Chapter Sixty-Eight
Nidhogg looked a touch bedraggled. In front of the Little White Dragon, she was always crisp and elegant, a silk fan in calm hands. Even in private, she wore ease like moonlight. Next to her, the Little White Dragon felt like a country bumpkin from dusty roads, a world away from Nidhogg’s grace.
But the Black Dragon now had several cuts on her head. Beads of crimson glued her long hair into clumps, a tangle like wet reeds. Dust smeared her face, as if this empty void had somehow rolled her through ash.
“To deal with this thing cost me a bit of time.” Nidhogg tossed the Devourer’s body aside. The tall zombie was an empty shell now, a broken vessel. Even used as a shield, it didn’t twitch. She ignored her looks, turned, and gave the Little White Dragon a small smile. “But it’s handled. Hope I’m not too late.”
“I thought the Devourer would last longer.” Eternal Life watched Nidhogg’s sudden arrival, mood sinking like a storm front. Their pitch-black skull seemed darker still. The Reaper Fragment clicked their tongue. A Black Dragon barging in wasn’t part of the script. Three on one. Worse odds.
“Looks like you underestimated us.” Nidhogg rolled her shoulders. Her right hand had already become a razor dragon claw, scales like steel petals. Even those hard talons had chipped a few scales, exposing pale skin and bright blood beneath. “It’s fine. You Divine Fragments love your arrogance. We’ll make you pay for it.”
Her words barely fell. The Black Dragon dug in and lunged like an arrow loosed. Eternal Life reacted fast. They raised both hands and caught Nidhogg’s fist. Their body lowered, and fog swelled over their obsidian frame like storm clouds. The pooled black mist flowed to their lower legs. The Reaper Fragment snapped a kick straight for Nidhogg’s head.
Lilith wouldn’t allow it. The White Dragon and Nidhogg moved with the rhythm of twin tides. The instant Nidhogg stepped, Lilith knew her intent. She gripped the half-evolved Ancient Ark, and the two closed from front and back, clamping Eternal Life like a guillotine.
As the kick whipped for Nidhogg’s skull, the White Dragon’s longsword came down at the skull too.
“Tsk.” Eternal Life was forced to halt. They channeled the fog from their leg to their foot. The viscous black gel condensed into a pitch-black plate, catching the White Dragon’s blade like iron ice.
“Two at once really is a pain.” Eternal Life shoved Lilith’s sword aside, then twisted and caught Nidhogg’s fist again. The Black Dragon’s raw strength shook the sticky fog off for a heartbeat, exposing bone beneath—pale as winter.
Nidhogg seized the opening. She took half a step back, splitting fist from Reaper Fragment, and finally invoked her magic.
“Stop.”
Eternal Life froze. For an instant they couldn’t move. Every sense sealed like doors in a temple. Only a sliver of thought flickered.
“This level of magic… you won’t cage me!” They broke free almost at once. Word Spirit Magic couldn’t hold a Divine Fragment long. Yet a single second was enough for the others to do plenty.
When awareness snapped back, a colossal fox was already falling from the sky. Sakunae Mashiro’s claws, wreathed in scarlet lightning, drove for Eternal Life’s skull like a thunderbolt. The fox girl, steeped in old grudges against the Reaper Fragment, poured decades of hate into that strike.
The red light drained from her white fur like sunset fading. On her claws, the lightning thickened, ink-black as Eternal Life’s fog. Razor beast claws and surging thunder together carried years of bitterness straight for the head.
“This one’s for her!” Mashiro’s claws tore into Eternal Life’s forearm. The Reaper Fragment raised an arm just in time. More black mist gushed from within, fresh-born and hurled up as a shield to meet the falling fox strike.
The great white fox was flung aside. Without the scarlet lightning, she returned to a pure white fox, breath like frost. Her right claw was shredded, barely able to bear her weight.
Mashiro had traded a ruined claw for one of Eternal Life’s arms. With a hand torn free, the Reaper Fragment couldn’t counter at once, leaving a gap for the other two.
Lilith filled it. The powder-blue blade swept for Eternal Life’s head, humming like a winter river. The skull, missing an arm, was forced to block with the one remaining. The ink mist became a weapon, stabbing for Lilith—only to be swallowed by the Taint-flesh writhing around the White Dragon, chomping it down like snacks.
While Eternal Life grappled with the White Dragon, Nidhogg struck from the other side, a black gale. Unable to cover both flanks, Eternal Life threw up a clump of fog to catch the Black Dragon’s blow. A brute dragon’s fist isn’t a thing you block lightly. The skull poured everything into stopping it, and still couldn’t choke off Nidhogg’s follow-up.
“Hah!” Eternal Life ignited every shred of fog. The tar-black slime detonated, blasting White and Black Dragon back like leaves before flame, buying the Reaper Fragment one breath.
The cost: all their mist burned as fuel. What remained was laid bare—their truest form, a skeleton, white as moon-bone.
And they’d clearly forgotten someone else stood here besides Nidhogg and Lilith.
“This one’s for my teammate.” Mashiro bit down on bone, jaws like a trap. As a white-furred fox, she lacked the force she had with scarlet thunder. Eternal Life’s defense was weaker too, with no fog to sheath them.
White fur and white bone tumbled together. Mashiro clamped Eternal Life by the waist. Like a dog worrying a marrow bone, she yanked and shook the skeleton through the air.
Eternal Life didn’t just let themselves be chewed. They condensed a trickle of black mist again, shaping it into a sharp dagger, and jabbed for Mashiro’s eye like a thorn.
The white fox shuddered with pain. Luckily the blade was too short to reach her brain. Neither could finish the other. They wrestled and tore. Eternal Life’s frame was gnawed into several cracks. Mashiro’s face was slashed again and again, a snowfield scored by claws.
“Hey!” The one who ended the struggle was the White Dragon dropping from above, a clean blade of frost. Lilith’s blue-glowing sword fell the moment Mashiro lifted her head, cleaving skull and body apart. “This strike’s for threatening me earlier!”
The powder-blue blade severed the Reaper Fragment’s neck. Eternal Life’s head spun away with the arc, whistling through the air, and landed in Nidhogg’s waiting hand far off.
Behind the White Dragon, the fox girl spent her last scrap of strength. Her body swayed, shifted back to a girl, and collapsed with a soft thud like snow.
“It’s over.” Eternal Life’s severed head sighed, voice hollow as a windchime. At this level, they wouldn’t die. But right now, there was no chance to turn it around.
“It’s over.” Lilith stepped to Sakunae Mashiro. She drew her blade and sliced Eternal Life’s body into several pieces, the cuts clean as ice. Once she confirmed they’d need time to knit back together, she exhaled too, a breath like mist.
