*
"Sorry about this, {Feather of cherishment}. Grant those that cherish the greatest love, bless them with lightest weights. They need all their strength for the journey up ahead." (Baron)
She slammed the flat side of her sword into Aluemia. It was surprisingly soft, but adeptly swift such that Aluemia couldn't react in time. A vibrant orangey light encapsulates her sword before swallowing up Aluemia, forcing her to float into the air against her will. Her weight manipulation is very selective, other than her sword if cast on anything else there was a chance to fail. Just this time, it seemed to want to cooperate as well.
" Wah!? What are you doing!? " (Aluemia)
" {Eve in doubt}, I don't have any flashy chants. Don't keep us in your memory, you'll meet and save many more girls out there who are more worthy.
So as I pray, the depth of my love dives deeper than yours, absolve on my behalf just once." (Ernesti)
A colourful 3 layered magic circle appears before rhem, it shines in green, orange and yellow, flickering violently before exploding. It launched the weightless Aluemia away, as if by magic rather than physical force. A gentle pressure drags her at fast speeds out of residential zone 57E. She knows she can't resist, it's packed too full of her friend's magic. Her surroundings blur from how fast she's moving, faster than expected, faster than how her eyes could ever catch up. Then it blurs further, nearly dark as her eyelashes crisscross across her vision.
"Agh...! Ugh... Dammit!" (Aluemia)
She can't ignore it even if she wanted to, her tears had begun to block her vision after all. They relentlessly flow out as she is carried by the mystical wind. This is... Ernesti's love, it hasn't wavered once. What should she do? What could she ever hope to achieve? She reached the border between zones, her hand listlessly floats in front of her, attempting to grasp what isn't there. She could only imagine how her friends ended up.
Is there still hope? Perhaps they survived. It's all wishful thinking. That quixotic nature tears at her psyche, like bare fangs gnawing and tearing at her flesh with a meagre momentum. She knows she can't cry now, she had just gone into hiding. There isn't a guarantee that there aren't vampires in the other zones as well. After all, all the residential zones border on one another. Being at the edge might just mean that she could get surrounded by forces from multiple zones. Survive. That's what their feelings amounted to. Aluemia, you have to survive.
***(?)
Sustenance. Evolution. Sustenance. Evolution. Sustenance. Evolution. Reality blurs the lines and her voracity explodes unceasingly. Residential zones within the same letter series radiate geometrically, forming an intact cluster. The shapes might vary wildly with 100 zones in each letter. In other words, as long as she advanced on a straight line and dipped between several letters of zones, she wouldn't encounter a sentinel.
Blood soars into the skies, where is blood? Where is sky? She couldn't discern what the colours in her eyes meant any longer. But she can sense it, her prey. C Grade Traces, vampire fodder, ideal prey. She was already A grade bordering on S after evolving into a Remnant. Aster Keliuvinia, she's been so close to becoming a Fragment. Once that happens, perhaps she might finally be unmatched in this world, save for Eterna.
Fast as a wyvern, perhaps faster. No one could react, she only left a trail of corpses in her wake. This iron like tang watts heavily in the air, recreating the land of the dead. The dreary red sky reinforces that image, now living being dares to come close, but vampires as the undead have no such self preservation instincts to protect them. They merely wander into the death trap that is the evolved ogre Remnant, a higher being on the verge of blooming as a Fragment, a new heavenly king.
In battle she was unmatched, with brute force she tore through the vampires limb from limb. How did she stop them from regenerating and attacking her again? How did she prevent their corpses from reanimating from the brink of death? She devoured their flesh, swallowed their innards and carved countless pseudo teeth. Her teeth grew sharp, fragmented and shed from overuse, developing a streamline figure that pierced and ripped to her hearts content.
Taking in flesh is an inefficient way to absorb a prey's magical energy. However in this mortal world, it was the most efficient. To get any better would border onto methods that whisk away the souls of victims or the divine. One zone, two zone, three then four. They took everything she loved, so at least grant her solace in the labyrinth fo her own mind. Her finger nails sharpened, her body moves with less waste.
She continues to hunt with higher precision, less energy wasted. As a magical being grows stronger, they need to expend more magic to hunt at higher efficiency, a similar stop gap to the size limit of fully biological beings. Even individual evolution had its limits, otherwise there would be numerous dangerous Traces out there on the verge of becoming Heavenly Kings. She is an exception. Her soul was different from the very start.
Traces are mostly spiritual beings, magic circuits mix with a little physical matter. The physical matter anchors them in the world, allows them to interact with it. Otherwise they would be useless spirits from the outside of this universe. You could say that Traces are evil spirits given physical form. Enemy of humanity, the Heavenly Kings are intelligent, being called such a title would have bequeathed pride onto them.
An exception of an exception. Different from the rest, one of a kind. That was how different Aster's soul was. An ogre Trace with self preservation instincts? They're too mindless, too weak to outclassed fodder Traces, too immaterial to have biological survival instincts. The fact that she prioritised her own life and ran already made her an anomaly before she survived and evolved into a Remnant. It is this instinct that told her to run when Lastia almost kills her, it is this instinct and soul devouring hunger for life that she treasures the most in the world.
As a Trace, she had no time to grapple with the nature of her own existence. Survival comes first, intelligence is developed as a means of survival against magical girls. Everything she has, it's to fight and kill her opponents, even her mind.
So why? Why did she have these memories? Her soul was different form the very start. Her soul has retained memories of another life, her soul was on a higher level before it all began. An exceptional exception, talent and effort couldn't describe the heaven given conditions she is ailed with. The curse of love.