Chapter 39
“The sandstorm is moving away from Bosaklie,” the Ancestor of Ice Spirits said to Nidhogg and Lilith. “It has a rough route. We can’t catch it head‑on. We flank.”
“Just say where we fly!” Nidhogg roared, her voice a hammer against the wind.
Words tattered in the howling gale, a chorus of grit and cold. The death‑dust had drifted off, yet its wake still scoured the Demon Realm’s golden dunes. Yellow sand rose like wolves on hind legs. Even the tall Black Dragon couldn’t keep steady in that grinding sea.
The Ancestor knew this pain of speech. Her message could ride the air with a frost whisper. Their reply, though, would be either a throat‑torn shout or clumsy gestures.
She didn’t waste breath. She used her body to mark the course, a white mop of hair flicking like a pennant in the storm. Nidhogg beat each wing—longer than the Little White Dragon stretched out—and chased the flying, snowy comet.
The Little White Dragon called on the Void Command Seat. The wind around them sank to a hush, a pond under glass, so the Black Dragon’s flight wouldn’t falter.
Worry pricked first, like a thorn under the scales. She hadn’t reported to Satan. She had followed the Ancestor out of Bosaklie on impulse. Would the ruler of Demons fret over her and Nidhogg’s safety?
Too late. The bowstring was loosed. No turning back to tell Satan now. They surged deeper into the whooshing wilds, eyes on the roaring path ahead.
They didn’t fly far—just a brief sand‑wash to the face in midair. Then she felt it, clear as thunder in the bones: a massive sandstorm was sweeping toward them from the horizon.
“We’re in its lane now!” the Ancestor’s voice rang at the ears of Lilith and Nidhogg. “I’ll tear open the edge. You dive inside fast!”
The Black Dragon didn’t answer. She hovered on thundering wings, waiting for the Ancestor’s move, a spear held back for the right breath.
The sandstorm charged them, a giant bellowing and scooping up the world. Even wrapped in Nidhogg’s arms, the Little White Dragon felt wind‑sand hammer her wind shield, the one she’d tuned by constellation resonance.
The Ancestor began. The white mop streamed back into a blue‑haired maiden. She floated, calm as moonlight. Air around her thickened into a heavy ice wall, a glacier grown in a heartbeat. Grit slapped the frost and stalled, dead at the border, not a step further.
Cold is a taunt to the desert. The sandstorm twisted its spine and aimed straight at the three, like a brown tiger sighting prey.
Pressure crashed in. Lilith faced it, chest tight, breath held. A dune‑city, ten times a city, rolled with death‑dust toward her. It felt like an enraged elephant charging full tilt. Memory‑etched fear bit down. Her eyes widened. Her body leaked cold, a winter breath pushing outward.
The storm felt that chill and sprinted faster. The Ancestor sent her voice like sleet across the wind.
“Hold it. Feed that thing more power. Let it taste more than one divine construct. It’s greedy. It attacks us on sight, never caring if it can win.” She kept her spell steady, and spoke to Lilith. “When it’s close, we hit hard together. We rip the wind shield open.”
Lilith didn’t care if the Ancestor could see. She gathered Star Energy, tight and bright, a comet in her palm. Nidhogg helped set her stance, cradling her so Lilith could raise her right hand at the onrushing storm.
“Three,” the Ancestor counted down, each number a drumbeat.
Lilith lifted her right hand. Star Energy swirled, a night sky stitched into her palm.
“Two.” The ice wall fractured, exploding into a storm of ice blades, shards glinting like winter leaves.
Lilith’s spell took form—the Meteor Cannon, her favorite, a falling star sharpened to a lance.
“One.” The sandstorm was at arm’s reach. Grit slapped her cheeks, stinging like nettles.
The magic was ready. Lilith dangled like a kitten, pinched at the armpits by Nidhogg, both hands leveled, eyes locked on the storm’s throat.
“Now!” The Ancestor’s voice cut like a bell. Her ice blades smashed into the sand and tore a mouth open in the swirling wall.
Not enough. The Little White Dragon judged the wound too shallow to let them pierce the heart.
“I’ve wanted to try this for ages!” Lilith shouted, excitement sparking hot. Star Energy burst from her palm and blew apart the storm’s edge.
“The most important thing in a barrage is firepower, daze☆!!! Limit Spark!!!”
The Meteor Cannon fired, a star‑bolt ripping into the torn window. The divine construct at the storm’s core took a brutal hit. It screamed, a bleak cry that shook the dunes. Yellow sand froze for an instant, then flung outward on old inertia, scattering like birds startled from a field. The storm lost its spine.
“Wait—it’s about to topple! Evade!” Panic touched the Ancestor’s voice, frost cracking under strain.
She hadn’t expected Lilith’s spell to hit that hard. The divine construct staggered, stunned, and the sandstorm stalled completely. The Little White Dragon hadn’t expected it either. She went still, starry‑eyed with shock. Nidhogg moved first. She dove while the sand hung, seized Lilith in one arm, grabbed the Ancestor in the other, and snapped her wings wide at the last second, punching straight back into the sky.
Lilith curled tight in Nidhogg’s embrace. On the horizon she saw a black shadow swelling, a falling mountain of a shape. It had to be a hundred, two hundred meters tall. It toppled like a hill giving way. Realization struck. She blinked wide and asked the Ancestor, disbelief rough in her voice.
“That—can’t be the divine construct, right?”
“It is,” the Ancestor said, eyes grave, fixed on the giant worm.
“A sand worm, coiled under the dunes. It embodies every vein of greed in this land. It’s the thing you came to end.” She spoke the words one by one, each heavy as stone.
