Chapter 71: The Hidden Place

Lilith and her party stepped out of that bleached otherworld, like leaving a page scraped clean of ink.

It was easy—Little White Dragon barely had to push, like slipping through silk. Abaddon’s void stitched this place to the Grand Mausoleum’s root; they slipped into a dark-violet whirlpool.

Lilith glanced back, a last look over a pale shore; Nidhogg hauled the Devourer’s carcass out. Little White Dragon didn’t spot Chris, so she had Abaddon leave a small door behind, a hole in the night.

They returned to the lowest depths of the Grand Mausoleum, where dust breathed cold and stone remembered footsteps.

“The snow stopped,” Little White Dragon said, bursting from the portal and nearly skidding into a magic mirror that stank of old spells.

“Because those snowflakes are part of sister’s power,” Litt told Lilith, voice calm, like wind explaining frost. Nidhogg followed with Sakunae Mashiro on her back; the fox lady was weak, her breath thin as candle smoke.

With a brief word, Litt took point, cutting through silence like a lantern. Lilith trailed close, questions spilling like pebbles over water.

“Did the Moonswallow Mist vanish?”

“Not yet. I stopped its birth, but mist doesn’t vanish by wish. It clings to the Mausoleum’s air and nests in its poor residents.”

Lilith’s chest tightened, a knot in a storm. “What should we do?”

“Sister’s memories hold a cure. For now, we help Mashiro first. Don’t worry, Mom.”

“Oh. Okay.” Relief cooled her panic like shade on noon stone.

“And… can you stop calling me Mom?” Little White Dragon faltered, blush like dawn. “You’ve got Eternal Life’s memories. You know we aren’t what you thought. Being called Mom by someone my height is… yeah.”

“Daughters grow taller—so what?” Litt shrugged, easy as rain on leaves. “As long as you call me Litt, you’ll always be my mom.”

She quickened her pace, a stride breaking ripples.

“Uu…” Lilith puffed her cheeks, a small cloud of protest.

Nidhogg ruffled Little White Dragon’s soft head, a fond weight of claw and comfort, and the three followed Litt’s lead.

They reached the dungeon, a narrow throat in the earth. The hidden passage nested behind the second corridor from the grand library, a mechanism set in the thirteenth brick, right side, like a secret tooth. Press, and the passage rose like a vein revealed.

Little White Dragon moved to the front. She drew her Astrolabe and gave it a gentle sway; blue star light flickered, and aquamarine drank Star Energy to the brim.

Astrologer’s light made the tight passage bright as earth beneath the Star Canvas, starshine scattering like fish-scales in a river of night.

“Let’s go,” Lilith said, pushing courage into her voice like air into a ember.

Little White Dragon stepped first into the narrow throat, the Astrolabe a star held low.

“In sister’s memory, the soul-bearing gems are at the deepest end,” Litt guided, words steady as milestones. “Third door counting back from the far wall.”

“Got it.” Little White Dragon nodded and descended, careful on old steps, like treading bones.

The stair began mean and steep. Each riser rose knee-high, a cliff in miniature; Lilith felt every step like dropping off a ledge into shadow.

The awkward pace made her look comical, a small figure climbing down a giant’s ladder, but the climb was short, and Litt, near her height, struggled too—balance returned like a shared joke.

At the bottom, iron grilles stitched the hall into rooms—no, cells—each a mouth that swallowed light.

Inside, Undead lay sprawled like broken marionettes. The blue mist was thick as mold; it stopped puppeting and fed instead, parasitic as fungi, nibbling flesh and soul.

“You go on,” Lilith said, stopping like a hand on a wound. She had seen two Wraith girls huddled together, clothes whispering of nobility, locked here by Eternal Life.

The older held the smaller as if her last thought was a shield. But deeper infection made her a source; Moonswallow Mist poured from her like a river, devouring the younger’s face.

Lilith couldn’t bear it; grief weighed like wet cloth. She chose to help them—and everyone trapped here.

“Go ahead. I’ll catch up after I handle this.” She passed the Astrolabe to Litt. “It won’t take long.”

“Mm. Mom, take your time.” Litt lifted the staff; pinprick starlight mapped their path like fireflies.

Little White Dragon didn’t follow. Taint boiled around her, flesh unraveling into a dense web of tendrils. It wrapped the airborne mist, netting it like weeds in a pond, and drank deep of the Moonswallow Mist lodged in the Undead.

It would cost some time, but soon the Undead would break free, breath returning like dawn after fog.

She only needed to devour the mist nearby, a hearth eating its smoke.

Elsewhere, Litt led Sakunae Mashiro and Nidhogg to the third door from the end, a threshold wearing decades of dust like old bark. She pushed; it wasn’t locked—perhaps Eternal Life believed no one would come.

But the short-lived one who inherited all His memories not only found it. In a room packed tight with boxes like hive combs, she discovered a gem veiled in ash and placed it in Sakunae Mashiro’s hand.

“See? This is the one you’ve been yearning for,” Litt said, voice a steady flame. “Now we fight to save her.”