A black spot appeared in front of Klaus, floating a few inches above the desert sand.
His breath caught anyway.
For a brief moment, the battlefield slipped out of focus. The heat, the shifting sand, even the sand wyrm looming in front of him blurred into the background. Klaus's eyes lit up with sharp excitement and anticipation, the kind that made his heart beat faster for reasons he didn't fully understand.
Like a child spotting his favorite toy on a dusty shelf.
The black spot twisted, stretched, and then tore open like fabric pulled apart by unseen hands.
Out of it slid something.
Klaus leaned forward slightly, lips curling into an eager grin.
"Here it comes," he murmured.
The Sword of Despair.
It wasn't an ordinary sword—he knew that much from its description alone. A mythical weapon. A blade said to have burned through thousands of souls, leaving despair soaked into its very existence. Compared to that, even his rare enchanted Devil's Arm suddenly felt mundane.
That was why its appearance felt different.
There was no glowing light. No heroic hum. No dramatic surge of mana.
It simply existed.
And its presence alone sent a cold chill crawling up Klaus's spine.
Then he saw the pommel.
His smile froze.
It was rusty.
Not ancient-and-dignified rusty. Not battle-worn relic rusty. This was ugly rust—the kind you found on forgotten tools behind a shed. Flaky, dull and unimpressive.
"…Huh."
The sword rotated slowly in the air, as if giving him time to judge it. The grip came into view—old wood, cracked and worn smooth by countless hands. A dark handprint was burned into it, faint but unmistakable, fingers stretched in desperation.
Klaus frowned deeper.
His excitement drained away, replaced by confusion, then disappointment.
"That's it?" he muttered. "That's the legendary terror blade?"
The sword looked like an ordinary training sword worth a silver at best. The edge was dull. The blade was rusted. It had no beauty, no menace—nothing that screamed mythical.
Klaus snorted.
"Seriously," he said incredulously. "A mythical sword that burned thousands of souls is just an old, dull, rusty sword?"
In front of him, the sand wyrm roared.
The ground trembled violently, snapping Klaus back to reality. He glanced over just in time to see the massive beast coil its body, muscles tightening as it prepared to charge. Sand slid down its armored scales like rain.
"Yeah, yeah, I see you," Klaus said quickly, waving a hand. "Give me a second. This is a disappointing moment."
The wyrm, unsurprisingly, did not care and charged.
With a resigned sigh, Klaus turned back and reached out for the sword.
The moment his hand touched the hilt, the world went black.
Black flames erupted violently from the blade, swallowing him whole.
They didn't burn. There was no heat. No pain. Only an overwhelming weight, as if his soul had been dragged underwater and held there. His body locked in place, breath frozen halfway in his lungs.
Everything around him stopped.
The sand wyrm hung mid-motion, jaws open. Sand grains froze in the air. Heat shimmer ceased. Time itself seemed to step back, granting Klaus a private moment he never asked for.
Klaus gasped, instinctively trying to let go, but his fingers refused to open.
Then he heard them.
Kill us.
Kill them.
Burn them.
Release us.
The voices came from everywhere and nowhere at once, overlapping and whispering directly into his skull. Some begged. Some screamed. Some laughed.
Klaus clenched his teeth, heart pounding.
"Not today," he growled, trying to pry his hand free.
The flames tightened, pressing in on him. His vision flickered as dark shapes moved at the edges.
He almost dropped the sword.
Almost.
The sword refused to let go.
Panic crept in, sharp and unwelcome. Then, through the noise, a memory surfaced—clear and irritatingly calm.
A phrase. Written differently in the sword's description.
Only those who pass shall wield.
Klaus swallowed hard.
"…Right," he muttered. "This might be a trial of the sword."
The black flames receded slightly, and the darkness beneath his feet shifted.
Shadows began to move.
They crawled outward from his own shadow, stretching unnaturally across the frozen ground. Thin, writhing shapes slithered over his boots and climbed his legs, cold and heavy, like regret given form.
Klaus looked down, his expression dark and unreadable.
One shadow lifted its head. Its voice was deep. Familiar.
"Why?" it asked. "Why did you let us die?"
Klaus's chest tightened.
He remembered that voice. Screaming. Begging. One of the slaves from two years ago.
Another shadow followed, its tone sharp with disgust.
"I despise you," it said. "I wish you were the one who died."
Klaus shook his head slowly as the shadows crawled higher, wrapping around his waist.
A third shape emerged behind him, larger and clearer than the rest. It wrapped its arms around him from behind in a tight, almost affectionate embrace.
The silhouette was unmistakable.
"Father," Klaus breathed.
Leopold's shadow leaned close to his ear, voice calm and cruel.
"You can't run," it said. "This is your destiny, son. Your curse."
Klaus's hands trembled, but his face remained blank.
Then a smaller shadow appeared at his feet.
A child.
Tiny hands reached up and touched his face. The voice was soft, barely louder than a breath.
"You've killed me…"
The fingers brushed his cheek.
"…Brother."
Something cracked.
Tears flowed before Klaus even realized it.
"Who are you?" he muttered, his voice echoing strangely.
He didn't know the shadow. He had never killed a child. The only one he remembered killing was Hevert. So why did this feel so familiar? Was it from a forgotten past? A memory buried too deep?
He laughed suddenly—hysterical, broken—as tears kept falling.
"You bastard," he said shakily. "You think you can mess with my head?"
Darkness spread in his silvery eyes, starting from his black pupils. It formed into six-pointed stars.
His gaze locked not on the burning sword—but on the frozen sand wyrm ahead.
"If this is your trial," Klaus said quietly, "then give me a harder one."
He began to walk forward with great effort, shadows tightening around his body, trying to hold him back.
"Because you got it wrong about me," he continued. "I have nothing."
The shadows began to slip.
Cracks spread through the frozen world like broken glass. Time shuddered.
Klaus tore free completely, the shadows dissolving behind him as reality surged back into motion.
The desert roared back to life.
He dragged the Sword of Despair through the sand.
He spoke, voice steady and cold "And a man with nothing does not fear despair—he lives inside it."