Chapter Six: Purification
The Little White Dragon and Nidhogg stepped out of the elevator, mist peeling back like a curtain, while Lilith moved to the front, the Black Dragon shadowing her like a silent mountain.
“Abaddon, if things turn urgent, take Litt into subspace and don’t look back,” Lilith said, voice steady as frost over stone.
She didn’t want them tagging along; worry gnawed like winter wind. The Grand Mausoleum wasn’t Lamter’s quiet garden, and she expected battles to bloom like thorns.
Still, the first floor felt gentler, like a dusk without storm. Abaddon fought well enough, a small flame that didn’t easily die, so the Little White Dragon let them come.
“I understand. If it turns, I’ll take her and leave at once,” Abaddon replied, tone formal as temple bells after dusk.
Since leaving Morris, the little Demon had grown obedient, a lantern that didn’t sway in wind; sometimes more reliable than the Little White Dragon herself.
Only then did the Little White Dragon breathe easier, stepping ahead again, eyes sweeping like a hawk over gray fields.
The surroundings mirrored the outskirts of the Grand Mausoleum, a skeletal grove under ash-light; the mist still thin, but the green life had fled like startled deer.
Only black-brown trunks sprawled across the ground, wild roots clawing the soil like old hands, and silence pooled like a cold pond.
“Let me see. Shame there’s no map. Where do we head?” She flipped a small notebook, pages whispering like moth wings, and found only blank directions.
“Look at your feet,” Nidhogg said, her voice a deep drum under fog.
Lilith looked down. Three worn paths cut the earth like river forks, carved by the tread of countless adventurers drifting like a tide.
“We’ve got trails. But which one sings true?” The Little White Dragon frowned, doubt a cloud over her brow, then an idea sparked like flint.
She conjured a long ice spike, blue as winter sky, set it on the dirt, and spun it like a child’s top under moonlight.
The spike whirled, hummed, then pointed left, like a reed bending with wind; all four watched it settle.
“Left it is.” Lilith chose without ceremony, a blade’s decision that cut clean through the moment.
Nidhogg didn’t argue. She walked like a mountain walking, unhurried, following the path as if rivers all led to sea.
Abaddon summoned a clutch of wayfinding locusts, their wings glittering like leaf-light, marking their route so memory wouldn’t betray them.
“Do you feel the air dropping?” Lilith asked, alert rising like cold dawn. Frost lived in her blood, and she felt the chill sharpen.
The mist thickened, strands weaving like pale silk; Abaddon tightened her hold on Litt, tension drawn like a bowstring.
She sent her locusts farther, scouts skimming the fog like minnows, and the circle of watch widened like ripples on a pond.
Only Litt, careless as a dandelion seed, and Nidhogg, wearing quiet certainty like a cloak, walked untroubled along the path.
“Wait. My scouts sense life nearby,” Abaddon called, her voice a bell cutting the mist, and the Little White Dragon’s focus snapped like a lock turning.
Lilith widened her eyes, vision slicing fog like a blade, and spotted a figure shuffling in haze, a shadow that limped like broken branches.
No normal biped moved like that, unless both legs were ruins; abnormal meant danger, and danger drew her heart tight as a drum.
She signaled the others to stay still, a hand-petal folding shut, then pressed her right palm to her lower belly where an azure feather slept.
The feather glowed, soft as moonlight on water; she brought the Void Command Seat into full resonance, silence settling over her like snow.
She grew light as a swallow and quiet as falling ash; her steps left no sound, only the mist’s soft sigh as she ghosted forward.
Lilith slipped behind the figure and saw it clearly: a classic zombie, green hide wrinkled like old bark ready to peel.
He wore common hemp clothes, sallow and time-torn, threads hanging like dry moss and exposing more green skin beneath.
She moved with no whisper. Her right hand flashed rosé, dawn-pale, and the Ancient Ark slid from her palm like a birth of steel.
Before the zombie sensed the tide turning, her blade kissed his neck, a quick crescent of silver, and the cut bit like winter.
His rigid skin had the stubbornness of old leather, blunting the edge like dull rain; the Ancient Ark, by default, was only iron-sharp.
Lilith wasn’t strong beside the Black Dragon, but against normal folk she was a storm; she drove the long blade, and his head rolled like a stone.
His face stayed stiff, muscles frozen like winter clay; his eyes held no light, not a living Undead but a corpse under gray sky.
Only a blue-white flame burned in those sockets, a ghost-lantern saying he wasn’t fully gone, a breath still tethered to dusk.
Lilith didn’t speak. The pale blade melted back into air like mist, and she half-knelt, gentle as rain, pressing his head to his neck.
She cradled his body on her lap, palms together like folded wings, eyes closed as if listening for starlight.
“May the stars cleanse all Taint,” she whispered, a prayer drifting like incense through cold air.
The blue flame rose from his body, flickered in the air like a firefly, then dove headlong into Lilith like a falling star.
“Ah… where is this?” the zombie murmured, waking foggily, voice a reed stirring in wind.
It worked. Joy burst in her chest like spring light, words singing inside her like chimes.
Her guess was right: the method that absorbed Taint also worked on the Moonswallow Mist, like salt drawing poison from a wound.
She now had a way to purify the Undead bound by the Moonswallow Mist, turning dusk back toward starlit night.
