18. The Relentless Battle
“Freeze!” Lilith raised the Astrolabe. An orb of ice burst at the golem’s feet, frost rippling like a glass lake as its foot and the water locked into a broad sheet.
The golem’s motion hitched like a grinding wheel. It wrenched free with a harsh yank, trudged forward, then sprang and hammered a fist at Lilith like a falling cliff.
Panic hit first; then she called the Void Command Seat. Her body thinned into a thread of wind. In a blink she drifted back, slipping past the first brutal swing. She surged into the lull, pressed to its chest, and tapped its right arm with the Shattered Ark.
On contact, the Shattered Ark blazed like a broken star after a parry. Lilith flipped her grip, raised the Broken Sword, and drove a thrust toward the golem’s chest.
The Broken Sword, a talon that cuts fate, met granite fate today. She strained till breath burned, yet the blade sank only a few centimeters—barely a wound on living stone.
The golem had already recovered. It hauled up its hand again; that shadow fell like a cliff. Fear sparked; the Little White Dragon planted both feet on its chest and kicked off hard, skimming the flooded ground to escape the looming mass.
The stone palm slammed its own chest with a thunderclap. A human would’ve reeled, mind ringing like a bell. But Lilith faced a construct, a sorcery-born thing, not flesh.
As expected, the golem didn’t falter. It stamped, took a pounding run, then leaped. In midair it twisted half a turn, raised its left fist, and crashed down like an avalanche.
Cold rushed her spine; she slid aside, dodging that weighty blow. She escaped the knuckles, but not the gale they summoned; her light form was torn upward by the fist-wind and tossed into the air.
“Halt!” She whipped her constellations into resonance, body aligning like a kite on a taut string. She stilled herself before smashing the wall, braking inches short of stone.
She had barely righted out of the swirl when a boulder, bigger than her whole frame, howled toward her. Lilith’s heart dropped; at this range, no path remained.
“Ice Wall! Starlight Ward!” She cried and layered spells. A thick wall of ice surged from the ground, rising between the Little White Dragon and the hurtling rock. A careful eye would catch a pale blue film over the ice—starlight glazing the bulwark.
The boulder hit head‑on. That dark mass shattered the Starlight Ward, bored straight into the ice, and kept going until its nose poked out the far side, then finally lodged.
Lilith seized the beat and drifted down to the flooded floor. Peering over the ice wall, she watched the golem. Its dark‑violet glow had faded to a bruise; it didn’t press the attack.
Maybe after a throw, it lapses into weakness—now’s the window to end this thing. The thought struck like flint. She kicked off and slipped past the ice wall, rushing the stone hulk.
“Hey! Die for me!” Lilith lifted the Shattered Ark and chopped at its chest. Just as she’d guessed, that once‑unyielding skin parted beneath the Ark, a gash opening like a split seam and baring the core within.
“Take the blade!” She shoved the Shattered Ark into the exposed core. But her strength alone couldn’t pierce it clean through. The Little Dragon spun in the air, gripped the Astrolabe with both hands, and smacked the Ark’s hilt. The Broken Sword bit forward, shaving a sizable chunk off the golem’s core.
“Roar!” Pain flared the creature’s voice. Dark light surged back. A massive hand closed for Lilith, hunger to crush the buzzing gnat that kept darting out of reach.
Instinct flared—down! She dropped and slipped the grasp. With a sharp yank she wrenched the Shattered Ark free of stone. Then, sliding low, she scooted between its legs, and, not forgetting her spite, flicked an ice blade from her staff into the golem’s left calf.
“Damn traitor!” The golem pressed its right hand over its chest, knitting stone over the wound the Little White Dragon had carved. It couldn’t mend the core, though—half of it was gone. Still, with both pieces rattling inside the chest, it scraped together enough energy to move.
“Why are you this tough? Your heart’s half carved away—shouldn’t you be dead?” Lilith’s voice cracked. She stared as the chest sealed good as new. Does it require total annihilation of the core? Or must I rip it out whole to kill it?
“The Great God granted me an indelible life. I must carry out the duty to exterminate the traitor. Perish!” The golem clasped its left wrist with its right. Under the Little White Dragon’s shocked gaze, it tore off its own left arm. It crammed every slab of stone into its right, swelling that arm almost double.
The golem leaped, sky darkening under its bulk, and drove the now colossal right fist at Lilith. The Little White Dragon knew she couldn’t take that blow. She dove sideways, skirting a punch even wider than before.
Face met cold water in a slap. She rolled up, breath steaming, lifted the Astrolabe in her left hand, and leveled it at the golem. The feathers on her belly turned ghost‑blue. She began to chant, ready to unleash her strongest ranged storm.
“Blizzard!” The sea‑blue gem on the Astrolabe burst into blinding radiance. Heavy snow and slicing rain poured down, a white tide crashing at the golem. Knife‑edged flakes skittered across its body. No matter how the towering thing thrashed, it couldn’t outrun burial beneath the drift.
“Hah… hah.” When the last snowflake settled, the golem’s height was gone from sight. In its place rose a cold mountain, an ice peak looming. The Little White Dragon’s breath came ragged; her knees gave and she sagged.
“At least… for a while… it won’t move. If it isn’t dead, it’s locked up, right?” Lilith wiped sweat from her brow and stared up at the ice‑mountain, muttering.
Her words hadn’t finished echoing when a boulder punched through the dense ice. While Lilith blinked, that rock flew straight at the Little White Dragon.
“Eh?” She hadn’t even processed it when the stone slammed into her. The dark‑violet boulder burst against her body, and the shock cracked through her like a thunderbolt. Pain erased thought. The force hurled her up, a leaf in a storm.
The golem wouldn’t spare her. It leaped as well, hefting the swollen right fist. While Lilith hung midair, it smashed her back down to the ground.
Boom!
Water leapt several meters high, then rained down in fine drops, pattering over Lilith’s broken frame.
“Ugh…” Pounded into the earth, the Little White Dragon pried open eyes slick with blood. Flesh torn and blurred, she lay in a scarlet pool. Her dazed mind couldn’t track the world, but she saw the towering golem raise its right fist again.
Boom!
