Chapter Twenty-Four: The White Silhouette

Lilith forced herself upright, a brittle calm pulled over her face like frost on glass. She wiped the shimmering tears from her lashes and gave the little butterfly a you-see-I’m-fine smile. The blue butterfly, half-trusting, turned and fluttered ahead to lead the Little White Dragon on.

But the calm was a paper screen in a storm. Inside, her heart was a snarl of threads; her small head was crammed with the Black Dragon—Nidhogg—and the void he’d left behind. The hit to her already-not-so-sharp brain made it duller still. She’d felt the air go wrong like a sour note in still water, yet it took her far too long to realize trouble had bloomed around her.

A rot-stench rolled in and replaced the clean, quiet air like mold over rice. The Little White Dragon’s eyes widened; she turned toward the source like a sunflower to sun.

Another knight waited there, a shadow with edges. Not the headless archer from before. This one’s head sat steady on his shoulders, and his weapon wasn’t a bow but a greatsword as long as one and a half Little White Dragons, a slab of night.

His armor was the same ghost-blue as the Moonswallow Mist, shedding a cold glow like moonlight on ice. But in the seams, rot clotted like zombie meat, packing the gaps and steeping him in a death-reek, a chill that crawled like ants.

The door-plank of a blade rode his back. His skeletal horse stood taller than the headless knight’s, a bony mountain rearing above weeds. From that height, the rider looked down on the small dragon. In his sockets, no eyes—only ghost-blue fire met Lilith’s gaze like winter lamps, and a shiver slipped down her scales.

“So annoying,” she muttered, breath snagging like silk on a thorn. If she hadn’t let her mind drift, this Undead wouldn’t have reached her toes. With her usual sense, she would’ve felt him early, circled like wind, or struck first like lightning.

But the die had fallen; the bridge had burned. No turning back. Only a straight path through—drop this sudden knight and move on.

“Quick and clean. I still need to find Nidhogg.” She flicked her hand, and the pink-white Ancient Ark slid into her grip like a shard of the moon. Mercy wasn’t on the menu.

Speed was her banner, a white bird taking wing. Before the new Undead could twitch, she was already at his boots. The Ancient Ark smashed into the skeleton horse’s foreleg with a ringing clang, then, charged with power, the pink-white blade fell like a waterfall. The mount split on the diagonal, two halves collapsing in a spray of bone-dust.

With his steed cut out from beneath him, the tall knight toppled like a felled tree. He didn’t flail. Battle-hardened instinct took the reins; he rolled through the dirt, surged up like a spring, and hewed at her in a silver arc.

The Ancient Ark needed a heartbeat to cycle before it could guard again, a breath between waves. She couldn’t take that blow head-on. She threw herself sideways, a swallow skimming past a hawk’s talons.

As she dove, the greatsword knight lunged into her path and slammed his weight into her, a brutal body-check that echoed an old acquaintance’s style. The hit blasted her out of the air like a leaf on a gust.

The Void Command Seat made her weight feather-light. That blessing let her launch like a darting fish, but it also meant every heavy tide could toss her, every shove could send her spinning.

He swung a door-plank blade; of course he had strength like a river in flood. The Little White Dragon flew like a loose feather and crashed into brittle grass with a thud.

“Ow—ow.” She rubbed her aching butt, a tiny ember of complaint flickering out.

No time to whine. A breath later, the giant sword slammed down where she’d been, earth and weeds bursting like a splash of mud.

Cold sweat beaded like dew. Lucky reflex, or she’d be Little White Dragon paste.

You dodge one, you can’t dodge the next. The Undead knight whipped the massive weapon around, and that long, door-plank blade skimmed her waist like a scythe, carving a red, breath-stealing gash.

“Ah!” Lilith screamed, crumpling like wet paper. She clawed at the ground to rise, but the wound dragged her down like a hook. Before she could get her knees under her, the next strike hung over her crown like a falling star.

“Bad.” The word was a pebble in her throat. No room to run. She snapped the pink-white blade up across her brow, bracing as the greatsword came down like thunder.

The blow shook her skull to mush, a gong hit in an empty hall. Flat on her back, her head cracked against the ground, and she gagged—“wah”—vomit spilling in a hot wave.

Her head swam; a fog rolled in; darkness pooled at the edges. The world went to charcoal scribbles.

She couldn’t place where she was or what came next, a boat adrift with no shore.

That last strike had rattled her brain—concussion, a bell still ringing. She hadn’t reset, and the Undead knight was already lifting his blade again, a guillotine in slow moonlight.

“Uu…” The moan slipped out, small and helpless as rain.

Roar! Just as she braced to eat the blow, a white silhouette burst in like snow on fire. It crashed into the tall knight, knocked him sprawling, then, the way the Little White Dragon had torn at the headless knight, it bit down and ripped at this one’s body with savage, wet crunches.

“What… what’s happening?” Lilith clutched her head, nausea and vertigo closing like twin tides, and pushed herself up on shaking elbows.

The Little White Dragon stared, blank as a cloud, and asked into the churned grass and ghost-blue glow.