"You dare... touch what belongs to me?" she murmured, her voice vibrating with a cold and absolute rage.

With a simple wave of her hand, all the rubble on the ground began to levitate. The guardians were dismembered in an instant, their limbs torn off by an invisible force, their entrails spilling onto the floor in a mass of putrefied flesh. In a few seconds, the S+ rank monsters were nothing but dust.

Walpurga rushed toward Klein, her black silk dress sweeping through the blood. She lifted him up in a panic.

"Klein! Look at me! Never do that to me again!" she cried out, her voice trembling.

She carried him, then laid him down on the cold floor and began to incant, her hands bathed in an ethereal glow. She used her soul manipulation magic to stabilize his vital functions, stitching his tissues back together and fusing his bones with precision.

Time passed, marked only by the witch’s short breaths and Klein’s groans of pain. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Walpurga’s face leaning over him. She looked exhausted, a strand of her long hair stuck to her cheek by sweat.

"You are... an idiot," she murmured, her hand gently caressing his forehead... their faces were extremely close, so close that one could feel the other’s breath.

"Why do I get the impression that you want to kiss me, witch of curses?" asked Klein, sketching a weak sardonic smile despite the fatigue.

Walpurga let out a trembling sigh and sat down beside him.

"Shut the fuck up, Klein."

...

They resumed their walk, crossing the threshold of the twenty-fifth floor. Each level was now a constant battlefield. S-rank monsters appeared in waves, forcing Klein to remain in a permanent warrior trance. The fights were of incredible violence: limbs flew, entrails spilled onto the tiles, and the smell of death never left them.

On the thirtieth floor, after massacring a horde of flying chimeras, Klein leaned back against a pillar, exhausted. His clothes were in tatters, revealing the silver scars that marked his skin. Walpurga sat down beside him, ignoring the surrounding filth.

"You know," she began in a low voice, "the more time passes, the more I see what a little asshole you are. Lucky that this powerful witch is here to wipe your ass."

Klein looked at her, his cigarette finished. For the first time, he didn’t find a scathing remark to throw at her legendary narcissism. Instead, he appreciated the silence she offered him.

"It’s not because I tolerate your company that we’re friends, Walpurga," he said with a weak smile that belied his words. "But I must admit... that this tower would be much more boring without your contemptuous comments."

Walpurga let out a melodious laugh, a sound that seemed incongruous in the middle of this carnage. "We still have a lot to do, Klein Konstantine."

Klein straightened up, feeling his aura stabilize again.

"So let’s not waste any more time. Apparently the monsters are eager to die by my hand."

The cleanup continued, floor after floor, as the fate of Sulyvhan’s heir and the Witch of Curses intertwined irreversibly.

...

Nearly two years had passed for Klein Konstantine and Walpurga in this labyrinth of stone and metal, while only a few months had evaporated in the outside world.

"You are particularly silent today, my little warrior," observed Walpurga behind him.

She was almost floating, her black parasol casting a moving patch of darkness. Her long black hair trailed on the ground like a royal train, catching the reflections of the mana crystals that illuminated the laboratories.

"Well, I have nothing to say," Klein retorted without turning around, his voice deeper than before.

"And stop calling me that. After seven hundred days, the joke has lost its charm."

’Diavolo wouldn’t stop calling him Baby boy and now the witch wanted to give him a nickname too.’

"Yet, you have become much more interesting to look at," she murmured with a hint of malice.

Suddenly, Klein stopped dead. His Eyes of Predation pulsed with a scarlet glow. In front of them, a massive door was torn from its hinges by a titanic force. A massive creature advanced into the corridor, its skin made of metal plates fused to troll flesh.

"Another waste from your sorcerer colleagues," Klein growled as he drew his katana.

"This one is a success, Klein," Walpurga corrected, her tone becoming serious again. "It’s a pure combat Homunculus. Its structure is designed to exhaust the aura of physical fighters."

The monster let out a roar that made the tower’s foundations vibrate. Klein leaped forward, his body becoming a silver blur.

< Aura Technique: Dash > He instantly appeared on the monster’s flank. His blade shone with blinding intensity as he initiated his movement.

< Second Movement: Quarter Moon >

The metal of the creature’s armor was slashed, releasing a greenish and fetid fluid. However, the chimera reacted with a speed that surprised Klein. An articulated arm ending in claws swept through the air and struck him full force in the thorax.

The shock was cataclysmic. Klein was thrown against the opposite wall, the stone cracking under the impact.

"Kuh... filthy beast..." he spat, struggling to get back on his feet.

The monster charged again, its mass of several tons ready to crush him. Klein used his Aura Repulsion to send it flying as well.

***

The sun was slowly setting on the horizon of Babylon, bathing the ruins of the industrial city in an orange and bloody light that seemed to reflect the carnage of the last months. From the top of this steep hill, Klein Konstantine observed the heavy silence that now enveloped the plain. Outside, time had barely advanced, but for him, the two years spent inside the Alchemy Tower weighed on their shoulders.

His long silver hair, tied back carelessly, floated in a cool breeze. He brought a cigarette to his lips, lighting it with a mechanical gesture as his ice-blue gaze lost itself in the purplish shades of the sky.

’Two years...’ he thought, letting the smoke escape from his lungs. ’Two years in this hell by her side. The initial plan was simple: use her, obtain her power and progress. But now...’

He felt a familiar presence behind him. Walpurga advanced silently, her black silk dress brushing against the tall, dry grass. She no longer had her parasol. Her long white hair, of excessive length, trailed on the ground like a royal train, catching the last golden reflections of the day. In her true form, her beauty was so terrifying that it became almost unbearable for an ordinary mortal, but Klein no longer looked away.

"You are still lost in your thoughts, Klein Konstantine," she observed. Her voice no longer had the aristocratic coldness of the beginning; it was imbued with a melancholic softness, a vulnerability she only allowed in his presence.