Chapter Thirty-Two: The Shattering of Gold and Iron
Meteor Cannon!
Lilith learned Stellar Magic for one reason—the skill that’s handsome past reason, the Meteor Cannon.
She knew its flaws. It takes ages to charge, bursts weak at the start, channels long and risks a break. The only merit is total damage—call it XL—still far from bucket-of-wings tier.
But it’s beautiful.
Lilith never imagined a move could look this good, like a comet carving a river of light across night.
So when she suddenly got a massive special-attack boost to Meteor Cannon, it became her best answer to the Golden Dragon’s third phase—big moves, slow body, pride like a gilded mountain.
Right now, the Golden Dragon couldn’t close in. So she’d drown it in magic, like winter rain hammering a bronze bell.
An icy-blue Meteor beam tore open the Golden Dragon’s weird iron shell, like peeling warped roof-tiles. Lilith’s fierce magic speared the bone within and the gold-hued blood lacquered over it.
The ancient beast roared, pain like a furnace cracking. It wasn’t only Lilith who could throw rays; even a not-so-orthodox dragon kept breath. It gaped its bloody maw, let molten iron—half a body’s worth—pour inward like a foundry flood. Heat gathered at its throat, then it hurled a blazing jet toward the Little White Dragon hanging in the sky.
Meteor Cannon met breath, blue river against golden lightning. For a heartbeat, Lilith’s beam held, because half its breath had been checked earlier, and her magic kept the last sliver of advantage in that head-on grind.
But the Golden Dragon’s breath swelled, like a storm pulling in the sea. Lilith’s spell started to strain, edges fraying like frost under noon-sun.
Her chest tightened first; frustration hit like a cold wave. With no other path, she opened her small mouth and pooled pure ice mana in her throat, a winter spring gathering under snow.
She was a true White Dragon, an honored banner of frost, rare as moonlight on a still lake. If an ancient relic like the Golden Dragon could breathe, then Lilith had no reason to falter. She’d shown this trick once; she’d show it again—icy blue sightline against golden ray, sky-chill colliding with forge-fire.
Lilith leaned into it, mouth wide, awoo, awoo, breath slanting outward like sleet on wind. Her hands didn’t idle; Meteor Cannon fused with frost breath, a braided torrent that punched straight at the Golden Dragon’s lance of light.
One above, one below; one sky, one earth. Three beams clashed from their jaws, splashing light that drove every living thing out of the field, like a tide sweeping shore clean. Lilith stayed locked, mind razor-sharp, while the ancient dragon gave her no quarter—age meeting youth with iron poise.
Then she felt it—the ceiling above her skull trembled, the same brutal shudder as when the Golden Dragon first struck. Danger rolled down like thunder from a cracked dome.
Heart jumped, action followed. Lilith kicked back and flew, skimming past the very edge of the Golden Dragon’s breath.
A heartbeat later, the ceiling split like dry bark.
A Black Dragon plunged through, biting a Red Dragon’s throat, and landed heavy atop the Golden Dragon’s head, like a black avalanche smashing a gilded peak.
“Nidhogg?” Lilith’s joy flared, sharp as dawn.
Nidhogg didn’t answer. She spat out the limp red carcass, lifeless as fallen leaves, then dug sharp talons through the Golden Dragon’s shielding. She twisted its head, peeled back the iron shell like stripping armor plates, and tore the Golden Dragon’s skull clean off.
The Black Dragon was a storm with fangs. She dropped the remnant from her jaw, then ripped at the fusion of bone, blood, and iron, hunting what was still truly dragon. Like a dog pulling meat off bone, she separated flesh from iron, wet and brutal.
Lilith didn’t just watch. While the Golden Dragon’s focus tilted hard toward Nidhogg, she became a buzzing gnat, a white flicker at its ear, needling and striking without rest.
Do it.
She snatched up the Primordial Ark. As the Black Dragon slapped the Golden Dragon’s head, making its thoughts ring hollow like a gong, Lilith struck again. The Ark cut the air with a clean hiss; her weapon stabbed into the iron-wrapped skull.
The dragon roared, iron plates on its head warping into a fan of sharp rebar, stabbing toward the Little White Dragon like a bristle storm.
Lilith didn’t flinch. Before steel kissed her scales, the Black Dragon yanked that iron-laced neck and slammed it into the floor, like a chain dragging an anchor to seabed.
Those spears scattered, clattering like broken icicles. Lilith rode the dragon’s head and drove the Primordial Ark deeper, pressure steady as a winter press.
Inside the skull—nothing. She’d bored several holes, yet the beast still kicked, a puppet dancing on spite. Realizing the target needed to change, Lilith flexed her wings and lifted, leaving frost trails like afterimages.
Nidhogg bit down on the Golden Dragon’s iron-scraping neck. Compared to hide and bone, those iron chunks were laughably brittle. She barely had to pull before the neck screeched, teeth-aching, like a rusted hinge tearing.
Lilith hung in the sky, eyes narrowing to a hawk’s focus. She found the heart, the true furnace beneath all that gold. The Golden Dragon had armor-sheeted itself, but that iron didn’t protect—it spotlighted its softest places. All Lilith had to do was strike where the plating lay thickest.
“Yaa!” She dove, a white streak from clouds. Lilith picked the spot close to the heart. She climbed high, stoking her constellation resonance; her small wings beat so fast they left pale echoes, like snowflakes doubling in the wind.
She made herself a shell—a cannon round, armor-piercing, fate-pointed. From above, one blade drove through the heart’s mark.
Iron plating, gold blood lacquer, and stubborn bone—all failed. Defense the dragon boasted about folded like paper creased once. Lilith didn’t stop. The Primordial Ark bit inside, then sheared hard, like scissors closing on silk. She chopped the Golden Dragon’s body clean into four.
The massive beast thrashed at her feet, a toppled idol shaking off dust. But the Black Dragon’s strength pinned down the last frenzy, weight like night holding down fire.
Slowly, the Golden Dragon went still. It lay motionless under Lilith’s gaze, no breath, no heat, as if it really had become a lump of iron.
