“Ugh, just a pile of messy junk books. Don’t bother, they’re awful.” Rexi stepped back like he was dodging a splash.

“Tch…”

Lucimia let out a sigh that drifted like a breeze through reeds. She glanced at Anliena, then turned to leave, her shadow peeling from the floor like dusk.

“Wait!” Anliena called, her voice snagging her like a thrown hook.

Her cheeks flared like ripe peaches. You could see the inner battle carved on her face. At last she sighed, the sound like a cliffside grip letting go. “Fine, I’ll show it.”

Lucimia blinked, puzzled, a question hanging like a spun coin.

Rexi broke into a crescent grin and bobbed his head like a happy woodpecker. “Yep, that’s it.”

Anliena drew a deep breath. Her hand moved—clean as a blade—undoing the bow at her chest. Without the knot, her collar eased open, and porcelain skin caught the light like snow.

“???”

Lucimia’s confusion sharpened. Seeing Anliena reach for the next button, she shot out a hand like lightning. “Don’t. Rexi fooled you. Even if you show it, I still won’t help.”

Anliena ignored her. She popped the button anyway, eyes squeezed shut as a few glass beads of tears slid free. Her voice was stubborn as a cliff pine. “I understand! You couldn’t say it, so you let Rexi say it. I’ll reveal whatever—you just have to help me save my father…”

“????”

Lucimia felt her reputation warp, like a reflection rippling in water. She lunged and grabbed Anliena’s collar, fingers hooking tight.

“Wait!”

Anliena froze, her eyes brimming like twin pools as she looked at Lucimia.

Lucimia drew a long breath, then sighed again, laying her words like heavy stones. “I can help you. But I can’t use Reversion to do it. I can only use Temporal Authority.”

At that, light burst in Anliena’s eyes like lanterns in fog. Hearing “Temporal Authority,” a thought struck her like flint, a payment she could offer.

“Time and space—right, time and space. I almost forgot.” Anliena spoke quickly, her voice skimming like a startled bird. “You can probably guess. I had Roen kidnap those people as scapegoats for a Duel. I’ve been searching for someone with Reversion. Along the way I found a lot of Time Ability Users. With scapegoats, I beat them all. Now every one of them owes me a request.”

“I can make them hand you their time abilities, so you gain Temporal Authority.”

Lucimia’s eyes lit too, a spark like flint on dry tinder. Getting it directly was best; no more hunting like chasing fireflies in tall grass.

“You sure? They’ll honor it?” Her words were clipped like knives.

“Yeah. They lost the Duel.”

“Alright. Call them here.”

Anliena nodded and nodded, a sparrow bobbing on a branch.

Magic flickered at her fingertips like a cluster of fireflies. After a few seconds she said, “I set sensing spells on all of them. If I need them, I trigger the spell. Once they get it, they have to come immediately.”

“Mhm.” Lucimia nodded. “How long, roughly?”

“Uh… two or three days? They’re scattered like seeds in the wind.”

“Oh.”

Lucimia dipped her head, a leaf settling on still water.

With that set, the next stretch would be waiting, like watching rain fill a clay jar.

But first, she needed the roots. She had to ask about Anliena’s father.

She pulled her chair back, wood scraping like dry bark, and sat. Anliena saw and settled into her own seat.

“Start with your father,” Lucimia said, laying questions like stepping stones across a stream. “His name? How did he die?”

“Beck. He died five years ago. Cause… I don’t know.” Anliena bowed her head like a wilted lotus, falling into memory.

“My father was the vice dean of Karan Academy. Five years ago, on July 1st, he seemed to receive some message. He left Karan Academy and went to an academy in the Kingdom of Sipan as a visiting professor. In November that same year, word came from the kingdom like a cold wind. Professor Beck died researching magic. A failed experiment caused an explosion, sparked a fire, and then he perished.”

Lucimia listened, silent for a beat, her voice low as a sheathed blade when she finally spoke. “Why did he go to the Kingdom of Sipan? To teach magic? Who invited him?”

“I don’t know.” Anliena shook her head slowly, like a bell with no clapper.

“Strange…” Lucimia murmured, her words hanging like smoke. “He’s a vice dean at a magic academy. One fire took him? Do you think that’s possible?”

“…I don’t think so either, so…”

“So someone framed him. No—maybe not a person. A Dark Deity…”

At the words “Dark Deity,” Anliena’s eyes went round like twin moons. She breathed the phrase like frost. “Dark Deity…”

Lucimia felt the picture click into place, pieces lining up like tiles.

First, the Kingdom of Sipan is basically controlled by the Purification Church—meaning by Vosh. A net cast over a pond.

Anliena and Beck created the Storage Ring, a ring like a tiny world cupped in a palm.

Olivya used time and space power to build a god, to counter Vosh, to drive out the Dark Deity, raising a star against a shadow.

Vosh knew the rough outline of Olivya’s plan, a snake sensing footsteps.

That makes it clear.

Through the Storage Ring, Vosh learned about Time Halt. She wanted that ability Purified. But she didn’t know whether Time Halt was on Anliena or on Beck, hunting a candle in fog.

After the Storage Ring succeeded, the main credit hung on Beck like a bright badge. So Vosh believed Beck likely held Time Halt.

Back then, the Purification Deity—more precisely, the Purification Church—hadn’t shown its own evil. The Kingdom of Sipan and the Lowegar Kingdom were on good terms, ribbons of travel between them.

Vosh lured Beck over, then killed him. A sweet bait, a cut like ice. Unfortunately for her, Beck didn’t have Time Halt.

Lucimia felt this was highly likely, certainty settling like silt in deep water.

But that means Beck’s death wasn’t ordinary. It involved a Dark Deity, maybe even Purification, death veiled in black silk.

Olivya had used Temporal Authority to perform Reversion before. If Auril spoke truth, those Devoured, those Purified, can’t be saved by Reversion—a river flowing backward that still can’t lift the buried stones.

But that’s Auril’s claim alone. Lucimia doesn’t believe it. Because she doesn’t believe, she rushed to Duel Anliena to gain Temporal Authority—doubt like grit under the tooth, resolve like drawn steel.

She wants to see it with her own eyes, lanterns cutting the mist.

“Right, there’s something I have to tell you,” Anliena said, words held like a folded letter.

“What?”

“It’s about Time Halt and Reversion.” Anliena licked her dry lips, cracked clay under sun. “When you use Reversion, I get a special effect.”

“What do you mean?” Lucimia asked, her brow tense like a drawn bow.

“I mean I won’t be reset like normal people, whether or not I use the ability.”

Anliena raised two fingers, twin reeds against sky. “Say you Reversion to two days ago. I see two special outcomes.”

“First, if I don’t use Time Halt, I’ll go back with you and keep my memories, embers carried in a brazier.”

Lucimia nodded, thoughtful, like tapping a chess piece on a board.

Anliena went on. “Before the second, know this: my Time Halt can target an area or an individual. I don’t need to freeze the whole world, just draw a circle in the sand.”

“And the second case is this. I use Time Halt on myself first. Then you use Reversion. Guess what happens to me?” The question hung, a blade over water.

Before Lucimia could answer, Rexi chirped, words hopping like sparrows. “What happens??”

Anliena glanced at Rexi, paused, then said, “I’ll travel.” She spoke it like stepping through a curtain.