The Crucible was still again.
But Klaus wasn't.
He stood at the center of the sanctum, muscles coiled, shoulders squared, breath slow and deliberate. Violet aurora flickered beneath his skin like sleeping thunder, dimmed for now—but not extinguished. The air around him trembled faintly. Not from heat. Not from fear. But from recognition.
This time… the wind knew him.
And he knew it.
His hands, battered and worn, moved without hesitation. Not in force—but in rhythm. He didn't command the wind. He asked. And the wind… listened.
Thin currents wrapped around his fingers, swirling upward in delicate spirals like ribbons on a marionette. Not wild. Not chaotic. Controlled. Each movement a word in a language older than memory.
He stepped forward.
And the Crucible responded.
Floating platforms shifted position, orbiting him like moons obeying gravity. The sanctum had become alive, synchronized with his pulse. It was no longer a battlefield.
It was a conversation.
He raised his arm.
The winds coiled tighter, forming a dense, humming funnel around his forearm—like a gauntlet forged from invisible steel.
He didn't smile. Klaus didn't do joy.
But there was something new in his gaze—still cold, still sharp, but no longer lost.
He saw everything now.
The Echo, silent until this point, finally spoke.
"You've remembered the song."
Klaus didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Because then, everything moved.
The trial began again—but it was different now. The Crucible no longer tested his survival. That phase was over. Now it demanded mastery.
A column of platforms shattered apart, forming shifting, vertical corridors that surged toward him. Each one wrapped in razor-edged air currents designed to tear flesh from bone.
Klaus ran toward it.
His foot slammed onto the first floating piece, and immediately he launched forward. His legs became a blur—wind propelling each stride, each leap, each precise mid-air pivot. He wasn't reacting anymore. He was pre-empting the battlefield. Like he knew where the attack would come before it even existed.
Because the wind told him.
He ducked a slicing gust, flipping sideways through a rotating corridor of force blades, then extended his hand behind him. Pressure condensed in his palm—Klaus whispered a word under his breath, and the wind exploded outward in a detonation of compressed air.
BOOM.
A shockwave surged in his wake, ripping apart the obstacle behind him with surgical violence.
He didn't stop.
A platform beneath him crumbled. Freefall.
No panic.
He inhaled.
"Rise."
A roar answered—not his voice, but the wind itself. A cyclone erupted beneath him like a reverse meteor, launching Klaus upward on a column of screaming air.
But this time, he didn't merely land.
He hovered.
Suspended by force alone, his arms relaxed at his sides, Klaus floated mid-air—bare-chested, scarred, with wind coiling around him like sentient armor. His eyes were fixed forward. Focused. Unblinking.
He twisted his fingers.
The wind followed.
And then came the stormcraft.
Actual shaping.
He reached into the currents around him and pulled—threading air into patterns. Condensing it into edges. One hand sculpted a blade. The other, a shield. Not made of metal. Not forged in heat.
But formed from pressure and will.
He charged again.
His body blurred, each motion paired with a precise burst of controlled wind. When he stepped, it was as if the sky cracked open. Platforms buckled beneath his feet from the pressure. Every strike landed with sonic force, shattering air into shockwaves.
And with every movement, the Crucible evolved.
The pillars spun faster. Walls of horizontal slicing air began to rotate in wild spirals. Klaus responded by dancing through them—weaving, ducking, striking, until the battlefield itself struggled to keep up.
He flipped backward off a collapsing ledge, twisted mid-air, and fired a focused wind arc downward. It detonated like a cannon, propelling him into the next chamber.
This wasn't just training.
It wasn't even a battle anymore.
This was reclamation.
The wind wasn't just an element. It was a memory—ancient, buried, now unearthed.
Every echo that guided him.
Every step in this place.
Every gust at his back.
It all screamed one truth: You were never meant to walk the earth. You were meant to rule the sky.
The Echo watched with unreadable stillness. No instruction. No interference. Its role was done.
Because Klaus was ready.
Then, at last, the Crucible stopped.
The walls pulled away. The winds calmed.
Klaus landed on the platform with perfect control, no heavy breath, no wasted motion. His body hummed with potential—silent, lethal.
The Echo's voice returned—softer this time. Like thunder turned inward.
"You are no longer wielding the wind," it said. "You are speaking it."
Klaus stood motionless, gaze burning with newfound certainty.
"It's not enough," he said simply.
The Echo tilted its head.
"I need more," Klaus continued. "Not for pride. Not to conquer. But because I know what's coming."
His hand clenched.
"For them. For her. For every life they'll try to take."
Silence.
The Crucible trembled.
"I don't care what it costs," Klaus said. "I will not be caught behind again."
The sky above them pulsed—a ripple, a distant signal. Something far beyond the realm of the Crucible had stirred. Something watching.
The Echo exhaled.
"You carry stormblood," it said. "But your heart… carries war."
Klaus didn't blink. "Then show me how to win it."
The Echo raised its hand.
And the Crucible transformed.
A sound like collapsing mountains rang out as a massive shape formed from the clouds themselves. Armor woven from spiraling gales. Arms like hurricanes condensed into form. Its eyes burned with pressure—no soul, only memory and violence.
"A construct," the Echo said. "Forged from the memories of your bloodline. The one who trained your father."
The wind froze.
Even the air held its breath.
Klaus cracked his knuckles, lightning flashing faintly beneath the surface of his veins.
He stepped forward, the storm gathering again.
"Good," he muttered.
"Then I'll kill him too."