I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 506: Like an apple

The woman’s laughter echoed through the rain, sharp and triumphant as she watched Jack’s body burn.

Flames consumed him, charring flesh and clothing while smoke rose from the destruction.

"Too easy!" she crowed, already turning away to call out to her companion. "Warren, I told you! The Soul Warden is nothing! Just another soul mage who thought..."

"Are you done playing around?"

Jack’s voice cut through her celebration, calm and unbothered despite the fire still consuming his shoulder.

The woman’s laughter died instantly. She spun back toward him, her amber eyes widening as she saw golden light gleaming through the flames.

Not the dulled gaze of someone dying, but sharp, focused eyes that stared through her soul.

The fire surrounding Jack’s body cut off abruptly, as if someone had thrown a switch.

Smoke cleared to reveal him still sitting against the oak tree, his posture relaxed despite what should have been catastrophic damage.

But he wasn’t burned.

He wasn’t even injured.

Red armor covered his entire body, demonic plate forged from bone and blood, with a skull glowing in his chest.

The helmet bore curved horns that marked Jack as something between human and demon, and through the visor’s opening, his golden eyes burned with intensity that made the woman take an involuntary step backward.

She recognized the armor immediately. Created from the remains of powerful entities and bound with dark magic that transcended normal craftsmanship.

The kind of protection that only someone who’d killed and harvested demonic materials could possess.

’He was wearing this the whole time,’ she realized, her mind racing through implications. ’The fire never touched his actual body. The armor absorbed everything. How many demons did he have to kill to forge something like that? How long has he been preparing for a confrontation with the Council?’

The armor wasn’t just protective equipment. It was a statement.

Every plate, every etched pattern, every curved horn represented demonic entities slain and harvested.

’And I didn’t sense it,’ Mira thought, ice flooding through her veins. ’He was sitting there in plain sight, and I had no idea he was wearing this until after my attack. What else am I not seeing?’

Jack stood slowly; his movements were unhurried despite the situation.

Rain drummed against his armored form, running off the red plates in rivulets that looked disturbingly like fresh blood.

His golden eyes fixed on hers with intensity that made her combat instincts scream warnings.

"Tell me," Jack said, his voice carrying across the rain with unnatural clarity. "Are you particular about keeping your soul?"

The question hit her like a truck.

It was not a threat delivered with bombast or theatrical emphasis.

Rage flooded through her, burning away the momentary uncertainty.

How dare this boy, this child playing at being Soul Warden, speak to her that way?

She was Mira of the Council, one of the seven most powerful beings in Erebon, a master of fire magic who’d killed dozens of soul mages across decades of hunting.

Her SSS-rank magical talent wasn’t just exceptional, it was generational. The kind of natural affinity that appeared once in a century, if that.

The only exception to this rule was talent that had been honed and bred to be high. Like Alaric Kaiser, who was born. With SSS Martial Talent and SSS Magic Talent.

She’d devoted her entire life to mastering fire magic, refining her control and power until she could manifest flames that rivaled volcanic eruptions.

Single-affinity users at her level didn’t just throw fire around carelessly.

They became the fire, understood it at a molecular level, and could manipulate temperature and combustion with precision that transcended normal magical theory.

"Don’t insult me!" she snarled, her hands moving in patterns that summoned power from the core of her being.

Fire erupted around her in a sphere of condensed flame that made the air itself scream.

The temperature spiked so dramatically that rain evaporated before reaching within ten feet of her position.

Stone beneath her feet began to glow red, then orange, then white as heat penetrated deep into the rock.

This wasn’t casual magic. This was the accumulated power of someone who’d spent decades pushing single-affinity mastery to absolute limits.

The sphere compressed, concentrating heat and force into a projectile designed to obliterate everything it touched.

The technique required perfect control.

Too much compression and it would detonate prematurely, too little and it wouldn’t penetrate demonic armor.

She had successfully eliminated disaster-class entities with this particular attack. It had also been effective in reducing fortified structures to molten slag and had even managed to penetrate magical barriers that were previously considered impenetrable.

Stone melted where the flames came too close, creating pools of liquefied rock that hissed as rain touched them.

The ancient oak behind Jack began to smoke despite being twenty feet away, its bark catching fire from radiant heat alone.

The air shimmered with such intensity that Mira’s own vision distorted.

She thrust both hands forward, releasing the accumulated power in a lance of fire that shot toward Jack at a speed that made it appear a solid beam.

The attack hit him dead center.

Flames exploded across his armored form, engulfing him in an inferno that would have vaporized a normal person instantly.

The heat was so intense that the stone path beneath him cracked, the oak tree’s bark caught fire, and rain turned to steam before reaching the ground.

The very air ignited, creating a secondary combustion that fed the primary flames.

Mira maintained the assault for three full seconds, pouring power into the flames with intensity that made her own body temperature spike.

Sweat evaporated from her skin immediately, her traveling clothes smoking at the edges despite her natural heat resistance.

This wasn’t a test or warning shot. This was her full offensive capability focused on erasing Jack Kaiser from existence.

When she finally released the technique, smoke obscured everything.

The oak tree was aflame, the stone path glowed red-hot, and the air shimmered with residual heat, making visibility difficult.

’That should have done it,’ Mira thought, her breathing heavy from the exertion. ’Nothing survives that level of concentrated...’

Movement through the smoke made her freeze.

Jack stepped forward, his red armor glowing from absorbed heat but showing no signs of actual damage.

The flames had washed over him like water against stone, dissipating without penetrating the demonic protection.

He reached into empty space, his gauntleted hand withdrawing something that made Mira’s stomach drop.

A demonic heart, blackened and withered, yet still emanating residual power from its former host.

Jack raised it to where his mouth would be beneath the helmet. The visor opened slightly, revealing sharp teeth that definitely weren’t entirely human.

Then he bit down.

The heart ruptured, black ichor flooding into Jack’s mouth as he consumed the organ.

Jack consumed the heart as if it were an apple.

Mira watched in horror as he chewed, his jaw working to break down flesh that should have been toxic to mortal physiology.

Demon hearts weren’t food. They were concentrated corruption, essence so tainted that even touching them bare-handed caused necrosis in normal people.

And Jack was eating it casually, as if it were normal behavior rather than something fundamentally wrong.

’Who does that?’ she thought, her mind reeling. ’What kind of person consumes demon organs mid-combat like they’re rations? How many has he eaten to be this comfortable with it?’