A rush of adrenaline shot through Momo. Unlike her other polymorphs, the Dokkaebi form didn’t shrink her or stretch her or otherwise contort her body at any awkward angles. No, quite the contrary – it felt like shimmying into a perfectly tailored pair of pants. It felt natural. Her horns enlarged. Her canines became fangs. Black lines of Nether sew themselves into the skin of her face. Her entire body became covered in elaborate obsidian-colored tattoos.

It was as if the Nether itself had bonded to her flesh. She felt so…

So powerful.

She screamed, flexing her arms outwards. The acidic vines instantly snapped. From the ceiling, Lione’s boastful smile fell.

“What on Alois,” she muttered. “Those should be unbreakable!”

“Not anymore,” Momo whispered. “Goblin mode. Get used to it.”

Lione sent another cast of [Nether Webbing] at her, but Momo didn’t even bother dodging. Her skin was burning as hot as a Nether Fireball. With a simple flex, the flames running down her arms evaporated the webbing into smoldering ash.

“Gods, why don’t you die already?” Lione screamed.

Lione hurled web after web, but every new bundle of nethergel was greeted with a flourish of flame. Momo grinned as she watched the goo evaporate, unable to touch her. She felt superhuman. Or rather, super goblin.

“As someone who formerly tried to assassinate her,” Nyk added, side glancing at Momo. She looked vaguely impressed. “It’s harder than it looks.”

Lione growled. Unable to stick Momo to the ground, she changed tack; she abandoned her ceiling cocoon, and began to descend towards the basement floor, head first, a single thread wrapped around her ankles. The display looked like a black widow plummeting upon prey.

The duchess halted her descent a few feet away from Momo. Momo braced herself, throwing up her guard. Power coursed through her veins, urging her to charge the spider-woman, but she resisted. She didn’t want to accidentally kill Lione. One, because she didn’t like killing anyone, especially spirit-possessed sidekicks, but more importantly, if Lione was wrong and it was actually her, instead, who was marked for death, everyone in that basement, hell, everyone in all of Karahtan was done for. Momo couldn’t afford to make that mistake.

“I have been waiting for this day my entire life,” Lione said slowly, coldly. Her pupils had completely evaporated; her eyes were now full on black almonds, like two small slits of oblivion. “Ever since Sera introduced me to the concept of soul-fissuring, I have dreamed of creating the ultimate Nether masterwork. The peak of necromancy. Not a resuscitated soul, but a created one. A husk born of hundreds.”

Lione twisted her neck like an owl, the bones snapping. Instead of looking towards Momo, she pinned her gaze to Nyk.

“If the catch does not want to come willingly, I will have to resort to bait,” Lione said, pouting. “Such a shame. I was starting to like this one, too.”

Before either of them could react, the duchess reached out her hand.

“[Melt Soul Chain],” she commanded.

Nyk screamed, her body immediately dropping to the floor in anguish.

“Nyk!” Momo cried, trying to run to her. She found that her feet were stuck, two globs of green gel fixing them to the floor. The flames that crawled up and down her arms stopped at her ankles, allowing the goo to fasten her there.

“You’re so easily distracted,” Lione chuckled. “Always wobbling around like a chicken with its head cut off. Now, be a good little sacrifice and die, won’t you? I’ll even let your friend live if you come nicely. [Acidify III].”

The webbing around her ankles began to burn, and Momo winced painfully. The effect wasn’t as bad as it was in her natural form, but it was still powerful enough to erode her feet to stubs if she didn’t act fast. Momo looked frantically between the two of them. Nyk was digging her fingers into the cloth on her chest, writhing on the floor in pain. Momo couldn’t see any discernible weapon or wound; it looked as if she was suffering from an invisible sort of stabbing. A dagger unseen.

What did she cast? [Melt Soul Chain]? she thought to herself. If the spell’s name was truly indicative, then Momo had a way to fix it. She silently cast [Eye of the Nether Demon].

Just as Momo thought, the spell revealed a corroding chain sticking out of Nyk’s chest. An acidic black magic was decaying the end of the metal thread, traveling second by second towards Nyk’s still-beating heart.

“No,” Momo said, and she stuck her palm outwards. “You can try and kill me, fine. For all I know, I’ll just pop up in some other universe, summoned by some other ridiculous cult. But you’re not killing my friends. I won't let you.”

“We’re not,” Nyk coughed, blood dripping down her mouth. “Friends.”

Momo ignored her, moving her hand away from Lione, and instead faced her palm towards Nyk.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Oh, yes, yes, Momo. That’s right. Let the fury take you,,” Lione groaned in pleasure. She swung happily from her web on the ceiling, waving around the basement like a pendulum. “Let friend become foe. Enact that final fit of violence. Corrupt your soul further. Every point of experience you gain is just a greater drop in the husk.”

Momo gritted her teeth. “Gods – won’t you shut up?”

She closed her eyes, and honed in on Nyk’s fading chain.

“[Soul First Aid],” she shouted.

A shot of black magic soared from Momo’s fingers straight into Nyk’s chest, blasting the dokkaebi back several feet. Nyk crashed into a table with a crunch, and for a moment, Momo thought she had killed her.

“Yes, yes!” Lione screamed, swinging with even more enthusiasm. She oscillated from one corner of the room to another, her unkempt hair swooshing wildly. “Let your body rush with her power, absorb her very essence, let it liven you—”

“Agh…” Nyk moaned. After several seconds, her body lurched up from behind a mess of blueprints and broken glass bottles. “None of this is worth it. I’m quitting. Fuck Valerica.”

Lione’s smile fell. Momo grinned. Taking advantage of Lione’s brief moment of confusion, she dipped down and swatted away the nethergel at her feet with her fiery forearms. It melted quickly, allowing her to sidestep out of the constraints. Lione was still swinging back and forth, unable to stop herself.

“No!” Lione shouted, trying and failing to wiggle out of her own threads. “[Nether Webbing]. [Nether Webbing]. Damn it! This can’t be… my Mana pool…”

Lione’s vacant eyes blazed red.

“For a dokkaebi to to kill another dokkaebi is to kill death itself. You were supposed to fell her, and the blow was supposed to fell you in turn. That – that was supposed to be a killing blow! A final finisher –”

“No,” Momo said, and raised her flaming fist upwards. Lione swung back and forth frenetically in front of her, a moving target. But Momo didn’t need hand-eye coordination to end this. She reached out, and grabbed the duchess by the soul chain. “This is.”

Snap.

—

“You should have seen the look on your face,” Momo giggled. “So funny.”

“I doubt that,” Lione muttered. “Unless you find the look of someone about to be murdered amusing.”

“Of course not,” Momo said, crossing her arms. “But I wasn’t going to murder you.”

Momo had noticed the discrepancy about Lione’s soul chain the moment she cast [Eye of the Nether Demon]. The chain had an unusual little backseat driver attached to the side of it, a parasite: it was shaped like a claw, colored obsidian, and once Momo gave it a good yank, Lione’s eyes instantly cleared and the possession ended. The claw itself evaporated the moment it wasn’t attached to the chain.

“I’ve seen those before. Devil claws. Nasty little parasitic freaks. But I didn’t notice this one,” Nyk said, still wincing everytime she talked. A large purple bruise was forming just below her collarbone. “Annoying as it is to admit, you seem to have better Soul Sight than I do.”

“Oh, don’t get down on yourself, I only got it through a cheat code anyway,” Momo said, shrugging. “[Eye of the Nether Demon]. It’s an Excalibur-level skill, but the System gave it to me by mistake when the Nether was all out of sorts. The upgraded version lets me see injured soul chains specifically. Like yours, and I guess Lione’s, too.”

A shadow crossed Nyk’s face.

“You have a Nether Demon skill?” she said.

“Yeah,” Momo said, squinting. “Is that a bad thing?”

Nyk paused. “Well, it’s not good.”

Lione interrupted them by screaming.

“Robert?” she yelled, aghast. Her wrists were once again tied with rope – an understandable precaution – but she writhed against them now. “Did you… did you kill my baby boy?”

The puddle that was once Robert bubbled on the floor. Momo winced.

“Of course not!” she said, defensive. With the irrefutable evidence staring them both in the face, she backpedaled. “Well, yes, okay, we did. But to be fair, he tried to kill us first. Don’t worry though, we were planning on putting him back together, weren’t we Nyk?”

Nyk stared at her silently.

“Why don’t you go do that,” Momo instructed, glaring back at her. “Slosh him into a bucket and put him in the freezer, right? That should do the trick?”

“Hm. Yes,” Lione sniffled. “That would repair his body. But psychological trauma is forever.”

“Well–”

“I’m on it,” Nyk said, groaning as she stood up and grabbed a bucket and a mop. “Anything is better than listening to you two moan. Momo, let me know when it’s time to leave. Or if the duchess gets another case of the murder-eyes.”

“Will do.”

With Nyk busy, Momo turned to Lione once more. She had a very specific question for her. Something the duchess had only mentioned while possessed.

“Lione,” she said. “What exactly is the husk?”

Lione blinked several times, then she worried her brow.

“The husk…” she mumbled. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Quite a bit. You kept insisting the one who was marked for death would… make the husk thrive, or something? You seemed very sure it was me.”

“Right, yes. The mark, of course,” Lione hummed, eyes widening. “I remember now. It’s the soul chain which triggers the device to enter the next stage of soulfissuremorphosis. The mark dies, the box transforms. I assumed it was you because, well, it is probably you. Sera did hire Nyk to plant the thing on you and kill you, after all.”

“Soulfissurewhatifis?” Momo mumbled, not liking where this was going.

“Soulfissuremorphosis,” Lione corrected. “That’s why it’s called a husk. It is simply a shell that is protecting a growing larva. The spawn of a wraith. Once it has fed on enough souls, it hatches. The marked one serves as the trigger to that stage of its evolution. Without the death of the mark, it will never reach that point. It will just remain a sad little soul-prison.”

Momo felt nauseous. She hated bugs. Especially soul-reaping ones.

She held up the box to her face.

“You’re telling me there’s a gross little death insect in here?" she muttered. "And if I die, it’ll turn into a massive, world-destroying death insect?”

“Sort of,” Lione said, grinning. “Isn’t that wonderful? From a scientific perspective, I mean. Dreadful for other reasons.”

Momo sighed.

“You and I have different definitions of wonderful.”

—

The door to Lione’s apartment closed tightly behind them. From a dim little basement window, Lione and her newly-reformed Robert, who was looking a lot more bucket-shaped than previously, waved goodbye. The streets were still quiet, and the daylight was still as sharp and bright as a gleaming needlepoint.

“So, that was useless,” Nyk said, yawning. “First of all, we learned nothing. Second of all, I nearly had my soul chain melted off my chest. And third, I had to clean up the grossest mess I’ve ever encountered, and I worked a night shift at the Nether Taco Bell.”

Momo remained silent for a moment. She was stuck gazing at the circular top of the Tuberena.

“It wasn’t useless,” she said, finally. “We learned something really important.”

“Yeah?” Nyk said, skeptical. “And what’s that?”

“If the mark really is me... ” Momo whispered. “For as long as I’m in Alois, everyone else is in danger.”