The Last Paragon in the Apocalypse

The moment Xar’kul vanished, the temperature of the Arena plummeted. It felt like his absence had made the arena colder.

However, what caused the coldness was the power he had command over, the void. He cultivates the Ice Void Infusion, so when he stepped into it, the temperature dropped.

Klaus felt a bone-chilling cold, and so did the audience watching. However, none of them felt any fear just yet. It was still too early to feel their lives threatened, like how Niva had made them feel when she unleashed her Absolute Ice.

Klaus didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

It was like he wasn’t bothered by the sudden vanishing act that Xar’kul had pulled.

However, the next second, the ground beneath him cracked as frost raced outward in jagged lines, freezing stone, air, and sound itself.

The entire arena became quiet, not even a sound being heard by anyone, including Klaus.

It felt like the coldness in the air had swallowed everything else, leaving only the coldness. If someone were to move, not even a sound would be produced.

A heartbeat later, space warped behind him. The void folded like a torn curtain, and Xar’kul reappeared, four arms striking at once.

Two scythe-like void-ice blades came down from above, aimed to cleave Klaus in half. They trailed a chilling arc in the air as they descended on him.

The other two arms shot forward, talons spread wide, seeking to tear him apart at the ribs. Basically, the abomination of a man attacked with the intent to end the battle in an instant.

He wanted Klaus dead as quickly as possible, so his attack was aimed with the intent and the need to put an end to the mortal bug who entered the battle of immortals and just refused to die.

Klaus, on the other hand, did something nobody saw coming. He stepped forward instead of back. Despite the deadly strike coming at him, he wasn’t fazed even a bit.

The Orange flame behind him flared wildly.

The Chaotic Nirvana Flame erupted from his body in a violent spiral, colliding head-on with the descending blades.

The impact detonated like a miniature sun, sending a shockwave through the Arena. The shockwave was so violent that when it collided against the shields protecting the audience, three layers were shattered in an instant.

Xar’kul was blasted backwards, skidding across the ground, his talons carving trenches into the reinforced floor. Klaus wasn’t spared either.

However, unlike Xar’kul, he had already anticipated this outcome, so he calculated and prepared for it. While midair, he activated the second move.

Before Xar’kul could stabilise himself, the White flame moved.

The Soul Fury Flame surged forward like a living predator, piercing straight into Xar’kul’s chest. It went into the hole on his chest where his heart should have been.

Obviously, Klaus had already prepared well for the bastard who had no heart to speak of.

Looking at his unusual anatomy, naturally, he could be considered undead, considering he had no heartbeat.

Well, he had no heart, so where would the heartbeat come from?

His mutation had caused that to happen, so while his heart isn’t beating—because it isn’t there—a soul attack is possible. He still has a soul that can be attacked after all.

Klaus had already deduced that, and so he attacked accordingly.

The flame didn’t burn his flesh despite engulfing him in its furious radiance. Instead, it burned deep into his soul, causing a soul-eating scream out from him.

Klaus raised his bow, and one of the ten golden arrows forged using the [God Killer Art] flew into the bow. He pulled the bowstring, muttering a spell. In an instant, a spell diagram appeared around the arrow.

With the activation of the spell, a soul-shattering killing intent exploded out of his body, pouring into the air.

The sound of whispering souls echoed through the air as dark flame mist slowly poured from the arrow.

“Soul Damnation Arrow”

The words left Klaus’s lips, and the arrow screamed.

The moment the Soul Damnation Arrow was released, space itself seemed to recoil. The power contained in it was just too much.

The golden arrow tore through the frozen air, dragging behind it a torrent of screaming souls and blackened flame mist. The arena trembled as if something ancient had just been awakened.

It is eerie and unmistakably terrifying.

Xar’kul reacted instantly.

The hole in his chest flared violently, frost-blue runes blazing brighter than before. His four arms crossed in front of him, and the Absolute Ice surged outward.

The coldness in the air intensified even more, fueled by the immortal energy of a Real Immortal.

A crystalline wall formed in a heartbeat, layered with void-ice and compressed frost, thick enough to stop even immortal-level attacks.

Xar’kul didn’t hold back at all. If anything, he sensed a potential danger to his life, and he reacted by summoning the powers at his disposal.

Combining Ice Qi, fused with Ice law and empowered by immortal energy, he was able to create a relatively robust defence for an immortal that doesn’t specialise in defence.

But would that be enough?

The arrow struck.

But there was no explosion this time.

Instead, the arrow sank into the ice barrier as if it were flesh. It shredded his defence, immediately causing him to sense danger.

The screams coming from the arrow intensified even more.

Cracks spread instantly, not across the surface, but inward, as if the ice itself was being eaten from the inside.

At the same time, the Soul Fury Flame still embedded in Xar’kul’s chest resonated with the arrow, creating a violent feedback.

This chain of events was all planned by Klaus before the battle even started.

However, while executing it could have been extremely difficult, he was able to make it happen as he intended, causing chaos to erupt everywhere.

Xar’kul let out a distorted roar that finally broke the silence of the arena. The arrow was aimed at his core; however, the soul attack contained in it was meant to act first, distracting Xar’kul enough for the arrow to embed itself into his core.

The ice wall shattered into countless shards, each causing the ground to freeze. However, while the arrow came in an instant, it lost just enough momentum for Xar’kul to twist aside.

This caused the arrow to miss his core by inches, tearing through one of his secondary arms instead. The limb exploded into frost and void fragments, disintegrating before it even hit the ground.

Xar’kul was sent crashing into the far end of the arena, smashing into the reinforced wall hard enough to deform it.

The audience erupted.

Some screamed in shock. Others stood frozen, unable to comprehend what they had just witnessed.

A high-level Real Immortal had lost a limb in the opening exchange.

That is unprecedented.