I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 847: Miasma

The spatial transit dropped Theo Althalos onto the jagged, slate-colored crags of Floor Twelve with an impact that sent a sharp spike of agony through his fractured left shoulder.

The air on this floor was barren and dry, smelling of pulverized rock, ancient sulfur, and stagnant dust.

Vast canyons of dark shale cut across the landscape like open wounds, framed by violent crosswinds that whipped loose gravel across the barren plateaus.

There was no ocean here, no deep-sea barrier to hide an enemy, yet the sheer physical desolation offered zero comfort to the battered elven captain.

Theo clung to the dragon’s neck, his right hand shaking around the pommel of his broadsword.

His silver plate armor was a ruined mess of crushed filigree, dented plates, and crusted indigo demon blood.

His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps, his vision swimming with gray spots of exhaustion.

He had survived Floor Eleven not through tactical brilliance or martial supremacy, but because a four-meter-tall blue monstrosity had dropped an enemy’s severed head directly into his lap like table scraps tossed to a beggar.

That humiliation burned hotter than the physical pain in his collarbone.

A low, guttural roar broke the howling gale.

Emerging from a narrow chasm three hundred paces ahead was a Dread-rank Chasm Stalker.

The beast was an eight-legged, iron-carapace horror, its elongated torso covered in thick obsidian plating that clattered violently against the rock.

Four glowing red eyes burned from its flat, triangular skull, its mandibles dripping corrosive green bile that hissed against the stone.

It dug its barbed talons into the shale, lowering its head to charge the intruders who had dared enter its feeding grounds.

Theo gritted his teeth, forcing his exhausted mana pathways to ignite. “Dragon! Form an aerial arc! We strike its ocular plates from above…”

The Disaster-class Dragon did not wait for the command, nor did it execute an aerial circle.

The dragon was enraged.

It had spent an hour being dragged into an ocean trench by aquatic vermin, its impenetrable scales notched by bone harpoons, forced to carry dead weight on its back.

The presence of another lower-tier beast attempting to assert dominance on open ground triggered an immediate, feral fury.

With a deafening, concussive roar that shattered the shale beneath its claws, the dragon surged forward.

It charged across the rocky plateau with terrifying, freight-train velocity, closing the three-hundred-pace distance in three massive strides.

The Chasm Stalker lunged, snapping its venom-slick mandibles, but the dragon drove its massive, four-taloned right foot down onto the beast’s back.

CRACK!

The iron carapace of the Chasm Stalker caved inward under dozens of tons of concentrated draconic mass.

The beast shrieked, its eight legs flailing uselessly against the stone as green blood sprayed across the rocks.

Before the creature could thrash a second time, the dragon dipped its massive head, opened its colossal jaws, and clamped down directly around the stalker’s triangular skull.

With a brutal, violent twist of its neck, the dragon ripped the head completely free from the torso with a wet, tearing crunch of muscle and chitin.

It snorted a plume of scalding sulfur from its nostrils, sneering in disgust at the foul taste, and violently spat the severed, dripping head onto the flat rock five paces before Theo’s boots.

The massive beast then drove a single, curved talon into the center of the crushed torso, gouging out a fist-sized, dark crimson Dread-rank core.

The dragon flicked its claw dismissively, sending the blood-smeared core clattering across the stone until it rolled against Theo’s foot.

Theo stood frozen in the stirrups, staring at the gory trophies.

He had not swung his blade.

He had not cast a single wind spell.

The beast had been butchered in less than four seconds by a mount that viewed him with utter disdain.

Swallowing the bitter bile rising in his throat, Theo dismounted with stiff, agonizing movements.

He reached down with his uninjured hand, gathering the heavy, dripping head and the Dread core, and shoved them both into his bag.

“Floor Twelve complete,” Theo muttered through clenched teeth, his voice trembling with hollow rage. “The beast is dead. Open the passage.”

The Spire’s ambient runes answered the harvest. A shimmering violet transit beacon flared to life fifty paces across the plateau, humming with the low-frequency pull of Floor Thirteen.

Theo dragged himself back onto the dragon’s neck, his fingers digging into the leather harness as the massive beast leaped forward, carrying them directly into the swirling violet portal.

The atmospheric shift on Floor Thirteen was suffocating.

The spatial transit deposited them onto a vast, barren plain of flat, dark obsidian rock.

There were no mountains, glaciers, oceans, or forests.

The entire horizon was an endless expanse of cracked, black glass stretching beneath a lightless, bruised-purple sky.

Clinging to the stone was a dense, low-hanging carpet of purple-black necrotic miasma.

It was not thick enough to obscure vision entirely, but it hovered knee-high, swirling like liquid smoke around the dragon’s talons.

The mist carried the sharp, sickening stench of decayed marrow, old ash, and an old wet pipe.

Every breath Theo drew tasted like iron filings scraping against the back of his throat, the necrotic mana slowly leaching the warmth from his skin and dampening the natural flow of his light magic.

Theo adjusted his grip on his broadsword, his cerulean eyes scanning the flat horizon with growing unease.

“Where is the clan fortress?” Theo whispered, his voice sounding muffled, as if the heavy miasma swallowed sound waves before they could travel. “Where are the guardian outposts?”

He drove his heels into the dragon’s flanks, forcing the reluctant beast into the air.

The dragon beat its massive obsidian wings, climbing three hundred feet above the mist-covered plain.

For ten long, silent minutes, they flew sweeping reconnaissance circles across Floor Thirteen.

There was nothing.

No sign of indigenous life whatsoever.

The entire floor was a silent, empty tomb.

Then, as they crossed the floor’s center, the flat obsidian plains abruptly ended.

Plunging directly into the heart of the bedrock was a colossal, bottomless abyss.

The crater was half a league wide, perfectly circular, its sheer vertical walls dropping into pitch-black subterranean darkness.

The purple-black miasma covering the plains flowed over the edge of the rim in continuous, silent cascades, pouring into the deeps like a toxic, lightless waterfall.

From the bottom of that massive chasm came a deep, rhythmic vibration.

A heavy, subterranean pulse that vibrated through the air like the heartbeat of an ancient titan sleeping in the deeps.

Theo stared down into the black void, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs.

The realization settled into his mind with cold, undeniable clarity.

No surface trial existed on Floor Thirteen.

The guardian, the clan seat, and the final objective of the floor did not exist under the sky; they resided within the deep belly of the chasm below.

Theo looked down at his blood-stained silver armor, then glanced back toward the empty sky.

The words of the Blue Demon echoed through his skull like a mocking bell: Prince Rhys is already on Floor Twenty-Three.

“No,” Theo hissed through cracked, bleeding lips. “I will not lose to a bastard. I am the Praetor of the Sovereign Vanguard. The Sun Crest belongs to House Althalos.”

Theo tightened his grip on the dragon’s reins, his cerulean eyes flashing with desperate, manic resolve as he leaned forward over the beast’s neck.

“Dive,” Theo commanded, his voice hardening with finality. “Take us down into the hole.”

The Disaster-class Dragon snapped its jaws, folded its colossal wings tight against its armored flanks, and plunged headfirst into the black abyss of Floor Thirteen, descending rapidly into the dark where an ambush awaited.