Klaus nodded to himself, lips curling into a satisfied smirk as he imagined himself drifting high above the world—intoxicated for no other reason than indulgence itself. What was so wrong with that? Did a man need trauma to justify getting wasted? Please. Alcohol and weed had long become his medicine of choice. Not a coping mechanism. A lifestyle.
As his thoughts wandered toward throwing an impromptu party in some unsuspecting district—maybe stir a little chaos for fun—the Spell stirred once more. Its voice came not from a direction but from everywhere, wrapping around him like the hush before a revelation.
[The Third Seal is broken.]
[Awakening dormant powers…]
And just like that, it began.
A familiar fire surged through him. His spirit cores ignited, flaring to life with searing heat as power rippled outward like concentric rings in a pool. The sensation washed over his body, saturating his nerves, his blood, his very bones. It was euphoric, sublime—a divine touch burning him into something more.
This was not new to Klaus. He had experienced this transformation twice before. But this time… this time, something felt fundamentally different.
The evolution didn't stop at the expected threshold. It pushed past it—ruthless, relentless. The furious heat, liquefying the boundaries between flesh and spirit, melted the two into a unified torrent of incandescent force.
He was becoming.
No, not simply merging body and spirit. They were entering resonance—a sublime vibration, reinforcing each other in perfect, terrifying harmony. The resonance echoed through his four spirit cores, and when it reached critical mass…
It shattered the limit.
The threshold collapsed like glass under a god's fist. His foundation, once monstrous, now became even more terrifying. Divine aspect wielders? They'd fall to him without requiring even a whisper of his ascended ability.
The burning slowly receded, cooling into a tranquil, invigorating chill. It flowed into his marrow, his spirit, his breath. He stood still, fists clenched, a twisted grin slicing across his face.
He felt... invincible.
Of course, he wasn't. Not truly. But that wasn't the point. He was so far beyond his previous self that comparison was insulting. The sensation—the raw surge of newfound power—was addictive. He loved it. Every breakthrough, every successful experiment, every painful sacrifice—it was all worth it for this singular high.
And just as he basked in that ecstasy, the Spell spoke again, its tone cutting through the silence like the first note of an orchestra:
[Awakening Aspect Ability.]
[Aspect Ability acquired.]
Klaus raised an eyebrow, curiosity sharpening his expression.
[…Aspect Ability Name: Is & Is Not.]
He blinked.
Then stared.
Then frowned.
"Uhm… Miss Spell? What in the actual fuck?" he muttered, gesturing at the air. "What do you mean 'Is & Is Not'? Is that a riddle? Can't you just… I don't know, give me a proper answer for once? Hello? Are you listening to me?"
His frustration mounted as he shouted into the void several times, voice bouncing back at him unanswered. Eventually, he exhaled, rubbing his temples.
"Whatever… I'll figure it out later. But that name—it makes no damn sense."
Yet before his irritation could settle, the Spell's voice returned—calm, solemn, and resounding like a verdict from the heavens.
[You have acquired a new attribute.]
[Your Attribute has evolved.]
[Your Aspect Ability has evolved.]
A pause.
Then:
[Your Ascension is complete.]
Klaus froze.
For a moment, nothing moved. Not even breath.
His fingers trembled, barely containing the storm of excitement surging beneath his skin.
Wait… wait, wait, wait— seriously?!
He gained new attribute... An evolved Aspect Ability and an evolved attribute.
He had expected a reward, yes. He was no fool—he understood what he was meddling with. But this? This was beyond his wildest expectations. This was a gift wrapped in chaos and sealed by the impossible.
Quickly, his gaze darted to the runes now floating gently in the air before him, etched in radiant light:
Name: Icarus
True Name: Oldest Dream
Aspect Name: VoidWalker
Aspect Rank: Divine
Flaw: Apple of Eden
[Your desires are amplified.]
Innate Ability:
Divine Eyes of the Void
Rank: Ascended
Class: Devil
Spirit Cores: [4/7]
Spirit Fragments: [3658/4000]
A feral grin spread across his face.
"Bloody hell…" he muttered, laughing under his breath. "I shattered my cores, and yet the diagram still held enough essence to charge Pandora's Box, support a full-blown miracle, turn me into a devil, and nearly saturate my core."
His grin widened, voice lowering to a whisper of awe.
"If I hadn't left the nightmare… perhaps… perhaps, I would've already become a Tyrant."
Attributes: [Flame of Divinity], [Mentor of Deceit]…
Klaus regarded the glimmering runes with mild curiosity, a flicker of expectation in his eyes. But upon closer inspection, he realized that nothing had changed. The divine flame still burned as it always had — golden, proud, and untouched by time. The deceptive mentor remained a sly whisper in the dark, unchanged in its craft and poison.
No subtle deepening. No new layers. No quiet revelations.
The same could be said for [Wisdom of Uriel] and [Cold-blooded] — potent, polished, and unmoved by his recent evolution. They were already formidable. Unshakeable. And yet, some part of him — that foolish, greedy part — had hoped they'd grow into something even more powerful. A pity. Even miracles, it seemed, had ceilings.
But then his gaze settled on it — the one attribute that pulsed differently now, as if it had awakened from a slumber too deep and too old.
[Law of Original Sin]
The runes responded, called forth by his will — inscribed with a new truth.
Attribute: [Law of Original Sin]
Attribute Description:
[He was the first to look at the world and doubt.
The question was simple — too simple to silence: "Why?"
From that breath of doubt, rot took root.
It spread, patient and unseen, until every virtue bore a shadow.
You, most beautiful in all creation... aren't you tired? Tired of pretending not to see it?
...You will be, VoidWalker.]
Klaus stood motionless, the words sinking into him like thorns into flesh. The satisfaction he had felt only moments before — the joy of ascension, of rising higher than most dared dream — was gone, dissolved in silence.
This was his reward?
His lips parted, but no sound emerged, familiar ache crawling through his ribs.
He read the lines again. And again.
Each word felt like a weight being placed upon his shoulders. One after the other.
There was nothing triumphant about this change. No sense of glory. Only weariness.
The curse had deepened.
This attribute — this malignant, shimmering rot — it had always been a burden masquerading as a gift...
No, Not a gift. Never a gift.
A lens to see rot in every corner. A mirror to reflect the ugliness behind every smile, every warm touch, every promise.
To see the sins of all, to know the decay behind smiles, the shadows that clung to love, loyalty, even light itself... It stripped away illusions. Left nothing sacred. Not even the people he still dared to care for.
And now?
Now it spoke to him with a voice far too intimate. A voice that knew. That understood.
"Aren't you tired?"
Yes.
He was.
More than anything, he was tired. Tired of pretending not to see. Tired of the endless clarity that left no room for joy. Tired of clawing toward godhood only to find that every step forward cost him something irreplaceable.
Klaus closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the silence, trying to quiet the scream beneath his ribs.
This attribute had already broken something in him once—made him hate what he used to cherish. It was a poison of clarity, rotting through every naive belief that anything was truly pure.
"So that's what Hope gave me…" he murmured. "A fusion of her blessing with the Original Sin. A light to burn away every illusion."
A cruel irony.
His moment of triumph now felt like a funeral. He clenched his fists, but the bitterness had already seeped into his bones. There was no undoing it.
Klaus lowered his head.
The greatest prison wasn't hell.
It was this.
This knowing.
This seeing.
This burden.
And he lived in it.
Every moment.
Every breath.
Wearing a crown of doubt and a mantle of ruin.
"…Tired…" he murmured, bitterly. "I'm so fucking tired…"
And the most damning part?
He had built it himself.
Brick by golden brick, truth by agonizing truth — until the only thing left to conquer was his own exhaustion.
He turned inward again, not out of eagerness, but out of necessity. Like a man half-awake, half-dreaming, wandering halls he once ran through in triumph but now walked with tired feet.
His focus settled on his Abilities, sifting through them without much interest — the way one might absentmindedly trace the pages of a book they'd already read too many times.
He was simply too weary to care anymore.
And there it was.
Dormant Ability: [Space-Time in One]
Ability Description: [You can control Space and Time. When and Where.]
A subtle shift. So… it had evolved.
He blinked once, slowly.
So that was the reason he couldn't touch time before? Not enough power. Not enough insight. The mechanism too complex, too distant.
Curiosity flickered — a small, pitiful spark in the vastness of his emotional fatigue.
He reached for Time.
Nothing...
Of course.
He exhaled, long and slow, the breath of someone who knew disappointment intimately.
He wasn't surprised. He lacked the understanding, the clarity. Even with evolution, the key was still out of reach.
Expected. Predictable. Boring.
He moved on.
His gaze fell on his Ascended Ability.
The runes shimmered into view like constellations rearranging themselves in the dark. They whispered their name:
Aspect Ability: [Is & Is Not]
Ability Description: [If happiness comes with delusion, let them dream.
Reality offered them nothing but despair — but you will offer them a beautiful lie.]
Klaus frowned.
Illusions?
This one disturbed him more than the others.
There was something… gentle in its cruelty.
He didn't know what to make of it. Not yet.
He shook his head. Questions. Always more questions. And knowing himself — really knowing himself — mastering these would not be quick. Not like the others, who awakened to power and immediately wielded it like a blade.
No, Klaus had to understand. Dissect it. Become it.
But not now. Not yet.
He felt the weight of it all clawing at him — knowledge like chains, purpose like a collar. And just as he turned to leave the void of his own mind…
He remembered.
There was still one more thing.
The new Attribute.
He almost forgot about it.
With a sigh, half-hearted and heavy, he summoned the runes again.
And what he saw made his blood turn to ice.
Attribute: [Narrator]
He blinked. Once. Twice.
"...What?"
His fists clenched. Confusion rising. Rage bubbling under a blanket of disbelief.
This was it? This was what he bled for? What he sacrificed for? He had endured the kind of pain that would've broken any other.
He had suffered.
And for what?
A word. A title.
A mockery.
Where was the triumph? Where was the pride?
Why, after everything, did he feel only more hollow?
Where was the justice in that?
Where was the fairness?
"HOW IS THIS FAIR!?"
He roared into the void — but the void didn't echo.
It didn't care.
It never had.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
The runes shimmered again.
[Narrator] — Attribute Description: [???]
No answer.
Nothing but the unknowing.
A black hole in the shape of knowledge.
His breath caught.
His lips parted slightly as the realization clawed its way into his mind like a parasite of thought.
He stared ahead — wide-eyed, trembling — as the implications began to unfold like the pages of a forgotten scripture.
"No..." he whispered.
A whisper that cracked.
"No... no, no, no—"
It couldn't be.
He knew. Deep down, he knew.
His mind raced, collapsing under the weight of its own thoughts.
What if… no one escapes fate?
Not even the Weaver — the Demon of Fate, the shaper of threads.
If even they were caught in the web... then that meant everything was.
Everything predetermined. Every end already written.
Every breath, a line in a script he'd never agreed to perform.
A story.
A narrative.
Not a world of free will but a book — a manuscript with chapters, arcs, and endings.
His mind reeled.
That meant none of them were real. Or worse — they were real, but only because the story said they were.
And he…
He was now something else.
Was he the Narrator of his own story?
Or just another character who happened to realize he was trapped in story?
What was he?
Inside the narrative? Outside of it?
A puppet with ink-stained strings? Or a writer with blood on his pen?
Klaus didn't know.
But deep down, some buried instinct screamed — yes.
He was the narrator.
Maybe not of every tale.
But of his own.
Madness pressed against the edges of his mind like ocean waves battering a crumbling shore. He tried to push it away, tried to breathe, but the thoughts came faster than air.
And suddenly, everyone — everything — began to feel like fiction. The people he knew, loved, fought for... characters. Dialogue and memories stitched into something that only seemed real.
The world he lived in — crumbling like ash between his fingers.
Breathe, Klaus. Breathe.
"Shut up… shut up…" he muttered, eyes flickering. "I'm overthinking. I'm just—"
He told himself, curling into the void like a wounded beast. The nothingness around him pulsed softly, like a heartbeat — or maybe a ticking clock, counting down to something terrible.
A breathless laugh slipped out of him, dry and fragile.
"I'm going insane," he muttered, voice shaking. "Fucking insane."
And for the first time in a long, long time…
Klaus felt truly alone.
Not just in body, or mind.
But in existence.
His gaze, luminous and trembling, stared into the abyss. Not with strength. Not with defiance.
But with the aching, hopeless understanding…
That the abyss was written long ago.
And now… he held the pen.
Spell whispered into his ear.
[...Wake up, Oldest Dream.]
[Your nightmare is over!]
***
Hey hey! This chapter took forever to write—seriously, hours. My brain was like, "Nope, not today," but I dragged it kicking and screaming until we got here.
We uncovered a lot about Klaus in this one, didn't we? Turns out there might be a reason he's been giving fate the middle finger all this time. I mean, of course I wasn't just gonna slap on a "fateless" tag and call it a day—where's the fun in that?
Honestly, this whole idea hit me out of nowhere like, "BAM! What if…?" And now we're here. Klaus has a new evolved attribute, Original Sin fused with Hope's Blessing,
Anyway, thank you all so much for reading and sticking around!
Let me know what you thought of this chapter—I always love hearing your theories!
Until next time,
~ Your sleep-deprived author :)
***