I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 510: They’ll never stop

Warren dragged himself across muddy ground, his body screaming from the wounds that still smoked from residual lightning.

Six arrows that had torn through his defenses like they were made of paper.

His calf was the worst; the first arrow had punched clean through muscle and bone before detonating, leaving a crater of charred flesh that made walking nearly impossible.

The other five had caught him across his torso, arms, and legs, creating a pattern of devastation that would have killed a normal mage instantly.

But Warren wasn’t normal.

Ninety-two years of experience, SS-rank water affinity, and a lifetime of hunting soul mages had taught him how to survive injuries that should have been fatal.

Water mana flowed through his damaged leg, the liquid magic knitting torn muscle fibers back together. It would take hours of dedicated recovery to heal fully.

But he did enough to restore basic function.

He pushed himself upright, his hand releasing the cane he’d been using as part of his old man disguise. The weighted walking stick fell to muddy ground with a heavy thud.

Warren straightened slowly, his spine cracking as vertebrae realigned after he had been hunched.

His shoulders rolled back, his chest expanded, and his full height became apparent. He was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, the physique of someone who’d spent a lifetime maintaining peak physical condition despite advanced age.

The transformation was striking.

He was no longer the frail elderly man who’d questioned Rhys in Millhaven. In his place stood a combat mage whose water affinity had kept him alive and dangerous for nearly a century.

He rotated his shoulders, feeling muscles respond properly for the first time in weeks.

The disguise had been necessary for infiltration, but maintaining it was exhausting. Now, with the Soul Warden’s attention focused elsewhere, Warren could drop the pretense.

His blue eyes scanned the treeline, tracking movement in the shadows beyond the torchlight.

Figures emerged from the darkness. Tall, muscular, bovine heads crowned with curved horns that gleamed in the rain.

Dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, forming a circle that surrounded Warren’s position.

He counted quickly, realizing there were two hundred and forty-seven.

’Minotaurs aren’t native to this region. They must be soul-bound,’ Warren thought, recognizing the telltale signs. ’The Soul Warden’s army. He must have summoned them while I was recovering.’

The minotaurs began closing the circle, their hooved feet making wet sounds as they advanced through mud.

Axes and hammers rose in muscular hands, weapons crude but effective when wielded with supernatural strength.

Warren summoned a sphere of water before him, three feet in diameter.

The sphere rotated slowly, its surface rippling despite the rain, power building within its core as Warren compressed more and more mana into the sphere.

The water darkened as pressure increased, going from clear to deep blue as molecular bonds strained under magical compression.

This wasn’t simple water manipulation. It was an advanced technique that required perfect control to execute without the sphere detonating prematurely.

The minotaurs charged, their war cries cutting through the rain like thunder.

Warren thrust both hands forward with explosive force.

The water sphere exploded, separating into exactly two hundred and forty-seven individual needles in a split second.

Each projectile was no thicker than a sewing needle but compressed to pressures that could punch through a steel plate.

The needles shot outward in perfect trajectories, each one tracking toward a specific target with magical guidance.

Warren’s eyes tracked dozens of paths simultaneously, his decades of combat experience allowing him to maintain control over hundreds of individual projectiles.

The first needle struck a minotaur’s skull just above the left eye.

The creature’s head snapped backward, a perfect hole punched through bone and brain matter, the exit wound barely larger than the entrance.

The pressure-compressed water had cauterized flesh instantly upon penetration.

Then the second needle struck.

And the third.

The fourth.

The impacts came so close together they created a single sound. Similar to hail striking a stone, multiplied by hundreds.

A percussion of death that echoed across the wasteland.

Minotaur bodies dropped in perfect synchronization. Some fell forward, momentum carrying them several steps before gravity claimed them.

Others collapsed where they stood, their legs giving out as brain function ceased.

A few toppled sideways, their weapons clattering against stone as muscular hands lost their grip.

Two hundred and forty-seven creatures, each one killed in the same instant by projectiles that had traveled different distances at precisely calibrated speeds to ensure simultaneous impact.

Warren lowered his hands, barely breathing heavily from the exertion.

The bodies lay in a perfect circle around his position, their formation preserved even in death.

Steam rose from the needle holes in their skulls, residual heat from the compressed water evaporating in the cold rain.

’Two hundred and forty-seven targets eliminated,’ Warren thought, scanning the fallen bodies.

’The Soul Warden will feel that through whatever connection binds them. He’s foolish to think such weak creatures could best me.’

Movement at the edge of his vision made Warren’s head snap toward the shrine.

Yellow eyes watched from the darkness, fifty meters away from where the Soul Warden fought Mira. Eyes Warren recognized immediately, despite distance and rain obscuring details.

Magnus...

Magnus was supposed to be in the South.

’He’s not intervening,’ Warren realized, his eyes narrowing as he studied Magnus’s posture. ’Jack is fighting Mira alone, taking damage, expending resources, and Magnus just watches. Why? What purpose does this serve?’

’Does Jack know?’ Warren thought, his mind racing through scenarios. ’Is he here to evaluate us, or is the boy ignorant of his presence? And if it’s a trap, what’s the objective? To test Jack’s abilities? To see if he’s strong enough to make him want to fight?’

His tactical analysis hit a wall.

There were too many unknowns, too many variables that didn’t align.

Magnus had disappeared from political life years ago. His sudden reappearance here threw everything off. Why was the Leader of the Council here watching the fight?

’We need to reassess everything,’ Warren concluded, his gaze tracking between Magnus and the ongoing fight. ’Our intelligence on the Kaiser family is compromised. Just watching Jack, he has too many abilities we don’t know about.’

Wet sounds interrupted his thoughts.

Unnatural sounds emanating from inanimate remains.

Warren’s gaze snapped back to the fallen minotaurs.

Bodies that should have remained dead were moving, muscles twitching as supernatural power flooded back into them.

The creatures’ wounds began closing. The needle holes in their skulls sealed from the inside out, brain matter regenerating with speed that transcended natural healing.

Bone knitted back together, skin reformed, and within seconds, the only evidence of their deaths was slight discoloration where the projectiles had penetrated.

The minotaurs rose in unison, standing with fluid motion as they’d never been injured.

Their eyes opened simultaneously, glowing with red light that marked them as more than simple beasts.

Each one bore a single healed wound in their skull, but the damage was completely reversed, flesh restored to perfect condition.

’They can’t die permanently while their master lives. Killing them is pointless. They’ll regenerate and return to combat within seconds. I’m not fighting an army; I’m fighting an immortal force that can’t be depleted through combat.’

The tactical situation shifted dramatically. If he had to kill them again, and again, and again, he’d exhaust himself long before making meaningful progress.

Meanwhile, the Soul Warden could maintain the summons while focusing on Mira.

’I need to eliminate the source,’ Warren thought, his eyes tracking back toward the shrine where Jack fought. ’Kill the Soul Warden, break the binding, end the threat permanently. But Magnus is there, watching, this is troubling...’