Klaus was having the time of his life.
Or maybe he was just drowning grief in alcohol, pretending the burn in his throat was something he could control.
The club throbbed with pulsing lights and synthetic beats, bodies moving like waves in a fever dream. Laughter echoed, glasses clinked, and the scent of sweat, perfume, and cheap spirits mingled in the air.
But Klaus? He sat alone, a ghost in a tailored black suit, downing bottle after bottle until even his Awakened body began to falter.
The suit clung to his athletic, slender frame with an effortless precision—sharp at the shoulders, hugging his waist. Its matte midnight fabric devoured light, broken only by the subtle shimmer of silk-threaded lapels. A deep violet pocket square peeked from the chest, catching the same eerie glow as his amethyst eyes.
His shirt, charcoal-grey, lay half-unbuttoned, revealing a hint of pale skin and the cold metal curve of a runic pendant resting on his chest.
He sighed, reached for another bottle—and froze.
Where the hell was his scotch?
Lifting his head, his gaze fell on a woman—tall, elegant, and dangerously poised—casually sipping from his bottle.
She was older, mid-thirties at least, but carried herself with the kind of seductive confidence that came from knowing exactly what she was worth. Short brown hair framed a sharp face, green eyes gleaming with amusement. Her dress clung to her curves like it belonged there.
She saw his irritation, laughed lightly, and tilted the bottle toward him.
"Well," she said, voice smoky and rich, "owner's in a quite shitty mood tonight, huh?"
Klaus didn't smile. With a flick of his fingers, the bottle trembled in her hand and floated back to him. He snatched it mid-air and took a long, punishing swallow.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure of meeting the ever-charming Miss Nina?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she straddled him smoothly, one leg swinging over his lap. Her hands pressed against his chest, gently pushing him back into the couch as she leaned closer, eyes dark with intent.
"Let's just say," she whispered against his ear, "I came to entertain the young king of the district. Maybe we should take this... somewhere more private."
He raised an eyebrow—half amused, half bored. Then with a subtle gesture, the world blinked out.
They reappeared in his bedroom with a silent crackle of distorted air. Klaus landed on the bed with a soft grunt, Nina already unzipping his pants with deft fingers, shrugging her dress off with a smirk.
What followed was messy, heated, and wordless—more therapy than pleasure. His hands gripped her hips, her lips explored his neck, and for a moment, there was no grief. Only sweat, skin, and silence.
Hours later.
Tatiana shoved open the bedroom door, her expression somewhere between fury and exhaustion.
Her eyes narrowed as they landed on the tangled sheets, the reek of sex, and her half-naked brother sleeping beside a now-alert Nina.
This was getting out of control. Drowning in alcohol, meaningless sex, and blood-soaked purges of Abominations—none of it was healing. Just masking rot with prettier scars.
"Klaus," she snapped, her voice a whipcrack. "Wake up, you sorry excuse for a brother."
Klaus groaned, sitting up slowly. Nina jolted awake, wide-eyed at first—then sighed, gathering her dress wordlessly and slipping out the door.
Tatiana didn't even look at her. Her gaze was locked on Klaus—sharp, worried, furious.
Klaus stood and reached for his pants, buttoning them in silence. He didn't look at her.
"What is it now?" he muttered, his voice hoarse. "I already slaughtered the bastards spreading drugs in the district."
Tatiana glanced toward the walls, eyes catching on a large portrait—Aurora, forever smiling in colors too bright to exist now.
"Klaus..." she began, her voice quieter. "It's been two years... You have to move on... And Jack—Jack got infected by a Nightmare Spell."
Klaus froze. His eyes snapped to hers, glowing faintly. "How long does he have?"
She hesitated, worry tightening her expression. Then—honesty.
"Hours."
In an instant, he grabbed her wrist, and they vanished in a ripple of warped space.
They reappeared in the grand living room. Jack lay pale on the couch, his breathing shallow. Isaac nursed a glass of bourbon. Diego paced. Noah stood with arms crossed, calm but tense.
Klaus's gaze locked on Jack. His little brother flashed a crooked grin, his lips cracked.
"Bloody hell... stop looking like you're at a funeral. I'll survive this fucking nightmare. Come out like you guys. Awakened."
Klaus tried to smile—half-hearted, brittle.
"You will," he said. "You trained for this. You're ready."
Jack nodded and closed his eyes, drifting into the abyss now that everyone was here.
Klaus's smile shattered. "Everyone. Out."
Isaac flared. "The hell we are! You show up out of nowhere, drinking yourself stupid, and now you bark orders like some self-loathing king? Go fuck yourself!"
Klaus didn't flinch. His face was a stone mask. Diego looked unsure. Noah sighed.
"Let's go," he said. "Klaus... this is on you now."
Reluctantly, they left. Tatiana lingered for a moment, her eyes soft with concern. Then she followed, the heavy doors closing behind her.
Hours passed. Klaus sat in silence, drinking, watching Jack sleep—no, fight.
His fingers trembled around the glass. "Please..." he whispered. "Survive this, you little shit..."
Then Jack stirred.
Klaus bolted upright, eyes wide with hope. He did it. He survived. He—
And then Klaus saw it.
The soul. The corruption.
His vision sharpened, the amethyst glow in his eyes brightening. Jack's soul was fracturing—black veins of corruption spidering through it. His body twitched, then twisted.
"No..." Klaus breathed. "No, no, no..."
Jack convulsed, screaming. Wings burst from his back, arms melting, face deforming—an owl-like monstrosity screeching with hunger. A full-fledged Abomination.
Klaus stared, hollow.
Jack lunged. His wings spread. But before he could lift off, gravity collapsed around him—an invisible fist slamming him into the ground. He thrashed, shrieking. Klaus knelt, pulled him into a brutal embrace. Jack tore into his shoulder with his beak, shredding skin, blood soaking the carpet.
Klaus didn't flinch. He just held him tighter.
His lips trembled.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
Then, with a sickening crack—Jack went still.
Klaus didn't move.
He just sat there, cradling the broken, twisted corpse of his little brother, eyes dull, lips parted in disbelief. He had done the right thing. The necessary thing.
So why did it feel like dying?
Nightmare after nightmare. Memory after memory.
The Specter watched, its ancient mind twisting with a strange brew of dread and awe. Klaus was strong—unreasonably strong. The entity had faced him in combat, felt the raw gravitational force of his will made manifest. But this? This was something else entirely.
What kind of man rebuilds himself after being shattered so many times?
The Specter, once cautious, now grew greedy. Klaus's mental defenses were fractured—thin sheets of ice over a deep, violent ocean. It slithered in, slipping through fractures in his psyche like a parasite infiltrating weakened tissue.
It plunged into the deeper strata of his subconscious, seeking the core, the vital command center of thought, memory, and identity.
tendrils of corruption bleeding into the neuronic ether. It sank into the foundation of Klaus's psyche and began its work—unraveling the stability of thought, tampering with the emotional scaffolding. And yet...
Something was wrong.
No, everything was wrong.
This mind-space... this internal realm of Klaus's subconsciousness... was still.
Stillness should be impossible here.
The subconscious is a living chaos, always morphing—a shifting landscape of thoughtforms, memory fragments, and sensory echoes. But now, the landscape had halted. No sound. No motion. Not even time seemed to move.
In the architecture of the subconscious, stillness is a paradox. the subconscious mind controls heartbeat, blood circulation, regulates digestion and elimination. In sleep our conscious mind becomes dormant while the subconscious mind stays fully awake.
So how? What was happening?
Hovering above it, like a shadow draped in moonlight, was a woman clad in an elegant black dress that shimmered like oil over silk. Her face was hidden behind a delicate, flowing veil. Her very presence seemed to reject entropy. The mental realm around her bent and crystallized like glass.
The Specter recognized the nature of her presence: A wraith.
It snarled, its segmented form coiling in defense. It was stronger, older, crafted for domination of the mind. Yet it felt an ancient instinct surge through it.
Fear.
Miseria didn't speak at first. She watched it. Let it twist, let it squirm, let it realize that it had walked into a trap.
She chuckled.
"Oh, dear... You overestimated your own cleverness," she whispered. Her voice echoed in unnatural layers, as if a choir of grieving spirits whispered through her tongue. "You sought to corrupt our lord's mind. But now... you pay for that sin."
The Specter screamed and shot toward her in a blur of writhing tendrils and shadow. Miseria did not flinch.
She only smiled as violent light appeared in still mind realm.
Klaus was floating above centipede.
Not as a memory. Not as a fractured hallucination. He stepped forward in the realm of his mind.
His form was radiant with amethyst light. His aura distorted the space around him—subtle at first, then undeniable. Reality cracked like porcelain underfoot. The Specter froze.
On Klaus's finger glinted a ring. Devourer.
Enchantment: [Conquest]
"The Will to Forge One Who Conquers Them All."
With it came a gravitational presence so heavy, even this incorporeal space warped under the strain. The Specter felt its sense of time fracture, slow, collapse inward.
Miseria reached out.
The Specter tried to flee—but it was already too late.
Its movement ceased. Its will frayed like ash in a solar flare.
"Time doesn't exist for you anymore," Miseria said gently, her tone full of mock sympathy. "Only judgment."
The Specter exploded—not in gore, but in essence. Its form unspooled into threads of soul essence, swirling into Miseria's open palm where she condensed it into a tight, glowing sphere—trapped.
She looked up.
"It worked."
Klaus folded his arms, watching the twitching orb in satisfaction.
"Of course it did. You all were panicking over a pest. You really forgot about Devourer? Come on, Miseria. That's peak stupidity, even for spirits."
Miseria rolled her veiled eyes, not dignifying his arrogance with an answer.
Klaus's consciousness surged upward, shooting back through the layers of his mind.
And he woke—
Eyes snapping open, breath ragged.
Darkness.
He was back on the black island.
He groaned, sitting up. His head pounded with the weight of the mind battle.
He rubbed his temple and muttered with venomous amusement:
"Petty, vengeful women... I swear..."