“Venice,” Momo said. “I didn’t expect to see… you.”
The dokkaebi, who was floating just above the platform, landed slowly onto the stone. His eyes drifted beyond Momo’s shoulder to regard the Nether demon, which was breathing heavily behind her. Its shoulders were hunched protectively, analyzing the new intruder.
And though Momo probably looked a lot less threatening in her skepticism than it did—she felt exactly like her demonic counterpart in that moment. Because this sudden interruption felt… wrong. Out of place, like a jarring scene in otherwise convincing play.
“Are you… part of this? The trials?” Momo asked, watching him closely. She didn’t want any surprises.
“I am,” he confessed easily.
Momo’s eyebrows rose. She hadn’t expected him to be so upfront about it. Perhaps she had gotten too accustomed to Valerica’s chronic evasiveness.
“Oh?” she said, stepping toward him. To her surprise, his aura was like a pressure field. She wondered just how powerful a natural-born dokkaebi could be. “And are you going to tell me what your involvement is, or I am going to have to guess?”
Venice laughed. “I will be much more direct.”
He raised his hand and pointed a blackened finger toward the Nether demon.
“Wait, what are you—”
Momo’s mouth opened in shock, feeling a devastating premonition wash over her even before the spell fired off— a white tendril of magic that curled through the air and stabbed right through her shadow’s chest.
“No!” she yelled, barreling into Venice. “Stop it!”
They were on the ground, Venice splayed out on the stone with a greedy smile, Momo hyperventilating on top of him, when the Nether demon screeched.
Momo scowled at him. “What’s wrong with you? It wasn’t doing anything!”
He scoffed, not reacting as Momo lifted him by the collar of his shirt. “What’s wrong with you? I was only making your life easier. Taking care of that thing so we could have a bit of quiet conversation.”
She nearly tore his collar from his pale neck. “That thing did not need taking care of.”
A shadow swooped over them. Momo could see the reflection of the monstrosity in Venice’s eyes, and her heart nearly stopped at the sight.
The shadow—it was crying.
Even without eyes. Wet tears were cascading over an otherwise plain face.
That was the first thing Momo noticed, before everything else. Then—in exact order—she saw the talons, the teeth, the grotesque dimensions of its expanded maw, and finally the inner wall of its dark throat as it attempted to swallow them whole.
Venice rolled them out of the way, and the demon landed with a shuddering thud on the pavement, its mouth closing around nothing but stone. It didn’t seem to care, though—because it immediately locked onto them again, neck cracking in their direction.
Momo angrily disentangled herself from the dokkaebi, pushing him off of her as she shakily got to her feet. She threw her hands up like two white flags—spread her feet and breathed slowly.
“It’s okay,” she called out, breaths falling hazardously from her lungs as she met the demon’s gaze head on. “I’m not going to let him hurt you again.”
The beast cried out at her. It was a sound like a plate shattering.
Venice let out an incredulous laugh behind her. “Are you seriously defending a monster?”
“She isn’t a monster,” Momo said, frowning with certainty. She had seen it herself. This creature was not innately murderous. It simply reflected what it was given. “It’s just a collection of fears.”
Venice bent on his knee and dragged himself off the pavement, muttering as he said, “I do not think what it is composed of matters as much as the fact that it wants to cannibalize us.”
“It didn’t want to even go near you until you struck it out of nowhere,” Momo snapped. The demon was twitching in front of her—the physical manifestation of a mind caught between two competing desires. “I think—I think it just reflects whatever behavior it sees. It’s like a mirror.”
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“Ah,” Venice breathed, appearing behind her and placing a cold hand on her shoulder. “So like a problematic child. In that case, let us correct it. Together. How about that, cousin?”
Her face molten hot, Momo turned to him and growled, “Don’t you dare.”
“Do you seriously think you can clear this trial without killing it?” he scoffed.
Momo blinked at him, taken aback. “Is there—is there really no other way?”
A blithing pain rocked through Momo. She cried out, her vision tunneling into a slim corridor as she finally noticed the demon below her, its hand buried in her chest cavity. It had moved so quickly she hadn’t even picked up on it—either that, or she had been too distracted by emotion to see it coming. She gripped the demon’s wrist with both her hands.
“Stop it! That hurts!” she cried, trying and failing to push the demon’s fist out of her. Venice regarded her from the side, his eyebrows raised minutely but showing no further emotion.
The demon’s damp plane of skin towered over her, its fist writhing in her gut. Momo’s entire world was twisting in pain, as if the very concept of fear and loathing had buried itself beneath her skin. Flashes of memories tore through her. Her mother on her first day of elementary school, not holding Momo’s hand even after she asked. Her brother running headfirst into a pole, bleeding from the head while Momo was supposed to be watching him.
It was as if the attack was more than physical—it was existential. The demon was pouring itself into her, like a negative torrent of energy. Screaming, writhing, crying.
Low HP Warning!
“Would you like my help now?”
Venice’s voice was grainy. It echoed like it came from a far away corridor.
Even in all of her anguish, Momo croaked out, “No.”
The creature’s hand swam through her ribcage and gripped around her beating heart. Momo heard a soft squeal from the rodent that lived there. The sound was small and terrified.
At that noise, Momo’s eyes snapped open, as if pried savagely from a dream.
“Take what you want from me,” she said, blood tinny on her lips. “But you will leave the gerbil out of this.”
In a flight of lucidity, Momo let go of the demon’s hands, and instead gripped onto the sides of its face. Pressing hard to its rubbery flesh, she screamed, “[Nether Demon — Purify]!”
The pain did not stop, but the writhing paused.
She could feel its hands still in her chest, twitching as they brushed up against raw muscle. Momo tried not to throw up at the very feeling of it, keeping all her energy pointed toward the being in front of her as she flowed every ounce of feeling into that spell— a spell that was never given to her. A spell which she, at this very moment, was attempting to create.
Because Momo was a god now.
And if she wanted to—she fucking would.
“P–urify?” the demon mumbled. Its voice was both hollow and curious.
Momo fell to her knees, and took the creature with her. She felt entirely faint, a high-pitched buzzing in her ears as she gripped the shadowy creature with every atom of her being.
She nodded, and smiled weakly, her vision starting to tunnel again. “Yes. [Purify].”
The demon nodded back at her.
White light began to pour from Momo’s palms onto the demon’s skin, encasing it in a shimmering glow. Warmth building between them, the creature withdrew its hand completely from Momo’s chest, and strewed its bloody fingers along Momo’s cheek, matching her action. Momo had the thought that they might have looked like a beautiful, morbid painting then— two demons, two angels, two fearful girls, lorded over by some watching gargoyle.
A gargoyle who could not resist adding, “You will die soon, you know. You are close.”
Momo knew he was right. And yet she only felt euphoria as her System pinged in her ear.
Purification Complete
Nether Demon (lvl. 102) —> Nether Demon (Purified Variant) (lvl. 102)
The demon’s face began to change. Two eyes carved themselves into skin. Its pupils were black, but expressive. Tiny bubbles of white swam in them.
“Beautiful,” Momo whispered.
The creature let go of Momo’s cheeks, and pressed its red fingers to its own eyes, as if surprised by their emergence. When it let go of them, its face was stained with blood, but yet somehow it never looked more childish and naive— simple and curious.
“Free,” it said, eyes narrowing, then opening. “Free?”
Momo couldn’t help the ginormous smile that formed on her face. She nodded again.
“Free.”
Dungeon of the Dark Divine
Trial Complete: Nether Demon
Trial 3 / 3 Complete
Objective failed: Kill your demons
As the words materialized in a shimmering plane before Momo, the platform began to shake.
Knowing her health was dwindling toward a final point, Momo cast, “[Dark Healing],” pressing her hand to her own chest, but not daring to enter the cavity. Black tendrils began to seep their way inside of her, working their way through disjointed bone and flesh.
Venice squatted in front of her, entering the tunnel of her vision with a scowl.
“That should not have been possible,” he seethed.
Momo shrugged. She was feeling so many emotions in that moment, they all somehow managed to meld together into a pleasant apathy.
“A little imagination goes a long way,” she replied.
The sky above them began to break open. Light was pouring in through the crack.
Venice looked to the sky, then back to Momo. Something cold drifted over his eyes, as if a wall had erupted inside of his mind. A decision made. One that she was not privy to.
“It appears,” he breathed. “You have forced me into a corner.”
Momo looked at him, bewildered. He got closer to her. She did not enjoy the proximity.
He sighed and stuck his hand through the open wound in her chest, grabbing tightly around her exposed organ— and before she could react, his talons were through her.
“May Morgana be merciful,” he whispered, a plea for himself, not her.
And then—everything was black. Not black, but gone. Momo’s lips stilled, half-spoken, and her eyes drained of life. Her body crumpled flat to the platform. Venice withdrew his hand, and with it, a skeletal gerbil. He stared at the creature with flat eyes.
“To think,” he said. “Something so small was driving something so stubborn.”