Klaus closed his eyes.
In that moment of perfect stillness, something fundamental shifted within his transformed frame. The careful restraint he had maintained since his awakening—the iron control that had contained forces beyond mortal comprehension—finally released its grip.
When his eyes opened again, they no longer held the crystalline blue that had marked his transformation. Instead, they blazed with grayish energy that seemed to devour light itself, depths that reflected not mere power but something far more primal and terrible.
The energy erupted from his form like dam bursting after millennia of pressure. This wasn't the controlled mana manipulation he had displayed before—this was raw, untamed force that had been cultivated through countless ritual sacrifices spanning eons of human suffering. The Icarus cult's bloody work, fragments of souls offered to entities that dwelt in spaces between realities, all of it channeled through Klaus's transformed vessel.
Soul Energy.
