[Gods-and-Demons Group Chat]

[Boiling Orange]: Where's Deceitful Bloom?! I'm dying, I need to see Her face right now!

[Captain]: I ran back to the temple to check. She blasted me out.

[Ashveil]: Hahahaha what now, Deceitful Bloom

[Ironclaw]: Yeah, what now, Deceitful Bloom~

[Puppetlord]: What now, Deceitful Bloom~

[Foolishness]: Deceitful Bloom: BS-Rita, let me feel your hatred!

[Hearthsmoke]: BS-Rita: Felt that?

[Mischief]: Dawn-Cicada: I felt it, thanks

[Boiling Orange]: When Dawn-Cicada grabbed BS-Rita's collar and yanked her over, BS-Rita almost exploded. You all know what my ability is. The rage she gave off in that moment was on par with when she first saw Deceitful Bloom's real face.

[Foolishness]: Deceitful Bloom wanted it.Cicada-Bearer got it.

[Mischief]: Vineborne things.

[Hearthsmoke]: Vineborne things.

[Deceitful Bloom]: Whose side are you all on?

[OneCup]: We gather here for one purpose only: to watch Deceitful Bloom choke on an apple.

[Bitter Chalice]: So will you be making Dawn-Cicada another vine?

[Drummer]: Weren't a ton of rare materials used for the last one?

[Spring Morning]: Yeah, and now that BS-Rita's stats shot up, how did her skill end up having that effect?

[Captain]: It's similar to Flower of Deceit. Is she being influenced by Deceitful Bloom?

[Foolishness]: Yes. She sealed the scent but didn't stop Flower of Deceit from awakening. Flower of Deceit was looking at BS-Rita the whole time during the awakening.

[Deceitful Bloom]: ... And how come none of you chatted this much before?

Silence flooded the group.

A few minutes later—

[Deceitful Bloom]: Fine. Stay in this group and chat.

She had no idea how many splinter groups existed out there. She only knew that in those few minutes, not a single one She was in made a sound.

...

After finishing the entire golden apple, Rita heard an endless chain of notifications.

[Strength +5000], [Agility +5000], [Intelligence +5000], [Constitution +5000], [Critical Damage +200%]…

She truly hadn't expected this kind of bonus.

So eating something transformed by her skill could feed these benefits back into her body? As expected from something crafted by Deceitful Bloom specifically for Dawn-Cicada.

The more she tasted it, the better it was. Just to be safe, Rita swallowed the entire apple—core included.

Then she and Y128 instantly used Romantic Tourist to flee.

It wasn't that she didn't want to finish off Dawn-Cicada—she simply no longer had the means to.

The moment she transformed the vine, her Player Relic overheated, prompting her to choose which mode to shut down within three seconds or lose the Flower of Deceit effect entirely.

Given her priority was survival, she shut down her primary offensive moon-mode, Echoes of the Snowbound Realm.

This caused Wail—just summoned and barely having killed anyone—to vanish instantly. Her major offensive skills all became unusable.

But being able to destroy Dawn-Cicada's vine made all the drawbacks worth it.

When she first charged at Dawn-Cicada, she'd already asked B8017913 inside her mind what a vine meant to the Vineborne.

"Vineborne have at least seventy percent of their skills tied to their vine. At least half of their spells require the vine to execute. The flowers on the vine hold unique effects comparable to divine gifts.

"A vine cannot be lost, and it's nearly impossible to destroy. Even if a powerful, specialized skill destroys it, as long as a sliver remains—a piece the size of a fingernail, a petal, or even a spark of Ember—the Vineborne can regrow it."

"What happened to Dawn-Cicada's first vine was truly unavoidable."

That was B8017913's explanation.

Now, having put enough distance between herself and the battlefield, Rita pressed further: "So how was her previous vine destroyed?"

B80: "When she purged the non-Vineborne leaders in Dawn, the world became enraged. Dawn tried to trigger a one-time authority capable of killing a world leader. But Dawn-Cicada was prepared—she used her vine to take the hit, then let the surviving vine remnants parasitize Dawn's server."

B80: "Though she isn't an Adjudicator and has far fewer permissions, because Dawn's server was partially taken over by the vines, Dawn-Cicada—though merely the world's master—ended up with slightly more authority than a world master normally has. She can access a lot of interworld intel instantly."

Rita saw the real issue. "Then she eliminated the remaining leaders without her vine? And through Divine Game rewards, she received the second vine Deceitful Bloom crafted for her?"

B80: "Yes. That is Dawn-Cicada."

Rita: "So she's no different from me—just another piece on Deceitful Bloom's board."

Deceitful Bloom manipulated her—and Dawn-Cicada too.

She used Dawn-Cicada's adoration, her attention, and guided her to invade Lania Kaia, pushing straight toward BS-.

Why not just tell Dawn-Cicada directly? If She had, Dawn-Cicada would've obeyed instantly, without losing her mind.

Could it be that the rules prevented it? Or She simply didn't feel like explaining?

Or maybe—this way, She could force Dawn-Cicada to cool down, stop idolizing Her, and look at Her differently.

Deceitful Bloom was like a drifting perfume—intoxicating, impossible to grasp, impossible to escape.

And Rita still couldn't figure out why She stepped out of the shadows at the temple to show her true face—just to shatter an illusion and force Rita to see Her clearly…

...

Forty-six minutes after leaving the temple, a new system message echoed overhead:

[All players in Map 1 have been eliminated. Hunters will be redistributed evenly across the remaining maps.]

Which meant that the two remaining maps now each hosted more than a hundred twenty hunters.

Hiding by a cactus charging-station, Rita and Y128 looked up just in time to see dozens of hunters descending. Two shadows were falling toward their position.

One large. One small.

Lightchaser and Wail.

The elite Arisentna assassin team had assembled right above her.

Y128: "Should we run? Romantic Tourist still has two charges."

"Not yet." Lightchaser's no-movement barrier had limited uses—three times per day. If she still had charges left, she would've used one upon landing. She was never the type to conserve a life-saving skill.

So if necessary, they could still use it when Lightchaser caught up.

Rita said, "Let's lead them to Dawn's Spring Guest and Dawn's Echo. Weren't they nearby earlier?"

Y128: "..."

What did Vineborne ever do to her?

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