Chapter 65
“Miss Mashiro—right side!”
The Little White Dragon drove Eternal Life back with a single cut; a rose-lit arc flashed like cherry lightning, and they stumbled sideways like reeds in a sudden gale.
Before the foe could slip past, Lilith barked the warning at the tall white-furred fox beside her. Sakunae Mashiro had already set her stance, snow-pelt bristling; she waited where Lilith pointed, then brought down a great paw like a falling ridge, slamming the Reaper Fragment hard.
“Damn.” Eternal Life hissed, voice low as frost. Their Moonswallow Mist thinned like moonlight in wind—no buffer left. The Reaper Fragment had to eat the blow with flesh. Three clean claw-tracks opened across her chest, crimson like maple leaves; she groaned and used the impact to stagger back, a leaf tumbling downstream.
Lilith wouldn’t let that distance bloom. Mashiro’s strike had angled the body just right, batting the Reaper Fragment toward where the Little White Dragon was already sprinting. Lilith drew her Ancient Ark, a blade shaped like an old oath, and chopped straight for Eternal Life’s skull like a headsman’s crescent-moon swing.
Eternal Life only had time to condense a longsword from the Moonswallow Mist, steel born from night vapors, to catch Lilith’s cut. But the Little White Dragon didn’t fight with just one blade. Her slender tail—and the writhing Taint-muscled growth along her wings—whipped down. It hit like a meteor hammer, thudding into the Reaper Fragment’s breastbone with a whoosh and a thrum.
“Urgh!” Blood spat bright as pomegranates. Lilith tweaked her angle mid-swing; the Reaper Fragment didn’t ricochet like a shuttlecock in a summer courtyard. She nailed her down like an iron peg, pinning her into the floorboards with that tail.
Eternal Life scrabbled at the cracked planks, fingers clawing like a drowning swimmer for driftwood. Lilith had hit too hard; the floor beneath the Reaper Fragment’s feet had collapsed into a dark, bowl-shaped crater. Wedged in stone, she couldn’t move—just watch Lilith advance, Ancient Ark in hand, each step like the drumbeat to a guillotine.
“Damn… how did I get this pathetic?” Eternal Life still fought the earth, breath ragged as winter wind. She hauled half her body out of the pit—then the Little White Dragon planted a foot on her face, heel neat as a stamp on wax.
“Funny,” Lilith said, voice airy as a breeze through bamboo. “You feel a lot easier to deal with now.” She pressed down, and Eternal Life couldn’t twitch. Lilith remembered their first meeting: a Reaper Fragment had slipped from shadow and stabbed her in the back. If Nidhogg hadn’t appeared like a storm-bred wyrm, she’d have been a name on the wind.
“How’d she beat you back then?” Lilith asked, still pinning Eternal Life’s cheek, eyes flicking to Sakunae Mashiro jogging up behind. “That Moonswallow Mist—what is it, a Mad Dragon virus? Touch it and your whole team goes down?”
“Mad Dragon virus? What’s that?” Mashiro cocked her fox head, ears like white leaves. Her great white silhouette shrank like snow melting under sun. She returned to human form so words could flow clean. “Still, that Moonswallow Mist is nasty. We should be careful.”
“It’s fine. I don’t fear her Mist,” Lilith said, voice calm as a cold spring. “You don’t have to either. Compared to this one, the Taint on me is the real problem.” She tried to soothe Mashiro. Then the Little White Dragon flexed the dark meat stitched to her wings; a few tentacles popped up and made an OK sign like mischievous vines. “But hey, I’m getting better at handling these.”
“Enough small talk.” Lilith brought her gaze back to Eternal Life. She ground her foot once, then set her long blade to the Reaper Fragment’s shoulder, a chill touch that silenced any little tricks. From above, she looked down with that still-immature face, disdain written like frost script. The image would tickle certain niche tastes, for better or worse.
“Let’s talk business.” Lilith slipped into Nidhogg’s cadence, her tone frosted over, clean and ruthless. “You know who I am, don’t you, Miss Riddle? Annoying as ever.”
“I know.” Eternal Life stopped wasting motion. Entirely restrained, she understood her thread of life lay in Lilith’s hand. Others might struggle to kill her; Lilith might truly do it. The Reaper Fragment gathered every shred of focus, like drawing a cloak in a storm.
“Let me think. What should I pay to buy that knowledge?” Lilith tilted her head to the sky like a bird watching clouds; her tail and her expression mirrored the same puzzled curve.
“I’m very proper,” she went on, tail swaying like a willow switch. “No way I’m freeloading your secrets.”
“How about this. You tell me my identity.” Her smile sharpened like sunlight on snow. “And the price… will be your life. Deal?”
The white fledgling dragon unfurled purer wings, light washing over the Taint until it vanished like soot in rain. She looked like an angel carved of winter. Yet here she was, a little devil with a heel on the Reaper Fragment’s face, trading a life for an answer like a hawker bartering under lanterns.
“Fine. I can answer,” Eternal Life said, cheek straining under that small foot. “But move your foot first.”
“No.” Lilith’s reply was crystal and quick. “What if you bolt?” She pressed harder, a pebble’s weight that felt like a mountain. Eternal Life had to angle her eyes sideways to meet Lilith’s gaze. Lilith smiled; to Eternal Life, that smile was scarier than the Undead’s Wraith tales used to spook visitors at night.
“Besides,” Lilith added, wiggling her toes like raindrops tapping wood, “some folks pray every day to get stepped on by me and never get the chance. Don’t waste your blessing.”
“All right…” Eternal Life’s breath left her like mist at dawn. She sighed, then spoke slowly. “The Divine Fragment of Taint is split in two.”
“One half is evil—destruction and control. The continent gave it a name: the Demon King.”
“The other half is pure—renewal and purification. What do humans call you again? Ah, right.”
Eternal Life chuckled, a snowflake’s laugh drifting off the lip of winter.
“The White Holy Maiden. A Divine Fragment disguised as a ‘class.’ That’s your true identity.”
