Chapter 67: Ch. 66 – Near-Death By A Thousand Cuts

As the gigantic ball of sizzling black cratered into the window, Momo clapped her hands to her ears and ducked.

She waited several seconds, fearing the worst, but... nothing came. She heard no explosive shattering, no cries of pain and suffering. Just a still, awed silence.

Momo opened her eyes, peeking upwards. There was no broken glass. No flying glass shards. Instead, she was greeted by a demonic inversion of the original stain-glass window. What had once been a red and blue depiction of a kneeling knight had turned into its blighted twin – a painting of cracked, black glass.

The [Abysmal Blast] had not shattered the window; the window shattered it. The black magic seeped into the cracks, spreading its ink throughout the entirety of the painted pane. From inside the cracks, it shimmered, shaking unstably. The slight, repetitive motion gave the illusion of looking at a moving picture, a black-and-white movie in glass form.

“Um... how?” Momo stuttered.

“This is incredible,” Salvo said, eyes wide with amazement. Momo got the sense that she had forgotten about escaping entirely – too fascinated with the scientific improbability before her. “It seems the refined sandstone ripped the magic into dismembered shards. Now, the Nether is caught in its scattered web, attempting and failing to merge back together…”

The overcurious bird approached the glass. She hovered a talon over one of the pulsating cracks.

“If I were to inflect a small bit of force on the Nether…” she whispered. “The whole window pane might shatter in an instant.”

“And it might shatter you,” Corv intervened, putting a hand over her shoulder. “It’s too risky, Salvo.”

“I need to know what happens,” Salvo demanded. “This – I’ve never seen something like it.”

“What if I just… move it with my brain?” Momo suggested. “Instead of you risking your life to poke it.”

“Move it with your brain?” Salvo furrowed her eyebrows.

“Yeah. Like I did with the cages, and your handcuffs.”

“It took an immense amount of energy for you to break one cage open. How could you possibly move all of this Nether at once?” Corv said, skeptical.

“If it’s like Salvo said, I won’t have to,” Momo quirked her head. “I just… poke it. But with my mind.”

The criminals stared at her in befuddlement. Momo was starting to get tired of being at the receiving end of that stare.

“Fine,” Salvo said. “I’d rather be alive to see what happens, anyway.”

Wait – why did I agree to this? Momo’s stomach dropped. She could have let the bird poke it, or at least thrown a stone at it from far away. But now that Momo offered, everyone was looking at her expectantly.

She inhaled, and began taking slow steps backwards. Salvo and Corv did the same, shuffling away to join the rest of the prisoners on the sidelines. Momo stood, alone, barely a pebble in the face of the stain-glass monstrosity. The Nether shimmered at her, almost in challenge. It couldn't speak, yet Momo felt it beg. A hundred little disparate voices, begging her to try and move it.

I have to be going insane.

“If I die, tell Valerica I’m sorry I couldn’t deliver her letter,” Momo whimpered, hoping Dusk was nearby to hear. "But also tell her that I would have preferred if she sent it by post instead."

She closed her eyes, quieting the world around her. She reached out with her mana once again, using the [Born Cultivator] ability to tap into the Nether. Finally, lacking better judgement, she poked it.

The glass didn’t so much crack, or break, as implode. An incredible adrenaline rush soared through her, as if she were a fickle god destroying a world on a whim. She felt giddy with excitement, with inconceivable, euphoric, power.

And then she felt a world of pain.

“Momo, move!” Salvo yelled.

Shards of glass flew like jets – etching scathing lines of blood on her exposed skin. She screamed and huddled into a ball, hugging her legs and pressing down on the wounds.

“[Polymorph - Tree Stump]!”

Bleeding cuts turned into cracks of wood, and the endless series of expletives Momo was screaming in her head calmed to a soft stream. Just as emerging from the stump form worsened the pain, entering it softened it. Trees didn’t feel pain in the human way Momo was used to. They simply existed, cracks and all.

Momo blew out a breath. A metaphorical breath, of course.

“Much better,” she sighed.

You are reading story Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) at novel35.com

“Momo… is that… you?” Salvo said, squatting by the stump. Worried tears had formed around her eyes, and Momo immediately felt bad. Seeing a regular human person cry was one thing, but bird tears? It was equally sad as it was unnerving.

“Yes, yes, it’s me!” the Stump said comfortingly. “I’m fine. I think I’m probably bleeding profusely in my regular form, but I’m fine right now.”

Salvo wiped her tears away with her sleeve. “Alright, good. Good. Well, not good. I don’t know how to bandage a stump. But I do have some healing ointment.”

She reached into her robes, extracting a satchel. It had been tucked in a secret compartment in her breastplate, escaping notice from the knights. Unzipping it, she removed a small green flask. It smelled like wood and dirt.

Or maybe that smell was just Momo. Momo sniffed. Mm. Yep. That was just her.

“Should I just apply it to your bark?” Salvo said quizzically. “I have no idea if this will work.”

“I’d rather not waste it,” Momo said begrudgingly. “Let me… go human. One second.”

Her limbs popped back into place, and half the crowd turned away at the display. Momo had never seen it from the third person, but she was sure it was not a pleasant sight.

I probably look like one of those Animorphs covers.

Before she could laugh at her own comparison, she groaned in pain. Not only did everything hurt, but there was a slight film grain on her vision. Everything was black around the edges. A powerful thumping echoed in her head.

All good signs.

“Here, lay down,” Salvo said, propping Momo’s head up on her knee. She poured some of the flask’s liquid onto her hands, and spread it over Momo’s wounds. It stung politely, but not violently. The pain Momo was already in was too great for anything else to overshadow it.

To think my greatest problem in life used to be living in Upstate New York, she thought miserably. Now I’m bleeding out on a bird’s leg.

Minutes passed extraordinarily slowly. She had grown nauseous, and sleepy. Sounds had dulled. Everything was fading away like the final transition of a movie, the circle closing over her.

This is what I get for trying to have my Superman moment. She could have probably manipulated the Nether from a distance, but no. She had to stand there all Rose from Titanic-esque and suffer death by a thousand cuts.

Well, figuratively. She hoped she wasn't really dying. She'd feel too guilty about the failed letter delivery.

After telling herself a few more bad jokes to avoid dwelling on the pain, the black rings around her vision began to recede. She could see Salvo’s beak hovering over her, inspecting her wounds with scientific curiosity. In her momentary coma, she had failed to feel the bird bandage her legs and arms, even applying a small bandaid to her cheek.

“Good as new,” Salvo grinned, giving a thumbs up. “Now, not to rush the healing process or anything, but we should probably jump out the window.”

As her sense of sound came back to her, she heard the clamor of heavy armor coming from beneath the platform.

“Get them!”

Momo whipped her head around to see a legion of knights scrambling towards them. They were like a group of headless chickens – with Vivienne gone, they lacked a leader or direction, and clambered into each other in pursuit of the criminals. They weren’t fast, but they had the advantage of numbers. Not to mention that their presence meant that Vivienne was not far behind.

Momo strained her back and groaned. A light thumping still racketed around her skull like a tennis ball, but she managed to get on her feet. She leaned on Salvo’s feathered shoulder as she limped towards the makeshift exit. Corv and Geff waited by the window, anxiously checking the stampede of metal heading straight towards them.

“Come on, I’ll carry the girl,” Corv said, and Salvo nodded.

“Thank you for your help, friend,” Salvo smiled at Momo kindly before releasing her into Corv’s grip. Momo felt like a hot potato the way she was being passed around. She fell into the bird man's back, grasping at his wings for leverage. He yelped as she death-gripped his feathers.

“Hold onto my shoulders, not my wings!” he instructed, teeth gritted. From beside him, Salvo took off into the sky, spinning and twirling with the same excited tone that she spoke in. Geff was much the same, floating solemnly upwards and gliding like a loaf of bread might, should it have wings.

Momo adjusted her grip, positioning her hands over his shoulders. She jumped, and he caught the underneath of her legs in a piggy-back ride formation. She felt suddenly like a kid again, and that this was all a magical, fantastical game. Unbidden memories of her brother sprouted in her brain. She remembered the soft, clumsy way he'd haul her around the playground, laughing like a maniac as she hugged him for dear life.

But no amount of childhood play could have prepared her for the actual feeling of flight. Corv dove forward with a sprint, catching wind and soaring forwards. Momo nearly choked on air as it spit at her from every direction. Her hair blinded her, whipping like a tornado over her eyes as they soared. Still, she didn't need sight. The sounds of the city filled her ears – the chatter of the marketplace, the soft chirping of birds, the louder chirping of their part-human counterparts.

She had never been more grateful to hear this many voices.

For a wonderful, blissful, too-short moment, she felt free.

You can find story with these keywords: Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG), Read Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG), Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) novel, Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) book, Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) story, Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) full, Momo The Ripper (A Shy Necromancer LitRPG) Latest Chapter