“If you were me, how would you go about stopping a goddess?”

—

The firefighters—nor the universe—offered Momo any good answers.

Instead, like always, it presented her with new problems.

“Momo, are you… seeing that too?”

Momo followed Sumire’s finger as it pointed towards the sky. Momo expected to see a new iteration of climate-based chaos. A flurry of rabid snowflakes. A possessed cloud raining meatballs. But no. Nothing so simple. Instead, she went from rocking back and forth to suddenly sitting upright, back erect and mouth gaping.

She rubbed her eyes several times, but the image remained the same.

Above them was the Nether dome—the [Great Wall of Nether] that was designed to keep out Holy energy, (but notably, not bad weather)—which was gifted to them by Morgana through the Ruler System. But, much more notably, above the dome… was a man. A man with an octopus for a head. An undulating mass of tentacles. He held a broad, golden greatsword, and stood atop the dome as if it was a circular stage. His beady eyes looked down at them, unblinking.

“I’m sorry,” Momo said. “I must be entering some sort of psychosis.”

“You’re not,” Sumire said. “That’s a fucking octopus.”

“...*The* octopus?”

“No. Not Jarva,” Sumire said, swallowing. “It’s Exilo. The first prick to ever be initiated into the Circle of the Sun. Jarva’s number one watchdog. But if he’s here… that means our little torture-for-a-good-cause plan worked. Jarva must be close behind.”

“You know, looking back, provoking Jarva and his Excalibur defense squad right to my doorstep might not have been my wisest idea,” Momo mumbled.

“Eh. We’re in hell already.” Another bus-sized piece of hail bounded off Sumire’s [Holy Enclosure]. “Might as well have all the honored guests in attendance.”

Momo laughed nervously.

“But he can’t get inside, can he?” she asked, watching as the octopus just stared at them blankly from above. “The [Great Wall of Nether] looks like it’s holding strong. Not even that enormous greatsword of his is making a dent.”

“For now,” Sumire said, sighing. “What I don’t understand is why all this shit is happening in concert. Sera, Nerida, Kyros…” Her eyes looked off into the distance for a moment, then her jaw clenched. The pieces had seemed to finally slot together for her, as they had for Azrael. “Momo, they’re working together, aren’t they? A united front against Morgana?”

Momo didn’t dare move a muscle. She didn’t want to invoke the wrath of the [Thief’s Promise].

“I see,” Sumire said, reading her face regardless. “That isn’t great.”

“Theoretically, if that were true—yeah.”

“Lady Sumire. Everyone from the tower is accounted for. Even the chicken-heretics.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

From behind Momo and Sumire, a line of displeased citizens in rooster hats were handcuffed at the wrists. They were all tied together like a line of kindergarteners. At the front of the line, one of Sumire’s recruits stood, awaiting direction.

“Good work. Now comes the matter of escorting them…”

“Can you move the enclosure?” Momo asked. “Use it like an umbrella to cover all of us until we make it to the bunkers?”

“Unfortunately not. The thing is like a tent. I can’t really move it around once I’ve placed it,” Sumire said, frowning. Momo nodded, not surprised. She remembered the [Holy Enclosure] that Vivienne had once used to entrap her back in Nam’Dal—it had worked similarly. “But… how are you feeling, Mana-wise?”

Momo realized at that moment that she already felt a whole lot better. Her mana regen really had improved drastically when she evolved into the Nether Dokkaebi.

Curious, she thought mana check.

MP: 250 / 400

“Oh, wow,” she said, her eyes bugging. “I have that much Mana?!”

Sumire sighed into her hand. “Momo, do you ever even… check your stats?”

Momo blushed. “Of course I do. Sometimes… Maybe a year ago.”

“Okay. That’s a later problem. What I need you to do right now.” Sumire grabbed her hand, and pointed it upwards. “Is to create a barrier like you did to save those dwarf janitors, only above us. A Nether umbrella. Do you think you’re up for it?”

Momo took in an unsteady breath.

“Sure!”

Like a jolly group of tourists, Momo, Sumire, the chicken-devouts, and eventually Nyk—who had been narrowly avoiding getting hailed to death for the past ten minutes—all paraded under Momo’s giant Nether umbrella as absolute hell rained from the skies above. They shuffled quickly east, towards where Teddy and Radu had vanished.

They quickly came upon one of the chicken churches. It had been absolutely desecrated by the weather, its steeples strewn across the pavement, its stained-glass windows shattered. They ran inside, crept over broken benches and fallen sculptures, and discovered a staircase descending underground. All the torches on the way down had been broken, destroyed by wayward debris, so they felt through the darkness until Momo heard voices—hushed whispers and absent chatter. The smell of alcohol, too. Like a tavern at the bottom of a cave system.

After determining that they were far enough underground, Momo deactivated the umbrella.

“Hello?” she called out meekly, her voice echoing through the chamber. She was pressed against an unseeable door. She pushed at it, but the door resisted. It felt like there were several things on the other side propped against it. “It’s, um, your queen. Please let me in.”

“Go away, hail-beast!” a voice cried from the other side. “We will not be vanquished by your relentless blocks of ice, nor your murderous lightning! Stand down, and stay out!”

Momo deflated. Her citizens, bright as always.

Sumire knocked heavy on the door, scowling.

“Let us in you idiots!”

“Sumire?”

It was Akram’s voice coming from the other side. Momo heard the sound of things being shoved and thrown about—furniture cracking—and then the doors yawned open, greeting Momo with the sight of hundreds, nay, thousands, cooped up… in a chicken coop. There were equal amounts of chickens as people. The place was a complete haystack, brimming with lost feathers and artificial grass, eggs and sunlamps.

A chicken was sitting on Akram’s shoulder, absently plucking at his ear. Behind him was Radu, and on top of Radu’s shoulders… was Viktor, holding Baryte in a cage above the crowds. It appeared he was using the undead bird as a beacon of hope for the anxious citizens, swaying the cage hypnotically back and forth and whispering soothing mantras.

“Trust in the bird…” he cooed. “Look to Baryte for salvation…”

“All praise the holy chicken,” the crowd said in chorus, clasping their hands together and bowing their heads in ceremony. “Let he be our shining, skeletal light in times of peril.”

Momo shook her head. It was an unbelievably weird sight, but at least it was working. Everyone seemed much more tranquil than expected given the situation outside.

“Sumire, can you handle everything for a second?” she said, tugging on the other girl’s sleeve. “I just need a moment alone to collect my thoughts.”

“We’re partners, remember?” the other woman said, smirking affectionately. She tipped her nonexistent cowboy hat. “Leave the people-wrangling to me.”

Momo smiled softly at her, placed a kiss on her cheek, and sought out a quiet corner of the coop to figure out how to do the impossible.