I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 464: Golden Portal

Jack moved quickly, but carefully, Oscar held ready, every sense alert for ambush. The panthers had reported Stormfang’s location but couldn’t tell him the wyvern’s condition or intent.

Was it fleeing? Setting a trap? Trying to reach a more defensible position?

The blood trail continued, droplets more frequent now as if Stormfang’s wound had reopened with exertion.

The more it bled, the weaker it would become, the easier the eventual binding would be.

A sound echoed up from deeper in the passage. The scrape of claws on wood, followed by a pained hiss. Jack was getting close now.

Jack dismissed the panthers with a thought, their consciousness fading from the Soul Link as they returned to whatever liminal space bound creatures occupied when not actively manifested.

No point having them interfere with what should have been a clean hunt.

He rounded a bend in the passage and caught a glimpse of yellow scales disappearing around another turn a hundred feet ahead.

Stormfang, moving fast despite its injury, star-bright eyes glancing back before the wyvern vanished from sight.

It knew Jack was following.

Jack picked up his pace, boots cracking against the wood as he pursued. The passage twisted and turned, sometimes widening into chambers before narrowing again, always leading downward through the tree’s massive trunk.

Minutes passed.

The chase continued, Jack, maintaining steady pressure, never quite catching up but never falling behind either.

Stormfang was fast, even injured, but Jack’s enhanced physique made it quite easy to keep pace with the wyvern.

Twenty minutes into the pursuit, Jack felt it.

A building charge of electrical energy ahead, making the air taste like copper.

Stormfang was preparing something.

The passage opened into a larger chamber, and Jack saw the wyvern clearly for the first time since wounding it.

Thirty feet of scaled power, wings half-spread despite the confined space, the hole in its right wing visible even in the chamber’s dim light.

Blood dripped steadily from the wound, pooling on the wooden floor.

But Stormfang’s attention wasn’t on its injury. The wyvern’s jaws were open, lightning gathering in its throat with increasing intensity.

The glow built from dim sparks to blinding radiance in seconds, power that would normally take minutes to accumulate, compressing into moments through sheer desperation.

Voltage escalation.

The longer the fight, the stronger the lightning. But Stormfang was trying to shortcut that process, gambling everything on a single devastating strike.

The wyvern released the attack.

Lightning erupted from Stormfang’s maw in a concentrated beam three feet in diameter, bright enough to turn the chamber into a photograph negative, loud enough that the thunder made Jack’s bones vibrate.

The attack crossed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, moving too fast to dodge.

Jack didn’t try to dodge.

He raised his left hand, fingers spread, and called the lightning to him.

The beam struck his palm and stopped.

Electricity that should have vaporized him instead coiled around his hand like a serpent, drawn in by his natural affinity and the Call of the Lightning skill that let him absorb and redirect electrical attacks.

The lightning poured into Jack’s hand, compressing into a sphere of crackling energy that grew brighter with each passing second.

One stack.

Five Stacks.

Stormfang’s attack lasted five seconds.

An eternity in combat, a massive expenditure of the wyvern’s remaining energy reserves.

When the beam finally cut off, Jack stood exactly where he’d been, completely unharmed, left hand now wreathed in absorbed lightning that pulsed as he stared down Stormfang.

The wyvern’s star-bright eyes widened with fear and disbelief.

Its trump card, the attack that had killed countless challengers, had done nothing.

Jack smiled behind his visor and took a step forward.

Stormfang didn’t try to fight.

The wyvern turned and fled, launching itself deeper into the passage with desperate speed. Wings beat frantically despite the injury, claws scrabbling on wood, the creature’s entire focus now on escape rather than to fight a monster where its trump card won’t work.

Jack pursued, the absorbed lightning still coiling around his left hand, ready to be released, but not necessary yet.

Better to let Stormfang exhaust itself further. Let blood loss and panic do the work of weakening it.

The passage continued downward. Twenty-five minutes into the chase now.

The tree’s interior shifted as they descended, passages becoming smoother, as if carved rather than naturally formed over the years.

The bioluminescent fungi gave way to something else. Crytals embedded in the wood that pulsed with soft yellow light.

And ahead, where the passage ended in what should have been another chamber, Jack saw something that made him pause for a fraction of a second.

A portal.

Not the black tears that Death created.

Nor the shimmer of floor transitions.

This was different. A circular opening a hundred feet across, its surface rippling like disturbed water, glowing with intense yellow light that filled the entire chamber.

Stormfang didn’t hesitate. The wyvern launched itself toward the portal at full speed, wings folding to streamline its body, bleeding and exhausted but still focused on the single goal of escape.

Jack’s red eyes tracked the wyvern’s flight path, mind processing the situation in the seconds it took Stormfang to reach the portal.

Unknown destination.

It could be a trap.

It could lead to a floor Jack wasn’t ready to handle.

But Stormfang was right there. Wounded and exhausted.

Perfect for binding if Jack could catch it.

The wyvern vanished through the yellow portal, swallowed by that rippling surface.

Jack made his decision in the heartbeat that followed.

He launched himself forward, boots pounding against wood as he sprinted toward the portal. Corvin cawed from his shoulder, a sound of alarm and excitement, but didn’t try to stop him.

Jack hit the portal at full speed and felt reality twist around him like a wet cloth being wrung out. The yellow light became blinding, consuming everything, and then....

The world was black. Jack was caught in a void, unable to see or sense anything.

"Corvin, use your ravens and find me something."

But, to Jack’s surprise, Corvin was no longer on his shoulder.

What happened?

Jack tried to use his Soul Link, but he couldn’t connect to any of his bound creatures. He was cut off from his army.

’This makes absolutely no sense. What could cause this? System, where am I?’

...

[Floor Fifty-Two]

...

’What I’m on Floor Fifty-Two. I did not expect this portal to go so deep down into the tower.’

Suddenly, Jack heard a voice.

"The Soul Warden." His voice was thunder-given speech, resonating across his domain. "I remember the last one. She sat on that throne for barely a year before something ended her."

’What or who is saying that?’

Jack looked up and could finally see. He was in a rocky wasteland with a thunderous storm cloud overhead. That’s when he saw something massive in the distance.

His massive form banked through the storm, lightning crackling along scales that generated electricity on their own.

This was no ordinary beast; this was something that had no equal.

Tharaxis the Stormbreaker roared through the clouds as it spoke.

Jack could feel its voice outbound and inside his head. This creature was on a different magnitude than anything he had ever seen before.