I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 409: I’ll tell you, it was Ere...

The Deathfrost Demon moved through the Death Knight formation like a force of nature, his massive black ice axe leaving trails of frozen darkness in the air. Unlike Jack’s aggressive, almost playful assault, Pho fought with cold, methodical precision.

Each swing was calculated, designed to end multiple opponents with minimal effort.

A group of five Death Knights tried to surround him, their weapons coming in from different angles in a coordinated strike.

Pho’s response was elegant in its brutality.

He spun, and his axe created a horizontal arc that caught all five attackers simultaneously.

Where the blade passed, Death Knights ceased to exist, their forms dissolving into black mist that dissipated in the Colosseum’s air.

The black ice didn’t just cut through their armor and bones. He froze the bones as he cut and shattered the ice to dust.

[Enemies Defeated: Death Knight ×5]

”Beautiful,” Pho muttered, his blank white eyes gleaming with satisfaction. ”Valdoren’s necromancy is strong, but my swings are stronger.”

He advanced on another cluster of Death Knights, and they actually backed away from him. Undead don’t feel fear, but their animation magic recognized a threat to their existence and responded accordingly.

It didn’t help.

Pho’s axe came down in a devastating overhead chop that split the stone floor itself. The shockwave of the impact shattered three Death Knights who’d been standing too close, their bones flying apart like they’d been hit with a cannon.

[Enemies Defeated: Death Knight ×3]

”He’s enjoying this,” Loryn observed with approval. ”Pho rarely gets to fight opponents who can actually withstand his initial strikes. Most things die too quickly for him to truly test himself.”

”These are dying pretty quickly, too,” Rhys pointed out.

”Yes, but there are three hundred of them. It’s not about individual quality, it’s about quantity. Pho can finally let loose without worrying about ending the fight too soon.”

As if to emphasize the point, Pho created a massive ice construct. A wall of black ice forty feet wide that materialized above a cluster of twenty Death Knights. The wall came down like a hammer, and when it shattered on impact, there was nothing left of the undead warriors but powder.

[Enemies Defeated: Death Knight ×20]

Jack noticed Pho’s display and grinned. ”Showing off, old man?”

”Learning from the best, brat!” Pho called back, his cold voice carrying a hint of warmth. ”You make it look fun!”

”It IS fun!” Jack teleported again, appearing in the center of the largest remaining group of Death Knights. He activated [Thunder Clap], and the resulting burst of red lightning incinerated a dozen skeletons in their armor.

[Enemies Defeated: Death Knight ×12]

The Death Knights attempted to adapt, using their superior numbers to compensate for the overwhelming power difference. They formed smaller, more mobile units.

They attacked from multiple angles simultaneously. They used their enchanted weapons to create barriers and defensive positions.

Nothing worked.

Jack and Pho moved through them like reapers through a field of wheat. Every teleport ended with shattered bones. Every swing of Pho’s axe created expanding zones of frozen darkness that consumed everything they touched.

The Death Knights’ elite training, their enchanted equipment, their perfect coordination. All of it was meaningless against opponents who operated on a different level of power.

The formation collapsed in less than thirty seconds.

Three hundred Death Knights reduced to piles of shattered bone and twisted metal, their enchanted equipment scattered across the arena floor like discarded toys.

The elite undead warriors that Valdoren had summoned with such confidence were gone, their necromantic animation unable to overcome the sheer destructive force that had been unleashed upon them.

Jack stood in the center of the carnage, barely breathing hard, Oscar held loosely at his side.

Blood and bone fragments covered his armor, painting the crimson-black demon bone in new layers of blood. But he didn’t seem to notice or care.

He let out a low, wandering whistle that sounded like a nursery rhyme stripped of its joy. That’s when everything stopped, and everyone stared at Jack.

His red eyes found Valdoren in the announcer’s booth.

The lich was backing away from the railing, skeletal hands raised defensively, that permanent grin somehow conveying terror despite being carved into bone.

The theatrical confidence from earlier was gone, replaced by the dawning understanding that he’d made a terrible mistake.

Jack smiled, and it was the smile of a predator that had finally cornered its prey.

”Your turn,” he said quietly.

[Abyssal Steps]

Valdoren turned to flee, to escape through whatever portal or passage he’d prepared for emergencies.

His skeletal hands moved in complex patterns, weaving necromantic energy, trying to tear open a rift in space, but Jack was already there.

He materialized directly in front of the lich, blocking the only exit from the booth. Valdoren skidded to a halt, his robes billowing around his skeletal frame, hands coming up to cast something, desperate magic that might save him...

Jack’s transformed hand shot forward.

His demonic claws punched through Valdoren’s robes, through the preserved flesh beneath, and closed around something that pulsed with sickly green light. Jack’s fingers tightened, and he pulled.

Valdoren’s heart came free, not a beating muscle but a crystallized phylactery, the size of Jack’s fist, glowing with the necrotic energy that powered the lich’s undead existence.

The heart of a lich. The source of their immortality. The one weakness that could actually kill them permanently.

Jack held it up, let Valdoren see it clutched in his clawed hand, and squeezed.

Not hard enough to crush it. Just enough to make it crack.

Valdoren collapsed immediately, his legs giving out, his skeletal frame hitting the booth’s floor with a clatter of bone on stone.

The green glow in his eye sockets flickered, dimmed, and threatened to go out entirely.

”Please,” the lich’s voice was barely a whisper now, no amplification or theatrical flair. Just desperate terror. ”Please don’t...”

Jack squeezed a little harder. Another crack appeared in the phylactery’s surface.

Valdoren’s voice cut off mid-word, replaced by a choking sound that shouldn’t have been possible for something without lungs.

Jack crouched down, bringing his face level with the lich’s skull.

His red eyes bored into those flickering green flames, and when he spoke, his voice carried absolute certainty.

”You have ten seconds to tell me who tried to kill me.”

He squeezed again, and another crack spider-webbed across the phylactery’s surface. Green light leaked from the fractures, dissipating into the air like smoke.

”Or I crush this, and you experience true death.”

Valdoren’s entire frame was shaking now, bone rattling against bone. The lich had existed for centuries, having survived wars, assassinations, and the fall of kingdoms.

But nothing in all those years had prepared him for this moment. He was held at the mercy of something that had no mercy to give.

Jack’s grip tightened fractionally.

”Ten seconds,” he repeated. ”Starting now. If I have to repeat myself one more time, you will die.”

Valdoren wiped his forehead as if there was sweat on it. He panicked. He glanced left and right to see that he was surrounded with no hope of Escape.

Loryn to his right, Pho to his left, and Jack in front of him, holding his life in front of him.

”Okay... okay. Just stop, I’ll tell you. The god who triednto kill you was Ere...”