Klaus had just five more minutes remaining, so the third story would determine what happened next. He restricted himself to just a single core for this torturous moment with the spider demon.
Up in the air, the siren appeared.
Behind her trailed a legion of broken-winged spirits, each humming in low, painful harmonies, their ethereal bodies flickering like dying beings.
The nature of their flight was even more bizarre, painting the sky with their ugly and painful presence.
The spider demon froze, its massive form trembling. Even a creature of its nature could feel the eerie, suffocating sorrow seeping into its bones.
Klaus, wiping blood from his chin, continued softly:
"I saw her descend from the shattered heavens, carrying the weight of a thousand broken loves in her voice alone. Those who listen... are trapped within their own despair."
The siren floated closer to the spider, her song intensifying.
Invisible chains of sorrow wrapped around the monster's limbs, dragging it down, heavier and heavier with every haunting note.
The spider howled, struggling violently, its body thrashing and smashing the earth beneath it, but it could not escape.
Its mind grew heavy. Hallucinations invaded its senses—visions of its own death, of endless decay and crumbling power.
One would say, for such a monstrous being, how could mere notes from a siren affect her?
Naturally, the lady in the air, whom Klaus created from his encounter with the Broken Siren, wasn't exactly a normal siren.
She was a banshee who then mutated into a siren. But aside from that, she had a relatively good class that allowed her to harness the power of music and her voice.
Klaus knew little about that, but he knew that you were bound to listen whenever she spoke. Her voice was like a mind-control drug.
You felt what she said and moved according to her commands. It was just too sinister at best.
Klaus watched, panting heavily now.
He had already sacrificed two cores and exhausted one. So, he was left with four Sovereign cores and two Great Sage cores for the battle ahead.
He could see he was pushing the spider to its limits. It was only a matter of time before it revealed its real nature, when killing it wouldn't be dangerous anymore.
One thing Klaus hated was surprises in combat. He always tried to understand his opponents' true nature before attempting to kill them.
So, not understanding this monster wasn't a mistake he would make by attempting to kill it. He must first get to know it, and then, when all surprises are taken out of the equation, he will attack and go for the kill.
"I saw her tears burn through mountains," Klaus whispered. "And her song silences the most ancient beasts."
The Siren raised one pale hand.
With a single, sorrowful note, the broken-winged spirits surged forward, slamming into the spider's body.
Each collision exploded in a burst of sorrowful energy, corroding the spider's flesh, metal, and whatever unnatural material it was made of.
A shriek of unimaginable pain tore from the spider's throat.
Cracks spread across its body like shattered glass.
Klaus grimaced, blood now pouring freely from his nose and ears, his life force rapidly fading.
Still, he didn't stop.
He gritted his teeth and forced out the final line of the story:
"In her final gift, the Siren sings... the Death Requiem."
The Siren's body glowed with a soft, fatal light. She opened her eyes for the first time—bottomless wells of sadness—and sang the last, devastating note.
The sky broke, creating small openings into the void.
The land trembled, drawing giant cracks in it.
The spider's body convulsed violently before a deafening silence fell over everything.
Chunks of its armor-like flesh fell off. Its monstrous form shrank, its power plummeting until it was barely hanging onto life.
Klaus fell forward onto his palms, coughing violently.
But he smiled, blood staining his teeth.
He had achieved what he needed.
The spider was now weakened beyond recognition. However, he was no idiot, knowing this wasn't enough to kill it.
But Klaus also wasn't someone who would wait for the battle to take a turn for the worse. So he had to make a move, considering the story ended on a note he wasn't looking forward to, but had to end that way.
"Three months gone, huh..." Klaus muttered.
The story had taken three months of his remaining life force, leaving him with only five months. That was a bummer, but it wasn't like he could go beyond the 25 minutes or more than three stories.
The stories drained him, but aside from that, the trap he made for the spider could only hold for 25 minutes. The spider wasn't a small monster, so trapping it for more than that wasn't something Klaus could easily do.
If he were a Sovereign with a few Transcendent cores formed, he would have had a shot at locking it down for more than 25 minutes.
In fact, he would have been able to lower its cultivation base further. This way, he could have perhaps killed it with the stories.
But that wasn't a thing anymore, and he knew drastic measures had to be considered. He knew he must kill it with his own hands now.
He could sense that a great battle was about to rock the Earth.
Wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, Klaus slowly rose to his feet, and a bow appeared in his hands.
He looked at the dying spider, eyes cold and full of killing intent.
Now... it was time for the real battle to begin.
And this time, it would be Klaus's weapons—not stories—that would finish it.
With a heavy sigh, he drew his bow. However, a double-sounding voice came from the spider's direction just when he was about to unleash an attack.
"How does it feel to know you came close to killing me... to killing us?"
Klaus felt his blood run cold when the almost-dead spider's body glowed a mixture of black and white.
Looking in its direction, he saw a Yin-Yang diagram appear on the ground and a stench of something that made his blood run even colder.
[No, brat, that is a dual beast... two beasts in one body.]
The moment the senior said those words, a dark humanoid spider rose up from the ground where the grotesque spider was meant to be dying.
Then, like walking back to back, a white humanoid spider also appeared from within the first one and stood beside it.
Dark and white spider demons.
In their grip were two long, sharp yet jagged swords formed from their limbs.
"At long last, you have revealed your true self. This means I can fight without any surprises." Klaus said.
Instead of panicking at such a terrifying sight, he instead smiled as his armor finally started to form, taking on its true form.