I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 450 450: Traps

The corridor beyond the entry hall was narrower than Rhys expected.

The ceiling arched overhead at about twenty feet, and every surface was covered in a thin layer of frost that glittered like diamonds.

"Stop," Pho commanded suddenly.

Rhys froze mid-step, his perception picking up what Pho had noticed.

A faint magical signature was embedded in the floor ahead, barely visible even to his trained eyes.

"Pressure plates," Pho observed. "Crude, but effective. Step on one and you'll trigger whatever trap the Drake's minions installed. Ice spikes, probably. Or a cave-in."

Rhys studied the corridor, his mind working through the problem.

He could try to navigate around the pressure plates, but that would take time and focus he couldn't spare with his stamina already depleted.

Or he could remove the threat entirely.

"Slyph," Rhys said quietly. "Can you sense the magical connections between the pressure plates and whatever they're designed to trigger?"

Her tiny form materialized near his shoulder, her black-and-green eyes studying the corridor with obvious concentration. "Give me a moment..."

Green energy flickered from her form, spreading through the air.

The wind magic she controlled allowed her to sense air currents, magical flows, and the subtle disturbances on any surface.

"Got them," Slyph said after perhaps thirty seconds. "The pressure plates connect to reservoirs of compressed ice magic built into the walls. Step on a plate and the reservoirs release. Flash-freezing everything in the corridor within two seconds. Prettt nasty trap."

"Can you disrupt the connections?" Rhys asked.

"Not quick enough." Slyph's form flickered with frustration. "The enchantments are reinforced against tampering. It would take me at least an hour to unpick them safely."

"Then we don't unpick them," Rhys said, an idea forming. "We overwhelm them."

Pho's blank white eyes somehow conveyed interest. "Explain."

Rhys gestured at the corridor ahead. "The pressure plates are designed to trigger when weight is applied to them. Probably anything over a certain threshold. But what if we trigger all of them simultaneously while flooding the corridor with water?"

Understanding dawned in Slyph's expression. "The water conducts your lightning magic. When the ice magic releases, it has to flash-freeze the water first, which dilutes its effectiveness. And while it's trying to freeze the water, you electrify everything through the flooded corridor."

"Exactly." Rhys raised one hand. "It's wasteful in terms of mana, but it's fast, and it removes the trap as a threat."

"Acceptable deduction." Pho approved. "Execute it."

Rhys focused, channeling his water magic.

He pulled moisture from the air, ice covering the walls and ceiling, and from the frost that carpeted every surface.

The water gathered in the air before him, coalescing into a sphere that grew larger with each passing second.

Fifty gallons.

Eighty gallons.

One hundred twenty-four gallons. The amount of water condensed as he continued to gather more water.

The sphere had become massive when Rhys finally released his control over it.

The water crashed to the corridor floor with a sound like a breaking dam, immediately spreading across the ice surface in a rushing wave.

The liquid hit the first pressure plate, then the second, then all of them in rapid succession as the wave advanced.

The trap triggered exactly as designed.

Reservoirs of compressed ice magic erupted from the walls in gouts of freezing energy that would have turned any living creature into a frozen statue in seconds. Tl

The temperature in the corridor dropped so rapidly that Rhys could see his breath turn to ice crystals before his eyes.

But the flash-freezing magic had to contend with hundreds of gallons of water first.

Ice formed on the surface of the water immediately, spreading inward as the freezing magic converted the liquid to solid.

But water had thermal mass and resistance to temperature change, giving Rhys the opening he needed.

He thrust both daggers forward, lightning erupting from Tempest's Edge with controlled intensity.

"Storm Current!"

The electrical web spread through the air, but this time Rhys directed it downward, into the water that was rapidly freezing but not yet completely solid.

The lightning followed the path of least resistance through the conductive liquid.

The entire corridor lit up with blue electricity as thousands of volts discharged through the water.

The ice magic reservoirs, still trying to complete their flash-freeze, took the full brunt of the electrical assault.

The enchantments shattered under the overload, their magical matrices unable to handle both the freezing process and the electrical interference simultaneously.

The pressure plates cracked, their mechanisms destroyed by the conflicting magical energies.

The ice forming on the water's surface shattered into fragments as the electrical current superheated it from below.

Within ten seconds, the trap was neutralized.

The corridor was now covered in six inches of water that was slowly draining through cracks in the ice floor, but the pressure plates were broken, the ice magic reservoirs were depleted, and the path forward was clear.

"Crude but effective," Pho observed, a slight smirk playing at his lips. "You're learning to think like a mage instead of just a fighter with magic. Good."

Rhys felt a small surge of pride at the praise, but he kept his expression neutral as he started forward through the water-covered corridor.

His boots splashed with each step, and he kept Tempest's Edge ready, lightning crackling softly along the blades.

'That cost you more mana than you probably should have spent,' Slyph warned from within him. 'You're down to maybe thirty percent reserves now.'

She was right. The water generation had been expensive, and maintaining Storm Current long enough to electrify the entire corridor had drained him more than he would have liked.

But the alternative would have been navigating the pressure plates carefully, which would have taken time and focus.

This way was faster, even if it was wasteful.

They reached the end of the corridor without encountering more enemies, emerging into what appeared to be a wider chamber.

The architecture here was more elaborate than that of the entry hall, with carved ice pillars supporting the ceiling and decorative patterns on the walls.

This space had been used for ceremonial or administrative purposes.

And standing in the center of the chamber were three ice demons.

These were larger, more detailed in their construction, with eyes that permeated frost, as if they were breathing.

'Elite variants,' Slyph said, her voice carrying wariness. 'Still Dread-rank, but at the peak of that classification. Probably one or two more cores away from evolving to Nightmare-rank.'

The demons noticed Rhys the moment he entered the chamber, their burning eyes fixing on him with blatant hostility.

But they didn't charge immediately. Instead, they spread out, positioning themselves to create overlapping fields of attack while maintaining distance from each other.

Precisely the kind of enemy that would punish mistakes.

"Water," Rhys whispered, extending one hand toward the chamber floor.

His water magic responded, pulling moisture from the air and the ice covering every surface. But this time, instead of creating a sphere or a prison around a single target, Rhys spread the water across the entire chamber floor.

The liquid spread in a thin sheet about an inch deep, covering the ice surface and making the footing treacherous for anything that relied on traction.

The three ice demons reacted to this immediately, clearly recognizing a threat when they saw one.

All three began casting simultaneously, frost gathering around their clawed hands as they prepared what looked like coordinated assault spells.

Rhys didn't give them time to complete the casting.

He dropped to one knee, both daggers stabbing down into the water-covered floor with all the strength he could muster. Lightning erupted from Tempest's Edge, but this time, instead of projecting outward in a web, Rhys channeled it directly into the water.

The electrical current spread through the conductive liquid covering the entire chamber floor in a grid of blue electricity.

The three ice demons, standing in that same water, took the full force of the discharge.

Their casting was interrupted immediately as electrical current coursed through their bodies.

The frost gathering around their claws dispersed, and the demons' coordinated formation broke as each one staggered from the shock.