I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 740: [Blood Demon Arts Third Form: Sovereign’s Chain]

The inferno began to dissipate, not because it was running out of fuel, but because the fire itself seemed to be losing intensity in the face of something far more terrifying than heat.

The flames pulled back from Jack as if they recognized him as something beyond their capacity to harm. His presence was draining the inferno’s power simply by existing within it.

Jack continued to advance closer to the Herald.

His movements, while primal in execution, were strategically calculated, a predator employing precise, efficient hunting methods.

The Herald was already reacting, trying to overcome its paralysis and move away from the advancing threat.

It was too slow.

Everything it attempted was occurring in slow motion compared to Jack’s speed. Every muscle contraction the Herald attempted to make was already anticipated and countered before it fully formed.

Jack’s free hand moved with preternatural speed and absolute precision. The motion was simple, economical, almost casual in its execution. A single gesture that changed everything about the dynamic between them.

A lightning bolt erupted from his fingertips. Black lightning crackling with void-dark malevolence. The bolt screamed through the air with the force of a missile, traveling at velocities that made the air itself scream in protest against its passage.

It struck the Herald directly in the center of its chest.

The bolt didn’t explode outward in a traditional arc of electrical energy. Instead, it sank into the Herald’s scales, penetrating through muscle, sinew, and bone, finding the spaces between ribs and lodging itself deep within the creature’s torso.

And there it remained, burning with dark intensity, a permanent mark seared into the Herald’s essence. The black lightning didn’t fade or dissipate as normal electricity would.

[Branded. All damage is multiplied by three. All attacks will never miss, and will always find the target.]

Jack’s free hand gestured with absolute authority, and blood pooled beneath his feet.

It responded to his will as if it were a natural extension of his consciousness.

The blood coalesced, forming spiraling patterns in the air around him. It wove itself together, strand by strand, fiber by fiber, into a chain of pure hemoglobin that stretched and extended with impossible fluidity.

The chain was thick as a man’s wrist but moved with the grace of silk. The chain wrapped around Oscar’s shaft, attaching itself to the spear’s counterweight.

[Blood Demon Arts Third Form: Sovereign’s Chain.]

[Blood Cost: Costs 15% of total blood to construct and maintain the physical chain.]

Oscar’s voice erupted with equal parts genuine excitement and dark amusement.

{What in the absolute hell are you doing to me? One second, I’m a perfectly normal, beautiful spear just sitting here looking magnificent, and the next, I’m being wrapped in blood chains like I’m some kind of demonic missile launcher! This is either the best idea you’ve had all week or the dumbest idea you’ve ever conceived, and honestly, I can’t tell which one it is anymore! But I’ve got to admit, the commitment to making me suffer is genuinely impressive!}

Jack didn’t respond with words.

His entire body pivoted with mechanical precision, and his arm moved in a massive circular arc, building kinetic momentum with each rotation. The blood chain extended and contracted in response to his movements, becoming a physical extension of his will and his demonic authority.

Around and around, faster and faster, until the chain was spinning with the velocity of a helicopter rotor blade. The wind generated by his spinning began to whip outward, creating a visible vortex of force around his body.

Oscar, secured at the end of the chain, experienced velocities that would have killed a normal creature from G-forces alone. He was screaming with something that was definitely excitement but might have also been terror.

{This is ridiculous! This is absolutely ridiculous! I can feel the wind resistance! The air friction is singing! Do you have any idea how fast we’re moving right now? This is either going to be the greatest moment of my existence or the moment I finally understand what death actually feels like!}

He released it with a violent snap of his wrist, letting the constructed blood cord unwind and hurl Oscar forward with kinetic energy measured in the same categories as siege weapons or meteoric impacts.

The spear didn’t fly in a ballistic arc. It didn’t follow the normal trajectory of a thrown object. It flew in a perfectly straight line, the blood chain propelling it forward with an acceleration that defied and violated the laws of physics.

Oscar’s four-bladed cross-tip gleamed in the firelight as he rocketed through the air toward the Herald at speeds that should have vaporized a normal object from friction alone.

{Oh, this is going to feel fantastic! Let’s see how well you handle a spear moving at this velocity, you oversized golden chicken! I’m about to ruin your whole…}

….

The Herald tried to dodge at the last microsecond. Its reflexes, fast enough to match dragonkind, fast enough to have kept it alive for centuries, almost succeeded.

But almost wasn’t good enough against something that calculated trajectories at levels the Herald couldn’t even comprehend. Combined with his branded skill, he could never escape as long as magic was being used.

Oscar’s four blades punched through the Herald’s scales with the force of a meteor strike, making planetfall.

The cross-tip dug deep, penetrating through muscle and bone, carving a path of absolute destruction through everything in its way.

It carved through tissue with the precision of surgical steel and the force of a siege weapon operating simultaneously at maximum capacity.

The impact sounded like a jet passing by your ear as the stone cracked and popped under the pressure.

Steaming blood, sprayed in all directions, coated the ground in fluid that instantly sizzled and evaporated as it hit the superheated stone floor.

The Herald’s screams echoed through the Chamber with such force that the walls themselves seemed to vibrate in sympathy with its agony. Every stone reverberated, and every surface shook. The sound of its pain was so profound that it seemed to alter the fabric of reality around it.

The Herald emitted a sound that transcended conventional expressions of pain and agony, exceeding the typical limitations of auditory articulation.

It was the sound of an apex predator discovering, for the first time in its existence, that it was not the apex predator.

It was the sound of absolute understanding crashing down like a tidal wave. The understanding that it had been outmatched not by degrees or categories, but by something that existed in an entirely different framework of existence.

Every hierarchy of power it had ever understood had been rendered irrelevant, all because of one being….

The Soul Warden.

…..

Oscar, now embedded deep within the Herald’s body, radiated satisfaction that bordered on ecstasy.

{Oh, that was satisfying! Did you feel that? I just pierced through scales that should have withstood a ballista shot! The resistance! The beautiful, beautiful resistance as I pushed through tissue and found the soft parts underneath! This is the best day of my entire existence! I’ve been waiting centuries for a moment like this!}

The Herald tried to twist, tried to wrench itself away from the source of its pain. It succeeded only in driving Oscar deeper, in creating additional lacerations, in compounding its own suffering exponentially.

The more it struggled, the more damage it inflicted upon itself. Movement had become impossible. Escape had become impossible. Everything it had been able to do just moments ago was now beyond its capacity.

Family vacation. I will still post chapters. TOD uncertain.

Family vacation. I will still post chapters. TOD uncertain.