Klaus stood motionless, arms crossed, his sharp gaze dissecting every detail of his surroundings. His wounds—once grievous—had vanished without a trace. More surprisingly, even the strain upon his mind, wrought by reckless overuse of the Divine Eyes, had evaporated. He felt revitalized, sharp, as if the previous battle had never happened. This was no ordinary healing.
His eyes drifted toward Serka. She too stood unscathed, not a single drop of blood left on her form. How absurd.
This wasn't the Temple of Chalice anymore. Klaus could feel it in his bones—the texture of reality had changed. The ambient noise of distant conflict had fallen into perfect silence, and light poured in through nonexistent windows, despite the night that ruled outside. They were in a different plane now. No doubt about it.
"A conditional-type ability..." Klaus muttered to himself, his voice laced with contempt. "Tch. I hate these games."
He pieced it together quickly. The criteria must have been tied to damage received—a threshold of suffering, perhaps. Draw out the battle. Endure. Let pain build and bloom, and the Hall of Suffering would awaken to embrace its disciple.
"Fuck..."
He cursed aloud, frustration thick in his voice. He had suspected Serka was hiding her true strength. That was why he orchestrated the fight so carefully: eliminating her white-haired apprentice first, isolating her from her comrades to prevent any chance of synchronized combat. Every move had been calculated. When her corrosive touch rendered his weapon useless, he had smiled inwardly—it was an opportunity, not a setback. That's why he'd ordered Hassan to forge a blade from true darkness and hide it beneath the temple. A trap, a perfect kill. And it had worked... or so he thought.
Now, here they stood—fresh, whole, yet stripped of all their previous advantages. He couldn't access any of his abilities aside from basic essence manipulation. This plane had its own laws, and for now, it shackled him.
He glanced toward Serka, who was bowing in reverence before a towering statue.
"Is that the Goddess of Life?" Klaus asked with a blank expression.
Serka turned to him, her eyes alight with near-religious fervor, her smile manic.
"Of course. She watches over our duel now... Isn't she beautiful?"
Klaus's gaze swept across the hall. It was lifeless. Bleak. No terrain to exploit. And worse, this fanatical hag was more accustomed to fighting under these rules.
"You've always had something dangerous hidden behind the curtain, haven't you?" Klaus said coldly. "Someone like you—so strong, so precise—and yet unknown in the Kingdom of Hope? No chance. That only happens when everyone who's seen your real power is dead."
Serka chuckled, taking a slow, deliberate step forward.
"Wrong," she said softly. "No one dies here."
Twin hammers materialized in her hands with a dull shimmer.
"Now... choose your weapon."
Klaus shrugged, conjuring a double-bladed spear from thin air. He spun it in his hands, pleased with the weight and balance—until his smile faltered.
Without warning, Serka lifted one of her hammers and brought it down on her own skull. The sickening crunch of bone echoed through the chamber. She split her head open again and again, viscera spilling—yet her body restored itself instantly, as if nothing had occurred.
"See?" she whispered with unsettling joy. "No one dies here, just as I said..."
Klaus stared at her with narrowed eyes, lips twitching into a half-grin.
"Astral," he muttered.
Serka's brows rose in surprise. She giggled.
"My, my... you are more well-read than I gave you credit for. Yes, this is Temple of Astral Pain. Our bodies are beyond this place—only our astral forms remain. And they cannot die."
Klaus scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain.
"No shit... But why do you look twenty years younger? And what's with the nightgown, you depraved fossil?"
Serka stretched her arms, arching her back in exaggerated seduction.
"I thought you'd enjoy this form more. You always did seem like the type who appreciated aesthetics."
Klaus recoiled slightly, grimacing.
"Degenerate grandmother..."
Her laughter echoed through the chamber. She hugged herself, shivering in delight.
"Mmm... still so rude."
"Ugh," Klaus muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "She's touching herself again..."
He dashed forward, severing her in half with his spear. Her body knitted back together in moments. Unbothered, Klaus continued his assault—grabbing her head, tearing it from her shoulders, only for it to reappear, pristine and untouched. Again. And again.
But then, a sound broke through the cycle: a resonant ring like a chime echoing from the heavens.
Klaus looked up.
The statue had moved.
The serene goddess lifted her nail and plunged it into the green crystal heart cradled in her open chest.
And in that instant, agony slammed into Klaus like a tidal wave.
His mind was ravaged by memories of pain—being split in half, torn limb from limb, beheaded, crushed. A parade of suffering. His body crumpled to the floor, eyes bloodshot, chest heaving.
Through clenched teeth and venomous breath, he rasped:
"Fuck... I think I finally understand the rules of this place..."
Serka and Klaus rose once more, battered but unbroken. Serka trembled, her lips parting in a twisted grin of rapture. Her eyes burned with manic light as she cackled, drunk on ecstasy and agony alike.
"Indeed... The torment we endure here accumulates," she purred, her voice half-moan, half-madness. "And when it overflows... we are drowned in it all at once. Isn't it glorious? Ahh~ the goddess has blessed me with a gift beyond mortal comprehension!"
Klaus leaned against his spear, his face devoid of emotion—until it cracked into a wicked grin. His eyes shimmered with something half-feral, half-delighted.
"Crystal clear."
He spun the weapon in an elegant arc, stepping into a poised stance, each movement graceful, like a dancer preparing for the last act.
"So this all comes down to endurance… to which of us can rot for longer before we break."
With a shake of his head, he dashed forward. The spear twirled, gleaming, and then carved through Serka's belly. Gore sprayed across the blood-slicked battlefield, her intestines unfurling like a perverse offering. She staggered, but did not scream—she laughed.
Then came the counterattack.
In one savage motion, Her hammer's claw caught the shaft of his spear mid-strike. With the other, she slammed the face of the weapon against his skull, caving it in with a thunderous crunch. Bone cracked. He grunted, stumbling back as crimson splattered the pale ground.
Serka followed with merciless precision. She drove the claw of the second hammer into his throat and ripped it free with a savage twist, dragging out shredded flesh and spurting arteries. He fell, twitching, only for her to batter his head into pulp—smashing until the brain matter oozed between shards of shattered bone.
But Klaus regenerated.
He rolled to the side before her next hammer blow landed, using the blood-slick floor to slide beneath her strike. Leveraging his weight and momentum, he swept low and carved through her legs at the knees, toppling her.
Even as she fell, she hurled a hammer—its claw embedding itself in his eye with a sickening wet crack. Klaus screamed, tore it from his face with one trembling hand, and drove his spear downward toward her heart—only to be interrupted by the chime.
But then—
The bell tolled.
A low, resonant chime filled the air. Overhead, the statue of the goddess moved. With serene cruelty, she raised a crystal nail and drove it into her own heart.
Agony erupted.
Klaus screamed as his nerves ignited. Pain crashed through him—memories of torn flesh, shattered bone, ripped sinew. He clawed at his own face, nails gouging deep. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, trembling.
Serka howled and laughed simultaneously, rolling in her own gore like a creature possessed. Tears streamed from her eyes, mingling with blood, her smile one of rapturous madness.
Time passed.
Klaus eventually rose, laughter cracking from his throat like thunder. It wasn't joy—it was madness and dark humour.
Serka lay in a pool of her own innards, her hands cradling her chest like a lover's embrace. Her face was flushed, mouth parted in breathless ecstasy. Moaning softly, she suddenly leapt to her feet with a manic giggle.
"What? Did you think I'd just let you beat me senseless forever?"
She bent down, scooping up something wet and glistening—his brain matter. She took a bite, blood dripping down her chin, eyes wide with perverse joy.
"Pain is delicious. And I savor it, whether I'm inflicting or receiving."
Klaus chuckled darkly, head tilting.
"What? No man wanted to screw you, so you started fucking corpses? That's tragic. But seriously, stop eating my brain. It's disgusting."
Time meant little here.
While they tore each other to pieces in this hellish pocket of agony, only a single second ticked by in the real world. An hour of slaughter for every heartbeat outside.
Klaus had believed she'd yield to his sadism—submit to the ecstasy of being destroyed. He had been wrong. She butchered him as much as he did her.
Again and again, they slaughtered each other.
He ripped her apart—splitting her skull, skewering her on his spear, even strangling her with her own entrails. She, in turn, shattered his bones, gouged out his eyes, devoured his flesh with a zealot's hunger.
And every so often—the bells rang.
With each chime, accumulated suffering was unleashed all at once. Pure, unfiltered, hellish pain that scorched the soul and cracked the mind.