I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 272: Floor 25

S’s expression didn’t change. His posture remained perfectly relaxed, his hands at his sides, his breathing even and controlled. But something shifted in his eyes. Something cold cutting through the polite exterior, anger hidden so deep that only someone watching very carefully would notice it at all.

A slight tension in his shoulders. The fractional tightening around his mouth. The way his fingers curled just enough to see how agitated he was before they relaxed again.

”I see,” S said, his voice carrying the same perfect politeness it always did.

Just acknowledgement delivered with flawless calm that proved oceans of rage hidden beneath his perfectly still surface.

The voice’s smile faded. Jack’s eyes began clearing, the green in his demonic eye shifting back toward yellow, his posture adjusting to something more recognizably his own.

The ancient presence that had spoken through him receded, withdrawing to whatever depths it normally occupied.

Jack’s transformation collapsed.

The scales sank into his skin, disappearing as if they’d never existed. His horn shrank, dissolving into his skull, leaving no trace of its presence. His wing folded inward, flesh and bone compressing impossibly until it too vanished into his back.

His tail retracted, the appendage seeming to flow backward into his spine like water running in reverse.

Within seconds, Jack returned to normal.

Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.

Kyren lunged forward with his single arm, barely catching Jack before the Soul Warden could hit the ice platform’s surface. ”Boss down! Boss sleep!”

S moved to help, his hands checking Jack’s pulse, his expression clinical despite the conversation that had just occurred. ”He’s fine. The transformation’s end simply exceeded his body’s capacity to remain conscious. Let him rest.”

The ice platform continued gliding eastward, Pho’s control unwavering, their course steady despite the unconscious state of their leader.

----

Jack’s eyes opened slowly, consciousness returning in fragments. Darkness surrounded him, broken only by faint light coming from... somewhere.

His body ached, every muscle screaming as he moved, his head pounding with pain that suggested he’d been unconscious for hours.

He sat up carefully, his hand finding Oscar’s shaft nearby, using the spear to help lever himself upright. His vision adjusted to the dim light, details resolving from shadows.

A cave.

Rock walls perhaps twenty feet apart, ceiling high enough that he couldn’t see it in the darkness. The entrance behind them showed it was late afternoon light, suggesting significant time had passed since...

Since what? His memory fragmented around the edges, the last clear image being the ice platform and growing demonic urges and then... nothing. Blank space where memories should exist.

”You’re awake,” S’s voice came from nearby, the demon sitting on a rock with Fluffy’s center head resting in his lap. ”We arrived at the cave entrance approximately two hours ago. I thought it best to let you sleep rather than attempt to wake you prematurely.”

Jack’s hand went to his chest, finding normal skin instead of scales. His head lacked the horn. His back felt empty where the wing had been. Everything returned to normal, like it never happened.

”What happened?” Jack’s voice came out hoarse, his throat dry. ”The last thing I remember is...”

”Transformation degradation,” S interrupted smoothly, his tone suggesting he was leaving out significant details. ”Your body couldn’t maintain the partial demon state. You collapsed. We brought you into the cave to rest.”

Kyren appeared from deeper in the cave, his single arm holding what looked like a water skin. ”Boss wake! Boss drink!” He shoved the container at Jack with enthusiasm that nearly knocked the Soul Warden over.

Pho stood near the cave entrance, his form silhouetted against the afternoon light.

Corvin sat on a rock nearby, the undead raven’s purple eyes gleaming in the dim light, watching Jack for his next plan.

Jack took the waterskin from Kyren, drinking deeply, letting the liquid soothe his throat before speaking again.

”How far to Floor 25?”

S gestured toward the darkness deeper in the cave. ”According to our Deathfrost companion, approximately three miles of descent. The passage is stable, well-maintained from decades of use. We can proceed whenever you feel ready.”

Jack stood, his body protesting the movement but obeying anyway. His hand tightened around Oscar’s shaft, using the spear for support, finding his balance despite the aches.

”Then let’s move. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

The descent took time.

Three miles through cave passages that twisted downward in a spiral.

Jack’s group moved in silence, their footsteps echoing off stone that never quite felt natural despite appearing so.

Pho led without being asked, his blank white eyes adjusting to the darkness that would have blinded a normal human or demon.

Jack followed close behind, Oscar in hand, his body still aching from the transformation’s end but recovering quickly from his skills.

The passage narrowed, widened, and narrowed again.

Always spiraling deeper into whatever waited below Floor 24’s frozen wasteland.

Then, light appeared ahead.

Not natural light, but light that pulsed between colors, shifting with each passing second.

The cave opened into a chamber, perhaps thirty feet across, the ceiling lost in darkness above.

At the chamber’s center stood a portal, but not like the others Jack had seen. This one was different.

The frame was obsidian, carved with symbols in a language he didn’t know.

”Floor 25,” Pho stated, his voice carrying no emotion despite the significance. ”The Soul Warden’s domain. Unclaimed for centuries until now.”

Jack stepped forward, Oscar held loosely in his right hand, his eyes tracking the color shifts. ”What makes it different from other floors?”

”Everything.” Pho’s blank gaze met Jack’s. ”And nothing. You’ll understand when you see it.”

Not helpful. But Jack had stopped expecting help from Pho beyond the exact letter of what was asked.

He walked toward the portal, each step bringing him closer to the shifting colors.

The air itself felt different here, charged with something that made his skin prickle, that made Oscar’s metal hum faintly in his grip.

Jack stepped through first.

---

The transition was disorienting.

One moment surrounded by the cave and the next standing on a stone pathway under an open sky that shouldn’t exist within a tower.

But the sky was the least strange part.

Jack stood speechless, his mind struggling to process what his eyes saw.

A castle rose before him perhaps a quarter mile in the distance, perched on a hill that rolled gently upward through a landscape that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale rather than a death tower

The castle itself was massive, with white stone towers reaching toward a sky that was painted in vibrant yellow, red, and orange.

Spires and battlements, arched windows, and flying buttresses.

But it was everything else that made Jack question why this floor was this way.

The hills glowed. Not metaphorically, not in some poetic sense.

Green grass that pulsed with soft bioluminescence, creating waves of light that rippled outward like someone had dropped stones in a pond made of earth itself.

Small flowers dotted the landscape, each one burning with colors that shouldn’t exist.

Blues that transcended sky, reds deeper than blood, purples that made looking at them feel like peering into infinity.

Spirits floated everywhere.

Humanoid shapes made of light, glowing white, gold, and silver drifted through the air with grace that transcended physics.

Hundreds of them, possibly thousands.

They wove between each other, through trees that grew along the pathway, around rock formations that jutted from hills like ancient monuments.

And above it all...