It was only when she looked into Nia's eyes that she finally woke from the hunger.

Momo found herself straddling the woman, the last two chains of Nia’s soul dangling from her lips. The two Wraith weapons had slipped from her hands. Her skin was pale, bloodless. Her lips, usually either crooked or pursed, were slightly ajar. She was, in almost every way, a corpse.

But it was her eyes—so startlingly blue and alive, with pupils that grew and shrunk in size with each remaining breath—that cracked the shell on Momo’s sliver of remaining selfhood.

Momo’s own eyes dimmed from demonic red to their regular paper bag brown. She twisted her head like an animal, the last of the soul chain still under her tongue, to see Vivienne lying beside her, breathing heavily. She had bleeding wounds on her neck and her middle. She seemed unconscious.

Momo paled. Did I do that?

She couldn’t remember. All she remembered was the euphoria of consumption. It had felt so good and so pure. Like drinking from the fountain of youth. Her skin felt dewy, her arms strong.

A sudden bitterness struck her. Like chewing on a rancid fish, the taste pierced her tongue and lingered. She spit, releasing Nia’s rotting soul chain onto her chest. It lay there, degrading slowly, evaporating into thin air. She could see the life leaving Nia’s eyes. The woman’s arms trembled as they rose slowly, grasping not for Momo’s throat—like she would have expected, like she would have deserved—but for her hands, for her fingers, interweaving them.

“Can you tell Vivienne I’m sorry?”

“Wait—no, no, no,” Momo croaked out, reaching for the last link of Nia’s soul chain. It burnt her hands like fire, but she kept it held there desperately. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m going to fix this. Just stay with me, okay?”

Nia’s eyes closed.

“No, no, no. I refuse. I refuse,” Momo said. She gripped the infinitesimal remains of Nia’s cindering soul chain between her fingers. “[Soul First Aid].”

You are out of mana.

“Shut up. Shut up. I don’t care. [Soul First Aid].”

A faint blue light sprouted from her fingertips.

It’s working. She could nearly bleed with relief. I can fix this.

She poured every last molecule of Mana within herself towards Nia. The light grew larger and more powerful, encasing the metal link in a protective barrier.

Warning! If you continue to use Mana beyond your limit, you will enter Mana Overdrive!

Momo ignored the warning. The sensation of pain was starting to enter her limbs again; the side effects of [Soul Cannibal] had numbed her pain receptors momentarily, but now she could feel the way her limbs ached. Her ribs were bruised, her body was past the point of exhaustion. She bit down on her lip and screamed, fighting off every instinct to stop and recover.

You are entering Mana Overdrive! For every second that you sustain Mana Overdrive, your chances of permanently injuring your Mana Pathways increases tenfold. This is known as Mana Disease, a near-untreatable magic-affecting condition.

The audio courier sounded like a tinny voice in the back of her head, barely audible. All that powered her forward was the sight of what was developing in her hands—two chain links, not one, layed there now. Through the blaring, biting pain, she grinned, wincing even as she did so. After another second, there were three chains, then four. She sailed from moment to moment with equal parts anguish and glee.

On the fifth chain, Nia’s eyes snapped open. Momo nearly kissed her in joy.

“I’m alive?” she said, voice hoarse.

“You’re alive,” Momo cried.

I saved her. I’m not a monster.

All the adrenaline that had pushed her relentlessly forward drained away in an instant. She slumped, slipping from Nia's side onto the chilly, damp pavement.

Congratulations! For defying all odds and defeating Sera’s ultra-monster, eating away at its Frakensteined soul, and saving your foe from the brink of death (that you caused), you have gained 3 levels in Nether Demon (Purified Variant). You are now level 7.

You have gained the skill [Nether Rapiers – X Formation]

You have gained the skill [Nether Rapiers – T Formation]

You have received the skill [Summon Undead – Husk] from the Soul that you Cannibalized.

You have also contracted Mana Disease.

In that moment, all Momo could think to do—between tears, and bouts of uncontrollable nerve pain—was laugh.

—

“We’ll start rebuilding tomorrow.”

“That’s too soon, Viktor. It’s not like we can reconstruct the fallen apartment buildings in a day. People will be houseless regardless. It’s best if we just send them as temporary refugees to the other cities in Queendom that are offering aid—Drachenheim, Nam’Dal, Mekna, Kalendale. Plus, I don’t feel comfortable acting on any big decisions without knowing what Momo wants. What she intends to do with Nia, especially…”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What to do with her? You mean to tell me there’s an option besides burning her like an effigy in the city square?”

“Ha. If you ask me or you, no, there isn’t. But to Momo, there’s always other options.”

“And look where that’s gotten her. We don’t even know if she’s fit to be a ruler anymore. You know what the medic said…”

“If you say another word, I’ll cut your chicken in half.”

Momo stirred at the sound of Viktor’s yelping.

Her eyes opened to the sight of a pale beige tarp above her. Her body ached, and when she tried to lift her hands, it felt like they were attached to two hundred-pound dumbbells.

Where am I?

With great effort, she tilted her neck to the side. Relief washed over her as she spotted Sumire and Viktor a few paces away, at the opening of a tent. A medical tent. That’s where she was. It made sense; she was flat on her back, draped in a heavy weighted blanket, and she could hear the faint bubbling of potions being stirred. It smelled of rose and sea-salt healing salve.

“Hi,” she croaked softly in greeting. The pirate-knight brightened considerably, practically jumping to her side. Viktor offered a small, but petrified, smile of his own.

Sumire sighed a breath of relief as she squeezed Momo’s numb arm. “You big dumb idiot. You had me scared for a second there.”

Momo frowned. “Scared? Why? How long was I out?”

“Twenty six hours,” Viktor said, gesturing to his softly clicking wrist-watch. “And six minutes.”

Oof.

It hadn’t felt that long. She just remembered nearly killing Nia—then narrowly saving Nia—and then… passing out. She vaguely recalled getting a few levels and upgrades, but not enough to push her into Lesser Goddesshood. Not enough to face Sera head-on and win.

Damn it. I’m close, though. I know I am.

Her plan remained the same: she needed to ascend. Even if she had narrowly saved her mortal empire from utter destruction, the Nether remained in disarray. She still didn’t know how Sera had taken Morgana out of the picture, or where Valerica had gone. And to top it all off, after giving her bracelet to Mallmart Momo, she could no longer communicate with Azrael and check in on things from afar. She was totally shut out, and they were totally shut in.

At the very least, she reminded herself, she had stopped Sera’s plan in its tracks. With an empty Wraith Box and a dead Husk, she had utterly failed to deliver the promised souls to the other gods in the pantheon, and Momo could only imagine—with a growing smile on her face—the price Sera was about to pay for that failure. She terribly wished she could watch the woman get her ass kicked from one deity to the next.

“Momo, we have to talk to you about something.”

Sumire’s voice broke her from her focus. She looked up to find that she was surrounded not just by Sumire and Viktor now, but a medic: a woman in a tidy, white apron and a hat with a red star.

“Yeah?” she said worriedly. The tone of Sumire’s voice put her on edge. “What is it?”

Sumire couldn’t seem to get the words out, so the medic interjected, laying a patient hand on Sumire’s shoulder. “You’ve contracted Mana Disease,” the medic said. “Due to your Mana overexertion. We did several tests on you while you were sleeping, and we’ve determined it’s a rather severe case. Most of your mana pathways have been severely damaged.”

Momo’s insides twisted. The memory of that notification swam back into the front of her mind.

She had received the warning from the System several times, but she had willfully ignored it. There had just been too much at stake; she had no other choice but to push herself to the brink. But now, hearing the warning tone in the woman’s voice, all she felt was a sinking feeling.

“My… mana pathways? So what does that mean?”

“It means your Mana capacity has been severely reduced,” the medic continued softly. “We’re not sure by how much. That’s something only you can tell us. When you’re ready, will you do a mana check for me?”

Nodding numbly, Momo repeated the words aloud, and a courier fell into her lap.

MP: 0/10 (1,000 MP not available to use)

Momo’s eyes bugged.

“Ten?!”

Sumire winced. Viktor bowed his head. The medic sighed, squeezing Momo’s arm again.

“So… what does this mean?” Momo babbled. “I just can’t … use spells anymore?”

“Effectively, yes.”

“And how long will it last? How long does it take to heal from?”

“Healing time is not linear. Sometimes, it never goes away. But the one thing you can do to make sure it doesn’t get worse is to not use Mana,” the medic pressed. “There are special recovery spells that I can show you. Ones that will utilize only the exact amount of Mana that you have left. Hopefully, if you practice them everyday, they will slowly, overtime, strengthen the pathways again. But performing any magic outside of the recovery spells pretty much ensures that this damage will be permanent.”

Momo nodded along to what the medic told her, but the motions felt like they were being orchestrated by a being outside of herself—a puppeteer with strings in her neck. Momo’s entire body felt numb. She wasn’t sure if it had felt that way the whole time, or only now, when she really allowed herself to feel it. The exhaustion had been building not for days, but for months—she had just been ignoring it, shoving it aside and ignoring the warning signs.

I’ve been pushing myself too hard for too long.

“So what can I do?” she said tiredly. “Besides rest?”

“Well, in there lies the good news.”

A spark of hope tore through Momo’s overwhelming hopelessness.

To her surprise, it was Sumire who moved next. She helped Momo into a sitting position, and then placed her two Nether rapiers into her lap. The pointed swords of solid obsidian gleaned in the light, even now. She saw her reflection in them.

“Feats of Strength don’t require Mana,” the medic explained. “Swordsmanship, by itself, is not a magical endeavor. We consulted the System Medic about these swords of yours, and we have determined that they are versatile weapons. They have magical power in their own right, which can be multiplied not only by the user’s Intelligence and Mana, but by the user’s Strength statistic. Of course, your Strength is currently very low compared to your overall level, but if you train it…”

Momo leaned forward despite her aching body, eyes gleaming. “So, wait—what does that mean? That I could maximize the power in these swords without having to use Mana at all?”

“Yes, precisely.” The medic grinned. “Not only that, but, given how high your Intelligence stat is, you could probably very quickly increase your Crafting ability. If you become a competent crafter, you could upgrade these swords into self-casting weapons, and have them fire spells without any Mana of your own being used. Of course, we’re getting ahead of ourselves…”

Momo’s hopelessness had turned completely on its head, and now she was smiling full-force, teeth gleaming. Sure, it would require her worst fear—regular exercise—but if she could find a way to keep leveling up without pushing past her limits, then Lesser Goddess still remained in her sights.

“But.” The medic raised her eyebrows threateningly. “The most important thing, above all, is patience. Your Mana Pathways are no different than your muscles. If you don’t learn to do without overdoing, you will be in the same situation again. But that time…” She gave Momo a grave look. “There will be no upside.”

Momo swallowed.

“Got it,” she nodded.

Harping on the point, the medic demanded that Momo rest her head again, and that her party of onlookers leave her be while they ran some more diagnostics.

With a quick, rib-damaging hug from Sumire, and a salute from Viktor, Momo was left alone once more, gazing at the beige ceiling.

Despite her calm exterior and her aching body, rest was the last thing on her mind. Even though the effects of [Soul Cannibal] had long faded, a hint of that feverish adrenaline still lingered—that hunger. She felt it on the tip of her tongue, red and sugary and ripe.

I’m going to study the damn sword, she thought. And run Sera straight through with it.