Chapter 11: Ambushed (2)

“Adventurers?” Doubt rippled through Lilith like a chill across a pond, because the Little White Dragon had seen plenty of orcs among adventurers, and infighting was a tide as old as knives. But this white fox, stained by Moonswallow Mist like moonlight spoiled by ink, was clearly wrong.

The Moonswallow Mist didn’t only infect the Undead, true, but the Guild’s gate was a sieve of iron, not paper; they only let people in after checking they could stand against that moon-sick fog.

Did she slip in by bending space, like a fish cutting through reeds? The Little White Dragon remembered the small Demon who’d stowed away by using her own power, a trickster who’d made Lilith and Nidhogg march in place like wind-up dolls on a drifting raft, which meant others might wield a similar maze-of-air ability.

“I’ll try pulling the Moonswallow Mist out of her first. If we’ve got questions, better to ask her straight,” Lilith said, her mood steadying like a hand on a teacup before a quake. She unfurled the tendrils from her back, dark as shadow-vines after rain, regrowing the moment they were cut, and speared their sharp tips into the white fox pinned by Word Spirit Magic. The Little White Dragon began siphoning the Mist from her body, the way she skimmed rot from the Undead like scum off a cauldron.

“Why isn’t it coming out?” Frustration pricked like thorns in frost, because this time Lilith’s draw wasn’t smooth; the Little White Dragon pulled and pulled, and the fox’s Mist sat like a stone in a riverbed. “Nidhogg, drop the Word Spirit. I bet it’s jamming the flow.”

“Wait. If I undo it, she might bolt,” Nidhogg said, caution as heavy as iron, and dragged black chains from empty air like night serpents, winding them around the white half-fox. Only then did she cancel her Word Spirit Magic.

“Those the chains from back then?” The Little White Dragon’s memory flashed like lightning on water: a roaming dragon they’d wrestled for ages, a fight still carved into Lilith’s bones like old bite marks, a day when the Little White Dragon had paid dearly.

“Yeah. I rarely get to use them—didn’t think I’d—” Nidhogg didn’t finish. She’d undone the spell, and the fox’s jaws split the air with a scream like a gong shattering a lake. The Little White Dragon, standing close and still linked by tendrils, took the blast head-on like a bell struck at her skull.

Her hearing was keen as a cat under snow, and the tendril link turned the sound into a flood; her head sloshed like a jar rattled by thunder, and she forgot to draw the Moonswallow Mist as if a page had been torn from her mind.

Tch. After the roar, the fox’s white fur fluffed like sudden snowfall, and her vague humanoid outline swelled into a huge white fox, each breath pumping her frame like a bellows. Nidhogg’s chains strained like old oaks in a gale. The black links creaked out a dying “eeeee” and, with another roar from the giant fox, snapped like ice in spring.

Roar!

“Cut it out already! You’ll make me deaf!” Lilith snapped, anger burning like pepper on the tongue as she plugged her ears with two tendrils. That hateful fox’s voice left the Little White Dragon’s hands shaking like leaves in a squall, and Lilith ached to cut the beast’s vocal cords clean, because why roar like a thunder god in a temple?

The fox met Lilith’s gaze, spirit bristling like a banner in wind, then crouched, body coiling low like a slingshot drawn to the limit.

Lilith saw the strike coming and, heartbeat first, moved like a spark finds tinder. She drove the constellation resonance on her lower belly, a hidden star-drum thrumming, and the ghost-blue Void Command Seat blossomed under her feet and across the Star Canvas above like twin mirrors. Speed flooded her limbs like a mountain stream in thaw. The Little White Dragon gripped the fully charged Ancient Ark, that pink longsword shedding pink-white iridescence like frost-lit petals, and she tensed to counter the fox’s pounce, a bowstring humming.

The white fox shot at the Little White Dragon like a white arrow, so fast even the wind couldn’t catch its hem; only when its claw was already swinging did the wake nip at its heels.

But Lilith was faster, a swallow knifing past a hawk. She rolled sideways at the edge of breath, and the tendrils behind her speared the floor like roots, then yanked the ground to slingshot the Little White Dragon back toward the giant white fox like a tide reversing.

Lilith tightened on the Ancient Ark and cut upward along the fox’s flank, a diagonal line clean as a brushstroke. The fox’s tough pelt could blunt common steel like bamboo stops a toy blade, but it wasn’t a match for the Ancient Ark’s edge, keen as winter’s first bite. One stroke opened a huge gash, and red blood mixed with the blue-white of Moonswallow Mist splashed the ground at Lilith’s feet like sunset drowned in snowmelt.

Nidhogg wasn’t idle while Lilith struck. The Black Dragon’s right fist became a pitch-black, razor dragon claw, and she hammered it down at the fox’s white head like a night comet falling.

The massive fox flipped from the blow, that hulking body crashing back and kicking up dust like a brown wave across a road.

“Whimper, whimper.” After the hits, the fox made pleading noises, a thin, pained whine like a kettle left to cry. The Little White Dragon took the opening, drove her tendrils into the fox again, and tried to drink the Moonswallow Mist from her body like drawing poison from a wound.

But Lilith found the Mist stubborn as a mountain. The Little White Dragon worked hard, breath short as a sparrow’s, and yet the fog inside the fox didn’t thin; it was a sea without a shore. She felt bloated from the draw, like a wineskin overfilled, but the fox’s Moonswallow Mist was a well without a bottom.

The siphoning not only failed to satisfy, it angered the huge fox. She heaved herself up like a toppled monument and threw back her head with a sky-splitting howl.

Roar!

This time Lilith had learned her lesson; she ripped her tendrils free like hooks from ice and clapped her hands over her ears with a grimace.

The fox didn’t spare them another glance. She triggered her power and pinched herself into a tiny white dot, a snowflake blown off the map, and vanished.

“Ran?” Lilith looked up, surprised, like a fisherman seeing a line go slack.

“Most likely used an ability. Don’t chase,” Nidhogg said, calm laid down like a hand on a skittish horse, and she stopped the Little White Dragon from bolting after. “Corner her and she’ll go rabid. Our goal isn’t to clear the monsters here. As long as she won’t threaten us, we’re fine.”

“Mm. You’re right.” The Little White Dragon nodded, temper settling like silt in clear water. But Lilith’s eye snagged on something small, a seed of metal glinting on the ground where the fight had churned the earth.

“What’s this?” Lilith bent and picked it up, curiosity blooming like a lantern in dusk.