The subterranean chamber, "The Pit," was abandoned almost as quickly as the chaos had erupted. The broker and the minor dealers scattered like chaff, fleeing the noxious residue of black magic and the terrifying presence of two entities capable of leveling the dockyards above. Lilith and Lu Yuan, however, were not retreating. They were hunting.
The single obsidian shard, the true fragment of the Nocturne Key, had been snatched by the largest, strongest of Victor's pawns—a mercenary whose flesh was unnaturally toughened and whose mind was dangerously unstable due to the sorcerer's dark enchantment. The trail led up through a maintenance shaft and spilled out into the sprawling, neon-drenched arteries of C City's industrial district.
It was a cold, miserable night, the air thick with fog and the greasy slick of a recent rain. The alleyways were mazes of rusty fire escapes, overflowing dumpsters, and the constant, rhythmic hiss of steam escaping ruptured pipes—a perfect labyrinth for a skirmish.
"He is heading toward the waterfront, near the old shipyard district," Lu Yuan's voice rumbled, tight with frustration. He was running at a speed no human eye could track, his movements less a run and more a blurring glide. His senses, heightened beyond human comprehension, tracked the unique, sulfurous residue of Victor's magic clinging to the pawn's aura.
Lilith materialized beside him, her crimson velvet replaced by tactical leather, making her look less like a socialite and more like a lethal shadow. Her stride was an exercise in physics defiance, requiring almost no effort. "Inefficient. He is relying on brute force and predictable geometry. We split. You take the north boundary, I'll take the south. Drive him into the central canal. We isolate him from his escape routes."
Lu Yuan didn't debate the command, even though it had the tone of an order. It was sound strategy, and in this moment, strategy trumped centuries of blood feud. "Do not engage alone. That creature is enhanced. His strength is abnormal, even for one of Victor's puppets."
"I am aware of his capabilities, Alpha," Lilith replied, her voice clipped with cold impatience. She vanished instantly, dissolving into the complex shadows cast by the blinking neon sign of an illicit gambling den.
Lu Yuan felt a flicker of annoyance, quickly suppressed by the urgency of the pursuit. He knew Lilith's power—her capacity for sheer, unadulterated psychic force—was terrifying. She didn't need brute strength; she needed only a moment of focused will to dismantle a mind or shatter a physical form. Yet, her ancient bloodline made her less suited for sustained physical confrontations against beings of overwhelming vitality.
He raced along the northern perimeter, clearing the distance in massive leaps, the impact of his heavy boots barely registering on the wet asphalt. He saw the flicker of the pawn's corrupted aura, a dark, muddy green, weaving erratically through the alleyways, clearly panicked. The werewolf guard, Kai, and his partner were several blocks behind, providing necessary but slower backup. This confrontation belonged to the dual sovereigns alone.
Lilith reappeared suddenly, dropping from a fire escape directly onto the mercenary's path. The pawn—a massive man whose face was contorted into a permanent snarl of pain—didn't hesitate. He lunged, a crude, magically-enhanced club swinging down with enough force to splinter a utility pole.
Lilith didn't meet the blow. With a whisper of telekinesis, she manipulated the very molecules of the alley around them. A nearby stack of rusty oil drums suddenly lifted, not with a crash, but with controlled, surgical velocity, slamming into the pawn's chest and driving the air from his lungs. He stumbled back, momentarily winded and confused.
That was the opening. Lilith pressed her attack, not physically, but psychically. She entered the mercenary's mind—a dark, chaotic place reeking of fear and the sorcerer's influence. Where is the Key? The question was a spike of ice driven into his consciousness.
The pawn screamed, a high, strangled sound that was quickly swallowed by the ambient city noise. He clutched his head, dropping the heavy wooden club. Lilith was forcing the information out, dismantling the magical wall Victor had placed around his thoughts.
Before she could finish, a tremendous blur of dark movement crashed into the side of the alley. Lu Yuan arrived, not with subtlety, but with an explosive eruption of force. He saw the psychic strain on Lilith—the blood vessels around her eyes were slightly prominent, a clear sign of the intense energy expenditure—and his primal protective instinct, fighting with his rational caution, took over.
He didn't want the Key extracted through torture; he wanted the pawn secured.
Lu Yuan gripped the pawn's collar, lifting the giant clean off his feet. "Tell me the location of your master, or I will tear the black magic from your soul!" Lu Yuan's voice was a low growl, the gold flashing dangerously in his eyes. He exerted a controlled measure of his Alpha command, an irresistible wave of pure dominance that was almost as effective as Lilith's psychic probe.
The pawn convulsed under the combined assault. He pointed a trembling, desperate finger toward a seam in his heavy coat, where the small, obsidian shard was sewn into the lining for security. Then, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, the chaotic magic Victor had used to sustain him finally extinguishing.
Lu Yuan instantly knelt, tearing the thread that held the fragment. The moment his fingers closed around the shard, the air changed again.
The shard, roughly the size of a thumb, felt cold and ancient, emitting a steady, almost musical thrum of energy. It was a tangible piece of the Covenant's vulnerability.
He stood, facing Lilith. The pursuit was over. The shard was recovered. The truce was finished.
The darkness of the alley suddenly felt smaller, the steam rising around them like the smoke of an impending battle.
Lilith advanced, her eyes fixed not on the shard, but on the unyielding challenge in Lu Yuan's posture. "The Key is neutral territory, Alpha. Hand it over."
"It is a weapon of chaos. My pack's oath is to secure and protect all fragments until the Council can safely seal them. You, Lilith, are a walking risk to that security." Lu Yuan's grip tightened around the shard, his immense form radiating territorial defiance.
"And you, Lu Yuan, are a pawn of outdated doctrine," Lilith countered, her voice dangerously soft. "I need this fragment. Not for destruction, but to track the next. Victor is faster than your council and more sophisticated than your financial games."
The fight began not with a word, but with a breath.
Lilith used pure speed, blurring across the space between them in an instant, aiming a strike directly at his hand. Lu Yuan didn't flinch. He met her with a heavy, defensive block, his elbow deflecting the blow with a sound like stone grinding stone. The sheer impact shook Lilith, forcing her back a step—a testament to his raw, untransformed power.
She changed tactics instantly. She didn't rely on physical strength she lacked. With a flicker of thought, she hurled a massive, rusted steel girder ripped from the adjacent fire escape at him.
Lu Yuan didn't dodge. With a snarl of defiance, he caught the beam mid-flight, his muscles bulging as he brought the inertia to a halt. He then spun and used the girder as a massive, improvised weapon, swinging it at her with the force of a wrecking ball.
Lilith evaded the beam by rising vertically, hovering ten feet above the ground using her controlled telekinesis, the beam smashing through a brick wall where she had been standing seconds before.
"Crude, Alpha," she mocked from above.
"Effective, Queen," he roared, discarding the mangled girder. He leaped—a single, explosive push from his powerful legs—straight toward her in the air.
Lilith, anticipating the move, unleashed her most potent restraint: a directed psychic pulse designed to freeze his motor functions. It slammed into Lu Yuan's chest, a force strong enough to stop a tank.
It hit him. His ascent halted momentarily, his eyes widening in surprise. But the strength of his Alpha will was a fortress. He grunted, a sound of intense effort, and with a guttural roar, pushed through the telekinetic shield. He landed on the narrow fire escape platform beside her, the psychic residue around him dissipating like mist under the sun.
He was stronger than she anticipated. He was the first in centuries to shrug off a direct psychic strike.
The fight returned to close quarters on the precarious metal platform. Lu Yuan seized her wrist—a crushing, possessive grip—and attempted to disarm her with pure force. Lilith countered the move by rotating her entire body, using the grip to leverage herself, simultaneously kicking out at his knee and unleashing a pulse of cold, dead energy directly into his blood stream.
The effect was instantaneous and shocking. Lu Yuan reeled back, the vital warmth draining from his hand. He released her wrist, stepping back off the unstable platform and landing heavily on the ground below. The cold of her bloodline was a sudden, paralyzing shock to his living, burning vitality.
Lilith remained on the platform, regaining her equilibrium. Both were breathing heavily, their supernatural reserves taxed. They had fought for less than two minutes, and the surrounding structures bore the scars of a decade-long war.
They stared at each other. Lu Yuan still clutched the shard. Lilith still radiated the power to turn his mind to dust. The stalemate was perfect and terrifying.
Lu Yuan opened his mouth, ready to issue a final, binding command, when a faint, sickly scent wafted through the alley—a familiar, mocking fragrance of dried belladonna and burnt sulfur.
They both registered it instantly. Victor had left a trail. Not a visible one, but a magical signature embedded deep within the stone and decay, leading away from the skirmish.
"He used us," Lilith hissed, the realization dawning in her eyes. "He left that pawn knowing we would fight over the shard, giving him time to prepare his next move."
Lu Yuan's fury at being manipulated momentarily eclipsed his possessiveness over the Key. He looked from the shard in his hand to the faint, malicious trail. He knew he couldn't follow it and fight Lilith simultaneously.
"The scent leads to the old Gothic district. The Cathedral," Lu Yuan stated, his tone flat and decisive, realizing the urgency of the greater threat.
Lilith nodded, a grudging acceptance of the truce forced by circumstances. "If he is there, he is setting a snare of ritual scale. Your brute strength won't be enough to break the wards."
"And your parlor tricks won't be enough to hold him. We go together," Lu Yuan decreed, looking her directly in the eye, challenging her to refuse.
Lilith gave a slow, cold smile, a predatory gesture that promised more danger than partnership. "Lead the way, Alpha. But understand this: I am not following your orders. I am tracking my prey. And if you falter, the Covenant will be the least of your concerns."
With that, they abandoned the destroyed alleyway, two rival sovereigns driven by necessity and mutual, electric tension toward the next confrontation.