TO Rewrite: B2 — 23. Swim in the Red Sea (Patreon)

PoV:

1. Scarlet Park (Our Fanged Girl Is Unsealed!)

2. Illa (Who Is Our Pumpkin Vamp?)

3. Scarlet (?????)

TO Rewrite Index

Previous Chapter

In-line Edit

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Scarlet stared across the table at the lime-green-eyed woman that had plagued her nightmares, the cracking glass to her left sending goosebumps up her arms as the raging hurricane beat against the tiny house. A new fissure ran horizontally along the wide glass wall, the scarlet lightning and continual blood rain tightening the band around her chest.

“I said I’m listening!” she barked, studying the calm and collected blonde. Dark stains from the hot chocolate she’d thrown at the woman marked her satin blue dress, yet she now looked totally composed while sipping at her cup. “Do you want me to say I’m sorry? Because I’m not! Didn’t you say everyone was in danger?! So talk!”

Twilight’s gaze wasn’t on her, though; her study was on the murky liquid in her steaming cup as the edge fell from her lips. “Mmm. Sweet things are best savored in their moment due to their fleeting nature. There is always time to draw strength from the little things…the good things.”

“What are you…”

Scarlet’s words died in her throat as she blinked, and now the chairs and table between them were in a dim forest. Seen through the sparse trees, twilight fell in the distance. Lights swirled around them—fireflies—dancing in mesmerizing patterns.

“This is…”

Rising to her feet, Twilight drew her attention again, the stains on her dress gone as she directed her to stand. “Come. Let’s walk and reflect.”

Unsure what the blonde was up to, she hesitantly complied. A hand gripped her guarded heart as familiar, laughing voices pricked it to allow blood to run out.

“Don’t run too far away, Scarlet!”

“Oh, don’t be too restrictive, dear. She needs to explore.”

“Mom! Dad! They’re following me! Look, look!”

Scarlet’s lungs seized as a little girl ran right through their table like a ghost—an 8-year-old Scarlet—causing it to drift away like smoke. Her worried father and amused mother chased after her, jogging toward an open field where countless glowing bugs played, giving them a dazzling view.

“Why…” she whispered, feeling sick to her stomach as Twilight let her cup vanish and followed the trio. “Why are we here?”

“Your trip to the Great Smoky Mountains?” the blonde asked, guiding them to the clearing, where her mother prepared the picnic while her father kept a close eye on her. “Just because you are in the Blood Sea, doesn’t mean it is all death and agony, Scarlet. You need to learn what the Blood Sea is…the grand truth of its importance…to everything.”

Twilight lifted her eyes to the blinking cyclone of fireflies dancing in the dying sunlight, and, for the first time since changing, she thought she felt the warmth of its rays. Gradually, her turbulent stomach unknotted while listening to her dad fuss over her and her mother’s assurances that she would be fine—the memories were flooding back.

Next, images of all the places around the world she’d traveled filtered into focus, scene after scene of all the wondrous places her parents had taken her. Yet, it wasn’t them doing their cultist stuff, but the days they’d spent with her, exploring and making memories.

The chill of the Arctic didn’t touch Scarlet as her parents sat next to her on a boat in the far north. Bundled in warm clothing, she looked at her 12-year-old self as the stunning vista of an Aurora Borealis weaved across the heavens.

After a time, Twilight motioned for her to return to the sofa she’d been sitting on. The woman took the armchair that materialized behind her, and the blonde’s calm voice held a note that made Scarlet want to cry.

“You had a good life, Scarlet…despite the loneliness you sometimes felt…that I couldn’t fill as your parents had hoped. Your mother may seem like a monster…as you believed your father had been, but it is important to understand that there is always light in darkness and darkness in light… The twilight is where light and dark meet.”

She turned toward the cracked window, the terrifying blood storm with its crimson lighting and ruby hail. Now that she was calmer, a question did bubble up within Scarlet’s heart.

“Twilight…what is…this?”

The blonde’s serene eyes drifted across the expanse with its vast cyclones and whirlpools. “This…is you, Scarlet. All of this is your soul. Your inner world… You are the Red Sea, and the Red Sea is thousands of…something—I can’t tell you because I can’t comprehend it, but what I can say is that it is something wrapped up in a maelstrom of unbelievable power.”

Scarlet’s eyes widened as Twilight lifted a hand, showing numerous ultra-dense spheres pulled into a vast red whirlpool; they were funneled toward a black star as the woman’s hypnotic voice drew her in.

“The scale is beyond your or my understanding…innumerable creatures, and you have them within your gravitational pull. You safeguard them all from dozens of factions and titanic entities that go beyond all reason…and that is the barrier you maintain—the thing segregating the dimensional fields…is you, Scarlet.”

Shadowy figures moved within its ruby waters, and through whatever Twilight was doing, she could sense the scale of power, and it was enormous. Beings like the 7th-dimensional deities they were dealing with right now were microscopic to the colossal figures clawing their way to get through her walls to reach the lower dimensions—to reach her.

“I’m…in the center…our Earth…is the center of everything?”

Twilight’s golden locks weaved against her shoulder as she shook her head, spreading her fingers and drawing her attention to the truly terrifying, shapeless horrors circling just outside the maelstrom of something. They spread their roots and creations inside its pull, weak enough to slip past the shells and strengthen their masters’ hold—to reach her. It wasn’t just one faction, but many from places beyond their understanding.

“Not your Earth, Scarlet…you are the center of everything. You are the Keeper, or so I’ve dubbed,” the blonde proudly boasted. “The Reaper gathered the grain of the field to protect it from the bandits that sought to consume them…and stole something precious from each to build her fortress. You’ve bought yourself time for…something. Again, I can only see so far.”

“The Reaper? No…no, that’s the thing inside me,” she protested, hand rising to grip her chest and feel her fingernails bite into her flesh. “Scarlet infected me! I…can’t be the real villain; Scarlet…”

Twilight’s eyes softened. “Who said anything about her being a villain, Scarlet? You are sealed, yet that does not mean you are a totally different person.”

A lump formed in Scarlet’s throat as the cracks in the glass spiderwebbed again, inching further toward the wall and ceiling. “No. No, I feel her…she’s…”

“Powerful?” Twilight asked with a short chuckle. “She must be if she managed to create the maelstrom. Competent? She stole and tricked beings on an Outerversal level—whatever that means—so, again, she must be…”

“Cruel!” Scarlet hissed, sensing the miasma creeping up within her, yet she could feel the blonde’s words ring true in every fiber of her being. “A bringer of fear and despair…”

“To her enemies, yes,” Twilight nodded with a thoughtful gleam in her green eyes. “There is kindness not discussed in cruelty. To be respected, one must garner a certain amount of cruelty for one’s enemies to respect you… Wouldn’t Rachel agree?

“You may be the most benevolent and kind person there is—a pure soul—yet without power, who can you protect, or what can you accomplish? A leader must act, and cruelty must be exacted to safekeep those one wishes to keep from harm. Safety and security above ignorant benevolence. One’s friends and enemies must be terrified to betray you.”

Scarlet got to her feet, feeling cold rather than panicked, and walked to the window to stare out across the turbulent waves. Everything Twilight said rang true within her; she knew Rachel would agree. Her new sister—that’d still take some getting used to—was gathering power and people she trusted to support her, yet just thinking about Rachel as an enemy put a quake through her.

Rachel was kind and understanding; she thought about those she cared for, yet the Lunar Hare had a much darker, crueler side. Rachel was vicious and vengeful. She sought out conflict to grow stronger because she knew she needed that strength to protect what she treasured.

There was a line she wouldn’t cross, but her line was pushed much further past what most people in the world would consider acceptable. Rachel was a realist—a pessimist of sorts—yet also recognized there were virtuous people in it. She vetted them and then made sure to keep them close, such as Jeanne, whom she trusted with her family’s safekeeping.

Scarlet’s fingers spread out against the hot glass, somewhat surprised that it wasn’t ice cold. She looked at Twilight’s reflection in the glass as she moved to join her, studying the storm. Small quakes now shook the house. Scarlet was a little surprised at how calm she felt. Maybe it was due to everything finally sinking in after being in this vampiric world; this could be Earth if they didn’t fight—if they didn’t get stronger.

“…I don’t care if I am the monster below those waves or not. It’s too much to think about right now… Tell me what I need to do to save everyone.”

“It’s going to be rough for you,” Twilight whispered. “The Scarlet Hand is only one faction…a powerful one, but only one of many. Your greatest enemy has always been yourself.”

She traced the cracks as they continued to fracture down the glass. “The maelstrom is the totality of your Soul Expansion…the highest level of it. When this Seal is broken, it will weaken the strength of the barriers between dimensions. It will be important for you to tell Rachel these things…to explain to her what a Soul Expanse is…and how to expand it. Her next goal is to reach Level 25…to grow her soul to the point where it can manifest in a tangible form.”

Scarlet swallowed the blood in her mouth, feeling it flow down her throat to spread out into her body while searching the blood storm. “I’m the threat…aren’t I? My parents were tricked into doing this… I’m supposed to end the world.”

Twilight smiled and turned to face her, showing a piece of the awkward and slightly hyperactive blonde she’d known growing up.

“Revilla’s masters wanted to partially awaken you in order to cause a chain reaction that would destroy everything you tried to do…but Rachel is more of a thorn in their sides than they expected. She is not just the Limpid Hare of Misfortune. Rachel holds her own secrets, and they didn’t see her manipulations…they didn’t see those plucking threads that created me.

“You are breaking the seal early, Scarlet,” Twilight giggled, hugging her for a moment before pulling away. “They wanted to use this awakening for a ritual, but I made sure that it happened outside of their sight—in Elizabeth’s Seed and away from Earth. In a place where a combination of forces can buy us time…for you to learn…to grow.”

She motioned her toward the closed and locked door, which quaked and almost sent her to her knees.

“When this is done, a fragment of True Scarlet will awaken, and you will join me here as Rachel confronts her… From there, I don’t know what will happen. I really don’t…no one does. There is no guide that can illuminate your path beyond this pass. This is where the path between heaven and hell collides. The shelter collapses, and you must rise or crumble.

“I only hope my preparations will be enough. And when you return—well, not you; when She awakens and takes control—you will return here with me. And I will teach you about your soul as it unfolds, and you will open the front door and willingly fall into the Red Sea…putting True Scarlet back into the box. Right now, though…right now, you must do the unthinkable. You must break your own seal.”

Scarlet’s mind froze as Twilight whispered her instructions and lifted her consciousness out of the void to enact it.

Blinking, her wide, vampiric eyes lifted to the grinning Baroness of the Mist as she exited her internal world. She winced when the pressure once again struck her chest, the mist compressing her against the wall as the woman laughed. Elizabeth’s throat was gripped within her claws, helplessly held suspended in the air. Laugher rang throughout the room as her children and husband watched their matriarch play with the thirteen-year-old Countess of Blood, her mist crushing her fragile frame.

Scarlet pushed past the discomfort, not truly feeling the pain the baroness tried to invoke, and she forced her hand away from the wall. Leopold’s eyes were glazing over nearby, his neck snapped at some point, and Belleza’s eldest son lamenting a cut on his shirt front that the Legendkin seemed to have caused in their short scuffle.

“You put too much faith in your alien pets, Countess,” Belleza chortled. “Your arrogance in coming to our world to stir trouble is…amusing. And without absorbing blood for weeks, you have become so…weak. It’s pathetic, really, depending on this castle of gore to make up the difference and put on a show… Look at me, filth! Beg like your traitorous friend.”

Elizabeth’s liquidy-ruby eyes were centered on her, despite the baroness’ firm grip and compressing mists that crushed each of her digits, one by one, working their way up her arm. She didn’t cry out in pain; instead, she choked through her response, conviction in her young voice. 

“…Pain is fleeting, Belleza. You think you can cause more suffering…than what I have already experienced? A mother’s hope…is everlasting. I was promised to hear my daughter laugh again. And that…is worth an eternity of suffering.”

“You are—”

“Mother! What is she doing?” Kastilla hissed. “She’s fighting past your mist!”

“Hmm?!”

Illa’s teary eyes brimmed with light from her imprisoned position against the opposite wall. “Scarlet! Yeah, fight back! Show that—what…no, Scarlet!”

Blood crawling back into her veins, Scarlet’s mind was clearer than it had ever felt. Claws extending, she brought it to her own chest, digging through flesh and breaking her breast bone to reach her organ inside.

“What are you doing?! No! Stop, Scarlet! Stop!” Illa cried.

Elizabeth’s lips lifted as Scarlet stole all eyes. Fingers closed around her own heart, her words cutting through the silencing mist as she squeezed, feeling real pain for the first time, but, as the Countess said…it was fleeting.

“Illa…run.”

“Scarlet!”

A hot rush of blood swept her into a cocoon-like warmth, and when she opened her eyes, she was back in the little house. An earthquake knocked her to the floor, where Twilight sat with her, a smile on her face as voices bubbled up from deep within the Red Sea.

Spontaneously, the waves settled, the storm parted, and stillness came over the whole of the blood sea. Scarlet felt a heartbeat, but it wasn’t from her heart…it was her soul.

Rising to her feet, Scarlet stumbled to the cracked window, staring out across the glass-like smooth sheen of an eternal jasper floor, thin veins running along its entire length.

“What’s happening, Twilight?”

Twilight joined her, seemingly realizing something as if the answer was unfolded with the asked question. “The choir awakens… I see. The song returns… The Black Star stirs…the Children of the Sun recognize the empty Blood Throne.”

“What song?” she whispered, yet her focus was soon taken by a shimmering speck of scarlet dropped from the reflected mirror-like sheet of blood in the heavens.

Her lips parted in disbelief as the twinkling star ruby fell toward the blood field, and when it touched, a ripple shook every fiber of Scarlet’s being—the voices filling her with a profound sense of peace and understanding—she was a criminal.

Yet, the price of her crimes was answered within the hallowed, reverent chant—corrupted Transcendence, once again awakened. A sin she’d partaken in. Redemption bought through a path yet to walk. A throne was awaiting her return with the angelic choir of innumerable beings singing their unyielding hope, trust, and fidelity.

“Peace be with you…Soul Divine. Wake again, in paradise. Crowned in glory.

“Fear no more, Fate’s misery, or the coming war…

“Gloria regali… Peace and understanding. Forever may you reign…”

Intensity rising, Scarlet felt the strength of power transcending any concept of the word as the words of countless hosts throughout infinity sang…they sang to her. 

“Gloria regali. Peace and understanding. Forever may you reign. Forever may you reign!

It slowly faded back into the Red Sea, leaving Scarlet with emotions more than words or images.

“Gloria regali. Peace and understanding. Forever may you reign… Forever may you reign.”

Twilight’s hand rested on her shoulder as the song faded, and a sad giggle slid through her frame. “It…is a shame that my body on the outside will not know this glory that awaits you…that you won’t remember all of this. Allow me to explain what you will retain…”

* — * — *

Illa fell to the ground in a tangled heap, her mind in total rejection of reality as laughter bubbled out of Belleza and her children. 

“She killed herself! She actually killed herself!”

All Illa saw was Scarlet’s hollow eyes, blood now freely flowing out of her chest, soaking into her dress, and running down her legs to pool along the floor.

“What… No, Scarlet… Why?”

With the mist no longer blocking her, she tried to get up, but Kastilla suddenly sat on top of her, the ugly bag of bones restricting her with her own powers.

“Aww. Look, the pet is heartbroken.”

Her father materialized in front of Scarlet, laughter in his throat. “Clearly not as much as her master. Hahaha. I wonder what she tasted like—”

“Don’t…touch her!” Illa yelled, strength flooding her limbs and heat rising in her chest. The man stuck his finger inside the hole in Scarlet’s chest with a taunting chuckle. “Get—off me! I said, don’t…”

Belleza chortled and playfully patted her shoulder, the blow dislocating it and likely causing bone damage, yet her mist kept Illa from collapsing. However, her struggles soon ceased. But it wasn’t from the bone-cutting pain or the desperation clawing at her chest that said she was going to die—it was the forgotten words that budded within her breast—the words her mistress spoke to her the day before meeting Scarlet. A switch flipped.

“Carmilla, there is a chance this will not go our way. The Tower needs your talents, so should you truly think your life is about to end, then you know what to do… Return to me.”

Her cold blue eyes lifted to Scarlet’s dead corpse, unease settling inside Carmilla’s breast, and her emotions settled. Her focus sharpened while taking in everyone in the area—Illa was awake—she was the Myth of Carmilla…a Dormant Seed awakened by her mistress. The only image she had of the elegant woman was that of a devilish outline.

Elizabeth isn’t afraid, she quickly assessed, seeing the helpless child-like countess flexing her fingers. They’re distracted, and she’s going to attack when…something happens. Scarlet isn’t dead… She told me to run.

“W-What?” Kastilla snarled.

A smile lifted Carmilla’s lips, revealing her fangs as she transformed into fog, slipping through the gaps in the vampire’s own mist to reappear beside the door. Kastilla was right beside her, somehow having gained Leopold’s sword that was now held at her chest—these monsters were the real deal—she didn’t stand a chance.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be worried about me,” she giggled as the haunting shrill of the castle’s music returned through the walls; the fog around them thinned as a warm pressure eased out of Scarlet’s corpse. “Your father seems to be having some trouble removing his finger.”

“Father?” she asked, her brother and mother now focused on the man's stiff frame. “My spiritual force is…being overshadowed?! Mother!”

Scarlet’s hand slowly lifted to close around the man’s wrist, but Carmilla was already sure he was dead when the blood entity lifted her illuminated crimson eyes to the mist fiend. Sweat broke out across Carmilla’s body as those all-encompassing globes slid from her to the petrified man in front of her; whatever this was, it was not the Scarlet she’d been chasing after all night.

In a voice totally unlike the timid, unsure girl she’d clung to, Scarlet hummed while staring right through the man. The mist dissipated—more like it was smothered. No one moved. No one could move.

“You dare touch my soul?” Scarlet whispered. “Very well. Then feel its weight.”

“I’m sorr—”

Carmilla flinched with everyone else as the vampire exploded into bloody mist before being drawn into Scarlet’s open mouth. Elizabeth slipped out of Belleza’s trembling grip, clearly shocked that she was trembling by the look on the bony vampire’s face—her husband had been slaughtered in an instant, and she doubted it was only his body that was crushed.

One thing shook Carmilla to the core, though—one reality—she didn’t gain any experience from that kill. She should have gained a level—likely two or three from a vampire that strong. Whoever this Scarlet was, she did not see them as friends.

Run! I need to run! Move! Why… can’t I move?!

* — * — *

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 girl’s mother 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!”

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, 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 a 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, drifted 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—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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