Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 321: Chapter 321: Klaus vs Love [1]

Chapter 321 – Klaus vs Love [1]

Klaus and Love faced each other, standing inside the battle ring shaped like a...ring.

The rules of the duel had already been decided before they’d even stepped in. Had they wished, they could have set it so the first to draw blood three times would claim victory.

That, according to travelers, was how duels ran in the Holy Empire of Nuur.

But the Badur Kingdom was a bloody kingdom. Here, people only knew how to die, and how to deliver death.

So, without much ambiguity, the duel’s winner would be decided by one thing: whoever became completely unable to move.

Unconscious, or too badly wounded to continue.

With all of that settled in their minds, the roaring arena and the excited crowd gradually faded from Klaus’s and Love’s awareness.

In that instant, only the two of them existed in that world. A situation neither particularly liked. Still, this time, no lust drove their bodies, which made everything far easier to bear.

Seconds after The Watcher declared the battle’s start, both Klaus and Love moved.

Wind gathered around Klaus’s feet, surging, snapping him backward violently, his body flicking away as though yanked by some invisible force. He channeled essence into his ring finger, transforming it into a massive, heavy green-and-black bow, its presence alone pressing down on the entire arena.

The wandering spirits nearby grew excited, especially the wind spirits, drawn to an artifact from their own world.

Windy giggled loudly, transforming into pure wind, wrapping herself permanently around her master like a cloud. Her wind stood out distinctly, a deep, striking green.

Klaus, still drifting backward on the wind beneath his feet, drew back the bowstring, a sharp, howling sound erupting through the arena.

Windy shaped part of herself into a long, spiraling, pointed green arrow, settling perfectly into Klaus’s grip.

He pulled the string further, veins bulging visibly, snaking across his forearms, and fired.

A booming crash, like a boulder crashing into stone, echoed across the arena.

The wind itself split apart, as though an ocean had been cleaved in two, tearing straight toward Love, already sprinting toward him.

She caught sight of the attack, and the hairs on her body stood on end. She focused instantly, her body erupting with dozens of glowing runes of varying colors and intensities.

She activated her wind resistance rune, then abruptly halted, slamming her right foot hard into the ground.

The ground shuddered, and her rune responded, wrenching the earth upward, forming a wall directly in front of her.

Love pressed her right palm against the earthen wall, inscribing a rune that shrouded it in hardened steel.

Then Klaus’s attack arrived. But contrary to Love’s expectations, the arrow didn’t blindly pierce the wall.

It swerved, as though guided by its own will, curving around and striking her directly instead.

Love’s expression shifted instantly.

She began activating more runes, but Klaus appeared beside her in a burst of gust, wings of condensed, vibrating wind unfurling from his back.

The bow in his hand transformed into gauntlets, amplifying his wind abilities. Without hesitation, he threw a straight punch at Love’s face, his arrow closing in simultaneously.

The pressure grew suffocating around Love, the wind so sharp it began cutting into her skin even before either attack made contact.

Her pink eyes locked with Klaus’s cold black ones in that instant, and every single thing he’d ever done to her surged back through her mind.

Everything she’d endured because of his pettiness, everything they’d lived through together, despite neither of them ever wanting any of it.

And despite all of that, despite everything they’d shared, Klaus was fighting now with a mad intensity, as though he genuinely wished to end her for good.

That was when something clicked inside Love’s mind. Something that shifted her entire approach to this battle.

She gritted her teeth and activated three runes at once, blinding and rapid. One formed a protective barrier right where the arrow was about to strike.

The other two anchored beneath her right foot, connecting directly to the earth.

Then both attacks landed simultaneously.

The wind arrow pushed through the barrier after brief resistance, piercing the left side of her stomach, hot blood spraying out in a cascade.

Love’s mind spun with wretched agony, just as Klaus’s fist crashed mercilessly into her left cheek.

Her head snapped sharply to the right, her neck aching so badly it felt as though it might dislocate entirely, the wind stripping her skin, leaving behind a bloodied, mangled face.

Love’s left eye flushed red as a blood vessel near it burst, tinting her left vision crimson, as though the world itself were weeping alongside her.

Tears welled in her eyes, but with the runes on her left leg holding, Love stayed upright, even as her body swayed, close to collapse.

Klaus wasn’t finished. He decided to press the advantage and end the duel quickly.

But before his next punch connected, Love ducked beneath it, feeling the wind above heat dangerously, and lunged forward instead, wrapping her arms around his waist, holding him tight, almost like a lover’s embrace.

The move caught Klaus off guard, delaying his reaction, giving Love the opening to finally activate the runes on her leg.

Earth erupted from the ground like grasping fingers, closing tightly into a jagged, earthen fist, sealing the two of them inside a confined space with no fresh air, only what remained trapped within.

Klaus’s wind affinity weakened instantly. Love used the disorientation to launch her attack.

’Oh, this bitch—!’

Klaus drew a deep breath he immediately regretted as Love ignited two runes, setting them both ablaze, consuming what little oxygen still lingered around them.

A blazing blue fire detonated from within the sealed earthen fist, punching outward and skyward.

Yet even that fire couldn’t melt the earthen shell, as Love continued to sustain it.

Both Klaus and Love began struggling for breath, burning together within that horrific fire, flesh peeling away, minds fading toward unconsciousness.

Yet Love refused to let go, even as Klaus headbutted her through the agony.

Both their screams tore through the now-silent arena. Everyone watched, trembling, as Love displayed the sheer madness of her suicidal gambit.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Outside, Windy remained. Sensing her master’s pain, the burning, the suffocation, she reclaimed her physical form and snapped her fingers.

One, two, three stacked whirlwinds of wind blades surrounded the flaming earthen fist, slicing it into thousands of molten fragments that sprayed outward, falling like debris from a shattered meteor.

Love and Klaus became visible again, their bodies scorched, minds teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

But Love, as the one who’d initiated the attack, had suffered less, retaining enough presence of mind to activate her teleportation rune, vanishing before Windy’s attack landed.

She reappeared at the edge of the ring, body seeping blood, collapsing to her knees, coughing as she desperately gulped in air.

Her head spun with dizziness. She used the blood already coating her body to trigger her Second Skill, Rune Inscription, quickly etching Healing Runes across herself.

Instantly, Love’s body began healing, slowly. Her mind steadied enough for her to lift her head, staring at Klaus, still standing, eyes vacant.

Windy hovered beside him, urging him to breathe, just for a second, but Klaus refused. That was when the Spirit understood exactly what he intended to do.

Over the past several days, Klaus had trained intensively in his wind abilities, but more critically, in achieving his Spirit Form.

After grueling training inside a room stripped entirely of air, Klaus had finally managed to reach it.

But there was a problem: he couldn’t summon that state at will. Because of how he’d trained...

...Klaus could only enter Spirit Form once he’d gone without breathing long enough for his body and brain to signal impending death.

And once death truly stood at the door, the outline of Vorn’s Gate visible at the edge of his vision, exactly as it was now...

...that was when his spirit essence surged exponentially through his entire body, replacing the very air he should have been breathing.

That, combined with Windy’s presence, triggered the activation of his Spirit Form.

The wind across the entire arena stilled.

Windy began to smile, watching Klaus’s scorched body glow brightly green.

Her own form shifted again, drawing toward the tattoo on his back. This time, Windy revealed a glimpse of her True Self. The kind of True Self that would send beings across the Spirit World to their knees, in the presence of one of the Primals.

The Primal Queen of Wind, the very first Wind Spirit to ever exist.

In that moment, Windy made a reckless choice, releasing a fraction of her sealed power to her Chosen One.

Just a fraction.

And wind exploded outward as spirits of wind converged on Klaus, pouring into his body, building his Spirit Form into something majestic.

Love watched the scene, her heart tightening with horrified concern. The sight reminded her of Emrys’s Spirit Form back at the Entrance Test.

And if this was even half as powerful as that...

’Fuck.’ She cursed, heart pounding.

Then Klaus’s transformation ended as suddenly as it had begun. The entire arena fell into deep, terrified silence, afraid to make a single sound.

Klaus Silicin Handoff stood at the center of the arena, his body composed of shifting green wind. His long green hair, now untied, rippled rhythmically in the breeze. His eyes were no longer black, but a deep green, pupils shaped like arrows pointing the heavens.

A crown of condensed wind hovered above his head, marking his status, within the Spirit World, as the Prince of the Wind State.

His hand gripped his bow, and the surrounding air coiled tight with dread anticipation.

"How long?" He asked, his strange magnetic voice echoing throughout the arena as if every wind was speaking with him.

"5 minutes, my baby." Windy, now shifted into the tattoo of a woman visible across his back, replied lovingly.

Klaus turned his gaze to Love, still staring at him with a mix of apprehension and defiance, and grinned coldly.

"You’re so fucking dead."

—End of Chapter 321—