Chapter 14: Memories

Lilith – Slimzy – knelt beside Karnazul's broken form, her glowing purple eyes narrowed in concentration. Pale, slender fingers hovered inches above his shattered chest, tendrils of inky black slime peeling away from her forearm and snaking towards his injuries, probing with unsettling delicacy. The slime pulsed with a faint inner light, seeming to analyze the damage.

"My, my, Ash Lord," she murmured, her rich contralto devoid of its usual theatrical lilt, replaced by clinical assessment. "You've really outdone yourself this time. Structural compromise... significant essence leakage... fascinating regenerative scarring from a prior high-energy event..." She glanced up at Donarstraza, who stood watching, trying to project an aura of detached control despite the Wisdom fog and Charisma ache. "What celestial anvil did he manage to get himself dropped on, My Storm? This level of damage speaks of... profound opposition."

Donarstraza kept her expression impassive, golden eyes fixed on Lilith's pale face framed by the sharp, black horns. Revealing the full humiliation was dangerous, but hiding the source of the threat seemed worse. "A human," she stated, her voice echoing with forced resonance. "Named Theodric von Adler."

The effect was instantaneous and shocking.

Lilith froze. The probing slime tendrils retracted with a wet schlup. Her glowing purple eyes widened, not with theatrical surprise, but with genuine, profound shock that drained the color from her already fair skin. She didn't gasp. She didn't wail. She simply... folded.

With a soft thump, Lilith sat down hard on the cold floor, legs splayed out inelegantly. The inky black slime covering her wobbled precariously, but held. She stared blankly past Karnazul, her amethyst gaze fixed on some distant, horrifying memory.

"Theodric... von Adler..." she whispered, the name tasting like ash. A shudder ran through her, making the slime shimmer. She slowly shook her head, horns tracing arcs in the dim light. "Karnazul... you lucky, stubborn fool." Her voice was low, filled with a mixture of awe and dread. "To survive another duel with... that monster..."

Monster? The word echoed in Donarstraza's mind. An actual, powerful demon... calling a human a monster? Elina's dark, slightly hysterical humor bubbled up through the Wisdom fog. Scheiße. He really must be that terrifying. Even the slime-clad horror show is scared. It was perversely comforting, in a way – confirmation that her own pants-wetting terror hadn't been entirely unjustified.

Lilith dragged her gaze back to Donarstraza, the playful sharpness gone, replaced by a haunted intensity. "You... you truly don't remember the Sundering War, do you, My Lady?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "After your... departure... the Realms fractured. Old hatreds boiled over. The Blighted Marches became a charnel house."

She swallowed, the slime at her throat shifting. "And then... he emerged from Aethelgard. Theodric von Adler. The Dragon Knight." She spat the title. "He wasn't just strong, My Storm. He was an event. A natural disaster in human skin." Her purple eyes seemed to look inward, seeing visions of carnage. "Mounted on Taimat, the World-Serpent's Scion... they were annihilation incarnate. Battlefields weren't won; they were erased."

Lilith's voice grew colder, flatter. "Estimates placed his personal kill count in the millions. Not soldiers. Demons. Entire legions vanished under dragonfire and that... that abomination of a sword he wields. He didn't just fight lords; he hunted them. Three fell before his blade – Lord Krazak the Unyielding, consumed by Taimat's fierce jaw; Lady Nyxara of the Thousand Shadows, pierced through her shifting heart by his blade; Moloch the Mountain-Sunderer... reduced to gravel by a single, contemptuous blow." She shuddered again. "And then... he came for Karnazul."

Her gaze drifted to the unconscious Ash Lord. "It was during the Siege of the Citadel. Karnazul held the gates, the last bastion before the heartlands. Theodric challenged him. Personally. The duel lasted less than ten minutes." Lilith's lips pressed into a thin line. "Karnazul fought like a cornered void-beast. But the Dragon Knight... he dismantled him. Broke his blades. Shattered his armor. Left him for dead amidst the Citadel's ruins. Karnazul only survived because the citadel's collapse buried him before Taimat could finish the job. He crawled out weeks later... changed. Harder. Colder."

Lilith finally looked back at Donarstraza, her purple eyes bleak. "That human, My Lady, isn't just a knight. He's a force of nature. A walking extinction event our kind learned to dread. Karnazul surviving a second encounter..." She shook her head again, a flicker of grim respect returning. "...is either testament to his sheer stubbornness, or proof the Dragon Knight was feeling merciful. Neither option fills me with comfort."

Donarstraza listened, the cold dread from the Void Arena returning, colder and deeper. Millions? Demon Lords? Karnazul broken in minutes? Theodric hadn't just been strong; he'd been a demonic apocalypse. And she'd lunged at him. With sparks. The Charisma "???" pulsed, a bruised, hollow feeling. The Wisdom impairment made the scale of it hard to grasp, but the fear in Lilith's eyes – genuine, deep-seated fear – was undeniable.

She looked down at Karnazul, his broken form taking on new meaning. He hadn't just fought for her. He'd charged a hurricane. And he'd known exactly what he was facing. The shame she felt earlier curdled into something heavier. Respect? Pity? She wasn't sure.

Lilith took a deep breath, the black slime settling. The haunted look receded, replaced by her more familiar sharpness, though laced with newfound seriousness. "Well," she declared, slime tendrils already re-extending towards Karnazul's chest, pulsing with healing energy. "Knowledge is power, however terrifying. Let's get this old brute patched up. We have," her purple eyes flicked to Donarstraza, a calculating gleam returning, "rather a lot to prepare for, don't we, My Storm? Orcs, Dragons... the schedule is quite full." The theatrical lilt was back, but the undertone was steel. The Second in Command was fully present, and she now knew the abyss they were truly staring into.