[New Scarlet, It's About To Pop Off!]
Scarlet blinked, a frown tilting her lips downward as she sucked in the disrespectful vampire in a single breath and let out a confused sigh while staring down at the hole in her chest. She tried to access the memory banks within her Intelligence…yet she was met by a wall.
“Frustrating… Mmm. Now, how did this get here… I can’t remember.” Lifting her gaze to the shaky vampires, she sensed quite the variation within their spiritual potential and current soul outputs. She felt so…weak—she couldn’t even peer past the 7th dimension—yet she was still far greater than these insects.
“Can any of you tell me about this hole… You?” she asked, pointing a clawed finger at the terrified mist fiend before flashing her teeth and pointing at her chest as it healed. “Did you take my heart?”
“No—”
He barely got the words out before he was bloody mist, pulled into her body, eliciting a second flinch from them.
“Shame. You, skinny girl?”
“I…I—”
Fog formed around them as the older vampire expanded her spiritual pressure to its maximum output. It at least drew her attention as the younger and far less powerful mist fiend almost fainted on the spot, her body burning through an enormous amount of blood to maintain her panicked spiritual shield, not that it would be much help.
“You…are not the girl that just killed herself… You are a monster that has taken her form. Your foul energy is suffocating. I am Baroness Belleza Melchiott, and though I may die, the God Emperor will slaughter you for what you have done. Run, Kastilla. I have not sensed such a dense soul since standing in His Holiness’ presence.”
“I…understand, Mother.”
Kastilla converted her body into spiritual mist, reshaping her soul to escape. Scarlet debated stopping her, but it might be more fun to catch her later. She was so thirsty. She was patient and disciplined, though. There were quite a few powerful individuals in this world that might give her answers. Well, it was more like they were moving just outside dimensional lines, which was fine and dandy.
Interest lifting by the second, Scarlet’s eyes followed the two teenage girls’ leave in much the same way; it was obvious that the older one didn’t quite have a full grasp on utilizing her spirit. However, the smaller, tiny-fanged teen with ruby eyes was very skilled, slipping into the blood network of her castle. She wasn’t sure why, but there was this nagging itch in her chest to allow them to escape. The teen took her daughter’s corpse with her. Daughter? Strange. Things were strange right now…but also intriguing.
“Unnaturally kind of you to allow them time to retreat,” Belleza muttered. “I would have used the other two as shields… Alas, I feel you hold no attachment to them. You truly are some other entity.”
“Oh?” Scarlet asked, elbow resting in the air to press a finger against her temple. “And who are you referring to? I am Scarlet…and that is all I know.”
She tilted her head to the side, vision peering past layers of dimensional lines like folding paper to see Belleza’s whole life—her torturous upbringing at the hand of her cruel mother, her murder of her three sisters and one of her brothers who challenged her rise to the family head…her unnatural love for her daughter.
“Mmm-hehe. Not entirely true. I know everything about you. You’re so…primitive. Hahaha! Yet, you hold honor beyond your frail species. How wasted.”
Belleza strolled forward, her thin eyes attempting not to shake from the fear she felt from her expanded spiritual pressure. It was so close that she wanted to smack the woman across the face and tell her to do it right. She could have been something far more interesting…such as those other two teens with the dying Existence Seeds within their Core.
Now, there was something to look into, but there was something about a mother’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her daughter that made her stay. Stopping in front of her, Belleza focused, her face filled with anger and humiliation as Scarlet simply watched her approach.
“Why…don’t you kill me?”
Laughter bubbled out of Scarlet’s lungs as she shook, hand pressed against her chest as the mirth rolled through her entire being. The mist grew so dense that it appeared as a solid wall around them, creating a sphere.
“Why? Because…you’re funny!”
“Insolence!”
“Look at you,” Scarlet cheered, showing her fangs, “struggling to keep the tears in…from letting your daughter see your weakness…to keep your legs steady…condensing all your spiritual pressure as tightly as you can to try and isolate me inside a misty realm. You’re so, so, so close! You just don’t get it, though,” she sighed, scratching her neck. “It’s kind of making me depressed watching you scramble around in the dark for the solution.”
Her smile grew. “Why don’t I teach you?”
“Teach me…what?” Belleza snarled through clenched teeth. “Are you saying you can overpower my mist even if I perfect my technique into a Noblesse Domain?”
“Noblesse Domain? Aww. Cute. You came up with your own name!” Scarlet mused. “No wonder you’re having trouble realizing it, though. You’re looking in the wrong place! Your Noblesse Domain, as you call it…is in you!”
Belleza’s barely restrained hatred broke with stunned realization as Scarlet effortlessly poked through her condensing shell to jab her in the chest.
“That’s right! You can’t go expelling all your spiritual force outward when it’s supposed to be turned inward.” Anticipation lit in Scarlet’s eyes as the mist began to reverse. “That’s it! You can do it!”
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Leaning forward, Scarlet’s fingers dug into her thighs, breaking through the fabric and into her bone, only for the vessel to be healed instantly. “A Soul is made of three ingredients: the Intelligence, the spirit, and the body, but which came first?”
A quake ran down Belleza’s frame as she stared into her manic eyes. “You’re…teaching me before you end my existence… Why?”
“Hahaha! Because I think it’s fun. So…I’ll give you three strikes. Without consequences, games are no fun!”
Belleza shrank back a little, her spirit wavering and making Scarlet’s vision narrow. “You’re insane. And…if I fail. You will kill me?”
“Kill you?” Scarlet laughed, giving her an incredulous look. “And where is the fun in that? No… I’ll kill your daughter…and feed her to you. Isn’t that fun? Just like you did to your sisters. Hahaha!”
The woman’s chest seized, the mist collapsing around them as Scarlet laughed. “You… How did you—what are you?”
“I told you already,” she frowned. “I’m Scarlet. So don’t ask things you already learned…or I’ll start shaving slivers off your dear daughter’s soul. You don’t want me to get bored.”
Her face lit up as she lifted her hand to form three claw marks out of blood between them. “Oh! I’ll make you a deal. Survive the three strikes…and I’ll allow your daughter to live. Does that motivate you? Hah! I knew it would,” she clapped, “So show me you’re a good student and amaze me with your Noblesse Domain!”
“Fine… Which came first? The spirit since it forms the body around it to be enlightened with Intelligence.”
Scarlet hissed, slashing a mark. “Ooh. Wrong.”
“What?! No. That is how we understand it!”
“And I’m telling you, it is wrong!” Scarlet huffed, slapping the stunned vampire across the face and forcing her head to the side. “Listen carefully! The Intelligence is the acting force, the guidance, the beginning and end. As the spirit longs for a physical form, the Intelligence seeks a medium by which it can enact its will—spirit. So, Intelligence is that which cannot be created or destroyed…but it can be rewritten! Hehehe.”
Tears fell down Belleza’s cheeks, partly from the pain enacted on every aspect of her being and partly from the lost lifeline for her daughter. “I…thought this was about my Noblesse Domain. Not stupid lessons about our origin.”
“No, no, no! Another point off from questioning the master,” Scarlet chided, making the woman cry out as she dismissed another mark in the air.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” she choked, falling to her knees. “Just…tell me what I need to do to make you happy!”
Scarlet smiled at her groveling, knowing it was unnatural for the mother, yet it appeared she valued her spiritual line over her pride as a noble. For some reason, this resonated with her.
“Gah! Why am I so muddlebrained right now? It’s unnatural; I’m unnatural right now! It makes no sense when everything in this universe makes sense to me! I cannot look into my own soul, which means something is…mmrrm, interfering, but we can deal with that later. Right, my little pet?! Next, actions…
“Draw in your spiritual focus…condense it, send it to your very Core, and reach inside. Name it; give it form. It’s easier to manifest if you act it out. Intelligence, spirit, and body… So, spread your inner truth out—expand your soul.”
Belleza sank her fingers into her belly, following her instructions to a T; after all, she’d been so close already. Her hands seemed to phase right through her skin as they reached for her unique Spiritual Core, folding them around her gathered spiritual pressure and shaping it to her inner desires to manifest her truth into reality.
Irises flashing a pure gray, Belleza’s black locks dyed white as snow, and a tight sphere expanded to engulf them both, taking them into a prison realm. All senses died, only allowing the shocked woman’s laughing voice to be heard.
“Noblesse Domain: Prison of the Endless Mists! Hah-hahaha! I…did it! I can create a Noblesse Domain! I can—”
Lifting her hands, Scarlet smacked them together. Clapping echoed through the soundless space as Belleza’s words trailed off.
“What…how?”
“Hehehe. So ignorant!” Scarlet unfolded her legs, stood, and stepped through the large expanse to stand in front of the bewildered baroness as the woman dropped to her knees, holding her gut as if sick. “Do you really expect to hold someone like me in this tiny Soul Expansion? Really. You need a little humility. But…”
Belleza flinched as Scarlet spread her dress and crouched down to pat her on the head like the kind mistress she was. “…You did manage to do it! I’m so proud.”
Reserved hope filled her red, teary eyes as Belleza looked up at her. “…My daughter?”
“She’ll live,” Scarlet chimed. “You, on the other hand…will get to see what a real Soul Expansion is like. You see, the only way to combat a Soul Expansion…is with your own. So join me for eternity…”
Removing her hand from her head, Scarlet held it in front of the wide-eyed, bony baroness’ face as colors the woman had never seen before danced around her fingers—Eldritch Force.
Mesmerized, she couldn’t look away while Scarlet’s form flickered with her malleable soul, drifting between every entity that swam with her while slipping her fingers through her breast. She reached deeper, deeper, and deeper still, latching onto her Core to find the box that was keeping secrets from her—the box she couldn’t open.
If she couldn’t gain answers about herself from it, then she’d get it from the blueprint of the maelstrom itself. Scarlet gripped the indestructible box and spoke the words that reached every soul on the planet, stopping time itself.
“Eldritch Soul Expansion: Swim in the Red Sea.”
A red sphere smothered the misty prison, consuming Belleza in an instant and enclosing the entire castle with its guests. It didn’t have an origin point in time or space. There was no escape. All those inside it were plunged into its murky depths, welcoming any who would join—not that any could since the flow of time had ceased within her Eldritch-tainted soul.
The castle was stripped away, leaving nothing but a swirling mass of open blood, thousands of teenage girls, vampires, citizens, and other beings floating within its still embrace. The small-fanged teen had tried to evacuate those under her rule, and Scarlet now saw her entire existence laid bare. She went by Elizabeth now, but her daughter called her another name a few months past.
Yet, agitation twisted Scarlet’s nose as she straightened, the mist fiend and her whole expanded soul being swept within the depths of the sea. It was too small. Her soul was far, far too small. It should have engulfed the entire multiverse…but there was a wall she’d struck—her own wall.
“I’m locked to the 3rd-dimensional sphere…This is the maximum my soul can expand at this level. I knew it. Something is wrong with me. Hmm. And it seems I have a few guests to entertain. Welcome…to the Red Sea.”
Scarlet licked her lips, tasting the essence she’d stripped from the castle itself, and turned in the consuming liquid to stare at the foreign Eldritch beings that now faced her, a smile lighting her shining eyes. She saw every angle, felt every Intelligence impulse, and peered through their warped souls to their inception. Yet, one made her dismiss every other soul within her expanse.
A black-furred, humanoid hare radiated a counter Eldritch Force for her and the other horrors that had risen to stand against her: Divine Eldritch Force—the Mecroaf. This hare and her little Soul Item were different, though…far different…borrowing the power…more refined…convoluted…powerful.
“Rachel Park… Sung-Hyo Park…the Limpid Hare of Misfortune…hehehe… The Incarnation of Karma. You go by many more names, Herald of the Black Moon. I can sense the goddess supporting you just beyond sight, trying her hardest to bring you up to my level. So cute. Oh, but the secrets you hold within that cramped soul of yours are…tantalizing. Maybe we should crack it open…and explore. Does that sound like fun?”
Rachel lifted a twisted-looking hammer to rest against her shoulders, a smile on her animalistic face as her large ears twitched. “I don’t like my odds…but I’m not one to back down from a fight. Let’s dance, Scarlet.”
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