53. Quick and Clean

Lilith cleaved a Void Sect cultist with one clean stroke. The man in dark purple robes let out a strangled wail, spun like a top, and flew off like tossed driftwood.

“Elasha, how’s your side?” She drove back another zealot, then the Little White Dragon turned, worry crusting over her gaze like rime on glass.

Abaddon stayed in the rear, hands folded and shadowed. The demon princess hadn’t grasped the moment’s chaos, and as the Void Sect’s living idol, she couldn’t strike without cracking their faith like brittle ice.

The Vampires gathered in threes and fours, small knots flowing like dark shoals. Though outnumbered by the cultists, they slipped through the melee with easy, predatory grace.

The Vampire Princess didn’t move. She held her service sabre, eyes narrowed to a blade-thin glare at the thirty or forty Void Sect cultists arrayed like a rough hedge.

“No real trouble. These Void Sect cultists are far weaker than I expected,” Elasha said after a cool heartbeat. She drew her sabre and cut down a cultist grappling with a Vampire, quick as a falling star.

The rescued Vampire didn’t speak. He gave Elasha a sincere nod, then rushed back into the fray, shoulder to shoulder with his companion like twin oaks in a storm.

“Still, the bugs are too many. Tiresome, like a swarm you can’t shake.”

Elasha, every inch a princess, let the words fall cold and crisp. The silver-haired Vampire leveled her sabre, eyes fixed ahead like frost-lit steel.

“If we could end it quick, that’d be best.”

“Sorry.” Frustration tightened Lilith’s voice, then she breathed and said it plain. “I don’t have a clean way to hit many at once without roasting our own.”

She was a duelist at heart, built for single-target breaks and iron-on-iron kills. Trash clearing just wasn’t her craft, and the truth tasted chalky.

It wasn’t that the Little White Dragon lacked area fire. In dragon form, one tail sweep could crumple a crowd like reeds. Even as a woman, her Stellar Magic and frost weaves held enough winter to erase a field.

But now the Void Sect cultists were tangled in close-quarters with Elasha’s Vampires, blades flashing like rain. Any big spell would scorch friend and foe, and that was a line she wouldn’t cross.

Unless she intended to mulch the Vampires along with them.

She had options, sure—Meteor Cannon, Ice Storm, the kind that turned a battlefield into a crater-rim. They sat in her mind like coiled comets.

“I know. I wasn’t planning on you stepping in,” Elasha said, calm as moonlight. “Those enforcement squads are shoddy, but Morris still needs them. I won’t have you splash them with friendly fire.”

“The Necromancer Cultists’ grand magi were like that too,” she added, voice as even as a plucked string. “Before the Cataclysm, the Sect waged a few holy wars. Those magi threw grandiose spells at every problem, and our worst losses came from them, not the enemy.”

“Uh... fine.” Lilith’s shoulders slumped, the defeat fluttering like a damp banner. She was, strictly speaking, a magic swordsman, not a mage. Hearing her adored archmages scolded stung like winter’s bite.

Come on—throwing big spells is romance. It’s starlight and thunder; it’s poetry that burns.

And look at those Void Sect idiots. Their ranged shots were teardrop bolts you could sidestep with a granny’s shuffle. Up close, sure, it was tight and ugly; without the Shattered Ark, Lilith would’ve worn a few cuts.

Give her some distance and they weren’t a threat, at all. If not for the fear of friendly fire, Lilith would’ve dropped the Broken Sword, gripped the Astrolabe, and let the magic hum like a storm harp.

“You haven’t seen me fight, have you?” Elasha’s smile warmed like candlelight. “It’s time I showed you my strength—as the Vampire Princess.”

Her smile remained gentle, like she was stepping into a royal salon rather than a killing field. The blade in her hand became, in that breath, a bow she knew as well as her own pulse.

Then the princess placed the sabre to her neck.

Silver hair fell like snowfall. The matte steel kissed her white jade throat, the edge sliding just enough to bloom a few scarlet drops—rubies cupped by porcelain.

Elasha’s face stayed placid, as if she weren’t poised to die, but to play a violin tuned to the pulse of the world.

She closed her eyes. For a single heartbeat, Lilith felt the whole world hush—motions slowing like reeds under frost, even time pausing to listen.

Elasha moved. She cut down without a quiver of doubt.

Blood burst like flowers in sudden spring. A scarlet butterfly unfurled, its wings catching every gaze with terrible, delicate beauty.

The butterfly stuttered mid-flight, then split along its centerline like a paper cut-out. The scattered blood became thick, coiling serpents, each a crimson rope striking for the cultists in dark violet robes.

The zealots froze, minds blank as empty altars. In a blink, the blood serpents latched onto throats, fangs buried like iron thorns. The clearer-headed tried to fight, clawing at coils like drowning men.

It didn’t matter. No struggle could break those living cords. They watched their own blood run, helpless and hollow, becoming part of the hunters that had snared them.

Elasha stood at center stage, both conductor and the finest violinist in this brutal theater. The bow and string were steel and skin, and the music she drew was a chorus of serpents that stole breath and light.

The blood serpents fed on the cultists with greedy patience, thin cords swelling into thick pythons—bellies round from feast, scales gleaming like wet lacquer.

When the last cultist fell silent and the air held only the hiss of blood, the serpents wheeled and flowed back into Elasha, beasts returning to the dark warmth of their den.

The blood returned. Her skin smoothed back to flawless softness, not a single mark marring the porcelain she wore.

The Vampire Princess sheathed her sabre and bowed, small and proper, like a musician after the last note fades.

“I left them a thread of life. Round them up,” Elasha said, smiling. Under that smile, a chill slid down Lilith’s spine like ice on stone. She hurried, joining the Vampires to bind the cultists in tight, neat bundles.