I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 535 535: I can do anything...

Jack's discerning gaze remained fixed on Warren, the Council member, amid the chaos, demonstrating an unwavering focus.

Warren's blue tattoos flowed across his skin in continuous streams, water mana responding to his elevated stress levels as he prepared for combat against an opponent who'd just demonstrated fire immunity and commanded thirty thousand demons.

"Before we begin," Jack maintained a conversational tone, notwithstanding the impending violence. "I want you to understand something. You won't die by my hands. That honor belongs to someone else, someone who's waited three hundred years for this opportunity."

Warren's jaw clenched, his tactical mind immediately identifying the implication.

Ren.

The entity Jack had mentioned earlier, the "old friend" from the Prosperity Kingdoms, who apparently held three centuries of grudges against Warren.

But there was no time to process that revelation further.

Jack's body erupted with golden lightning.

The transformation began at his core, electricity flooding outward through channels carved by Tharaxis's contract.

However, this particular manifestation deviated significantly from Jack's previously observed capabilities, indicating a fundamental transformation and a substantial increase in power, transcending mere enhancement to achieve elevation.

His right eye, already burning yellow, intensified until looking at it directly became painful.

His left eye shifted, orange fading as yellow consumed it entirely, both eyes now blazing with identical golden intensity that made the air around his face shimmer from radiated power.

Yellow tattoos erupted across his exposed skin, covering his face and right hand. The designs resembled small streaks.

Lightning crackled along his entire body, arcs of golden electricity jumping between points on his frame in patterns that created a continuous web of deadly energy.

The sound was deafening. Thousands of individual discharges combined into white noise, making thought difficult and communication nearly impossible.

An explosion detonated around Jack's position as the Contractee state fully activated.

The shockwave rippled outward in expanding rings, pressure waves washing across the battlefield with force that made the thirty thousand kneeling demons shift slightly in response.

The ground beneath Jack's feet cracked, marble fracturing in radial patterns from the sudden concentration of power in a human-sized frame.

Behind his blood-stained lips, Jack's teeth shifted. Canines elongating fractionally, becoming slightly more pointed, the change is subtle enough that casual observation wouldn't notice, but significant enough to alter the geometry of his smile into something more predatory.

The entire transformation took three seconds.

Jack's posture shifted, his body settling into a combat stance.

He had absolute confidence in his enhanced capabilities.

Warren's enhanced perception registered details with growing horror.

The yellow lightning. Not purple, not blue, not red, not even the divine white that marked the highest tier of elemental mastery.

Yellow.

A color that existed outside normal classification, something unique rather than simply powerful.

'What is he?' Warren's thoughts raced through centuries of accumulated knowledge, searching for reference points that might explain what he was witnessing.

'Lightning progression goes purple to blue to red to white. White is a divine tier, the highest level accessible to mortal practitioners. But yellow... yellow doesn't exist in any classification system. It's not weaker than purple or stronger than white... It's something else entirely. Something that operates outside normal progression.'

Jack vanished. His form disappeared from where he'd stood as if reality had deleted him from that location.

Warren's water-manipulation senses screamed warnings about displacement occurring too fast for normal perception to track.

His blue tattoos flowed faster, water mana flooding through his channels as he prepared defensive techniques against attacks he couldn't see coming.

Jack materialized directly in front of Warren, his right fist drawn back and wreathed in golden lightning that made the air itself scream from proximity to such concentrated power.

Thunder Clap.

The technique was activated with force that transcended Jack's previous demonstrations entirely.

This wasn't the Thunder Clap that had damaged Mira during their earlier fight.

This was the same technique elevated to catastrophic potential through Contractee state enhancement and increased base damage.

Jack's hand drove forward, not aiming for Warren's body but instead striking his hand itself.

The impact created a shockwave that rippled outward in an expanding sphere, compressed air becoming a weapon that struck with devastating force.

[-22,956 HP]

The damage notification flashed across Jack's vision, his System tracking the attack's effectiveness with precision that made tactical assessment effortless.

Warren's body flew backward, the shockwave hitting him with force sufficient to shatter ribs and rupture internal organs.

His water shield, hastily erected in the second before impact, tried to absorb some of the damage but couldn't prevent the devastating injury that came from being part of the skill.

[429,723/452,679 HP]

Warren hit the ground hard, his enhanced constitution preventing immediate death, but unable to eliminate the catastrophic damage he'd just sustained.

Blood erupted from his mouth as broken ribs punctured lungs, his breathing becoming ragged and uneven as his body struggled to compensate for injuries that would have killed normal humans instantly.

Jack stood motionless, his mismatched yellow eyes tracking the damage notification, his expression a mix of shock and exhilaration.

His mind raced through calculations with speed enhanced by adrenaline and combat focus.

Base damage had increased.

The Contractee state was elevating its fundamental power output beyond simple percentage multipliers.

But more than that, the state was multiplying his damage by three hundred percent, turning already increased base output into catastrophic potential.

'If Thunder Clap deals this much damage,' Jack's thoughts spiraled with terrible anticipation, 'what can my other techniques accomplish? Static Orbs would deal over twenty thousand per orb. Abyssal Steps, combined with physical attacks, could shatter bones with casual strikes. And if I channel everything into a single concentrated assault...'

The implications were staggering. Jack had jumped from talented novice to a powerhouse threat in terms of raw damage output.

His capabilities elevated to levels that should have required decades of cultivation rather than minutes of transformation.

A smile spread across Jack's blood-stained face, his slightly elongated canines becoming visible as his lips pulled back in an expression of pure exhilaration.

This was power.

Real power.

The kind that could reshape battlefields and eliminate threats that had seemed insurmountable just hours ago.

'The future,' Jack's internal thoughts carried excitement that transcended simple satisfaction into something approaching ecstasy, 'is going to be so much more interesting than I anticipated. If this is what thirty percent Contractee state can accomplish, what happens when I push to fifty percent? Seventy? Full power? The possibilities are endless, the potential applications limitless. I can do anything.'

Warren pushed himself upright, blood streaming from his mouth as his enhanced constitution worked overtime to repair catastrophic damage.

His hands moved in complex patterns, water mana flooding outward as he prepared a counterattack despite injuries that should have incapacitated him.

Three water spheres materialized around Warren's position, each six feet in diameter and rotating at a speed that created visible distortion in the air.

The spheres orbited him like moons around a planet, creating a defensive perimeter while simultaneously serving as ammunition for offensive techniques.

Warren's right hand thrust forward, one sphere launching toward Jack's position with speed that made it blur.

The attack wasn't designed to strike directly; instead, the sphere detonated mid-flight, exploding into thousands of high-pressure needles that spread across a wide area, eliminating dodging as a viable defense.

Jack's form blurred, Abyssal Steps carrying him ten meters to the left faster than the needles could adjust trajectory.

The projectiles struck empty air where he'd been standing, their momentum carrying them into the ground, where they punched holes in marble from the force.