Chapter 20: The Crimson Remnant Soul Returns to Gold

Thud!

A heavy crash rolled like a drumbeat. Golden liquid burst outward with the dragon phantom’s fall, arcing up, then sifted down as a rain of coins.

Ugh—not the kind of golden rain she wanted. The Little White Dragon grimaced, but her guard only sharpened like a drawn bowstring.

The Golden Dragon hadn’t died; it had only hit the ground. The splashing gold fogged the air like a shimmering veil, masking the target and gifting it a breath to recalibrate.

She wouldn’t gift it anything. As the red phantom struck earth, Lilith raised her longsword, which shimmered and reshaped into a pair of shears, cold as moonlit steel.

She sighted the phantom like a hawk on a mouse. After the Ancient Ark leveled into the Elemental Ark, a new instinct bloomed in her bones like spring fire.

Now, with that sword, she could snip open space itself—much like Abaddon’s void vortex. Not to exile her into some other world, but to cut seams and slide through.

Her twist on it was sharper. During her blink, she could send a ranged strike along with her body, a comet’s tail that flew as she flew.

She fused her Stellar Magic into that blade-born arc, and its edge shone like a falling star.

Lilith brought the scissors up. The twin edges parted, then snapped shut. Air tore like silk. A dark slit yawned before her like a night door.

She lunged. Her small frame dove through the ragged threshold, and the unstable corridor tossed her forward like a breaking wave—right beside the dragon phantom.

Lightning spun sixfold. The Elemental Ark’s strike, braided with Lilith’s Stellar Magic, hammered the phantom’s skull half a heartbeat after she arrived.

The Golden Dragon hadn’t been stunned by the crash. It staggered, then coiled its malice like a snake, ready to ambush as she closed.

Too slow. Its jaws flared to bite, but Lilith rammed a brutal cut up into the soft, unarmored hollow of its mouth—steel biting meat like winter biting skin.

Even a Wraith was fragile where no hide covered it. Her blade punched through, a silver nail driven deep, almost into the brain.

If the phantom had a brain, that is.

“Nidhogg!” Lilith’s head whipped, her voice a bell in storm rain.

The Black Dragon was already coiled to spring. She knew Lilith’s tempo like a hunting partner knows the wind. Her charge was a dark arrow.

She wasn’t as fast as the Elemental Ark’s near-teleport lunge, but this distance was a single breath, a single stride across a stream.

On Lilith’s cry’s next beat, Nidhogg’s fist crashed down on the phantom’s head, a meteor into a dune.

Yelp! The dragon made a ridiculous, dog-hit yowl. It plunged back into the golden liquid, half its skull buried like a stone in wet earth. Scales cracked, showing raw shadow beneath.

“Impossible!” it howled, disbelief flaring like a torch in rain. It craned up at Lilith and Nidhogg, rage foaming. “How can I lose to a dragon? How can I!”

“[Still].” Nidhogg flicked a Word Spirit Magic command like a knife-note, and the thrashing hulk froze for a heartbeat, trapped in ice.

Her other fist fell in that breath, slamming the stubborn skull again, thunder over cliffs.

The Word Spirit Magic’s hold snapped a second later. Lilith already felt its rhythm in her blood; she’d set her stance in that pause, calm as a hanging star.

Her sword drilled down from above and plunged into the phantom’s eye, clean and cruel, as if the person frozen with an awkward raised-blade pose a moment ago wasn’t her.

The dragon had no time to writhe. It wasn’t that large, and Lilith’s blade hunted only for places that ended things. Phantom or not, its shell was ruined like a moth-eaten banner.

Her final thrust fell, a quiet verdict. The roaring dragon fell silent. It beat its wings once, a tired fan in a dead room, then slipped down without a sound.

“Is it over?” Lilith twisted the blade in a half-circle, watched the body lie still as a stone, then drew the sword free. It unraveled into air. Sweat beaded her brow like dew.

“It’s over.” Nidhogg lowered her claws. Pale, slender fingers reappeared, the woman beneath the dragon showing like moonlight through cloud.

“This was only a remnant soul left by the Golden Dragon,” Nidhogg said, voice calm as deep water. “No matter how mighty it once was, no matter its grievance, time sands rage down.”

“Emotion thins. Given long enough, it stops hating the world. It’s lived too long as a shred in this place; its malice is faint. Its strength is, too. That’s why we cut it down.”

“Got it.” Lilith nodded, eyes bright as wet ink. She didn’t really get the arcane bit; she was happy to nod along to Nidhogg’s smooth lecture like a bobbing gourd.

She cared less about why it was weak than about what it would pay out. She didn’t plan to leave empty-handed.

Sure, completing Satan’s job and digging up Bosaklie’s buried truth was a solid haul. But who clears a dungeon and doesn’t open the chest?

She went to the fading dragon phantom. A small crimson tentacle slipped from her, shy as a sprout, and began to draw the phantom’s body in, bit by bit, like mist into lungs.

It wasn’t tasty—more ash than honey—but it was nourishment all the same. If nothing else turned up, she’d take this as her reward.

Then the ceiling changed above her, like a curtain torn away by wind.

Bosaklie’s metal dome vanished.

In its place stretched a pitch-black Star Canvas.