Read Novel Full Chapter 507: What else don’t we know?
Chapter 507: What else don’t we know?
[-25,000 HP]
The implications were staggering.
This was a practiced routine, the actions of someone who’d eaten enough demon hearts that the process had become mundane.
[+1 Demonic Essence]
[Current Demonic Essence: 203/1,000]
The notification appeared in Jack’s vision, followed immediately by others as his passive abilities activated.
[Demonic Mastery: +2,790 HP/second regeneration]
[Crimson Aura (Red Ring): +5,580 HP/second for 4 seconds]
Mira observed with dismay as the twenty-five thousand hit points of damage her assault had caused regenerated instantaneously.
The armor’s glow faded as the flesh beneath repaired itself at a speed that transcended normal healing.
Four seconds. That’s all it took for Jack to recover completely from an attack that should have killed him.
He finished consuming the heart, black ichor dripping from his teeth, before the visor closed.
His golden eyes tracked her through the helmet’s opening.
"I am not like any other soul mage you’ve encountered," Jack said, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "And when this fight is over, you will address me as Master."
The declaration wasn’t a boast. It was a statement of fact delivered with the same tone someone might use to discuss weather or travel plans.
Jack’s vision shifted suddenly, his perception expanding beyond normal sight as Crimson Sight activated from Jack’s earrings.
The world gained depth and clarity, revealing things hidden to the naked eye. Life forces burning like beacons, magical signatures glowing with distinct colors, and in the distance, a mile away, a figure was leaning on a cane.
Watching from safety, probably waiting to intervene if Mira failed to kill Jack quickly.
’Coward,’ Jack thought, his mind already calculating what to do. ’Sends her to test me first rather than engaging directly.’
He raised his right hand, and reality tore open at his fingertips.
A small opening no bigger than his finger, a pinprick connection to somewhere else.
Mira’s demeanor transitioned from alarm to perplexity, ultimately settling on amusement. She let out a laugh that conveyed genuine cheerfulness despite the prevailing tension.
"A portal?" she asked, her voice dripping with condescension. "You’re going to summon something to fight me? How predictable. Let me guess, a bound creature? Demons you’ve enslaved? The same tired tricks every soul mage..."
"I don’t need a portal to do that," Jack interrupted.
He assumed an upright posture, with the rain creating a rhythmic percussive effect on his armor. Concurrently with his ascent, an object materialized on his shoulder.
A carrion raven. Purple tip feathers gleaming despite the rain, red eyes tracking Mira with a piercing gaze.
The bird materialized as if it had always been there, and Mira had failed to notice.
’Where did that come from?’ she thought, her combat instincts screaming warnings about threats she couldn’t identify. ’How did it appear without me sensing...’
Jack’s hands moved in fluid patterns, and power flowed from the tiny portal.
Lightning erupted from his gauntleted fingers, golden electricity arcing between his palms as it took shape.
Forming a structure that solidified into something recognizable.
The weapon was beautiful in its lethal simplicity. The frame appeared constructed from pure lightning. Golden electricity frozen into solid form that crackled with every passing second.
But running through it, feeding into its structure from the tiny portal still floating near Jack’s hand, was something else.
Dark mana.
Thick, viscous energy that was black as pitch, flowing like oil through channels in the lightning bow. The combination created a weapon that shouldn’t exist.
Lightning and dark woven together, opposing forces merged into a unified purpose.
Mira stared at the bow, her mind racing through everything she knew about Jack Kaiser from Council intelligence reports.
’He doesn’t have dark mana,’ she thought frantically. ’All our information says he only uses lightning and soul magic. And he’s never demonstrated archery skills. What is...’
Jack nocked an arrow made from the same lightning-dark mana combination, the projectile forming in his grip easily.
He drew the string back, the bow bending with tension that made the air around it vibrate.
His golden eyes tracked her face through the helmet’s visor.
The arrow shot forward with speed that made it appear as a golden streak.
Mira’s combat reflexes, honed through decades of fighting, responded instantly. She twisted her body, the projectile passing within inches of her face, close enough that she felt displaced air against her skin.
"You need to learn how to shoot!" she taunted, her confidence returning. If this was the Soul Warden’s trump card, terrible archery, then she’d overestimated the threat.
Jack didn’t respond. He drew another arrow.
And fired.
Mira skillfully evaded the second projectile, which narrowly missed its intended target. A genuine laugh escaped her, reflecting her amusement.
Jack fired a third arrow.
Then a fourth.
A fifth.
A sixth.
All of them missed by increasingly wide margins, as if Jack’s aim was getting worse with each shot.
The arrows sailed past Mira, disappearing into the rain and darkness beyond the shrine’s grounds.
"Is that it?" Mira called out, her earlier fear completely replaced by contempt. "Six shots and you can’t hit a stationary target? The mighty Soul Warden, defeated by basic marksmanship!"
Jack lowered the bow slightly, his golden eyes meeting hers through the rain.
"I’m not aiming at you," he declared.
A mile away, Warren’s eyes widened as he saw golden streaks cutting through the rain toward his position.
’He’s firing at me?’ the old man thought, baffled by the audacity. ’But I’m too far away for accurate...’
The first arrow passed him, missing by ten feet. Warren relaxed fractionally, assuming distance had thrown off Jack’s aim.
Then the arrow stopped in midair. It hung suspended for a fraction of a second before rotating, its tip tracking back toward Warren.
Warren’s eyes widened as he realized the truth.
’They’re tracking projectiles.’
He threw himself sideways, his old man disguise abandoned as he moved with speed that belied his apparent age.
The first arrow adjusted course, pursuing him with relentless focus.
It caught him in the calf.
The projectile punched through muscle and bone, the combination of lightning and dark mana creating devastation that transcended simple physical damage.
Warren screamed, his voice carrying across the distance as electrical current surged through his leg.
A catastrophic release of compressed energy that tore flesh from bone and sent Warren tumbling across the muddy ground. Before he could recover, the second arrow arrived.
Then the third.
The fourth.
The fifth.
And finally the sixth.
Each one tracked him despite his attempts to dodge, each finding flesh before exploding into blasts that lit up the distant treeline like lightning strikes.
Warren’s anguished cries resonated through the downpour, a visceral expression of pain that carried across the mile to the shrine.
Mira stood frozen, her earlier confidence evaporating as she processed what she’d just witnessed.
Jack had fired six arrows that appeared to miss, and every single one had been aimed at Warren.
Tracking projectiles that hunted their target across impossible distances.
’He knew exactly where Warren was,’ she realized, ice flooding through her veins. ’Saw him from a mile away despite rain and darkness. And those arrows... they turned mid-flight. Hunted Warren like they were alive.’
Her mind raced through the implications. Everything the Council knew about Jack Kaiser was wrong.
He had dark mana access despite all intelligence suggesting otherwise. He could manifest weapons from pure magical energy.
He could see through rain and darkness across distances that should have been impossible. He’d eaten a demon heart and regenerated from catastrophic damage in seconds.
’We underestimated him,’ Mira thought, genuine fear creeping into her thoughts.
’The reports said he was dangerous, but this... this is something else entirely. What other abilities is he hiding? What else can he do that we don’t know about?’