Chapter Thirty-Six

Lilith, the Little White Dragon, brushed off Nidhogg’s lecherous one-liners like dust on snow. Her mood settled like a quiet pond. Fingers found the ice-crystal pendant at her ear, and her delicate face folded into a thinking pout.

She weighed her next move, breath drifting like frost. She sank into the plush sofa, loosened every limb, and turned into a fluffy white pastry of a dragon.

“We know that Ice Spirit’s clearly into me,” she said, voice cool as winter rain. “Nidhogg’s pitch is a straight walk-in and a face-off. Lord Satan, thoughts?”

Satan’s tone was as heavy as storm-cloud iron. “No special advice. Normally, we’d send steam mechs and crush the problem. But against an Ice Spirit, we need a different tool.”

“Then I’ll just go look,” she said, heart steady as a frozen lake. She clapped her hands and sprang up like a coiled spring, landing balanced and sharp.

“It’s not easy for you to show up anyway, right?” Lilith’s words drifted like mist but hid a blade. If steam mechs moved, half of Bosaklie would know. If it wasn’t tied to the Golden Dragon, the mess would snowball.

She didn’t want to gamble with her hide; fear nibbled like a chill at her spine. If she could help it, Lilith would never face the Ice Spirit alone. Litt still needed her to raise him. She remembered the egg she laid in Lamter, later carried by Typhon back to the Dragon Territory, still sleeping in its shell like moonlight under ice. Dragons didn’t hatch simple; a soul had to be found. But Lilith had her way. She would not fall here.

The Ice Spirit hadn’t shown fangs; that steadied her like a hand on the helm. She believed they could talk. If talks broke, she’d have time to gather cold and answer with storm.

If that thing could slip into Bosaklie, why hide in shadow and hint with cold? Dropping temperature to ask for a chat felt like a riddle without logic.

So Lilith headed for the spot on the map where temperatures plunged like a cliff in winter. She refused Satan’s plan—those mechs were taller than the giants she’d seen, iron mountains under steam. Nidhogg didn’t want her to go either; after her slender tail got pinched by the Black Dragon’s tyrant grip, she yielded to that bad woman and agreed to go together.

“Ugh, that hurt like hell,” she hissed, rubbing her tail where it flushed pink like sunset on snow. Her heart flashed with heat; she cursed the bad woman who didn’t know her own strength. One day, she’d make her taste the crematorium’s fire.

After mapping ten thousand punishments in her head like constellations of spite, Lilith led Nidhogg toward the cold-sunk zone.

The moment she crossed the boundary, the world changed like morning into night.

She didn’t feel cold—what ice mage dies of frost? She snorted, frost-smile sharp. Though, yes, Black Mages could freeze an Ice Mage in a single spiteful spell—ha. Her tolerance for low temperatures was top-tier, a crown of rime. But that didn’t dull her senses; it sharpened them. Lilith treated foreign cold like a slap, a challenge. Who dares show off at grandma’s gate? Her stare bit the air like a wolf.

Instinct rose like a tide; she bled ice magic into the world and dropped the temperature another notch, a whisper becoming a blade.

“Don’t flex,” Nidhogg murmured, and pinched her butt, fast as a snake. “If you freeze the block, Satan will think you’re fighting and send troops.”

“Eek! Hands off!” Her hips jerked like a startled bird. She darted aside, coiled her tail around herself like a silver shield, and put clean distance between them.

“Idiot! Not everything’s up for grabs!” Tears pooled like dew; she snapped at Nidhogg with a quick bite, more warning than wound.

Nidhogg, cowed by her glare like lightning across water, chuckled. He admired her like a cat guarding its plate, cute and bristling. In his chest, a thought cooled—teasing in small doses is honey; too much turns greasy. Push too far, and the Little White Dragon gets spooked. Then no bed for a week.

He’d pushed too hard; he needed to ease the heat before it burned the bridge.

“So you really plan to ignore me?”

The voice seeped in like fog through alleys, thick with grievance.

They both froze, mid-thought—Nidhogg choosing a lighter tease, Lilith picking a bite that stung but didn’t bruise. Their gazes lifted. At the far end of the street stood a woman in white.

Her figure was a winter line, pure and sharp. She wore white from throat to ankle. A white hat crowned her head, brim casting a soft shadow that swallowed her eyes.

In that shade gleamed two clean, ice-blue tear-tracks on her cheeks, like frozen rivers etched by sorrow. She looked as if she’d been crying since the first snow fell.

“You’re the Ice Spirit stirring up trouble here?” Nidhogg asked, voice steel under silk.

“My divine swagger can’t hide tears,” Lilith sighed, a smile like frost on glass.

—

Lilith’s way of punishing Nidhogg was simple—no bed, no warmth.

But she couldn’t be too willful. Ban her for a week, and that Black Dragon would still climb into her bed at midnight like a shadow with a grin.