Momo woke up to the feeling of getting punched directly in the gut.
She gagged, and water spilled out of her: through her mouth, through her nostrils, maybe even through her ears. She wheezed and coughed until she had expelled nearly a gallon of fluid.
“You alive?”
It was only after Momo could breathe again that she registered a body hovering over her own.
It was a clone of herself, dressed in tattered leather armor, with a battleax discarded to her side. This clone was built like a barbarian—veins popping out of forearms, a chiseled jawline, six pack abs. It was extremely hard to imagine that this was a version of herself, even despite the obvious similarities. They were still the same height, with the same button nose and pockmarked dimples.
“I–I,” Momo babbled, then spat out the last remaining bit of phlegm-water. “Yes?”
Realizing she’d been hauled out onto the lip of the beach like a hooked fish, Momo turned her head to look back toward the pool. The Siren was lying in a deadened pile of flesh upon the surface of the water, still and unmoving. Momo could barely process what she was seeing. Her head was still thrumming, her ears ringing.
“I think you dropped this,” her clone said, offering her the Siren’s decapitated head. Momo took it, still dazed. “You have slain quite the beast. I’m unsure how I ended up here, but I am always attracted to great feats of battle, so I am not surprised. Well done, warrior.”
As her feelings of imminent drowning faded, a rush of excitement sprouted in Momo’s chest, and she scrambled upwards. Taking off from the ground, she flew around to the back of the siren, and found that her targets had indeed landed their mark—three giant sword-shaped gashes had pierced the glands in the back of the siren. When Momo touched the flesh of the glands, pieces of brain-like gore leaked out of them.
Gross. Gross. Gross. Momo covered her mouth automatically to keep from throwing up.
“Well done indeed!”
She whipped around to find Kezko with his arm wrapped around her clone’s shoulder, giving Momo a dazzlingly grotesque smile. Anger burst through her at the sight of him—he had left her alone to fight what was described as an unkillable beast, after all—but she didn’t have the opportunity to let it out. Something much more important caught her eye before she could.
A piece of parchment, hiding discreetly in the sand. It was lying just where Barbarian-Momo had seemingly dragged her body out of the water and laid her to thaw out on the beachside.
She immediately dove down to it, her feet burying in the icey sand as she took it into her hands.
Congratulations!
You have taken down the Siren of Astervad, a Mythic-ranked creature. These types of monsters are endemic to every single planet in the universe, in one way, shape, or form. Removing one is like taking a peg out of the Nether web of information, meaning it will reincarnate as a new Mythic creature very soon, and terrorize a new generation. Fun!
Tip: Don’t get too cozy, because it might be coming for you!
Before she could read down the rest of the page, Momo momentarily set down the paper, her hands shaking with anger as he did so. She fixed her sights on Kezko.
“Kezko, did you know about this?”
“Know about what, darling?”
She stared at his face of genuine confusion.
“It says,” she started, jaw clenching. “Now that I’ve killed the Siren, it's going to reincarnate as a new mythic creature—and come after me?”
He laughed lightly, with zero shame. “Well, yes. Of course. I figured it’ll be much easier for you to continue experience-grinding that way, since mythics typically seek the one that killed them after their rebirth. No monster-hunting required, since the monster will hunt you!”
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Momo’s stomach sank even further. Great. Yet another thing to keep her awake at night.
“And how long exactly before it… rebirths?”
Kezko shrugged. “Could be an hour. Could be a day. Could be forever. It depends on how eager the Nether System Administrators are on killing you. You wouldn’t happen to have made any enemies among their ranks, have you?”
Momo groaned, recalling all at once every passive aggressive piece of parchment she’d received since coming to Alois.
She’d pissed off only, like, all of them. And now that Kyros was purportedly in charge, they had even more of a reason to go after her. If she were a betting woman, she’d put down her entire savings on the fact that this mythic creature would reincarnate within the week, at the least convenient time for Momo, and bash her skull in.
“Sumire just rebuilt our capital from the ground up for the second time in a year,” Momo said, breathing inward sharply. “Did you maybe consider that I wouldn’t want a mythic-grade monster spawning in my house?”
He frowned. “Well, I’ve never been one to care about the consequences of my battles on city infrastructure, so no. You said you wanted to gain experience as quickly as possible, even despite your ongoing Mana Disease, and I’ve done nothing but help you toward the goal.”
She bit her tongue. He wasn’t wrong.
Still, she couldn’t just avoid going back to Morganium forever. She wasn’t about to repeat her stint from last year of avoiding Sumire and all her friends just because she was afraid they might get hurt. If she really was on the course to ascend to Lesser Godhood, she wasn’t going to do it without saying goodbye to the people who helped her get here.
She stared at the Siren lying there in a dead heep, and an idea started brewing in the back of her mind. While she couldn’t see its soul chain, she imagined it was still intact. Only once it disintegrated and went back to the Nether would the reincarnation process begin. But if something was to disrupt that process—say, to consume the soul—
“Kezko,” she interjected. “My sword. The Nether Rapier. Is it possible to… destroy it?”
But it wasn’t Kezko that answered. Strangely enough, it was her clone, who had been standing there at the lip of the lake wringing out her drenched clothing. Unlike Mallmart Momo, this clone seemed to take much more quickly to the idea of appearing mid-battle in some insane fantasy world. In fact, she didn’t seem fazed at all.
“Is your weapon made of Nether?” the clone asked, shrugging her semi-dried shirt back over her shoulders. “If so, it is possible. But only by using holy light or a holy weapon.”
Momo’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I’m sorry, are you… are you from around here?”
The clone reached for her battleax and slung it over her shoulders.
“What is here, exactly?” she yawned.
“Um, Alois?”
“Don’t have a clue what an Al-oys is,” she said. “But I do know about the Nether. Haven’t been there myself, but I am a weapon’s expert, so I’ve played with a Nether sword or two. Only time I’ve seen one break is when someone took a Holy Cleaver and sliced it in half. Made all the particles disperse.”
Momo blinked in amazement at her clone.
“So your world is a part of the System too, then?”
“Sure is. Although I’m not sure I’d call it my world,” her clone answered. “I’m originally from Earth, but some weirdo necromancer decided to pull me across the planes to the Isle of Vasqua a few years back. Had to ditch that necromancer business real fast, so I took up the weapon craft. Been battling monsters and fixing up peoples’ dangerous toys ever since.”
Momo’s cheeks heated, and she cleared her throat.
“Right. Because who would ever choose to get involved with that obviously evil necromancer business…” she trailed off.
Her clone cracked a smile. “Don’t try to fool me with all that, other-me. I know a plane traversal when I see it. I probably only got a few minutes left on this one before I get zapped back to that crocodile I was wrestling. But this was a welcome distraction—he was a real biter.” She flexed her arm, showing off the red imprint of giant crocodile teeth. “Reminded me of our old cat Luna.”
Momo laughed in disbelief. She really liked this version of herself.
“If that’s the case,” Momo began, staring down at the sizzling black of her sword, before she turned to look at Kezko. “I have this skill called [Soul Cannibal]. It’s a really nasty skill that… well… it’s in the name. But it allows me to keep a soul stored inside of me, only to be released when I die. It also allows me to steal a skill from whoever I kill.”
Kezko’s eyes gleamed. “You want to cast [Soul Cannibal] using the sword.”
“Yes,” Momo said slowly, nervously. “But only if I can be sure that when I’m done using the Siren’s borrowed powers, I can destroy the sword, and free its soul again.”
She had always thought that she’d never use that skill again after the Husk, but if she could find a way to only trap the souls—and their corresponding skills—temporarily, then that would be as good a loophole as any. It would prevent the Siren from respawning at an inconvenient time, and it would allow her to go around and accumulate skills from any powerful creature she could get her hands on.
It’d be semi-ethical soul cannibalism.
“As long as you can find a holy magic user to chop it in half for you,” Barbarian-Momo said, her skin already flickering in the light—it was just a matter of time now before she dissipated. “You’re dandy.”
Momo nodded decisively.
She could think of quite a few holy magic users who’d happily cut her weapon in half.
“It’s settled, then,” she said, and raised her rapier over her head, pointing toward the pool of shimmering water. “Time to pause the reincarnation cycle.”