Chapter Seven: A Way to Dispel the Mist

“Was it you who saved me?” The zombie jammed his severed head back onto his neck, bones clicking like cold beads on a string.

The Undead body knit itself fast, life clinging like ivy to a crumbled wall.

He realized lying on Little White Dragon’s lap felt improper, warmth like jade he didn’t deserve, so he scrambled up and bowed with stiff, hinge-creak motions.

“Our boss was right,” he said, hope fluttering like a paper lantern. “Asking the outside for help really can save us.”

Then the chill set in, like nighttime dew seeping through cloth. “But we’re still inside the Grand Mausoleum. The mist—the mist’s still here.”

Blue-white Moonswallow Mist looped around him like pale moonlight threads, and his shoulders shook like a reed in winter wind.

He turned to Lilith, dread coiling like a cold snake. “I won’t get controlled again, will I? That pain was a spike of ice. I can’t bear another.”

“For a while, no,” Lilith said, her voice calm as still water. “I’ve drawn the Moonswallow Mist out of you, like a thorn pulled clean.”

“But you need to leave the Grand Mausoleum fast,” she added, a bell of warning in fog. “Stay, and the mist will seep back. By then I can’t help.”

“Many Undead have already been taken out,” she said, pointing down the corridor like a river of stone. “Find the adventurers; they’ll walk you to the guild.”

“Once there, you’ll find others who escaped,” she said, her finger tracing the route Little White Dragon and Black Dragon had cut through the gloom.

“Thank you. How should I thank you?” he asked, earnest as a new grave marker, hands hovering like birds that dare not land.

He reached to take Lilith’s hand, then thought of his state, and froze like a statue beside the Little White Dragon, unsure and awkward.

“No need to thank us,” Lilith said, easy as spring rain. “We’re getting paid anyway. Just get out safe—that’s thanks enough.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he said, bowing deeply, spine creaking like an old gate, then hurried down the indicated path like a runner racing dawn.

He ran while the mist still drowsed, trying to beat its grasp like a tide outrun on wet sand.

“Whew,” Little White Dragon exhaled, relief drifting like warm steam. “It works. We can save Undead infected by the Moonswallow Mist.”

“What did you just do?” Black Dragon stepped beside Lilith, her hand landing on Lilith’s thin shoulder like a hawk’s claw.

Pain pricked like a thorn, and Lilith looked up into Nidhogg’s storm-dark eyes, swallowing her complaint like bitter tea.

“I used Taint to draw the Moonswallow Mist out of him,” Lilith murmured, the words soft as ash falling.

She had done it many times, back when she was the White Holy Maiden, using Icarus’s gift to pull Taint from filth ghosts like poison tapped from a wound.

She no longer held Icarus’s light, yet she could wield the Taint itself, bending it like iron worked in a furnace.

The trial just now had been a small test, a match struck in night; proof came quick as breath—she could do it.

“With Taint?” Nidhogg’s voice scraped like flint. “I thought you hated using that power.”

“Hate or not, it won’t leave me,” Lilith said, her mood heavy as overcast sky. “Better to use it, turn a shadow into shelter.”

“Helping more Undead out of the mist’s pain,” she added, a quiet vow like incense smoke, “that’s worth the stain.”

“How much Moonswallow Mist can you hold?” Black Dragon asked, caution ringing like iron. “Will this drain cut into your body?”

“I haven’t tested my limit,” Lilith said, hand to chest like a pledge. “I’ve only absorbed a little, felt nothing, no bite or burn.”

“I’ve lived with Taint in truce for years,” she said, steadiness like a pillar. “My body’s holding up fine.”

“If it won’t harm you, save as many as you can,” Nidhogg said, nodding like a judge under a temple eave. “But our main task stands.”

“We go deeper, to the heart of this place,” she continued, words like steps into dusk. “Find the Reaper Fragment dwelling in the Tomb-Fort.”

“Cut the Moonswallow Mist at its source,” she said, like severing a root. “Otherwise the Undead you save will have nowhere to go.”

“Right. We still need a way to wipe the mist away,” Lilith said, thought rippling like a pond. “I’ll look for another method too.”

Then an idea flashed, quick as lightning behind clouds. “Wait—I could try this.”

She stepped away from Nidhogg and Litt, giving herself space like a ring cleared in dust, and placed her right hand on her forehead like a seal.

Inside, she turned the power she disliked, a locked gate creaking open, and let the shadow flow like ink.

Gray-red flesh budded from her palm, oozing like molten wax, waving black breath like smoke from a brazier.

It climbed her right side in twisting ropes, sprouting little meat-buds that swelled into thick tendrils like roots searching in loam.

The last patch hardened into a dark red half-mask, clinging to her cheek like lacquered bark.

Ghost-blue Moonswallow Mist rushed in, greed pulled by those tendrils like rivers drawn to the sea.

In moments, the mist around Little White Dragon thinned, the air clearing like dawn peeling darkness from rooftops.

“Heh,” Lilith lifted her chin, pride bright as a banner. “See? The damned mist will shrink bit by bit.”

“Like a potted pothos,” Nidhogg said after a beat, the tease dropping like a stone in water.

“Hey!” Lilith snapped, indignant as a sparrow puffing its feathers.