The Reborn Witch had a nice 'Tea Time' with the Dragon Queen today
Chapter 117: .........he’s back

Chapter 117: .........he’s back

Wings that held ancient strengths glided through the air, and the shadow of old slid across the ashen ground like the foretelling of destruction.

A scaled arm stretched, the skeleton within sight, another boost in the air, another wind’s howl.

A tug. Adrei grasped the armour’s neck, before bumping it to the ground, the slight thud kicking up bits of grey sands.

The Undead writhed uncontrollably, its helmet digging into the sand as if to burrow a cave for an escape—still no reddened glares.

"No malice for an Undead is the first for me."

Wings unfurled as scaled feet tapped the sands once again for a landing, knees slightly buckling.

She knew very well from books that the Tyrant burned. Dungeons are merely ’simulated’, but not ’created’.

Unlike Android’s existence that was computed by Datas, these creatures in the Dungeons could not even have bodeis without Datas.

The Undead’s struggle stuttered, the first falter since it ever met them.

"Can you understand our speech? Or perhaps even speak?"

More careful dialogue. The Peacekeeper found an utter irony in negotiating with a skeleton, if not for the unique circumstance that demands it.

The helmet swayed and plopped, the skeleton’s cheek lying on the ground.

It nodded with a slight clatter, Adrei’s curiosity flaring at the bony neck’s unnatural gesture.

"Very good. Now, I’ll slowly remove myself from you."

Bare steps patterned from the back. A familiar footstep, her wife, Witch, seemed to have caught up.

With a sigh of relief that confirmed no dangers or ambushes, her fingers loosened one by one.

Palm still sunk into the metal with caution, as the arm lifted itself with a surgeon’s carefulness, the knees straightening with a hunter’s patience.

The skeleton’s gauntlet shook. Perhaps in surprise? Can an Undead, let alone a ’simulated

"Now, stand slowly-"

"Adrei!"

The Dragon frowned as the gauntlet raised, sand dusting at the metallic chin.

The palm glowed with a heatful red, powers of a desperate struggle swirling from within.

Slap. The Dragon’s right arm flung the arm aside, a fireball shot, and it seethed on the sandy ground.

Boom.

Smoke enveloped both their figures. Dusts slithering at the Dragon’s skin before she swung her arm with strength, gusts blowing the shrouded dusts off-

Only to reveal a clearing on the sands. She glanced up, the skeleton was now standing, its helmet dangling to the side as if tilting one’s head.

Adrei’s claw sharpened, her eyes squinting with hostility. "I am not an idiot. I know you can understand us."

No nod. No gesture. Not even a hint of movement.

The Undead just stared, intent unfounded as the burnt floor hissed and formed a fog in-between them.

A fog of misunderstanding. Of a vagueness Adrei found only confusing.

"Why attack me?"

The Undead’s helmet clicked, the rattling echoing and breaking its silence.

Still no words. An inability to speak, or at least the unwillingness of it.

Shing.

Adrei’s brows knitted together as the Undead drew its rusty sword, its other metal arm tapping the helmet’s top, before adjusting the crooked helmet.

Plick. The helmet was attached back to its helmet like a neck snapped, as both its arms gripped the sword’s handle, hiding its head behind the rusty blade.

"Demond. Sense any mana?"

"I sent my tracker birds everywhere. Nothing. No one."

The Witch’s steps patterned to the Dragon’s side, observing the steadied Knight’s posture from the Undead. "This Skeleton’s mana <Color> was also... uniquely mixed. I can’t see much other than a blackened shroud covering multiple <Color> swirling together."

"Mm. One thing is for sure."

Adrei’s waist slightly bent, her arm stretching to the back like a bowstring. "I’ve no intention to leave it alive, and... it seems it has no intention to leave itself alive as well."

Clack. The Undead wavered slightly, as Adrei’s eyes narrowed.

Still no trembling. This Undead held no fear of its impending doom.

"No, ensnaring it for an interrogation?"

Demond’s fingertips tapped at the air, readied to summon another icy bird for a restraint.

"A summoned Undead without a master... too threatening, too volatile."

The Dragon’s knees curved for a leap. "Ending it now is also a mercy for the trapped soul within."

Demond’s brows raised, before her nostrils heaved and her steps pattered away from the Dragon and the Skeleton’s duel.

Adrei’s eyes were entrapped right below the skeleton’s head within sight, as the Skeleton’s gauntlet tightened against its steel.

"I will ask again. Withdraw your sword, or face a swift end."

No reaction again. Adrei’s claw clinked at each other with hesitation.

Her knuckles cracked again. No time to make up your mind.

Everything can come soon after.

A burning will against a lack of will. A creature who ruled against a creature who was ruled.

Both scaled feet and metallic boots duck into the sands.

Splash.

Clouds of dust sprayed as they lunged for each other. Claw piercing through against the Undead’s belated swing.

The sharpened claw sank into the bony neck.

Snap.

A loud cluck echoed.

Draconic feet swept against dust. Adrei, who had bolted past, glanced over her shoulder.

The helmet fell and bounced with futility, with a returned peace.

The Undead’s body convulsed, trying to maintain some semblance of a living being before it collapsed like a puppet with cut string.

Adrei frowned at such a sight. Too easy. Too swift. The missing aftermath is what bothered the Peacekeeper.

"No fluctuations of mana even after Death... I will check more."

Her Witch Wife strutted towards the fallen Undead.

As bare steps reached and tapped, careful not to brush up sands against the body, Demond’s hands clentched together for a silent prayer, before her hand touched upon the metallic armour.

And from her lips, another utterance of a <tale> was born.

"Justice’s sword. Heed my warnings."

Frostbite trailed from her palm, seeping veins into the metallic pieces.

"I prayed not for fairness, but for the truth embedded behind laws and orders."

Demond’s eyes glowed a clear blue. Even at a distance, Adrei could sense as if her wife’s vision overtook the nature of causality.

"Let all be revealed under the winter’s guidance, a somber note to the last cry of the wicked."

The frostbites crept up Demond’s finger, slipping and whispering truths into her very skin.

"Hm..."

Demond’s eyes furrowed, shivering to hide away an intensity the Dragon could recognise as... bloodlust?

The Dragon’s feet traced feather-steps to her wife as Demond stood, her eyes clinging onto her fingers, her hat tipping to hide her strained expression.

The husband tilted back the hat from behind, her hand smoothing over her wife’s arm before clasping around her frosted hand.

"Something’s wrong?"

Demond didn’t answer before pointing at the Skeleton’s body.

Adrei’s eyes widened, the metallic armours and sword rotting with greyness that mirrored the floor’s.

A vile stench permeated her nose, one she was familiar with all these years.

The Dragon glared as the armours simply... ashened away, like bonedusts spraying across the wind.

Only a grey clearing remained, and more questions sprouted from the couple’s minds.

"You smelled it too, Adrei?"

A heavied tone clanged in the Dragon’s ears, as her other claw gripped into a fist, the sharpness drawing blood.

Yet another warmth tapped the hand. Adrei eyed her wife, sincerity flooding away wraith, the resolve built on ice coating her fiery irrationality into frozen calmness.

"I did, Demond."

The Dragon’s hands loosened as the Witch shifted around and hugged her.

Chests burrowed against chests, as she felt comfortably against Demond’s hand snaking around her waist, and hers against her wife’s back.

"That blackness that enshrouded the skeleton’s mana <Color>... I now recognise it."

The Witch heaved a deep, deep breath. She expected a deep revelation the moment Coriel lured them into this Dungeon.

Well, she did. Just this one was far too cruel a joke.

"There were very few mana that transcended <Time> itself, very few flames that could burn eternally."

The Dragon sensed her wife’s hug tightening, her eyes quivering to hold back the rage swelling.

The Draconic scale threatened to seethe out smoke, not with irritation against an old enemy that they now shared.

"Come to think of it, it may potentially... or at least be part of what has supported this Dungeon thus far."

The bare step of the Witch fluttered frosts again, paths of ice lingering on grey sands, as if to cover them whole, swallow them whole.

"The black flame that towered over the Western Continent."

Twenty years of efforts.

Twenty years of uniting humans with the Dragons.

Twenty years of planning so she would reunite with her saviour in peace.

All... to find out traces of the past that still haunted them.

"It was what fuelled that Undead, possibly what gave it sentience."

Adrei’s teeth clattered on themselves, bundles of curses unfolding in her very soul, in her very blood vein that flowed of the treacherous blood.

"Adalon the Dragon Tyrant."

Her wife’s hateful gaze pierced through the Peacekeeper.

"He’s back."