Chapter 58: Each Fights Alone

“Oh, a new little visitor. You look far tastier than that old hag.” The Wraith’s spell fizzled, yet she didn’t sulk; she covered her lips like a coy moon.

“Who are you calling an old woman?” Lilith snapped, a spark striking dry grass.

“Did I name you? Why panic?” The Wraith tilted her head, puzzled like a cat at falling snow. She licked her lips and smiled. “Don’t get mad. Anger dries the flavor. I’ve never seen a soul this delicious. Even Lord Eternal Life doesn’t smell this rich.”

“Delicious...” Lilith choked. Why did everything want to eat her? The Black Gaze before, this librarian now—wolves circling one rabbit.

“Do I look... edible?” Lilith pointed at herself, a crane peeking at its reflection.

“Of course.” The librarian nodded as if stating the tide rises. “I’ve never seen a soul so soaked in death. Even Lord Eternal Life—shard of the Grim Reaper—doesn’t carry death this dense. Ah, I can’t hold back. May I have one lick?”

“Yikes!” Lilith’s tail went ramrod straight, a spear rimed in frost. The Little White Dragon hugged her chest and trembled like a leaf. “What is it with you Undead women? I’m a married woman. Watch your mouth.”

“Negotiations failed then. I’ll have to use force.” The Wraith sighed like wind through reeds. She opened the book in her arms, lips parted, and a clump of enchanted darkness flew for Lilith.

“Whoa—no sneak attacks!” The dark mass flew faster than she expected. Luckily, Lilith was faster; she slipped past it like a fish under ice.

“Before names are exchanged, one ambush is allowed. It’s in the Kojiki.” The Wraith sounded perfectly proper. She closed the book and bowed. “Dōmo. Kurisu desu.”

“Where’d this ninja crawl out from?” Lilith couldn’t help the jab. Maybe too many memes had bent this worldline. She put on dead-fish eyes and said, “I’m Lilith, just a passing Little White Dragon. Remember it.”

“Then let the hunt begin.” The Wraith didn’t mind. In truth, Lilith’s answer delighted her; light kindled on her floating body, like stars waking at dusk.

But her words chilled like a wet wind. Hunt? Who? Me? You’ve got to be kidding, Lilith thought, a drumbeat hammering her ribs.

“I’m not your prey. Don’t even try.” Lilith drew her Astrolabe. The Little White Dragon gripped the white marble like a pilgrim grasps a torch. “You love souls? Go gnaw your Lord Eternal Life. My precious soul is off-limits.”

“A hunt doesn’t ask prey for consent.” Kurisu licked her lips, poise of a hawk above snow.

“I don’t care. You’re not hunting me.” Lilith cut the argument short, a blade through fog. Time was tight. Words wouldn’t pry secrets. Beat her fast, then link up with Nidhogg to find Sakunae Mashiro.

“Icicle!” The Astrolabe leveled at Kurisu. Wraiths shrug off steel, Lilith knew. But her icicle wasn’t mere ice. Star Energy sheathed it. Magic bit where metal passed through.

“Black Flame.” Kurisu calmly raised a wall of pitch fire. It gulped the icicle like tar drinks a spark. She snapped her fingers. A black fireball poked from the wall and arrowed for Lilith’s head.

“Ice Storm!” Lilith refused to pinch Star Energy. She climbed a tier. Snow motes whirled, a flock of white sparrows. The fireball dwindled to a coal, then to nothing, not even singeing a strand of hair.

The snow didn’t fade. It fattened into daggered ice, needles of winter. They slipped through Kurisu’s body and left thin scars on her mist-pale skin.

“You’re using Ice Storm already?” Kurisu’s brows rose, like frost lifting from glass. “Wasting mana is every mage’s taboo.” Her smile teased. “When you run dry, I’ll savor you properly.”

“I won’t lose.” Heat first, then motion; Lilith glared, eyes sharp as sleet. Kurisu had misread her. This wasn’t mage-on-mage. First to empty their pool dies—that’s their rule. Most go conservative.

Lilith wasn’t a mage. She was a magic swordsman who lived in close range, a thunderbolt, not a candle. She’d break rhythm, hit hard before a mage could finish setting the board.

“Blizzard!” She layered a second area spell. Ice Storm chews; Blizzard binds. White snow fell and kissed Kurisu’s near-transparent skin. Frost filmed her like breath on a mirror. Mana flow lagged. Her movements sank into syrup.

“Planning a war of attrition?” Kurisu weighed the pattern after two sustained spells. Then she opened her grimoire and whispered, voice like a cold bell.

“Land Shrouded by the Black Sun.”

The sky, already dimmed by storm, went darker, like ink poured over night. Light was devoured. Lilith’s world shrank to a ring of thirty centimeters, a lantern halo in a mine.

Worry pricked first, then thought. Sight was her hawk’s eye; now it was hooded. One of her edges dulled to a wooden blade.

Still, she had other ways to place a foe.

“About... there.” The Little White Dragon stilled and listened, ear to the snow like a hunter. In the howl and hiss, she caught the twitch of a spell taking root. “This way!”

“Meteor Cannon!” Star Energy surged from her core. An eerie blue sigil spun at the marble tip. A white beam, as thick as her waist, lanced out like a comet’s spine.

Starfire ripped the dark curtain. In that pale spear, Lilith saw Kurisu’s shape in the fog.

“Death is the beginning of life.” Kurisu cast as Lilith fired. Death-touched darkness smashed into Meteor Cannon. White starlight bored through, but not quite enough to bite flesh.

“Naraka crowns the Abyss.” Lilith’s first strike failed; momentum flipped. The librarian, fluent in Death Magic, called up a ground-born magic circle, a mouth of shadow ready to swallow.

“Damn.” Stuck in the Meteor Cannon’s aftercast, Lilith couldn’t dodge. She ate the spell head-on. Relief flickered. It wasn’t a blade, but a veil. Her sight dimmed further, like another layer of soot.

The world darkened again, yet she’d pinned the Wraith’s position. The next one wouldn’t miss.

“Ray of Frost!” First spell in frost school, riddled with flaws—yet two edges gleamed. It starts fast. And it never misses.

This time, Kurisu didn’t evade. The beam hit square. Frost filmed her belly, a thin glaze like dawn ice on a pond.

“Huh. Not bad.” She pressed her abdomen, surprised, more by sensation than pain. Wraiths rarely bleed. Getting nicked felt like a winter thorn.

“In that case, I’ll end this with this one.” Playtime gone, Kurisu snapped her fingers. Her grimoire floated up and opened before her chest like a black flower.

“Heaven is the gate of Hell.” A jet-black beam tore the snow, a lightning bolt from a sunless sky. Lilith twitched to the side, but instinct screamed: no escape.

If you can’t dodge, then block.

Pink light flashed across the back of her hand. The Ancient Ark leapt into her grip. The Little White Dragon set the rosy longsword across her body and caught the spell head-on.

Just a magic laser, right? Watch me push it back.