Seventy-One: All Things Will End

Lilith’s greatsword came down on Eve again. The Demon, pitch-black, raised a dark-violet void to catch the White Dragon’s heavy cleave.

While her blade locked with Eve’s, Lilith triggered tendrils sprouting from the scarlet mass at her waist. Ashen tendrils coiled around one of Eve’s arms.

“Damn it!”

Eve cast a spell. A searing fireball burst from the violet void and slammed into the writhing tendrils.

The tendrils burned to ash in midair, yet the flames crawled back to lick Eve herself, setting half her arm ablaze.

Morris’s ceaseless rain doused the fire on her arm. The Demon shook her burned limb hard, cautious eyes on the White Dragon veiled in Taint. She asked, “Is this your true power? Why didn’t you use it in the pocket space?”

“You didn’t go all out either.”

Lilith pointed at the cluster of dark-violet voids floating around Eve. Back in that pocket space, she hadn’t brought this much spectacle. Lilith had seen at least three blood-red cards behind Eve. When Eve handled the Little White Dragon, she used only one. It sent Lilith dropping helm and fleeing in panic.

“If you’d started like this, I might’ve unleashed a portion of the Taint right there.”

“Seems my own arrogance slowed me down,” Eve murmured, self-mocking. Her scarlet eyes locked on the White Dragon wrapped in gray. She studied Lilith. “Letting an enemy swell into such a formidable shape is a grave mistake.”

“Even a lion goes all out for a rabbit; who holds back against a White Dragon?” Lilith straightened her flat chest with small, proud defiance. She snorted and said, “I’m tougher than you think. I have too much to juggle, so I can’t go all in.”

“Is that so? Then why are you here?” With scorn pricking her calm, Eve asked, “My assault on Morris—what’s that to a lone White Dragon? Or has dragonkind started meddling in other races’ affairs? Spread that around and it stains your image. The continent’s chaos doesn’t welcome a world police.”

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

Lilith looked at Eve with disdain, eyes flat and lifeless, as if pitying a slow child. She stared at the black Demon bragging shamelessly. “I’m here as an individual. I’m helping my friend Elasha with her trouble, and I’m taking Abaddon’s heart back. What’s that got to do with world police? In this life I hate people who turn everything into grand ideals.”

“And you’re a terrorist invading another country—what right do you have to lecture me? One swing and I cut you down, and it’s for the public good!” Lilith pointed at Morris under their feet—the ancient city stripped of its shelter, exposed to unending rain. No one walked the streets, but she knew every Vampire hid in their rooms, eyes lifted to the cloud-packed sky, minds chewing on their fate.

“I don’t know if your so-called god-making plan will work, and I don’t care why you must become a god. But for your selfish desire, tens of thousands of Vampires were forced under the Black Sun. You never considered the disaster your acts would bring others.” Lilith glared with contempt, stabbing a finger at the Demon’s nose. “You really only think about yourself.”

“Yes. I only think about myself,” Eve answered, righteous and calm. “I’m no saint. Of course I chase my own gains. Those Vampires aren’t my friends. Why should I abandon divinity to protect them? Would you give up ascension just to save a doomed species?”

“Even if I do nothing, the Vampire race will perish in a few decades. I’m only bringing that forward—giving them a death that echoes, and making them part of my path to godhood, my vital nourishment.” Eve spread her arms, as if to embrace Morris, as if to embrace the sky. “Look. My embrace is vast. Why do they resist, and why do you condemn me?”

“Nonsense. I can’t understand you.” Lilith clicked her tongue. Talking felt pointless; the madwoman’s logic wasn’t something a still-sane Lilith could grasp. So she chose the simplest cure—violence.

“You’re unreasonable. I’ll correct you!”

Lilith swung a heavy, crushing strike.

With Taint’s reinforcement, the Little White Dragon’s speed and force already surpassed Eve. Even if the black Demon had quicker reflexes and richer experience, the gulf in power made that first hit inevitable.

The greatsword’s brutal cut loaded Eve with raw momentum. She should’ve been sent flying, crashing into Morris’s sodden streets.

Yet she hung in the air without moving an inch. A thick tendril had coiled around her waist. Part of the Little White Dragon bound her tight, leaving her nowhere to slip. Lilith’s second blade came down.

Clang!

A dark-violet void caught the second stroke. This time Eve summoned the defensive whirlpool in time and blocked the attack.

The black Demon used one hand to steer the vortex against the greatsword. Her other hand gripped her long blade and stabbed at the tendril cinched around her waist.

One cut, two halves. The thick, ashen tendril parted under Eve’s keen blade and slid from her waist. She flashed to the side, letting the White Dragon’s heavy strike graze past her void.

Just as she breathed, thinking she’d escaped, a blurred shadow whipped at her face.

It was Lilith’s tail.