NOVEL NEXT Chapter 381: The Better Dancer
The silence was suffocating.
Thorn and Lilith surged down the right hallway, the air around them still and heavy. Their footsteps made no sound. Not even the rustle of Lilith's cloak or the hiss of Thorn's breath could pierce the quiet.
The lone cloaked figure at the end of the hall didn't move. They stood still, head bowed, arms at their sides.
Thorn narrowed his eyes.
"Too easy," he mouthed silently.
Lilith's eyes flicked to him. She nodded.
They didn't slow.
Just as they closed the final meter, within touching distance, the figure moved.
But not forward.
A second shape dropped from the ceiling behind the first, landing silently between them.
Thorn's eyes widened.
Third figure.
The new opponent struck first, a curved sword flashing out of their cloak like a fang.
The blade arced straight toward Lilith's ribs.
Lilith twisted, pulling her body to the side, but the attack was too fast. The edge of the blade sliced across her outer sleeve, missing flesh by a breath.
Thorn's instincts flared.
He threw himself sideways and twisted in mid-air. He quickly rearranged three of his charges.
He funneled them into flight, stopping his arc in midair with a pulse of golden light, hovering like a hawk about to dive.
From above, he moved two charges into speed, a golden shimmer flooding his limbs.
He dove like a meteor, crashing into the new attacker with a force that sent them skidding backward down the hallway.
The original figure moved now, stepping forward with silent steps.
A sword slid free from their sheath, a katana.
Thorn's eyes narrowed.
"The eastern mercenaries." He mouthed to Lilith.
The two mercenaries attacked together.
One came low, blade sweeping toward Thorn's legs. The other surged for Lilith, their katana rising in a diagonal arc meant to take her from hip to shoulder.
Lilith vanished, blinking forward in a silent step. She reappeared behind the attacker, knives already drawn.
She threw.
Two blades arced in twin streaks of silver, one aimed for the back of the knee, the other for the spine.
But the mercenary spun with preternatural grace, katana deflecting one blade while the other grazed their thigh.
Thorn clashed blades with the other mercenary, his bone arm absorbing the blow. Sparks flew as the katana skidded along the hardened marrow, screeching like metal on stone, even in the muted silence.
He retaliated, delivering a punch to the gut and following with a kick that sent the attacker stumbling.
Lilith's opponent pressed harder, their strikes swift and lethal.
She parried with a flick of her dagger, redirecting each slash. Her knives were everywhere, dancing, returning to her grip after every throw.
Blood spattered the walls as a shallow cut appeared across the mercenary's shoulder.
Lilith grinned, her teeth flashing.
There was a lull in the battle as both sides stared at each other, assessing, when Thorn and Lilith surged forward again.
That was when the air trembled.
A crushing weight slammed onto their shoulders, pressing their knees toward the floor.
Lilith gasped, her knives dipping, her knees buckling under the sudden increase in gravity.
The first mercenary, silent and hooded, stood at the far end of the corridor, his katana reversed in one hand. The ground beneath him cracked from the force being exerted outward.
His fingers curled, and the weight doubled.
Thorn grunted, muscles bulging, and sweat beading on his brow. "Shit!" He cursed through clenched teeth.
Golden light surged within his body as he shifted two of his charges into gravity resistance, his eyes shimmering as his body adapted.
The pressure eased off his limbs instantly. He lunged forward like a released spring, smashing into the gravity user with his bone arm in a brutal arc.
The mercenary staggered backward, forced to retract the field.
Lilith straightened.
Her cloak flared behind her as she inhaled sharply, her knives snapping up into her arms.
The second mercenary moved in silence, her katana already slicing through the air toward Lilith's neck.
Lilith raised her forearm, bracing it with a throwing knife. Metal rang out.
Then the echo came.
A ghostly afterimage shimmered from the mercenary's body, mimicking the same slash a second later.
Lilith ducked, narrowly avoiding the second strike. Her eyes widened.
"She echoes her own attacks." She muttered to herself.
The mercenary didn't wait. She moved like water, her katana flowing in a rhythm of dance and death. For every move she made, the ghost followed.
Two attacks. One body. One delay.
Lilith spun backward, tossing a knife underhanded. The mercenary twisted to parry...
Clang!
Only to have the ghost repeat the same block a beat later, stopping the second knife Lilith had flicked from her sleeve.
Sweat dripped from Lilith's jaw. Her brain fired at full capacity, predicting not just one path of attack, but two at once.
The echo danced beside the mercenary like a possessed puppet, silent and deadly.
Lilith dashed forward, Pulling a fallen blade from the floor to her hand mid-sprint.
She threw it with a twist of her wrist.
Thump!
The mercenary deflected the first blade, but the echo missed the timing, and the second blade sliced her shoulder.
Blood sprayed.
The mercenary didn't flinch. She lunged, a wide diagonal slash that would take Lilith's torso in half.
Lilith twisted sideways, letting the katana pass within an inch of her ribs.
Then she leapt.
Using the wall, she rebounded over the echo, flipping behind the mercenary, twisting in mid-air, and hurling a blade downward.
The mercenary turned, but it was too late.
Slice!
The blade slashed across her thigh. She hissed silently, stumbling half a step.
The echo followed, but Lilith was already gone, flowing around the ghost's motion like a shadow.
She struck again, knife tip grazing the mercenary's ribs.
Then again.
A flick to the wrist, a blade to the hip.
Lilith moved like a phantom.
For every echo, she found a gap.
For every real swing, she answered with one of her own.
The mercenary stepped back, blood dripping from several cuts.
Still no sound passed between them.
Lilith raised a final knife, her stance calm and coiled.
The mercenary hesitated, her ghost flickering behind her.
Lilith smiled.
"You're good." She mouthed. "But I dance faster."
And she leapt again.