Klein remained frozen for a moment, his breath short, while Dyana’s colossal energy continued to reshape the world around them. The Genesis domain stretched as far as the eye could see, an infinite prairie of bloody flowers whose petals throbbed like living hearts.

Dyana suddenly raised her left hand, her fingers spreading apart. Immediately, the blood that was still stagnating under the flowers transformed into a thick and boiling vapor. In this fog, a point of iron suddenly appeared just a few millimeters from Klein’s face, who seemed surprised by the speed of the metal’s condensation. He moved instinctively to the side, just in time. The point exploded into a rain of tiny and deadly needles that shot out in all directions.

< Répulsion d’Aura >

A wave of aura burst from Klein’s body, striking the needles. The metallic ringing of the deflected projectiles echoed briefly, but the danger was not averted. A second point of iron, identical to the first, reappeared instantly behind his back. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

< Dash >

Klein teleported before the steel could reach him. He reappeared ten meters higher, floating above the blood fog. Using his affinity with the wind element to support himself in the air, he stabilized his position while observing the ground below.

Dyana looked up at him, a demented smile distorting her face. She moved her hand toward the sky, and a massive iron spike emerged from the ground, shooting straight toward Klein. Simply shifting to the right, Klein let the spear cleave the air where he had stood a fraction of a second earlier. Taking advantage of the wind’s thrust, he propelled himself downward.

He crossed the distance separating them to stand in front of Dyana. His katana shone with a bluish glow as he delivered an upward strike, aiming to cut through her guard. Dyana dodged by retreating a few steps.

" Come back to yourself, Dyana! " Klein shouted.

< Attraction d’Aura >

Taking advantage of her slight imbalance, Klein extended his hand and projected an invisible gravitational force. He literally seized Dyana, preventing her from moving. This gesture made Dyana’s eyes widen, but she reacted in time. Her demonic energy exploded violently, shattering the attraction in a detonation that pushed Klein back several meters.

"She can’t hear you, little mortal!" snarled the demon’s voice through Dyana’s lips.

< Mystic Art : Lightning Descent >

Klein did not waste a second. A pure white lightning tore through the purple sky of the domain and struck Dyana head-on. The electric explosion illuminated the scene with a harsh light, revealing Dyana’s charred flesh and torn clothes. However, against all expectations, she ignored the pain. Using the iron spikes that littered the ground, she manipulated them to make them levitate and hurled them at point-blank range.

Klein felt a searing pain tear through his right side. Two iron spikes had just pierced him, crushing a rib. Klein’s blood spurted onto the ground, mixing with the red flowers of the prairie. He stepped back with a grimace, pressing his hand against his gaping wound from which a sticky heat escaped.

The fight resumed with redoubled intensity. Every movement from Dyana was lethal: using the fog and iron thorns, she gave no respite, while Klein used his mystic arts to counter the assaults. While continuing to reason with her, he used every moment of respite to pierce the veil of madness.

"Dyana, look at me! Remember the moments we spent together!" he called out, his voice becoming softer, more intimate.

< Playboy >

Thanks to the activation of his skill, he used it to maximize the emotional impact. "You told me you wanted to live fully! Is this the life you desired so much?"

Suddenly, Dyana froze. Her face contracted, a tear of blood flowing from her left eye. Mammon, sensing the vessel slipping away, decided to strike a heavy blow. She made a colossal blood bubble appear in front of her. The liquid spun on itself at a dizzying speed, heating up by friction until the bubble ignited, becoming a sphere of glowing and unstable red plasma.

Sensing the imminent mortal danger, Klein immediately took a defensive stance, stabilizing his footing in the soft soil of the prairie. He concentrated all his aura in his right arm, feeling the chains of his katana sink into his forearm.

< Art Sundering Eclipse >

< Quatrième Mouvement : Full Moon >

Swinging his sword in a movement starting from below, Klein released a colossal and pure crescent of energy. The white aura blade, the size of a building, was launched with titanic force. It collided with the flaming blood bubble at the center of the arena. The impact of the two attacks created a sonic bang so powerful that it made the entire tower tremble. A blinding light, a mixture of silver and purple, invaded the room, erasing all visibility for several minutes.

When the light finally dissipated and the dust of marble and petals settled, a gaping hole had formed in the structure of the tower, opening an unobstructed view onto the devastated sky of Babylon. Klein, exhausted, his clothes in tatters and his side still bleeding, took advantage of this moment of respite. He approached Dyana who lay on the ground, her Genesis domain beginning to collapse.

"Dyana..." he murmured, kneeling beside her, ignoring his own agony. "It’s over, you don’t have to worry anymore."

He placed his hand on her forehead, using a final purification mudra. The duchess slowly opened her eyes. The abyssal black had disappeared, replaced by the warm amber he knew so well. She stared at him for a long moment, her breath short, her generous chest rising with difficulty. She observed his features, his blue eyes: without a doubt, it was indeed the person she had fallen madly in love with.

"Kaiser... ?" she murmured, her voice nothing more than an emotional breath. "Is it really you... ? But... you were dead... in the Paragon county..."

She brought a trembling hand to his face, brushing his cheek. Tears welled up in her eyes, this time real tears of a woman. She then understood that the exorcist Klein was only a mask. Her lover, the man who had seduced and manipulated her, but who had also saved her from her own loneliness, was indeed alive.

"I am here, Dyana," he replied with a tired smile, letting his katana fall to the ground to take her against him. "And I have no intention of letting you go again."

Silence fell over the top of the tower, broken only by the duchess’s sobs and the whistling of the wind rushing through the gaping hole created by their confrontation.