Chapter 338: Fairness

Kael took a step forward.

He vanished.

Claudia’s instincts screamed. She threw herself backward, her massive serpentine tail propelling her body with explosive force. A few strands of her hair fell to the ground, sliced cleanly by a blade that had passed through the space her neck had occupied a millisecond earlier. A thin slash appeared on her forehead—SLICE—blood welling immediately, the cut so precise she didn’t feel it until the blood reached her eyebrow.

Kael materialized where she had been standing. His visor turned toward her slowly.

"You should have run when you had the chance," he said.

He attacked again.

CLANG. CRASH. FWOOOM.

Kael’s blades descended in a relentless barrage. Each strike carried the weight of dual intents, Demonic Asura Fire, and condensed darkness. Claudia blocked desperately—her snake avatar reforming around her body, its scales absorbing blow after blow.

A slash cut through the avatar’s coils—SLICE—drawing blood from her shoulder. A follow-up strike sheared through her defensive whip—SHING—the Special Grade weapon’s runes overloading from the conflicting energies. A knee strike from Kael’s Fiend armor crashed into her midsection—BOOM—launching her across the chamber.

She crashed into a rack of poison vials—CRASH—glass shattering, toxic liquids spilling across her scales. She pulled herself up, blood pouring from multiple cuts.

Kael pressed her relentlessly.

Claudia’s snake avatar shattered—CRACK—the condensed serpent dissolving completely under the sustained assault. Her poison mana was useless—Kael’s Void Sovereign Physique absorbed it on contact. Her physical strength was inferior—his Tier 5 body, enhanced by dual intents and the Fiend armor, outclassed her Naga form. Her cultivation advantage—Spirit Soul Rank 8 against his Rank 3—should have been insurmountable. But his soul power was Mid Soul Condensation, his aura was amplified, his runes blazed with every strike, and his dual bloodlines pushed his combat output beyond what a five-rank gap should allow.

Multiple slashes accumulated across her body, her regeneration unable to keep pace with the damage.

Tears streamed from Claudia’s eyes from the pain and the overwhelming, crushing realization that she was outmatched in every category that mattered.

"This isn’t fair!" she screamed—SHRIEK—her voice cracking, tears and snot running down her scaled face. "How can someone have this much talent! This isn’t—"

Kael stopped.

He stood in the center of the destroyed chamber, his Fiend armor pulsing, his twin blades dripping her blood. He looked at her—this Spirit Soul Rank 8 cultivator, this Shadow Vatican operative, this woman who had tortured him for weeks with poisons and insects and soul-corrosion venom—and he tilted his head.

"Fair?" His voice was calm and cold. "You held me down and injected venom into my veins for ten days. You put beetles under my skin. You burned me with brands while I was trapped in my worst memories." He took a step toward her. "You fed my soul to poison. And now you want fairness?"

Another step. Claudia flinched from the sound of his voice.

"Let me tell you about fairness," Kael said, his voice dropping lower. "Fairness is a lie invented by the weak to beg for mercy they never earned. There is no fairness. There is only power, and the will to use it. I was born a prince and reborn as a Vorn, hunted by my own family, tortured in a cell by a woman who calls herself the Viper." He raised one blade, pointing it at her. "Fairness doesn’t exist. Only consequences."

He walked toward her slowly. Each step a death knell to Claudia.

Claudia’s mana surged desperately. Multiple snake avatars materialized around her—FWOOM, FWOOM, FWOOM—six condensed serpents, each one infused with her full poison mana, their fangs dripping with concentrated venom. They lunged at Kael simultaneously from every direction.

Kael formed hand seals, multiple runes blazing around him. Rank 5 Runemaster inscriptions drawn directly into the air. Multiple dark spears materialized, each one blazing with Demonic Asura Fire. The spears passed through the runes—BLAZE—the formations amplifying their power, adding gravitational compression and darkness corrosion to the already devastating attack.

The enhanced spears struck the snake avatars—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—shattering them on impact.

Void Step—SKIP—Kael appeared directly before the exhausted Claudia. Her eyes widened—her mouth opening to speak, to beg, to scream.

"Sky Rending Technique, First Form: Falling Star."

The blades descended—FWOOOM—infused with Slaughter Intent, Demonic Asura Fire, and condensed darkness. It cut through Claudia’s remaining defensive mana like paper—SLICE, SLICE—severing both her arms at the shoulders.

Blood gushed as Claudia’s arms fell to the ground. She screamed—SHRIEK.

Kael kicked her—BOOM—his Fiend-armored foot connecting with her chest. She flew—CRASH—crashing through a stone bench, rolling across the shattered chamber floor.

She started crawling. Her serpentine tail dragged behind her, leaving a thick trail of blood across the floor. Her stumps reached forward. She crawled toward the door.

Kael watched her crawl silently.

Multiple shadow spikes erupted from the ground piercing through her stomach and her snake tail, pinning her to the floor. She screamed again—AGH—her body convulsing.

"Where are you going?" Kael said, tilting his head. "Come on. We’re just getting started."

He kicked her again—BOOM—sending her crashing through the poisonous garden. Plants shattered—CRASH—toxic pollen erupting into the air. Claudia’s body tumbled through the venomous foliage, her blood mixing with the toxic soil.

Kael appeared in front of her—SKIP—his hand reaching down, grabbing her hair. He lifted her face to meet his.

"Come on," Kael said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Come on." His grip tightened. "You can’t go crying just from that. This isn’t even up to 10% of what you did to me."

A small dark dagger materialized in his left hand—HUMMM—condensed from Shadow Authority, the blade made of pure shadow rule power. He stabbed it into her left eye—SHLUK.

Claudia screamed—SHRIEK—her remaining eye wide with terror. Blood and fluid poured down her face.

"Please!" she begged, her voice ragged, sobbing. "I can give you credits! Any amount! I have connections—I have—"

Kael chuckled—HAH—the sound evil, cold, devoid of warmth. "You forget I’m a Vorn. I don’t need your credits."

Claudia begged harder—SOB—tears and blood streaming down her ruined face. "My father! My father is the Vice Principal of Neon Abyss Academy! Clovis! You know him right? He’s powerful! He can give you anything—"

Kael smiled.

I knew that academy was shady. So they work with the Shadow Vatican.

Claudia saw the smile. Her heart leaped—HOPE—she thought she had finally found an escape route. She thought the mention of her father’s name and position had given her leverage.

In the next second, a second dark dagger materialized in Kael’s right hand—HUMMM. He stabbed it into her remaining eye—SHLUK.

Claudia’s scream—SHRIEK—was louder. Her world went dark. Completely, permanently dark.

Kael ran his fingers through his hair, cleaning a strand of blood from the white strands. "You’re making noise, lady. I haven’t even started."

He knee’d her in the stomach—CRACK—her ribs shattering from the impact. She coughed blood—SPLAT—the crimson liquid spraying from her lips. But Kael held her hair, preventing her from falling, preventing her from escaping the pain.

He dragged her to the poison plants. He pushed her face into them—SQUISH—the thorns and toxic foliage pressing against her skin, her ruined eyes, her lips. She screamed—SHRIEK—the neurotoxins entering through her facial wounds, her body convulsing as multiple poisons interacted.

He lifted her. Soul power blazed—HUMMM—and Claudia levitated before him, her body suspended, her stumps bleeding, her eyes destroyed, her skin covered in toxins and blood. She begged in whispers—"please... please..."—her voice barely audible, her spirit broken.

Kael didn’t give a fuck.

He touched her forehead. His soul power gathered—PULSE—condensing into a technique he had watched Kaelthas the Soul Weaver use through his father’s memories. Among the five soul techniques he had observed, this one had intrigued him the most.

Soul Weaver’s Requiem: Soul Executioner’s Mark.

A mystic grade soul technique. Incomplete, but quite functional. It marked a target with a soul sigil that slowly corroded their soul structure, inflicting unimaginable pain. The sigil could be manipulated—detonated for explosive soul damage, or sustained for prolonged agony. Aria’s father had used it for interrogation. For torture. For extracting information from the most stubborn prisoners.

The sigil burned into Claudia’s soul—HUMMM—a dark mark spreading across her spiritual form. Her eyes were already gone, but her mouth opened in a silent scream—SILENCE—the pain too deep for vocalization. Her soul structure cracked, the sigil eating through her spiritual foundation like acid.

Claudia screamed. Five minutes passed. To her soul, it felt like years. Decades of compressed agony, each second stretching into eternities as the sigil corroded everything she was—her memories, her identity, her will. Her mind broke. What remained was a husk, a shell, a body that breathed only because the sigil sustained her for continued punishment.

Kael looked down at her body wiggling on the floor—the serpentine tail twitching involuntarily, the stumps still bleeding, the mouth mumbling fragmented words in a language she no longer understood.

He brought out the Netherworld Soul Locking Flag—HUMMM—the dark fabric unfurling, its surface pulsing with the hunger of the souls already trapped within.

"Don’t worry," Kael said, his voice quiet, final. "You will serve me for eternity."

The flag’s dark energy reached down and Claudia’s soul was ripped from her body. The serpentine form went limp—THUD. Her soul, broken and corroded, was pulled into the flag—GULP—the fabric absorbing her essence, adding her to the collection.