Klaus stared at her for a long second with his expression just straightforward.
On his head, Valeria shifted slightly in his hair, letting out an annoyed tiny hum, while Sparky hovered near his shoulder, making a gagging motion with her tiny hands.
"Do you think I’m that starved for sex?" Klaus asked, his tone completely unimpressed.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Meoni Hand sighed, shaking her head with patronizing pity. "It seems you fail to comprehend the grand, majestic architecture of salvation. Allow me to enlighten your narrow mind! Our plan is divine in its simplicity. We shall slaughter the entirety of this world’s mortal population! Every man, woman, and child shall be harvested as a grand blood-soaked offering to tear open the gates of the Nether-realm! Once the Death God is fully resurrected, we, His loyal servants, shall live an immortal, beautiful life of eternal bliss under His absolute jurisdiction!"
Klaus let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing the back of his neck as he listened to her passionate speech.
’That’s just the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard...’ Klaus thought bitterly.
He didn’t bother telling her, but from his memories of the original game’s plot, the Death God was an unhinged eldritch nightmare.
When the Death Cult eventually succeeded in summoning a fraction of His avatar in the original storyline, the Death God didn’t reward his loyal followers with eternal bliss.
He ruthlessly devoured every single cultist who had summoned Him, spitting their souls into the abyss because He found their pathetic mortal worship insulting.
They were literally sacrificing the world just to be eaten first.
"You guys are fucking idiots," Klaus muttered aloud.
Not that he cared about the grand plot or saving the world anymore. The main storyline, the protagonist, the villains... none of it mattered to him.
He just wanted to live his life, take care of his girls, and crush anyone who got in his way.
Meoni Hand’s face instantly twisted from manic joy into a dark murderous scowl. Her sunken eyes flared with venomous rage at his disrespect.
"Insolent fool!" Meoni Hand shrieked, her raspy voice echoing off the ice pillars. "If you will not bow willingly to the crusade of salvation, then your soul shall serve as the primary catalyst for the altar!"
She violently snapped her fingers.
"Kill the stray, tear apart his carriage, and slaughter the demi-human scum hiding behind the ice!" Meoni Hand barked at her subordinates. "Leave no survivors!"
Four black-cloaked cultists immediately broke away from the main group.
They drew jagged, dark steel daggers with their feet kicking up sprays of white powder as they sprinted toward the massive blocks of blue ice where Mirela and Anya had gone to relieve themselves.
"They’re going after the girls," Valeria noted calmly from top of his head.
"Yeah. That was a big mistake," Klaus drawled.
He didn’t draw his broadsword, he didn’t run after them either. Klaus simply locked his glowing silver eyes onto the backs of the four running cultists.
VWOOM.
Klaus expanded his divine senses, instantly bypassing their physical bodies and locking onto the exact flickering architecture of their souls.
Without making a physical motion, he injected four razor-thin, hyper-dense needles of pure white Soul Mana directly into the center of their spiritual forms.
He didn’t just pierce them as he violently overloaded their soul structures with concussive pressure, triggering an instantaneous forced Soul Death.
The four cultists didn’t even get to take a third step.
TCHING!
The sharp fragile sound of four glass ornaments shattering simultaneously echoed directly in the spiritual plane.
Mid-stride, the four cultists’ souls completely, violently dissolved into nothingness.
The exact microsecond their spiritual anchors vanished, the physical laws governing their biology were aggressively canceled.
They didn’t fall to the snow and they didn’t bleed. Their physical flesh, bones, and dark cloaks instantly turned entirely into fine gray ash mid-air.
FWFSHHH!
The howling winter wind caught the four clouds of ash, completely sweeping them away across the snowpack, leaving four empty pairs of leather boots dropping uselessly onto the frozen ground.
Meoni Hand’s eyes widened in shock with her mouth falling open as she stared at the empty space where four of her elite had been standing less than a second ago.
Before Klaus could even blink, a series of translucent blue system notification tabs violently flashed across his retinas.
[Target Soul Eradicated: Death Cultist]
[Target Soul Eradicated: Death Cultist]
[Target Soul Eradicated: Death Cultist]
[Target Soul Eradicated: Death Cultist]
[Host has defeated four hostile entities. Select one skill from the target pool to assimilate:]
[Shadow Step (Tier 1): Short-range spatial dash through shadows.]
[Necrotic Dagger Mastery (Tier 1): Increases proficiency with poisoned edge weapons.]
Klaus glanced at the floating text for a microsecond with a look of disgust crossing his face.
’Shadow Step is weak, and I don’t use tiny knives,’ Klaus evaluated. ’It’s trash.’
He mentally tapped the dismiss option.
[Skills Rejected. Converting target parameters into raw foundational power...]
[Four souls have been assimilated into the Soul Vessel.]
[Stat Point Conversion Complete: +1 Strength]
’Just one?’
Inside the dark cavern of his chest, four blank, frozen stone statues of black-cloaked cultists materialized, taking their permanent places in his internal graveyard.
Klaus felt a subtle satisfying wave of warm energy surge through his limbs as his stats barely moved.
"W-What did you just do?!" Meoni Hand shrieked, backing up a step as her manic composure completely shattered. "Where are their bodies?! Where are their souls?!"
"It’s gone..." Klaus said deadpan. "You approached the Soul King right? Weren’t you aware of what would happen?"
He stepped forward with his heavy combat boots crunching into the deep snow.
"Now," Klaus rumbled, his silver eyes flashing with a terrifying light. "It’s my turn."
The remaining ten cultists panicked. Drawn by fear, they raised their hands, summoning a barrage of dark, necrotic magic spells.
Jagged spears of black ice, swirling orbs of decaying acid, and razor-sharp shadow blades erupted from their circles, flying straight toward Klaus in a chaotic concentrated storm of death.
Klaus blurred forward.
WHOOSH!
His Agility stat, massively fortified by his new class allowed him to move at a speed that rendered him invisible to their eyes.
’Why the hell did the Cult send such weak people though?’
He completely bypassed the incoming barrage of dark magic with the spells exploding harmlessly against the snowpack behind him.
SHCK!
Klaus materialized directly in front of the first two cultists.
He didn’t draw a weapon as he simply raised both of his large calloused hands, grabbing them by their throats then he smashed their heads together with brutal force.
CRACK! SQUELCH!
Their skulls shattered like ripe melons, blood and brain matter spraying across the snow but Klaus didn’t pause for a second.
He released their limp bodies, spinning on his heel and delivering a devastating, full-force sidekick to the third cultist’s chest.
BOOM!
The impact was like a cannonball hitting a brick wall.
The cultist’s sternum was completely pulverized, her chest collapsing inward as he was violently launched backward, blasting thirty yards through the air before slamming into a fifty-foot block of blue ice, dying instantly upon impact.
"Monster!" one of the cultists screamed, trying to stab Klaus from behind with a black iron dagger.
Klaus didn’t even turn around. He reached back with his left hand, catching the cultist’s wrist in an iron vice grip.
He twisted the arm completely backward, snapping the elbow joint with a loud sound, dragged the screaming woman over his shoulder, and slammed him face-first into the frozen ground, driving his heavy combat boot down onto the back of the cultist’s neck.
CRUNCH.
The spine severed instantly.
Within five seconds, nine of the cultists lay slaughtered in the snow with their blood steaming in the sub-zero air.
Klaus casually swept his gaze over the carnage, letting his Soul Vessel automatically harvest their lingering, flickering souls, converting their weak skills into raw stat boosts.
Only Meoni Hand remained standing.
The female Bishop was hyperventilating, her pale face slick with cold sweat.
But instead of running, a terrifying grin slowly spread across her gaunt features once again. She threw her head back and let out a booming laugh.
"Kekekekeke! Impressive! Truly worthy of the Soul King’s title!" Meoni Hand screamed, her voice echoing wildly through the ice labyrinth. "But you cannot kill me, fool! You are fighting an immortal!"
She tore off her black cloak, tossing it into the wind.
Beneath the cloak, her pale skin was covered in intricate glowing black runes that writhed across her flesh like living snakes as an oppressive wave of dark energy erupted from her core.
"I was chosen!" Meoni Hand shouted proudly, her eyes turning pitch-black. "When our Lord Death attempted to consume my soul as an offering, He deemed my devotion so pure that He spat my soul back into my vessel, marking me with His divine immortal blessing! I cannot die by mortal means! My physical body is anchored to the Nether-realm!"
She raised her hands with her fingers curling into claws.
FWOOSH!
A blinding terrifying storm of dark violet Death Flames erupted from her palms, like usual, the flames didn’t carry heat but they carried sub-zero entropy that actively withered and decayed the physical environment.
The snow beneath her feet instantly turned to black sludge with the massive blocks of blue ice around her cracking and corroding under the sheer weight of her necrotic aura.
"Taste the eternal judgment of Death!" Meoni Hand roared, thrusting her hands forward.
A massive roaring dragon forged entirely from black and violet Death Flames lunged out from her palms, its jaws gaping wide as it surged directly toward Klaus, intending to completely incinerate his physical flesh and decay his core.
Klaus stood his ground.
"Immortal, huh?" Klaus muttered. "Let’s test that theory."
He drew his massive Soul Broadsword from the sheath on his back with a sharp metallic sound.
SHING!
He didn’t channel defensive mana but instead, he flooded the heavy blade with a dense layer of divine Soul Mana.
The flame dragon reached him. Klaus stepped into the attack, twisting his broad hips, and swung his broadsword upward in a brutal full-force diagonal arc.
KRA-SLASH!
The force of his swing, combined with the purifying density of the white Soul Mana, completely cut the Death Flame dragon in half.
The necrotic beast exploded into a harmless shower of fading black sparks that dissolved into the snow.
Before the sparks even hit the ground, Klaus blurred forward.
He stepped directly into Meoni Hand’s guard.
The female Bishop gasped in shock, trying to summon a barrier of dark flames, but Klaus was far too fast.
He grabbed her by her pale throat with his left hand, lifting her entire body off the ground, and drove the heavy pommel of his broadsword violently into her stomach.
PAH!
"GAH!" Meoni Hand gagged, coughing up a spray of dark corrupted blood as the breath was brutally knocked from her lungs.
Klaus didn’t stop there.
He slammed her body downward, pinning her flat onto her back in the snow, and drove his broadsword straight through her right shoulder, pinning her securely to the frozen earth.
SHCK!
Meoni Hand shrieked in agony, but within two seconds, the dark runes on her skin flared brightly.
The horrific wound in her shoulder began to rapidly knit back together around the steel blade with the dark energy forcing the severed muscle fibers and shattered bones to re-fuse at an impossible rate.
"Kekeke! I told you!" Meoni Hand wheezed, spit and blood running down her chin as she looked up at him with arrogance. "You cannot kill me! Every time you strike my flesh, the Lord’s blessing repairs the vessel! I will fight you for a thousand years! I will burn your core to dust!"
She raised her left hand, generating another swirling orb of black Death Flames aimed directly at Klaus’s face.
Klaus didn’t flinch and he didn’t pull his sword out. He simply looked down at her with cold silver eyes.
"You don’t get it, do you?" Klaus said softly with his deep voice carrying a terrifyingly calm edge. "Your body heals because your soul is anchored to a divine bypass... You think you’re immortal because no mortal attack can touch your soul blueprint, right?"
He lowered his right hand, placing his calloused palm flat against her forehead.
During the brief exchange, every time his blade or fists had touched her, Klaus had been actively probing the spiritual architecture of her soul.
He had noticed a small dense defensive barrier... a spiritual shield erected by the Death God’s residual blessing that protected her soul from external tampering.
To a normal mage or warrior, that spiritual shield made her completely untouchable.
To the Soul King, it was just a line of code waiting to be edited.
"However like you know, I am the Soul King," Klaus growled softly. "Your soul belongs to me."
VWOOM.