I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 418: I Do Love A Good Hunt

His voice dropped to almost a whisper.

”I’ve been here three times before, Master. Twice to gather materials that Master Pho requested, once to install this portal. Every single time, I felt it watching me. Never saw it. Never heard it. But I knew it was there, tracking my movements, deciding whether I was worth killing or just worth ignoring.”

Jack’s red eyes studied the tree, his enhanced perception trying to pierce the distance and see what waited in those high branches.

But the lightning veins created interference, making it difficult to focus on specific details. It was like trying to see through a strobe light. It was possible, but disorienting.

”Stormfang,” Jack repeated, testing the name. His tone was flat, showing no fear despite Kaedor’s obvious distress.

”Pho mentioned it briefly. Fast, aggressive, commands lightning with natural talent, gets more powerful the longer a fight continues.”

”Voltage escalation,” Kaedor confirmed, his nervousness increasing with every word. ”The longer you engage it in combat, the stronger its lightning becomes. It starts at manageable levels. But it scales exponentially.”

He looked at Jack with genuine concern.

”Master Pho’s exact words when he briefed me before my first visit were: ’Kill it in under ten minutes or don’t fight it at all.’ He said anything longer than that, and even he would struggle to survive the voltage levels.”

{So we’re definitely fighting it, right?} Oscar asked with entirely too much enthusiasm. {Because that sounds like exactly the kind of challenge we should be taking on. Lightning demon versus lightning human. It’s poetic!}

’Eventually,’ Jack replied internally. ’But not immediately. First, we survey the floor. Understand the environment. Identify which beasts are worth binding to fill out my army capacity.’

{You’re going shopping for monsters. I love it!}

Jack turned to Kaedor, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable with their surroundings.

The merchant demon kept glancing at the tree, at the three different environments, at the sky where lightning occasionally arced between clouds.

”Tell me about the creatures on this floor,” Jack commanded. ”What lives here besides Stormfang? What classifications? What threat levels?”

Kaedor’s merchant instincts kicked in despite his fear, his mind automatically cataloging information the way he’d been doing for decades.

”The floor is divided, so the creature populations are divided as well. Each section has developed its own ecosystem, completely separate from the others. It’s...” He paused, searching for the right word.

”Ecologically impossible. But the Spire doesn’t care about natural laws.”

He gestured toward the swampland with one hand, his rings catching the dim light.

”That section breeds water-based predators almost exclusively. Things that hunt through murky environments, creatures adapted to low visibility, and ambush anything that moves. I’ve seen reports from other demons about massive serpents. Fifty feet long, bodies as thick as tree trunks. Amphibious hunters that can move through water and on land with equal speed. Creatures that use the mist as natural camouflage, becoming nearly invisible until they strike.”

His hand moved to point at the wasteland, and he actually flinched slightly as lightning struck somewhere in that section.

”That section is pure survival of the fittest. Only things that can withstand constant lightning bombardment can live there. The creatures are all heavily resistant to electrical damage. Some reports suggest they’re completely immune. And many of them actually feed on lightning, absorbing the strikes to grow stronger. They’re aggressive, territorial, and incredibly durable. You’d have to hit them with something other than lightning to have any effect.”

Finally, he pointed at the jungle, and his expression became more uncertain.

”That section is the most diverse and the most dangerous in some ways. The jungle breeds everything. Predators, prey, scavengers, parasites. The mist makes visual tracking difficult, but the creatures there have adapted other senses to compensate. Enhanced hearing, smell, and vibration sensitivity. Some of them hunt by detecting body heat. Others track by sound. A few use echolocation like bats.”

He looked back at Jack, his nervousness evident.

”The jungle creatures are fast, Master. Incredibly fast. They move through the dense vegetation like it’s not even there, using the trees and undergrowth to launch ambush attacks from angles you wouldn’t expect. And they’re intelligent.”

Jack absorbed this information methodically, his mind already categorizing and analyzing.

’Three distinct environments. Three distinct creature types. Each one adapted to survive in conditions that would kill the others.’

{And all of them non-demons,} Oscar added. {Which means binding them won’t trigger demon-detection wards in the human world. You really are building the perfect infiltration army.}

”Classifications?” Jack asked. ”What threat levels are we talking about?”

Kaedor’s rings clicked together as he thought.

”The swamp section has mostly Dread to Nightmare-class creatures. A few Disaster-class apex predators, but they’re rare. The creatures there prioritize stealth over raw power.”

”The wasteland section skews higher. Mostly Nightmare-class, a smaller population of dread-class, and I’ve heard unconfirmed reports of at least two Disaster-class entities that have claimed specific territories. They’re the opposite of the swamp. All raw power and aggression, no subtlety whatsoever.”

”The jungle is mixed. The diversity makes it unpredictable. You might encounter something weak, or you might stumble into a Nightmare-class ambush. There’s no way to know until you’re already engaged.”

Jack nodded slowly, his strategic mind working through the implications.

’Five hundred capacity in my Soul Warden chain. Currently holding four entities. That leaves four hundred ninety-six open slots.’

{You’re not seriously planning to fill all of them today, are you?}

’No. But I can make significant progress. Two hundred bindings would be reasonable. Three hundred if the hunting is efficient.’

{That’s still ridiculous. You know that, right?}

’It’s necessary. The army needs diversity. Pure demons are powerful, but they’re detectable. These creatures give us options.’

Jack started walking toward the jungle section, his footsteps confident despite the unfamiliar terrain.

Loryn followed silently, and Kaedor trailed behind with considerably less enthusiasm, his rings clicking together in nervous patterns. He was very much reconsidering his life choices and how he ended up in these circumstances.

The boundary itself was visible if you knew what to look for. A faint shimmer in the air, like heat distortion, marked where one environment ended and another began.

Jack crossed it without hesitation.

The jungle swallowed them almost immediately.

The dense vegetation blocked out what little light reached the floor, reducing visibility to about 20 feet. But Jack’s enhanced perception adapted quickly, his Flawed Sight piercing the darkness with ease.

He could see the trees, the undergrowth, the mist drifting between branches.

And around them, a faint sound of branches being broken in the distance.

Creatures stalking through the undergrowth, watching these new arrivals with interest.

Jack’s perception caught glimpses.

Scales sliding across bark, eyes reflecting non-existent light, bodies shifting position to get better angles.

They were being hunted.

{Um, Jack? We have company. Lots of company.}

’I know. Fifteen entities within fifty feet. Twenty more farther out. They’re evaluating us. Deciding if we’re prey or threat.’

{And what are we going to show them?}

Jack’s hand moved to Oscar, gripping the spear’s shaft.

Red lightning began crackling along his spear.

He smiled behind his visor.

”Let’s see what this floor has to offer. I do love a good hunt.”