Chapter Eight: Green Vine and Purple Seaweed

Lilith is furious, a kettle hissing under a tight lid.

The Little White Dragon rarely truly gets mad. Even when she looks livid, she’s usually just sulking, nudging people to notice her gloom and offer comfort.

But this time is different. Nidhogg has genuinely pushed her buttons.

Puffed up like an oversized pufferfish, the Little White Dragon storms at the front. Dark‑violet tentacles unfurl behind her, drinking in the Moonswallow Mist at a brutal pace. They vacuum the air clean and carve a clear lane through the fog.

Her anger shows in how she treats the roadside zombies. She’d planned to use a longsword and take them quietly. Now she flips into full-on musou. A single tentacle spears down through each passing corpse, a skewer from crown to heel. She gulps out every drop of Moonswallow Mist, then flings the bodies aside without ceremony.

Her roughness makes Nidhogg wonder if someone swapped Lilith out. Yet the next moments prove she’s still the kind, sweet Little White Dragon. Though her tentacles hit harder than lances and pierce every shambling Undead with ease, her gentleness returns the instant the Mist fades.

Lilith removes the dark‑red mask from her face, the flesh wrought of scarlet and exhaling black vapor. She helps each Undead up with a calm hand and speaks softly about their condition. Then she pulls out a map and patiently traces a path out of the Grand Mausoleum, showing them how to find their clansfolk already freed elsewhere. You’d never guess she was angry.

The moment she sends them off, her smile snaps shut. The dark‑red mask climbs back onto her face in a slow bleed of shadow. The Little White Dragon shoots Nidhogg a frosty look, then walks on in silence.

They follow the route they picked. As Lilith advances, the scenery shifts with each step. The pitch‑black deadwood falls away. An open plain spreads to every horizon, dotted with squat black plants like burned stubble.

“This soil’s nothing like the forest’s,” she says after a while, crouching. She scoops a handful and rubs the earth between her fingers. “It’s more brittle, and looks heavily worked. How do the Undead use their land?”

“This is farmland,” Nidhogg answers her half‑mutter. Lilith lifts her gaze, hurt simmering in those eyes. The Black Dragon doesn’t flinch under the glare. He just continues, voice steady. “Use your Taint to feel it. The earth reeks of dark magic and necromancy. Those traces are what they leave when they grow a unique magical crop.”

“Undead don’t die, sure. But that doesn’t mean they don’t need sustenance. Even skeletons and ghosts need energy.” His words flow like a lecture beneath a stormy sky. “Ordinary food doesn’t suit them. So they widely grow a modified magical construct and use it as their staple. Our feet are on their plots; the dark aura here is thick.”

“I didn’t ask you. And even if you answer now, it’s useless,” the Little White Dragon huffs, pride rising like a cat’s bristled tail. She turns away, and her eyes meet the empty sockets of a fleshless skeleton.

Before she can see what it’s doing, a bone slices the quiet like a thrown knife and streaks toward Nidhogg. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t even twitch.

“Danger!” Lilith moves like lightning under a rain‑slick sky. A tentacle intercepts the flying bone with a thud. She pivots on the catch and launches herself at the skeleton. While it’s still stuck in its firing lag, the Little White Dragon—amped by her tentacles and the Void Command Seat—is already on top of it. Before it can set a new bone to its makeshift bow, a pink blade‑light flashes like peach blossom and takes its skull clean off.

She purifies this skeletal Undead as well, then kindly directs him out of the Grand Mausoleum to find the clansfolk the Adventurers’ Guild has already rescued.

When he’s gone, Lilith whirls on Nidhogg, anger rising like hot wind. She’s ready to scold him for failing to notice a bone that big.

“You couldn’t see a bone that size flying at you? I had to catch it for you. What good are you!” Lilith points at Nidhogg’s nose, cheeks puffed like storm clouds.

“That bone couldn’t hurt me anyway,” Nidhogg says with a light laugh. His tone is rain on oiled silk. “So whether I mind it or not doesn’t matter. Even if it hit, it’d be nothing. I didn’t need you to catch it—but thanks for caring enough to leap. You’re adorable when you worry, Lilith.”

“You’re unbearable!” the Little White Dragon shouts, her temper a flare of foxfire. She turns away and refuses to look at him.

She wasn’t worried about Nidhogg. She was just thinking: the Black Dragon is her partner. If word got out that Nidhogg got bonked by a stray bone, Lilith’s face would be gone like mist at noon.

So she only acted to defend her reputation. She did not, absolutely did not, worry about Nidhogg getting hit.

Not one bit.