“What?” Dema asked, caught in surprise. “What kinda thing to ask is that? Why would I hate you?”

Theora stared back, equally puzzled. “Because I’m going to kill you.”

Dema made a grimace, scrunching up her face and waving one of her hands. “We don’t know that. Maybe you’re gonna kill me one day. Who knows. Would be a bummer, for sure. But for now, all you actually did was save me.”

“Save you?”

Dema nodded, eyebrows raised as if it was obvious. “You came to the Zenith of the End, shattered that big unbreakable seal, and took me out when I was all lonely. And so far, it’s given me a hundred more years to live in that pretty world of ours. How would I ever hate you?” Dema shook her head gently. “Don’t you get it? You are my saviouress.”

Theora just stared. These words did not fit into her brain. How could that be true? Had Dema lied about the nature of the [Realm] after all? Or did she have a Skill to circumvent it?

Theora being Dema’s saviouress? What a ridiculous notion. No, she was her murderer. She had come to the Zenith of the End with intent, and she’d travelled with her for a hundred years with that selfsame intent. Knowing exactly the only possible outcome involving herself with Dema could ever lead to. How could Dema say something like that? How could she expect Theora to believe it, even in this place?

Can’t lie in the [Realm] of Truth? These rules of the world meant nothing. The only ironclad law of existence was that Theora would never lose. And that wasn’t confidence, it was reality, because she wished for it to be wrong with every fibre of her being, but it wasn’t wrong, and that was the cause of all of her problems.

If she was trapped with a demon in a place where it was impossible for that demon to lose, she’d still win. She would always win. She was the unstoppable force destroying any immovable object.

Right now, she could probably open her mouth, and spout the biggest, most obvious lie, and the words would come out unrestrained. So, could it be that Dema was lying too? That the Ancient Evil had tricked her in some way, to make this illusion come to fruit, this fairy tale where the two of them could be on good terms?

Why, even? Was Dema still trying to betray her? It was pointless. Even if Theora believed what Dema was saying, it would make no difference for any such ploy.

But she couldn’t believe it. Her saviouress? What a word. No. Absolutely not. If she dared seriously entertain that thought for a single second, she’d probably retch.

And yet, it was all too alluring. To play along with this act, to smile, and to spend a while being happy around each other, even if it’s all a lie.

Earlier, Dema had asked what Theora’s favourite scent was, and Theora had immediately derailed the conversation. Of course she had. She couldn’t have possibly answered. A scent that now felt like home, one of coal and ash. Something she would have never thought to love before, because that kind of scent was usually that of destruction and ruin, except she’d now come to associate it with serenity, gleeful mischief, carefreeness, and finding appreciation in everything. To her, it was now simply the scent of Dema.

Coal and ash, what should be the scent of the end, felt to her now like the colours in the air of a new beginning.

And it was all a lie. A lie she so desperately wanted to believe.

“We need to find the Devil,” Theora said, ending her thoughts, because by now, they were hurting too much.

And so, they continued to move through the corridors in silence. Theora wouldn’t give him more of a spectacle; he had better gotten his fill. If he was even listening at all.

As she watched the counter of minutes rinse down, she wondered if he was going to let them circle around until time ran out. By now, there were only three minutes left.

In a way, didn’t that betray his interests? He was on the clock too, after all. If what Dema had said was true, then [Realms] didn’t last forever. Maybe there was some other meaning to the quest’s countdown than the seal’s expiration after all. Maybe he was plotting something.

Not that it mattered. Not that Theora had any interest to find out.

She had already gotten him cornered. She didn’t care about his plans, nor about the rewards, but letting the side quest expire was still not an option, because truth be told, she was just making assumptions.

This was a [Realm], so there was some chance that using [Obliterate] on it would only cause self-contained damage, but she couldn’t say that for sure. The Devil of Truth was an immensely powerful opponent, and tearing something he made out from the fabric of reality in ways that weren’t supposed to happen was always a risk. It would possibly endanger people living in this region. Or, it could leave a gigantic unfixable hole in the world, forever.

That said, if they didn’t find him soon, she’d have no choice. Taking a short breath, Theora decided to ask.

“Dema, do you have a Skill that could cut a corner here? Get us to the dining hall somehow?”

Upon being asked that, Dema turned her in a bright cheer. “Why, little rabbit, relying on me again!” But then, she sighed, looking around. “Am a little hesitant, not gonna lie, but if you ask like that, I just can’t resist.” Her eyes turned unfocussed for a moment, maybe in consultation of her stat sheet. “This ain’t it… this won’t do, either… That one’s gonna make the little rabbit unhappy,” she mumbled. She ruffled her hair. “Damn, doing this without destroying the world is so hard!”

“Dema,” Theora intoned, and the amber eyes perked up into her direction.

“Oh my? Am I gonna get scolded again?”

“We are about to face off a rather capable being, with the aim to destroy it before it can deliver further suffering on uninvolved lives. We likely won’t be able to avoid inflicting some damage. This is different from demolishing a landmark to sidestep a detour. The harm you do won’t be truly permanent in the sense that mine would be. That is why I ask.”

Listening to this, Dema started smirking, her eyes catching a golden glow. “So, you telling me I can let loose?”

“You can let loose.”

The moment Dema heard those words, she stopped thinking or going through a stat screen or worrying. “That’s nice, so I get to be angry after all. That damn guy had my blood boiling for a while.”

It was like threads that had been holding her in place were cut away, her body shifting in a manner Theora hadn’t seen before. Her grin wasn’t simply mischievous now, it was downright frenzied. With that, blood spilled out from all of her pores. It gathered around her in swirling, floating bubbles, all daring to explode any second.

“I’m gonna try and pull him out, but it’s still his [Realm], and he ain’t gonna like it,” Dema said as the tension in her legs made her stand on her forefeet. “You’re not gonna abandon me when he comes to beat me up, are you?”

“I might not be able to keep him from damaging you,” Theora began. “But ultimately, you are always safe with me.”

Dema bit her lip. She formed a claw with one of her hands, then snapped finger after finger into a fist with boney cracks, releasing more dashes of her blood into the air. “Damn, making my heart flutter. That’s good enough for me.”

With these words, she bashed her fist into the wall. There was something chilling even for Theora in seeing a scrawny little figure like Dema stretch her muscles to the brink and pierce stone bricks, her coat whirling around her from the impact of her blow.

Her arm plunged deep inside, cracks issuing out in all directions. But, there was something unnatural about it — instead of destroying the wall, she had wounded it. As if the stone had come alive, it wobbled ever so slightly around her injection point, trying to pull away, but she held firm.

Then, as if she had become a heart, her body pumped endless amounts of blood into the building with rhythmic pulses. The building didn’t like it. It tried to push the blood out from the cracks, but Dema kept worming her way back in, relentlessly.

Meanwhile, Theora could feel Dema unleash more of her power through a drowning hum in the air. The effects didn’t become apparent until, suddenly, with an enormous jerking motion passing through it, the world collapsed.

The corridor ceased to exist, folding into itself like paper, until all that Theora saw around them was a kaleidoscope of black on black — except for the wounded part of the wall that Dema still held firm. An empty space, an endless space, but at the same time, it seemed oppressive and discomforting, narrow and confining.

“Given up on reality really fast, huh? What a big scam your name is,” Dema sneered, waving her head around as if speaking to everything.

A moment later, her eyes widened. “Oh my! Gotcha!”

Her entire body violently pulled on the wound, until her hand emerged from it, holding something by its horn. It was one smooth motion, like dragging out a massive parasitic worm through too small an opening out of sick skin. Blood gushed from the crack in waves, as the kaleidoscope around them shattered.

Time remaining: 46 seconds.

They found themselves in a hospital’s dining hall.

Theora’s eyes flickered around. Half-dried blood on the ceiling and the walls. No bodies, but this was enough. There would be no negotiations. This blemish could not be suffered in this world.

Her gaze calmed down on the creature Dema had retrieved out from its hiding space. She still held it by one of the horns on its head. Soaked in her blood, it was a demon wearing the guise of an angry looking young man, clad in a suit of the likes Theora hadn’t seen before; prim and proper, chequered patterns across it. He had a small piece of black silky cloth wrapped tightly around his neck, with its long tail hanging down the middle of his chest.

His suit was a tight fit, his cheeks clean and smooth, and his hair cut to perfection. His outfit was only tarnished by Dema’s blood and the fact she’d wrinkled his clothes.

In his fury, he swung his hand adorned with claw-like long black fingernails, cutting off Dema’s arm to free himself. Then, he pushed his other hand through her heart, holding her up, impaled. A soft rasp echoed from her throat.

“The Ancient Evil?” He squinted at her with a slick voice running down any consciousness that might hear it like hot oil. “You escaped the Cube of Solitude? And then came right here to die. Pathetic.”

“Leave her,” Theora intoned, calm as the sea on a windless day. “She was merely knocking at your door.”

As the Devil of Truth turned around to face her, his muscles lost tension, and he dropped Dema to the ground, who remained there, coughing and curling up with a pool of blood spreading beneath her.

“Oh, it’s you? What a grave misfortune,” he drawled, speaking mostly into the air around him, as his features flared up in recognition upon seeing Theora’s face. At the same time, she could feel an intricate clockwork of hundreds of Skills activating within him. Small red lightning sparks arcing over his body hinted at the power he was building, like getting ready to move a mountain, destroy a star, or oppose Theora.

“A true shame. Had I known the Roaming Blight was still alive, I would have stayed dormant in hell.”

Time remaining: 2 seconds.