I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 849: Irony

Before Theo could step further into the ring, a soft, dry clicking broke the silence.

Loryn stepped down from the edge of the royal box, descending onto the stone balcony with a jerky, unnatural stride.

He raised his elongated, clawed hands to the vaulted ceiling, his voice carrying across the vast expanse like dry parchment rubbing together.

“Welcome, Praetor of the Sovereign Vanguard, to the final threshold of Floor Thirteen,” Loryn rasped, bowing with mocking theatricality toward the arena floor.

“The trial of succession approaches its apex. The final condition requires each participant to present undeniable proof of the high-floor guardians’ defeat, and to secure the ancient relic known as the God’s Blood Tree.”

Theo straightened his back, a desperate, manic fire igniting in his cerulean eyes. He shoved his right hand into his bag, preparing to haul out the severed head and core of the Tidefang demon from Floor Eleven and the Chasm Stalker from Floor Twelve.

“I hold the trophies,” Theo shouted, his voice echoing off the obsidian stands. “I have breached the thirteenth floor. The Vanguard claims victory.”

The heavy iron door on the opposing side of the arena ground open with a deep, resonant rumble that shook the dust from the ceiling arches.

Stepping out into the spectral violet light was Prince Rhys.

Beside him walked Mira, her hands encased in dark leather suppression gloves, her wavy red hair resting neatly against her shoulders, her vacant amber eyes fixed straight ahead.

Rhys showed not a single scratch. His fitted leather armor was clean, his dark hair was untouched by soot or blood, and his breathing was slow, rhythmic, and perfectly composed.

In his right hand, Rhys casually held the severed, massive head of an Earth Demon by its jagged stone crest.

In his left, he carried a heavy obsidian pot containing a silver-barked God’s Blood Tree, its translucent leaves glowing with sacred crimson-gold sap.

Rhys walked to the center of the arena floor, stopping ten paces before the base of the royal balcony.

He dropped the heavy stone head with a solid, echoing thud. He set the potted tree down beside it, then reached into his spatial ring with a single, fluid motion.

With a soft hum of spatial mana, Rhys emptied his harvested trial proofs onto the arena floor:

The colossal, smoking head and Disaster-rank core of the Obsidian Colossus from Floor Twenty rolled across the stone, radiating residual volcanic heat.

The crystallized horned head and Dread-rank core of the Frost Demon Clan Leader from Floor Twenty-Two landed with a sharp clatter of frozen bone.

The Dread-rank core of the Earth Demon dropped into the center of the pile.

Beside them rested a second potted God’s Blood Tree harvested from the upper glacial sanctuary, its silver bark pulsing with pristine vitality.

Mira stepped forward silently. She picked up both potted God’s Blood Trees with effortless grace, walked over to the base of the balcony, and handed them directly up to Loryn’s outstretched skeletal claws.

Loryn extended his elongated claws, turning the volcanic pots in his grip to inspect the root structures and the rich, glowing sap weeping from the branches. He ran a single claw across the Disaster-class magma core, tasting the residual sulfur, before his violet eye-flames flared with delight.

“All objectives for Floors Thirteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, and Twenty-Two fulfilled in their absolute entirety,” Loryn proclaimed, his voice echoing across every tier of the colosseum. “Flawless clearance. Unlike the elf who has yet to clear floor thirteen. Rhys cleared all of his and one of yours.”

Theo Althalos stood paralyzed in the center of the arena floor, his right hand shaking so violently that the edge of his broadsword rattled against his dented thigh plate.

His bloodshot cerulean eyes darted frantically across the dark stone. There lay the severed, smoking crest of the Obsidian Colossus, radiating waves of volcanic heat that warped the air above it.

Beside it rested the crystallized horned skull of the Frost Demon Clan Leader, its azure frost hissing softly as it met the warmth of the arena floor. Between them sat the jagged Dread core of the Earth Demon, its dense ochre mana pulsing in rhythmic intervals.

In Loryn’s skeletal claws, the silver trunks of the two God’s Blood Trees glowed with undisturbed crimson-gold sap.

Theo looked from the pile of impossible trophies to the boy standing ten paces away.

Rhys wore no heavy plate armor. His dark leather tunic was clean of soot, his forearms were unmarked by burns, and his breathing was as steady as a monk at morning prayer.

The young prince stood with his shoulders square and his hands hanging loose at his sides, looking upon the battered Senior Praetor not with hatred or triumph, but with the quiet, clinical indifference of an overseer inspecting damaged freight.

Every lesson hammered into Theo’s skull since his earliest youth in the noble estates of the capital began to splinter.

For three centuries, House Althalos had preserved the pureblood canon: that high-elven blood was the supreme vessel of divine mana, that lineage was destiny, and that mixed-blood bastards were biological abominations whose flawed channels could never endure the crucible of true combat.

Theo’s jaw twitched, the pale skin over his cheekbones flushing a dark, feverish crimson. His chest heaved against his crushed breastplate, each shallow breath dragging air through fractured ribs with a wet, bubbling rasp.

“No,” Theo rasped, the word tearing from his throat like dry gravel before swelling into a cracked, venomous roar that bounced off the tiered stands. “No. This is a farce. This is a staged mockery orchestrated to steal the crown from the lineages of the First Sun.”

Theo raised his broadsword with his right hand, the steel tip wavering as he pointed it directly between Rhys’s eyes.

“You did not slay those beasts,” Theo shouted, spit flying from his cracked lips as his bloodshot gaze locked onto the red-haired woman standing at Rhys’s flank.

“You are a Vileblood. You spent your youth on your knees in the capital courtyards, groveling in the dirt. I was the one who commanded your morning drills. I was the one who ordered the guards to strip your practice blades and make you strike the iron posts with your bare fists until your knuckles splintered. I watched you spit blood into the mud while the squires laughed. You were weak then, and you are weak now. That human witch fought your battles. You crawled behind her shadow, gathered the carrion she left in the snow, and walked in here pretending to be a conqueror.”

Rhys did not raise his voice. He did not tighten his fists or shift his footing. He allowed the echoes of Theo’s shouting to fade entirely into the silence of the colosseum, letting the heavy, suffocating stillness settle over the thousands of demon soldiers watching from the stands.

“Ah, the irony of that statement is uncanny… You remember the courtyards well, Theo,” Rhys said, his voice flat, low, and perfectly audible across the stone floor.

“You remember the broken knuckles and the blood in the mud. But you have forgotten why you broke those practice blades. You did not punish me because my forms were clumsy. You punished me because every time you raised your sword against a child with a fraction of your years, you saw your own mediocrity reflected in my eyes. You knew then what you know now. Your pure blood is a gilded cage.”