Klaus’s eyes opened and he sat up... however he was not in the mountains with Seo or Neo neither was he in a marriage like he expected.

He was in a completely dark world.

There was no sky, no ground and no horizon.

The space around him was a vast suffocating expanse of pitch-black emptiness that stretched on endlessly in every direction.

He didn’t feel the biting chill of the mountain air anymore, nor did he feel the jagged rocks biting into his skin. His body felt impossibly light, almost weightless, as if his physical form had been stripped away entirely.

Klaus sat up straighter in the void looking around at the endless ink.

"Is anyone there?" Klaus asked with his voice echoing endlessly into the dark.

There was nobody. The silence ringing in his ears was deafening and he pushed his hands against the unseen floor to push himself up, expecting to feel dirt or stone, but his palms met a strange glassy surface that offered zero friction.

"Welcome To Your Soul World, this is how your soul looks my Lord."

A voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Klaus immediately stood up, brushing off his dark clothes.

"My soul, huh?" Klaus said, looking down at his own hands.

He knew he wasn’t a Saint but why the hell was his soul this black? It looked like an empty abyss devoid of a single speck of light or warmth.

"Wait... who the hell is talking?" Klaus asked, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the empty void.

"I can only establish a short communication between us for so long my Lord, but please come find me. I am your most loyal servant still awaiting you in the Haunte—"

The voice immediately disappeared like dust in the wind, the final syllable cut off cleanly as the connection severed. The suffocating silence rushed right back in, leaving Klaus standing alone in the pitch-black space.

’Does the voice mean the Haunted Winterlands?’ Klaus thought with a deep sigh escaping his lips.

His mind instantly went to work, processing the fragmented information through the lens of his past life.

The Haunted Winterlands was a highly dangerous zone in the original Artemis Online game. That was the specific location where Neo, the main protagonist, was originally supposed to get a Shinigami... a powerful death spirit that allowed him to use Copy Magic, making him basically unstoppable and allowing him to mimic the overpowered spells of the academy seniors.

’Was this Shinigami perhaps my own?’ Klaus thought, rubbing his chin as he paced across the glassy black floor. ’As the Soul King? Whatever that meant...’

Klaus was not aware of any "Soul King" entity in the entire lore of Artemis Online.

He had memorized the wiki, the character stats but this specific title never appeared in any patch notes but if that was the Hidden Bloodline that this specific extra’s body held, then he would take it.

A hidden bloodline meant exclusive power, and exclusive power meant a massive tactical advantage that he could leverage to protect his life.

Klaus then stood up straight to walk around his soul, his boots making soft tapping sounds against the invisible floor.

"Where the hell is the way out of here?" Klaus muttered into the dark.

Instantly, it seemed like his soul lit up.

Right in front of him, a brisk white flame sparked to life, illuminating the darkness with a cold, pale light. The flame flickered wildly, and looking closely, it looked exactly as though it was a raw soul.

Klaus really didn’t know the exact mechanics of soul magic yet, but he guessed based on his gaming knowledge.

The white flames dispersed violently, the mist clearing and revealing the highlighted, ghostly figure of the Crimson Sharpshooter.

She looked exactly like she did before he blew her head off with the sniper rifle. Her long, rotting hair floated around her face, and her glowing green eyes darted around the endless black void in pure panic.

Klaus took several cautious steps backward, creating distance between them as the undead woman realized where she was.

She dropped to the invisible floor and crawled forward to him, her pale fingers grasping at the dark surface.

"Stay back," Klaus commanded.

Instantly, her body paused. The very laws of his soul bent entirely around her form, responding directly to his vocal command and making her stop dead in her tracks.

Her soul looked exactly like her physical body, carrying the same curves and tattered clothes, but as she remained frozen, a terrifying process began.

Her hands that were resting flat on the ground, as well as her pale knees, began to turn a deep, solid black. The dark texture of the soul world was physically creeping up her skin, turning her ethereal flesh into solid unmoving obsidian stone.

"No!" the Crimson Sharpshooter cried out, her glowing eyes wide with terror. "P-Please I don’t wanna die!"

She turned her face up to Klaus with dark ethereal tears dropping down her cheeks.

The black petrification rose up slowly, crossing her shins and her forearms, covering her body in an inescapable crust of solid void as the laws of his mind space rejected her foreign presence.

"P-Please Soul King, Please don’t kill me," She begged as her voice cracked with desperation. "I-I... I can satisfy you."

She desperately tried to shift her posture to show him her thick, muscular thighs, trying to leverage the physical assets that had distracted so many men before but her hands and legs were completely stuck to the ground. The black stone held her firmly in place.

So, she settled with swaying her upper body left and right, moving her torso rapidly to make her generous breasts jiggle under her torn shirt.

"Please..." she pleaded "I’ll be your servant, I’ll be anything... Just Pl—"

The dark stone crossed past her wrists, creeping up her forearms, and she could physically feel her entire soul being frozen in time.

It wasn’t exactly a true Soul Death, but it was arguably much worse. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

She would lose all of her free will, all of her memories, and become a literal mindless statue serving as a decorative piece in his dark soul forever.

She wanted to avoid that endless purgatory at all costs.

Klaus blinked at her.

He really didn’t know exactly what was going on with the mechanics of the petrification, but he tilted his head to the side, his expression completely blank and devoid of any lust or sympathy.

"Don’t I already get one of your skills?" Klaus asked logically, crossing his arms. "You don’t really have much to offer."

Her breath bated.

The seductive swaying of her chest stopped entirely. It was completely clear to her now... This Soul King wasn’t like the other men she had encountered or killed.

He wasn’t going to just do things willy-nilly and spare her life simply because she was a beautiful, desperate woman groveling at his feet. He was a pure pragmatist... He valued raw power, utility, and profit over fleeting sexual gratification.

She bowed her head deeply, pressing her forehead against the cold invisible floor as the black of his soul slowly wreathed up her body, reaching her stomach.

"I will surrender all of my skills, my essence, my very life to you," she offered rapidly, abandoning all attempts at seduction and shifting to pure business. "I will allow you to own me and use me in whatever way you wish, just please don’t turn me into a mindless statue in your Soul... Please Soul King, establish a Master-Slave Contract with me... I will be your slave, I will be—"

"Enough, enough," Klaus interrupted her frantic rambling.

He walked closer, his boots clicking against the void.

As he approached her kneeling form, the blackness that was aggressively climbing up her soul body reversed entirely, retreating down her arms and legs, sinking back into the ground and freeing her limbs.

He stopped right in front of her and bent down to her kowtowing level, looking directly into her glowing green eyes.

"How do I establish this Master-Slave contract thing though?" Klaus asked, his tone strictly business.

She let out a massive trembling sigh of relief, realizing she had successfully negotiated her continued existence.

She pushed herself up slightly, keeping her head bowed respectfully, and began to speak a complex chant in a dead language that Klaus had zero knowledge of.

"Ego trado meam essentiam, meam animam, et meam voluntatem ad te, Rex Animarum. Accipe me ut servum tuum in aeternum," she chanted, the ancient words glowing faintly in the dark air.

Instantly, a translucent blue system tab appeared floating directly in front of his face, illuminating his masked features.

「Would you like to establish a Master-Slave contract with Valeria The Crimson Sharpshooter?」

「This Contract offers you: Control over Valeria’s entire existence, Full access to her skills, Undying loyalty, and unrestricted access to her combat experience.」

「Y / N」

Klaus didn’t care about the loyalty part or owning her existence.

All Klaus could see was the ’Full access to her skills’ section of the tab. That single line represented massive tactical value.

She had been an incredibly annoying and highly lethal person to deal with, especially given the fact that she could snipe from a long distance with devastating precision and regenerate from lethal wounds.

Having access to all of her broken abilities instead of just one random skill drop was a massive return on his investment.

Klaus raised his finger and tapped Y on the glowing screen.

Immediately, the remaining dark residue clinging to her skin shattered like glass.

She was entirely freed from the consuming darkness of the soul world, her body becoming light as she floated gently into the air hovering a few inches above the invisible floor.

’If I can get her abilities then...’ Klaus thought.

His thought, however, was interrupted as the woman floated back down, landing gracefully on one knee directly in front of him. She placed her right hand over her heart, her glowing eyes filled with newfound reverence.

"I am ready to serve you, my Soul King," Valeria pledged softly.

"What does this Soul King thing even mean?" Klaus asked, genuinely annoyed by the vague, grandiose title. Her glowing green eyes widened in shock.

"Aren’t you Humans aware of the Soul King?" Valeria asked as her tone was laced with disbelief.

"I don’t know," Klaus shrugged casually, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Maybe it’s because I’m a commoner."

Before she could delve into the ancient lore and explain exactly what the terrifying title meant to the undead factions, another massive, glowing blue tab appeared directly in front of his eyes, blocking his view of her face.

Klaus looked at the screen as the system officially registered his new power scaling.

「New Skills and Traits have been registered. You have gained an Affinity for Wind Magic... Wind Mana will now respond to you.」

’Wind magic?’ Klaus blinked, a rare smile tugging at the corners of his lips beneath his mask.

That was pretty fucking amazing.

Up until this exact moment, he only had an affinity for Metal Magic. While manipulating metal wasn’t bad but it lacked that raw destructive utility in close combat.

However an affinity for Wind would allow him to use sharp, pressurized Wind Cutters like Neo. It would enhance his mobility, allow him to redirect projectiles, and gave him a massive edge in versatile combat, which was pretty good for his survival odds.

He reached out his finger and scrolled down the glowing blue tab to look at the specific detailed list of new skills he had successfully acquired from the contract with Valeria.

「Contractee: Valeria The Crimson Sharpshooter」

「Skill: Phantom Finger-Guns」

「Tier: 3」

「Description: By shaping your hand into the form of a pistol, you can condense the ambient oxygen in the air into highly pressurized, invisible bullets. These air bullets carry immense concussive force capable of shattering solid stone barriers and causing severe internal organ damage without piercing the target’s skin. Requires very little mana to cast repeatedly.」

「Skill: Necrotic Healing」

「Tier: 4」

「Description: Your cellular structure adopts undead regenerative properties. Upon receiving physical damage, the affected flesh will emit a thick, white steam as it rapidly knits tissue, muscle, and bone back together. Can regenerate crushed limbs, severe burns, and fatal organ damage within seconds.」

「Skill: Magical Ballistics」

「Tier: —」

「Description: You possess complete, supernatural mastery over all long-range firearms. Your projectiles are coated in hyper-dense magical energy, allowing them to break the sound barrier and pierce through high-level defensive spells. Your accuracy is completely flawless; you will never miss a locked target.」

「Trait: Strong Body」

「Passive」

「Description: Your muscular density and kinetic output are vastly enhanced beyond normal human limits. You possess terrifying hydraulic leg strength capable of crushing skulls, and you can pull off insane, physics-defying acrobatics, including flawless mid-air reloading and perfect posture correction while falling.」

Klaus read through the glowing descriptions.

This single contract had completely transformed him from a strong swordsman into a highly mobile regenerating menace capable of dominating at any range.

Valeria kept her head bowed down, misinterpreting his long silence.

"Sorry if my skills are a bit disappointing, Master," Valeria apologized nervously. "But I lost most of my memories of before I became undead, so I do not possess any high-tier elemental spells—"

"These will do quite nicely," Klaus interrupted smoothly.

He closed the glowing blue tabs with a mental command and stood up straighter. He didn’t really mind the lack of elemental spells at all. What she provided was combat utility and that was worth its weight. "Thank you."

He turned his back to the endless dark void, looking back over his shoulder at his new servant.

"Tell me more about this Soul Kin—"

Before Klaus could even finish his sentence, his entire vision violently glitched. The pitch-black world shattered into millions of bright, painful fragments as the sudden sensory overload hit him like a physical punch to the jaw.

Instantly, Klaus vanished from the Soul World as he awoke forcefully in the real world.

The first thing that hit him was the physical pain.

A splitting headache pounded directly behind his eyes, and his muscles ached as if he had been run over by a speeding carriage. The smell of crushed dirt, fresh pine needles, and sweet perfume filled his nostrils.

He blinked against the harsh blinding sunlight filtering through the trees. He found his head resting comfortably on the warm, soft lap of someone sitting on the ground.

He groaned, rubbing his temples as he looked up.

His blurry vision focused slowly, revealing long strands of pristine silver hair trailing down over his face and a pair of familiar glowing purple eyes looking down at him with intense affection.

"Huh... Zephyra?" Klaus muttered.

Zephyra smiled widely, a bright deeply unsettling look of pure joy painting her flawless features as she gently stroked his messy hair.

"Hubby, you’re awake..." Zephyra cooed softly, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. "I was starting to think they drugged you."

Klaus pushed himself up slightly with his head spinning as he looked past her shoulder to assess the situation.

He saw that they were currently resting on a dirt path running through the mountain pass, but the transport carriage that they had probably taken from the town was flipped over.

But that wasn’t the most shocking part.

Laying in the dirt just a few yards away were both the bodies of Seo and Neo.

The overpowered main protagonist and one of the Heroines of the world were sprawled out on the ground, completely fainted and covered in dark bruises with their weapons scattered uselessly in the grass.

’What the hell happened here?’ Klaus though.

Zephyra noticed his gaze locking onto the unconscious heroes and she flexed her delicate, slender muscles playfully, a dark, incredibly dangerous glint flashing in her purple eyes.

"I dealt with both of them effortlessly, Hubby," Zephyra announced with a proud laugh. "And now we can go back home~ to our home... I missed you so much."

Huh....?