Chapter 39: Sneak Attack!
Lilith’s ambush landed clean, her blade slipping in like moonlight through shutters.
The tall Black Knights wore armor harder than the white tin-cans outside, iron cliffs against a crashing tide.
Even a charged Ancient Ark wouldn’t lop their heads off like a hot knife through butter; it’d bite like steel on winter ice.
She drove her longsword deeper into the Black Knight’s helm, a spike into black stone.
She planted her feet wide in a horse stance, rooted like an old pine gripping a cliff.
She drew her whole body tight like a bent bow, then ripped the plates apart and took the head in one stroke.
“Mind your edge. Don’t crash into their hardened spots,” Nidhogg called, her voice a bell in storm fog.
She flattened a Black Knight with one palm; he hit the round table and bones snapped like dry twigs in a cold wind.
Another reacted fast, single sword flashing for Nidhogg’s head like lightning over dark water.
Nidhogg caught the swinging blade, her grip a steel trap; for the first time, Lilith saw both of Nidhogg’s hands turn to dragon claws, midnight hooks.
The Black Dragon’s talons, sharper than any sword, slid into the Black Knight’s armor like knives through silk.
She flicked her arm and lifted him like a chick by the scruff, then slammed him into the wall, a drumbeat of stone and steel.
A crisp crackle of bone ran along the wall like ice breaking on a river; Lilith knew that one was out of the fight.
“Nine left. You take three, I take six.” Nidhogg scooped a fallen sword and javelined it forward; it nailed a charging knight to the floor like a tent-stake in hard earth.
Even while trading blows with three Black Knights, she still twisted back to coach Lilith, calm in the eye of the storm.
“You handle those three. I’ll deal with the rest,” Lilith shot back, pride sharp as frost.
She knew her limits though, a mirror clear in still water.
She tightened her grip, and when the nearest Black Knight rushed, she slipped aside under his edge like a fish under a net.
Feather-light, the Little White Dragon threaded through his guard, breeze through reeds.
She flicked a slab of hard ice onto his face, a sudden mask, stole his balance, and dumped him to the floor like a felled sapling.
No time to finish; the next blade kissed her crown like a cold crescent.
She ducked, then snapped a slender leg at his chest, a white branch whipping at bark.
Feather-light Lilith lacked heft against these barrel-chested tin cans, willow against anvils.
Her kick barely moved him; he even reached for her ankle, trying to sling her down like tossing a rope.
Seeing the strike fail, she snapped her leg back, breath catching like frost in the lungs.
Her right leg couldn’t even bear her own kick, shock humming like a struck string.
She slid half a step back from the follow-up, a leaf on eddying water, and planted a heel on the knight behind her, pinning him like a tent-peg on canvas.
But she was too light; her weight was thistledown on steel.
The knight underfoot bucked to rise, and her balance wobbled like a reed in wind, not rooted at all.
Moments like this made her wish the Void Command Seat’s weight-cut could be switched off, a lever she could touch.
Great for a girl to stay light as a feather; awful in a fight when you need to be a boulder.
While Lilith tangled with two, Nidhogg had already seized the sword buried in a chest and raked it upward, opening a canyon across the knight’s breastplate, a black gash.
One down, the Black Dragon punched the next in the head; her fist was a hammer, and his helm crumpled like tin.
She clamped his shoulder and, before another foe’s eyes, performed a bare-handed can-opening, spine and steel parting like lid from tin—gave the poor watcher a front-row seat to a literal split-up.
Under the Moonswallow Mist, the Undead felt no pain, no fear; they were winter reeds, unbending wind or blood.
Even after Nidhogg tore his comrade’s head off before his eyes, that Black Knight didn’t balk; he just chopped at her again, an automaton in fog.
Nidhogg didn’t bother to dodge; his blade rang on her scaled forearm, not even a pale scratch, a wave breaking on basalt.
She caught his arm and flung him toward Lilith, a storm tossing driftwood across black water.
The Little White Dragon ducked in sync, heads low like cranes in marsh.
The flying knight crashed into her foe and bowled him over, a bowling stone through pins.
She seized the opening and drew one crescent of steel, a moon-slice, cutting the throats of the three at her feet and before her in a single breath.
When the clash ebbed, only four knights remained in the room, armor black as midnight ponds.
One moved under Eternal Life’s own hand, not the Mist’s dull tide; that one was a honed blade among sticks.
“Not bad, are you?” Eternal Life didn’t rush Lilith; she clapped, a lacquered smile, like a patron admiring a dancer on a lantern-lit stage.
“These are elite Undead, after all. I figured you—the one a little doggie flattened—would eat dirt,” she cooed, honey masking thorns.
“Didn’t expect it to be this easy. As expected of a dragon. Even this useless little deadweight can keep up.”
Her words looked like praise but cut like paper edges; the Little White Dragon flushed rose, anger bubbling like a kettle.
“You’re the deadweight! And I beat Zhenbai fair and square, so don’t twist your tongue!” Lilith snarled, teeth bright as ice chips.
“You can’t even master death—what are you even talking about, you thing?”
“What did you say!” Eternal Life’s tone snapped, silk tearing.
Her poise slipped; the tremor in her voice was a struck gong.
She slammed the table with the Black Knight’s body; the wood boomed like thunder.
Even with the visor hiding her eyes, Lilith felt that glare, sharp as a knife through smoke.
Lilith had been flustered, but she hadn’t expected that jab to cut the vein; mischief bloomed like firecrackers.
She leaned forward, hand over her mouth, and let the brattiest smile curl, catty as a street cat.
“You talk yourself up like a storyteller under a full moon,” she purred, words like barbed thorns.
“Claim you’re the nastiest curse around, look down on this one and that one all day, yet you can’t even hold death.”
“A Reaper Fragment that can’t command death—what are you, the child nobody wanted?”
“You little—!” Eternal Life slammed the table again, shockwaves like ripples in a black pond. “Just you wait!”
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Lilith used Taunt on Eternal Life.
It was super effective!
Eternal Life flew into a rage!
