*
Her heart gripped tightly as she heard those words, as if someone was squeezing on it as hard as possible, not allowing her room to breath once.
If she wasn't wrong according to her memories, The Great Disaster was what started it all. One could easily conclude that Kaori was traumatised by the apocalypse, which when compounded with his love for magical girls and their heroism, turned into a childish ambition to be a saviour of saviours. In other words, his dreams may have all been a coping mechanism, and the fear that all of the apocalypse entailed was coming back. A red light originating from Hikari swallowed the entire earth in a moment.
Kaede felt strange, but she didn't know what was going on. She dropped her rapier, leaving it dissipate naturally as she ran as far as her legs could carry her. She picked up Karell and the heroes and cut the portal connecting them to this space, teleporting them out in an instant. She then found and alerted De Lan who was still holding out, while killing her adversary who had been facing her this entire time in one blow.
She was burly and armoured, a divine knight from the kingdom of Blumford. Kaede's divine rapier sliced through everything like it was nothing and packed enough energy to disintegrate everything. Only the armour was left, broken and utterly shattered. If any citizen of Blumford saw this, their hearts would sink heavily.
But there was no time for that. The world outside must have changed. Kaede was completely and utterly afraid, a dreadful feeling squeezed at her heart and whispered words of despair into her ears. Her body felt never felt so cold before as her thighs shivered in anxiety. She felt like her body's convulsions were beyond her control, but still she had to ignore it.
"[That which rule will see]. " (De Lan)
They teleported back out of the Demon King's castle and the deep hole they had to dig to get there. Kaede staggered a few steps forward before De Lan grabbed her on the shoulder. De Lan could teleport in a way, she was shifting her surrounding vicinity into another world then back to the normal world. It would've been risky to use it to enter the castle, such as teleporting into walls or traps. It was their last resort to speak off, if not for Sease, Kaede and Karell contributing a way to break in safely.
"We'll collect everyone! Thankfully we moved in a straight line and... Those of us here are stronger than those behind, they would experience a shorter time lag than us, so it shouldn't have been long since we left them behind...!" (Kaede)
" Alright... Mind explaining the outfit? Did you unlock your final skill? " (De Lan)
De Lan spoke as they ran, naturally she would be a little peeved that Kaede killed the divine knight in a single hit, but she was more concerned with Kaede's new form. If Kaede gave an explanation, perhaps De Lan could accept it and move on from it. But for now, her curiosity couldn't be contained any longer.
The wind swiftly brushed past their face as Kaede used Last Pace on all of the members and had De Lan carry them.
"... Uhh... Final skill...? I used my 2 present skills... A lot happened, but I ascended into the level of a God magical girl to fight Hikari, the Demon King...
Albeit im still a newbie..." (Kaede)
"What the f-?! Where do I start? You climbed to SS grade in a single battle from B grade and it still wasn't enough?" (De Lan)
A expression of exasperation washed over De Lan's face, it was too inconceivable. The matter with the divine knight had now completely slipped her mind, in place of it was her wonder at how someone could grow this much in a single battle. At first Kaede was around E or D grade when she came to after the battle with the progenitor. She then stole the Hikari's clone's well to skip to B grade. The clone's well was originally A grade, so with some hard tempering AKA numerous intense battles, it grew back into an A grade naturally.
Lastly she grew into an S grade by using her technique, Magia Retainment. With Fully Retained Magia leaving her at S grade and Magia Retainment: Perpetual which allowed her to surpass even that to emulate an SS grade. It was not until the final ascension into her forged spiritual body that she was truly and wholly an SS grade.
Gradually, they collected the members. HuoLi and a few of the other ArcMaiden had won. We lost a couple more of the commander level magical girls but managed to locate and retrieve the rest who were barricading themselves in a siege.
"Over there!" (Kaede)
With a single swing, an entire army was cleaved into 2 by her rapier that had now returned to white. Their corpses and magic were then absorbed into the extended 1km long rapier that indiscriminately lopped off heads. In an instant, an army of A graded demons vanished along with their architecture, at the sites of severance, the buildings slid down and crashed onto the open road, destroying any cars or shops in the way
To the commanders, she was like an angel who had descended from heaven to save them, the wedding dress didn't exactly help either as it looked akin to those dress robes of pure white that angels would wear in fiction. Without anyone else's help, they gradually cut down or simply ran away from the remaining demonic heavenly kings. They also met up with the S grades of the Grundo Alliance and the Illnoia Administration.
With everyone in tow, they finally escaped to the border as Kaede trivialised all the other fights. There were 5 of the commander levels left, including Barius who won her battle. The ArcMaidens that won include HuoLi, Triney, Rei and Kanou. De Lan, Miwa, Sufia and Titania had theirs defeated by Kaede on the way. The unknown being that HuoLi encountered was likely only in a state similar to incapacitation. It was an ancient god, it wasn't something that had the concept of 'dying'.
Other than that, 2 divine knight and about 5 Heavenly Kings were killed. Things looked optimistic for humanity. Even the Administration and Alliance S grades were all still alive. Their enemies received the news and retreated before Kaede got there. Now that everyone was back at the border between humanity and demon kind...
Kaede owed an explanation. But what greeted them at the end of their journey was unadulterated catastrophe, an unprecedented disaster... Well that makes two unprecedented disasters. Everyone was all too familiar with The Great Disaster, no one but Kaede was anticipating this sight. Giant black appendages rose from the ground all over the earth, swallowing up humanity like claws grabbing ahold of its prey.
It was about a year and a half since the previous time... She could only pray that humanity was now sparse enough to better survive it this time...
".... I... I..." (HuoLi)
The leader of operations stared at the spectacle in dumbfounded shock, nothing could describe the mosh pit of emotions bubbling in her chest, ready to burst out and swallow its next victim whole. She bit her lip, drawing copious amounts of blood. Her rage couldn't even reach her face, only her tone of voice and widened eyelids as wide as can be indicated any emotion.
HuoLi felt like if she went wild, she would first claw off her own skin then her head. She resisted from clenching her fist or pouring out her aura, her teeth grit together so hard her gums felt sore. But worst of all... A speckle of light could be seen around her eyelids.
"I DIDN'T FIGHT AN ANCIENT GOD WITH MY LIFE JUST TO SEE THIS!!!!!
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!!! WHY DID YOU RUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!! GO BACK THERE AND KILL THE DEMON KING!!!!" (HuoLi)
Triney grabbed onto HuoLi's shoulder, her own arm trembling vigorously, not in fear of HuoLi but in anger at her own incompetence. She was left behind because she was weak. That was what everyone thought at that moment. If only they weren't weak, so they advanced forward with everyone to the final stronghold. If I was there, surely I would have defeated the Demon King and prevented this?
HuoLi was by no means weak, she was simply left to dealt with the unpredicted threat that was the Demon God. An SS grade that she had to account for and prevent from messing up the plan....
"...?!" (HuoLi)
She turned to Triney with a drizzle of tears at the sides of her eyes, a questioning contempt silently invades her iris.
"... If the Demon King could pull this off from all the way in the castle... Then it was likely that the battle was the trigger of this attack, and that it was impossible to stop... Not with our current forces..." (Triney)
HuoLi swallowed her spit and turned to glare at Kaede. For some reason the one magical girl who had stepped up to ascend into SS grade was staring straight at the ground in timid fear, flinching the moment HuoLi laid her gaze on her. All of her divine splendour was no longer present under the scrutiny of her allies. Those that were saved could only feel pity for her, while being unsure if this pity they feel was caused by magic or not.
The individual at the forefront of it all, Kaede... It was easy to blame her incompetence, for being unable to kill Hikari before she recreated The Great Disaster. Only someone like HuoLi who had a chance to kill Hikari by herself couldn't hide behind her own incompetence, so she could blame others. There were likely others as well, but these were the circumstances that fate has dealt them. There was no way around it.
They watched as Kaede's small figure shrunk further under HuoLi's reprimanding gaze. HuoLi swiftly regained her composure and dispelled all contempt in her mind. She was still a little angry, but that could be held off for later. She held her duties above all else, being a magical girl was the most important thing to HuoLi. She wracked her mind, thinking up a counter measure. Should she cut down these spikes like they were a giant forest? Did the people survive?
How much of humanity has died this time? While these questions hovered around her mind, a few of the stares lingered on at Kaede. Kaede was strong, undoubtedly so. They could all use their government provided magic tool to analyse the stats of others. Never mind the stats, they could feel an endless flow of magical particles constantly surging into Kaede's body, a feeling familiar to the ArcMaidens who have at least once spoken to The Eye God.
So God magical girls were simply the ones that broke past the natural limit of magical particles, they can use unprocessed magical particles or process an infinite quantity in an instant, replicating the same phenomena where their well is infinite. This leads to the other stats that get augmented to be infinite in turn. Despite all of these perks, this transcendant superiority over all other magical girls... Kaede was cowering in her own guilt.
When Karell came to an instant later, right after they reached the border and the fiasco with HuoLi's scolding was over, she saw a familiar white haired figure with the hue of her hair and dress that was as pure as the driven snow. Her eyes were fixed onto the ground in front of her. She was the most powerful and the closest to the Demon King out of all of them... Yet, she was... Despondent?
Her lips quivered every now and then and her frustrations creased her forehead and the ridge of her nose, threatening to squeeze out her eyeballs as her eyelids narrowed her field of vision. She must have lost and evacuated everyone. She seems relatively unhurt, it must have been her new form that healed her body because she was definitely hurt before when Karell and the others were still conscious.
Then, did she perhaps run in anticipation that she would lose? Without persevering until death? She could not blame her. It was normal to fear death. If this was the modern world, Kaede would only be in the third year of highschool. As the older women with more experience... As a proper adult who saw much more in her village than people would see in their lifetimes...
She hugged Kaede from the front.
"...?" (Kaede)
She peeked a little, shifting her head to a slightly upturned position, but she still couldn't bear to look at the others so she stared at Karell's chin instead. Karell's warm grasp soothed her back with one arm and patted her head with the other. The last standing king candidate who abandoned her own humanity for everyone else... Shouldn't she deserve at least a tiny bit of recognition?