I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 266: Phase 3

Jack’s demonic hand snapped forward, activating Thunder Mantle without conscious thought.

Blue lightning erupted across his body, crackling along his scales, his wing, and his tail.

The electricity danced between his clawed fingers, making the air itself hum with the sound of chirping birds.

One moment he was standing ten feet from Pho.

The next, his scaled fist connected with the Deathfrost Demon’s chest with enough force to crack his ribs.

The impact sent a shockwave through the throne room, frost exploding from where knuckles met the black ice armor.

Pho’s blank white eyes went wide. He tried to bring his swords up, and tried to activate Black Ice Soul defensively.

He tried to do anything except take the hit, but he was too slow.

Jack’s second punch caught Pho’s jaw before he could complete the thought.

The third hit his ribs.

Fourth slammed into his shoulder.

Fifth, sixth, seventh.... Each one landing in a fraction of a second.

Pho staggered backward with each impact, his black form unable to maintain balance against the relentless assault.

Black blood sprayed from his mouth, his armor cracking, his body struggling to process damage that came faster than his armor could regenerate.

The eighth punch caught his sternum. The ninth drove into his gut, folding him forward.

The tenth hit with everything Jack had.

His scaled fist connected with Pho’s chest dead center, directly over the glowing thunderbolt mark.

The impact created a visible shockwave that rippled outward, shattering what remained of nearby ice formations.

Pho’s body launched backward like he’d been fired from a cannon, crossing the throne room in a blur before crashing into the far wall.

The stone exploded. The wall cracked from floor to ceiling, a spider web of fractures spreading outward from where Pho’s body had struck.

Chunks of rock fell away, revealing the corridor beyond, dust and debris filling the air.

[10 Stacks Generated]

[Covenant of the Storm | Max Stacks]

Pho’s body slid down the shattered wall, leaving a trail of blue blood.

He hit the ground hard, armor cracked in multiple places, and his breathing was ragged. His blank white eyes found Jack’s position across the throne room.

”Who told you about Sarin?” Jack’s voice carried across the distance, his mismatched eyes tracking Pho’s broken form. ”Last chance.”

Pho spat blood, his hands finding his dual black ice swords where they’d fallen nearby. His fingers closed around the hilts, lifting them despite his body screaming protests. ”I... won’t...”

He forced himself upright, legs shaking, swords raising into a defensive stance that looked more like desperation than technique.

Black Ice Soul flared around him, trying to heal the damage, trying to restore what Jack’s assault had broken.

”I won’t be intimidated by a half-transformed freak!” Pho’s voice cracked on the words, false bravado trying to mask genuine terror. ”I’ve ruled this section for decades! I won’t...”

Dual swords raised, Black Ice Soul pushing his damaged body beyond its limits, the Deathfrost Demon crossed the throne room with speed that should have been impossible given his injuries.

His blank white eyes blazed with desperate fury, both blades aimed at Jack’s chest in a strike meant to end everything.

”Static Field.”

Jack’s words came out even and unbothered. His demonic hand extended, clawed fingers spreading, blue lightning gathering between them.

The electricity erupted outward, not as a beam but as a web.

Crackling threads of lightning spread across the space directly in front of Jack, forming a barrier four meters wide and five meters tall.

The threads connected, intersected, created a spider’s web made of pure electrical energy that hung in the air between them.

Pho ran straight into it.

The moment his body touched the web, electricity discharged through him.

His muscles seized, his charge stopping instantly as his nervous system was flooded with electrical impulses it couldn’t process.

Both swords fell from nerveless fingers, clattering against frozen stone as his body locked up.

His movement was slowed. Reduced to perhaps half his normal speed.

He tried to push through the web, tried to force his body to obey through sheer willpower.

His blank white eyes tracked Jack’s position just beyond the barrier, rage and fear mixing in their depths.

Then the paralysis hit.

Every muscle in Pho’s body locked simultaneously.

He froze mid-stride, suspended in the crackling web, electricity dancing across his skin in visible arcs.

”Abyssal Steps.”

Jack vanished from where he’d been standing. Reality twisted, space compressed, and suddenly he was there. Right in front of Pho’s paralyzed face, close enough that their eyes met with nothing between them except a few inches of air.

Jack’s hand came up, palm pressing against Pho’s face with almost casual force.

”Thundershock.”

The spell activated at point-blank range.

A sphere of concentrated lightning erupted from Jack’s palm, expanding outward in a pulse that lasted perhaps a tenth of a second.

The energy discharge was so intense it turned the air white, so powerful it made reality itself seem to ripple.

[-30,913 HP]

[Pho HP: 83,729/227,000]

The force of the blast launched Pho backward through the Static Field, through the throne room, straight into the same wall he’d hit moments ago.

This time the impact was worse. The wall didn’t just crack, it shattered.

A section perhaps ten feet across collapsed completely, stone and ice exploding outward as Pho’s body crashed through and into the corridor beyond.

His body hit the far corridor wall, creating another crater, before sliding down to land in a heap among the rubble.

Blue blood poured from his mouth, his nose, his ears.

The thunderbolt mark on his chest pulsed brighter, electricity still crackling across his armor.

Jack walked forward slowly, his demonic leg clicking against stone with each step.

His tail swayed behind him, and his wing folded against his back, mismatched eyes tracking Pho’s bloodied body.

”Just so you know, I will announce every skill before I use it. I want you to know you have no power to stop me. I want fear to creep into your eyes before I snuff out your life.”

Corvin remained perched on his shoulder, purple-tipped feathers rustling, purple eyes watching the broken demon lord.

But Jack stopped halfway across the throne room. His demonic hand raised, clawed fingers pointing not at Pho but at the ceiling above and behind himself.

”Celestial Descent.”

The vaulted ceiling split open.

As if reality itself had been torn aside to allow divine punishment through.

Bolts of electricity rained down from above, striking the ground in rapid succession.

One. Five. Ten. Twenty.

A storm of lightning concentrated in a fifteen-meter radius centered behind where Jack stood.

Pho’s blank white eyes tracked the spell’s location, confusion cutting through pain and fear.

Why cast it there? Why not target him directly?

The lightning storm raged, each bolt striking with enough force to crack stone, electricity filling the air with scorching the frozen ground beneath his feet.

Jack turned away from Pho and walked into the storm.

Lightning struck his scaled body immediately. A bolt that should have killed, that carried enough voltage to stop a heart, to burn flesh from bone.

It connected with Jack’s horn and spread across his demonic half, electricity flowing along his black skin like water finding channels.