I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 741: [0:00] [Golden Ticket Chapter Bonus]

[-431,203 HP]

Tharaxis’s voice was clinical and analytical, but now carrying threads of something approaching reverence.

‘The Herald’s defensive capabilities have been neutralized. Its attempt to create distance has failed. The sheer weight of the impact has countered its attempt to generate lift. Every tactical option available to it has been systematically eliminated through superior calculation and execution.’

The black veins across Jack’s skin pulsed brighter, more vibrant, burning with darker intensity as his body consumed something intangible from the moment.

His consciousness expanded, incorporating the Herald’s terror as fuel, as sustenance, as validation of what he had become. The pain radiating from the Herald was intoxicating in ways that nothing else ever could be.

…

The Herald’s attacks had failed to penetrate his defenses.

No, it was the Herald’s pain that Jack could feel radiating outward like a shockwave, and that pain was the most delicious thing he had ever experienced.

Every ounce of suffering emanating from the impaled creature before him fed something deep within his psyche. Something ancient. Something that had been waiting for this moment for generations.

The continuous drain of Madness was taking its toll. Approximately six thousand health points per second were bleeding away from his body in a relentless cascade.

But, in this moment, that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the fact that he was winning. That an apex predator had been reduced to something lesser. That he had proven, beyond any shadow of doubt, his fundamental superiority.

[+247 Demonic Essence]

The notification cascaded through his consciousness, weighted with absolute truth.

The demonic mana within him responded to the Herald’s suffering with predatory satisfaction, with the kind of joy that only came from the successful hunt.

The demonic essence recognized what Jack was becoming, and it fed him, strengthened him, pulled him deeper into the primal state he inhabited.

His HP was dropping, bleeding away at a constant rate. But with each second that passed, his connection to the demonic forces anchored inside him grew stronger.

The black veins pulsing across his skin were no longer just a visual manifestation.

[Herald’s HP: 49,568,797/50,000,000]

A single spear strike had removed 431,203 points of damage from a creature with fifty million health.

It should have been nothing, dismissed as an inconvenience barely worth acknowledging.

Because for the first time since the Herald had emerged from the dragon kingdom, disobeying Typhoon’s direct command, it understood what it meant to face something that didn’t operate within its framework of power.

Something that didn’t respect its authority. Someone who didn’t recognize its cosmic significance or bow to its intimidation.

It understood that it was outmatched.

Primal instinct overwhelmed tactical thinking in the Herald’s consciousness.

It thrashed, attempting to pull away from Oscar’s lodged position. The spear had penetrated so deeply that Oscar’s butt-end was pressing against the Herald’s ribs from the inside, using the creature’s own anatomy as an anchor point that would not break or slip.

The Herald’s entire body convulsed with the recognition of its own vulnerability. Its wings spread wide, trying to generate lift, trying to move away from the predator that had just demonstrated with absolute finality that it was superior in every conceivable way.

But every movement was hindered. Every attempt to escape only worsened its situation.

But it was already too late.

Jack had already adjusted his position, started the next phase of his assault, and was moving with the inevitability of a force of nature.

Something that could not be stopped, negotiated with, or reasoned with.

Jack stood in the center of the inferno, he had walked through unchanged, black veins pulsing with demonic hunger, yellow-orange eyes reflecting the flames with certainty.

A deliberate and gradual alteration of his facial expression, underlying the non-human entity assuming a human facade.

The smile was not human. It could never be described as human.

It was the smile of something that had transcended humanity entirely and discovered what it was really meant to be.

It was the smile of a predator that had just tasted blood for the first time and found it exquisite beyond measure.

It was the smile of a creature that existed outside the normal frameworks of morality, ethics, or divine law.

The smile of something divine and demonic in equal measure. It belonged to neither category but somehow encompassed both.

Emberion’s presence in his consciousness only fed Jack deeper into the whole he was already in.

‘This is what true power looks like. This is what it means to walk the path you’ve chosen. Show this creature what it means to stand before a Kaiser who has learned to embrace what he truly is. Show it what happens when divinity and demonism are merged into a single entity. Show it death, for that is the only answer when someone comes to kill you.’

The blood chain had done its job perfectly. Oscar had struck with such precision that the experience accumulated across centuries of combat meant nothing before Jack.

The Herald was now pinned. In a way that no amount of strength or cosmic authority could overcome.

Jack’s free hand reached out, and blood pooled in his palm.

The blood coalesced, responding to Jack’s will with absolute obedience, forming spiraling patterns in the air before him.

Another chain began to form.

The Herald, impaled, bleeding ichor that was steaming as it hit the stone, desperately trying to understand how an apex predator had been reduced to prey in the span of mere seconds, could only watch with growing horror as the monster it had tried to kill took another step forward through the flames.

The Herald’s cosmic awareness was screaming warnings that weren’t being translated into useful information.

Every system the Herald possessed for threat assessment was overloaded, overwhelmed, and crashing under the weight of processing something that shouldn’t exist according to every law of reality it had ever known.

This was what Jack Kaiser truly was.

This was what the bloodline had always been capable of producing.

This was the raw, primal, unfiltered manifestation of power that transcended mortal comprehension or divine authority.

And with each pulse, the Herald understood a little more that it had made a catastrophic mistake. That it had challenged something that transcended not just power, but existence itself.

That it had looked upon a Kaiser in his true form and found itself wanting in every way that mattered.

The Herald understood one last truth as Oscar’s blades began to glow with a darker energy, and Jack’s hand continued to draw together the blood of countless fallen creatures.

The Dragon King had been right to fear entities like this.

The Dragon King had been right to kill creatures like Jack away from the mortal planes.

And the Red Herald had been catastrophically wrong to challenge the one individual who had piqued the interest of the strongest being in existence.

[0:00.]

“Can you hear it, Hearld?”

‘What is this boy talking about?’

“Can you not hear the bell tolls as the clock has struck zero? It is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.”

———-

As the lieutenants got within range to see what was happening, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

It wasn’t from the Herald’s state of being bound and shackled like a dog, but rather from the impossible portal that had just opened up before them.

It was five times larger than the Herald himself, and he was the largest dragon on this battlefield. Bewildthat’st was the only thing on their mind as they tried to pricess what entity could require such a large portal.

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