"You cannot kill. Beyond that, our potions are potent enough to heal anything else, so you are free to injure to any extent."
This blunt interaction immediately caught the attention of every audience member. Murmurs rippled through the stands.
"Did he not hear the rules earlier? The ones about non-fatal injuries?" one guest whispered, confusion evident in his voice.
"Well, I saw him sleeping for most of the banquet, what can we say?" another commented, rolling his eyes.
"He was practically passed out."
"Isn’t he too lousy and also drinks a lot?" a third asked, judging Klaus’s seemingly unprofessional demeanour.
"Where did William even find him?" a fourth added, their voices echoing the general confusion among the elite.
These discussions were not just among the general audience, similar sentiments, though expressed with more subtlety, were being exchanged among the paragons.
William, however, simply smiled, a knowing expression. He had full confidence in Klaus.
Klaus reached the centre of the arena, stopping face to face in front of James.
James Ravenstein, still seething from earlier slights, sneered openly.
"You should know your place, Bennet," James spat, his voice low but filled with venom.
"Just surrender. It will be quicker for both of us."
The audience gasped, a collective intake of breath.
They had never seen a Legacy Family descendant speak so blatantly, so arrogantly, to one of their counterparts, especially a direct heir of William Bennet, the head of the Association.
Had it been said to Arthur, the reactions would have been milder, perhaps a mix of pity and quiet disdain.
But Klaus was the newly declared grandson of the powerful Bennet family the controller of hunter’s association, James’s open insult was a direct challenge to William’s authority.
"Oh," Klaus began, his voice calm, but a dangerous edge slowly crept into it.
[ding!! Draconic Pride is going active. Buddha Incarnate is going dormant.] f.r(e)e\webn.ovel.co\m
"I don’t remember hitting a dog. Then why are you barking?"
Klaus’s comment hit James like a physical blow. fr eewe(b)nove.l.co\m
It caused ripples and suppressed giggles in the audience. Some spectators, unable to control themselves, laughed aloud, unable to contain their amusement.
James Ravenstein, the proud scion of a Legacy Family, had just been publicly compared to a barking dog.
James’s expression immediately flared, his face turning a dark crimson. freeNovelHub
His eyes blazed with uncontrollable fury.
"You... you just wait! In a few hours, you would be kneeling and apologizing in front of me! Begging for mercy!"
"Oh, why in a few hours and not now?" Klaus asked, his voice laced with a cold, mocking tone.
The question was a deliberate provocation, designed to push James further, to make him reveal his true intentions.
"Hmph! Run your mouth as much as you can, Bennet," James snarled, his voice thick with a fit of uncontrollable anger.
He pointed a trembling finger at Klaus. "You won’t be leaving this arena for a while now! I’m going to make sure you suffer for that insult!"
James had openly declared his intention of systematically targeting Klaus.
His words were a direct threat, a public statement of his malicious intent.
Klaus, observing James’s escalating fury, recognized the depth of his stupidity.
To openly declare such a plan was tactically foolish. Unfortunately, Klaus’s calm silence was misinterpreted by James as fear, as cowardice.
"Huh? What? Cat got your tongue, Bennet?" James taunted, his sneer deepening, mistaking Klaus’s composure for submission.
"Good, good. You should just accept my beating and kneel on the floor when this is over!"
"Bastard," James muttered, the single word escaping his lips, a final burst of raw, uncontained fury.
One thing he did not know was that he had made a mistake in the last few sentences.
the mistake was not telling him to surrender, neither calling him inferior, it was when he called him a bastard.
Klaus’s Draconic Pride, once fully awakened, did not make its host sharp-tongued or prone to verbal duels in the manner of human social games.
The effect was quite the opposite, it made the host’s words short, cutting, and devastatingly direct, often delivered with an overwhelming disdain.
The host, imbued with the pride of a dragon god, simply chose to observe, then act, brutally butchering anyone who stood in their way or dared to disrespect them.
And that was precisely what happened.
As soon as the word "bastard" left James’s mouth, a blur of motion erupted around him.
Klaus, fuelled by the cold fury of his now active Draconic Pride, moved.
The spectators, even those with enhanced vision, barely registered the movement.
A chilling silence descended on the arena.
It was absolutely profound.
The collective gasp of the audience, the whispered comments, the faint noises all ceased. They saw only a blur, and then nothing.
And before James could even register what had happened, before he could spout anything else, a horrifying sight came into his field of vision.
It was a sight that defied logic, defied possibility, and broke his reality.
Klaus stood perfectly still in his place at the centre of the arena, his posture unmoving.
But the sword in his hand, Lost Echo, which had been a dull, polished black moments ago, now seemed to be covered in thick blood.
Before James could even process the image, before he could register the searing pain that suddenly consumed his body, his vision began to blur.
The lights of the arena, the faces of the crowd, the sneering expression of his own father in the distance all spun into an indistinguishable vortex of colour and light.
He registered a searing, unimaginable agony that spread rapidly through his limbs, a cold, burning sensation that paralysed him.
Then, he finally saw it.
He saw his own four limbs, cleanly severed at the joints, sprawling grotesquely on the polished arena floor.
A dark, viscous pool of his own blood, began to flow rapidly around him, staining the pristine surface of the arena.
James Ravenstein lost consciousness, his mind shutting down from the overwhelming pain and the sheer terror of his dismembered body.
But not before a final, brutal kick was registered.
Klaus, with a single, deliberate movement of his foot, launched James’s half-cut body.
It flew through the air, spinning rapidly, landing with a sickening thud at the very side of the arena, near the trash bins where discarded props were kept for the public.
The impact was so huge, so sudden and unexpected, that the chain of bodyguards standing in that area,
elite A-rank hunters from the Blackwood House, did not even register what had happened until James’s mangled form landed at their feet.
Their faces, previously impassive, were now masks of horror and shock.
Klaus, meanwhile, simply sheathed his bloodied sword, returning its blade to its usual polished white cover he had purchased recently.
He then calmly walked to his designated seat in the VIP section, his movements fluid and unhurried, as if he had merely taken a brief stroll.
Before settling back down, he cast a single, chilling glance back at the prone, dismembered form of James Ravenstein, his red eyes burning with cold disdain.
The single word, spoken in a low tone, echoed through the now utterly silent arena, a declaration of finality and utter dismissal.
Every single person in the hall, from the highest Paragon to the lowest spectator, heard it clearly.
The laughter and whispers had completely died.
The true side of Klaus Bennet, had been brutally and undeniably asserted.
guys it’s been a month almost, it’s about time the book makes some serious progress.
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