The days,weeks, and months slipped by like mist across dead fields.
Minus moved in silence, weaving old magic into the marrow of her stolen flesh. Milliarde's body grew stronger with each spell, each whisper of power reclaimed. Slowly, she became something other—neither the Minus of legend, nor the girl whose life she had inherited.
Something new.
When the time came, she left the village behind.
No escort. No fanfare.
Only the elder knelt by the shrine as she passed, whispering, "Return to us when you are whole, Great Witch."
Minus said nothing.
The southern forests gave way to broken plains, then to the dead, frozen lands that had once teemed with life under the Empire's banner.
Above, the sky was a sheet of hammered iron. Cold and endless.
Each step north deepened the ache in her bones—the world remembering her, and resisting.
Mana pools scarred the landscape, remnants of old wars. Minus drew from them carefully, never lingering long enough for the Empire's scouts—or worse, the surviving demons—to sense her.
But strength calls to strength.
It was inevitable.
She felt it first as a ripple across the threads of mana—a pulling, probing sensation, cold as a dagger's kiss.
Minus slowed.
Ahead, the land fell into a shallow valley choked with mist.
There, among the bones of a forgotten temple, stood a figure.
Tall, magenta-haired, her twin braids falling like heavy chains. Pale horns curled from her head. Her dark blue eyes shimmered with lazy malice, her silhouette framed by her tattered but regal battle attire.
Minus recognized her immediately.
Aura the Guillotine.
One of the Seven Sages of Destruction.
Aura smiled faintly, regarding her with idle amusement.
"You are no mere traveler," the demon said, her voice rich and smooth. "Strange… you reek of death and ancient things."
Her hand lifted casually.
The golden Scales of Obedience shimmered into existence, tilting and weighing the unseen thread of mana between them.
Minus allowed the spell to touch her.
For a heartbeat.
Then she moved.
Her mana ignited—not as a wave, but as a spike, sharp and immediate, like a spear hurled from the black heart of an ancient battlefield.
The ground split.
The mist recoiled.
The ancient stones of the temple cracked under the sudden pressure.
Aura stumbled back two steps, her composure faltering, the Scales buckling under the impossible weight.
Her mouth opened slightly—not in anger, but in pure, unguarded shock.
Minus lifted her hand lazily, blue fire seething along her fingertips. The fire twisted into a rose—but it was wrong. Its petals were jagged, dripping liquid mana like blood from a blade.
"I am not a relic you can weigh," Minus said, her voice low and crackling with restrained violence.
She crushed the rose in her palm.
The explosion was silent, but the force of it blasted the mist apart in a ring around her.
Dead trees shattered like glass.
Rubble lifted from the ground and rained down around them like shards of broken history.
Aura shielded her eyes, a snarl rising to her lips—but she did not attack.
She had seen enough.
Minus turned without a word, her cloak billowing in the devastated air, and strode away.
There was no need to waste her strength here.
Serie awaited.
And beyond Serie—
The world itself would remember her name.
Aura stood alone among the ruined stones, her smile gone.
For the first time in centuries, Aura felt true unbound primal fear, internally shuddering, Aura realized that this monster of a mage… could've easily ended her right then and there… even Himmel's Hero Party wasn't able to kill her… yet this mage alone could've easily did so if she wished.
She watched Minus disappear into the mist and whispered, almost to herself:
"That… thing should not exist."