror that refused to fog, yet she used it to smear Lucimia like mud flung on a robe.

That smear sent a dockworker to his death like a fish dragged by a torn net.

While she schemed how to keep smearing, Rexi came and said Lucimia invited her to talk at a tavern like a lantern luring night moths; Anliena suspected Lucimia meant to frame her, prepared, and went.

Unexpectedly, the tavern server died like a candle guttering, and Rexi offered a deliberate opening like a loose thread; Anliena grabbed it.

She didn’t think much, seeing a perfect chance to sling filth onto Lucimia like dirty water from a bucket, yet Rexi admitted it and took poison, killing herself like a blossom falling to frost.

After Rexi had Lucimia kill Anliena, Anliena realized she might be the final target like the last bead on a string.

The ensuing magic clash rattled her like thunder locked in a box; the Ice Lance piercing her brain left a pain that still ghosted like a cold echo.

Her eyes filled with terror like ink blooming in water; she drew deep breaths to steady herself like waves sinking to glass.

At the same time, she sensed her Time Halt was gone, taken by Lucimia like a candle stolen by wind.

Bitterness tugged at her heart like thorned vines; realizing she might never save her father, she shed a few tears like rain slipping from eaves.

Lucimia had no time for Anliena’s mood; as memory returned, shock rolled through her like a storm over rice fields, and she asked herself: Did I really devise this tactic like a chess move carved in jade?

Her identity was a serial killer like a scar carved into bone.

Her targets weren’t named people, but a concept—the guilty—like weeds marked for pulling.

The crime had to merit at least ten years in the Lowegar Kingdom like a chain heavy as iron.

So Lucimia thought first of the Oli case, and reconsidered its threads like a weaver retracing a loom.

Most suspicious: in a 200-meter busy district, no witness saw Oli abducted like a pebble vanishing in a river.

So he likely went willingly like a moth trailing a lantern.

That made the shop owner, the dockworker, and the tavern server all suspicious like reeds hiding snakes.

But Lucimia knew another way it could be done like a door hidden behind a screen.

That way was—Time Halt, like stopping the river mid-flow.

Yes. Time Halt could carry Oli away without a sound like moonlight stealing across a sleeping pond.

Who had Time Halt? Obvious—Anliena, like a snowflake branded on her palm.

Lucimia had found the crucial answer like a key under a stone.

Does that mean Anliena alone took Oli, with no tie to the shop owner, dockworker, or tavern server—like a lone wolf with no pack?

Wrong, like a bell struck flat.

If Oli walked the set route and Anliena used Time Halt to take him, outsiders would see him vanish into thin air like mist blown off a cliff.

So why did all three claim they never saw Oli, like trees pretending they don’t hear wind?

Normally they’d say, “I saw him pass here; after that, I don’t know”—like footprints fading on wet sand.

So Lucimia judged it was a blend of two tactics like braided ropes.

They first lured Oli to a quiet spot, and then Anliena used Time Halt to take him, so passersby wouldn’t see a man vanish like smoke drawn behind a curtain.

Once he entered a shop, who watches whether you come out again like a drop lost in a bustling stream?

Lucimia followed this line and tried to pry truth from the shopkeeper’s mouth like a knife at a clam; he wouldn’t talk, sealed tight like stone.

With no choice, she interrogated him with her soul’s Authority Power, and finally pulled out a shocking truth like a blade drawn from dark cloth.

It turned out the one who abducted Oli was Rohn, and Rohn was Anliena’s companion like a spider behind a silk fan.

They kidnapped to dodge failure in the Duel like stepping around a pit on a mountain path.

What does that mean—a knot in the rope?

Simple: force the abducted to concede, making them bear the consequences of the other’s failed Duel like a scapegoat strapped to a sled.

The shopkeeper’s perks, besides money, included that arrangement like a pocket lined with hidden silk.

Following that thread, Lucimia learned the tavern server was one of them too like another bead on the same string.

Rohn often used drinking contests as Duels, and the server helped him cheat by carving a Magic Array into Rohn’s cup to reduce alcohol content like a false current beneath a bridge.

The perks were the same as above like echoes repeating in a canyon.

Except Rohn ran into Lucimia’s Devouring and got countered hard like fire smothered under wet earth.

Rohn did it to help Anliena like a hawk circling for its mate; Anliena kept hunting Reversion, Dueling many, and failure was always possible, so they set this insurance like a net beneath a tightrope.

In other words, even if Lucimia Dueling straight and Anliena lost, Lucimia might still not gain the time power; the scapegoat would bear it like a yoke.

The time power could convert into the scapegoat’s time, glitch, and shift into lifespan for Lucimia like gears slipping to count years instead of seconds.

Rohn likely didn’t become an imbecile; the one who did might be Oli, and Rohn was Anliena’s companion, the other participant in the Duel like a shadow beside a blade.

Knowing all this, Lucimia saw her plan clear like a path lit by lanterns.

She decided to secure victory in the Duel before the memory wipe like sealing a letter before rain.

A serial killer’s peak isn’t only late-game; it’s right before the wipe like the last breath before dawn.