I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 874: The Last Soul Warden

But here, standing in the Crucible of the Soul Realm, Jack blinked his amber, slitted eyes.

There was no blinding haze. There was no loss of reason.

His mind remained icy, detached, and razor-sharp. He had total, absolute control over the form.

Even better, a secondary pulse surged from his core:

[Passive Recovery Active: +5% HP regenerated per second.]

The mathematical reality locked into place instantly. His passive 5% regeneration immediately smothered the 1% health loss from Madness. The health drain didn’t just fail to weaken him; his vessel was actively overflowing with vitality, out-healing the penalty five times over.

He was an unkillable, self-sustaining walking tank.

Jack raised his right hand, pointing his open palm toward the two cowering Wardens.

His demonic blood surged to the surface of his skin, weaving through the air in a pair of razor-sharp, swirling crimson crescents that condensed under terrifying atmospheric pressure.

The two surviving Wardens looked at the floating fluid blades, and their eyes blew wide with pure, staggering horror.

“The Blood Demon Arts…” the spearman gasped, his voice cracking into a high-pitched shriek. “That is the forbidden legacy of the Demon King! A royal martial art passed solely through the royal bloodline of the abyss!”

“He’s not a demon noble,” the other cried, dropping his weapon entirely. “He’s human! How does a human wield the royal blood of the Demon Throne?!”

To these ancient spirits, a Soul Warden binding a fire drake was standard practice. Binding a primordial dragon like Emberion was historic. Becoming part-demon was unprecedented.

But wielding the exclusive, ancestral blood arts of the Demon King’s royal dynasty was a blasphemy of power that shattered their understanding of reality.

“Die curious,” Jack said coldly.

He snapped his fingers.

The single, sweeping blood crescent tore through the air, screaming with compressed kinetic force. Mid-flight, the blade fractured violently, splitting into two smaller, homing fluid scythes that curved sharply around the air currents.

The two Wardens barely raised their arms before the blood blades struck their flanks.

The fluid detonated on impact, the concussive force blasting through their armor and throwing them into the basalt wall. The rock fractured, burying both warriors under a cascade of smoking rubble.

Silence returned to the plateau.

The five legendary Fire Wardens lay scattered across the scorched earth.

Dented, broken, groaning in smoking craters, their weapons shattered and their pride pulverized into dust.

Jack stood in the center of the destruction, his amber slitted eyes cold, his breathing perfectly steady. The blood arts receded beneath his skin, his passive regeneration instantly topping off his vessel, leaving him completely untouched.

Then, from high above the plateau, a sound broke the quiet.

Slow, rhythmic applause.

Jack’s gaze snapped upward toward a narrow, jagged obsidian bluff jutting fifty paces over the crater.

Sitting casually on the edge of the rock, dangling her boots over the drop, was a woman. She wore a battered, sleeveless tunic of dark, scorched leather over corded, athletic arms. Her messy auburn hair whipped in the volcanic gale, framing a sharp, angular face with high cheekbones and a wicked, crooked smirk.

Her eyes burned with intense, feral amber light.

Jack’s heterochromic instincts flared as his gaze locked onto her features: the face, the arrogant tilt of the chin, the predatory amusement dripping from her smirk.

It was an almost identical mirror to Mira.

The woman pushed off the ledge, dropping fifty paces down to the crater floor. She landed lightly on the balls of her feet, barely disturbing the red ash, her hands resting casually on her hips.

She stepped over the groaning, shattered form of the lead Warden, nudging his dented helm with the toe of her boot before looking up at Jack’s towering, horned form.

She threw her head back and let out a sharp, genuine laugh that echoed across the desolate caldera.

“Well, look at that,” she chuckled, her amber eyes glittering with vicious delight as she looked at the carnage. “A walking nightmare crawled into our stagnant little hole and beat the old fools into gravel. Who let an absolute monster like you through the front door?”

The woman walked across the cracked plateau with the casual, predatory grace of an apex hunter pacing a fresh kill. Her boots clicked against the scorched basalt, stepping directly over the shattered breastplate of the lead Warden without looking down.

Jack let the demonic transformation recede.

The corded, obsidian scales sank back into his flesh, the swept-back horns dissolved into fine gray ash, and his jaw smoothed into its human contours.

His clothes settled, unmarked by the violence, while the blazing red tattoos of his Emberion contract cooled into dormant crimson lines beneath his sleeves. His heterochromic eyes returned to their natural resting state, locking onto the newcomer with detached scrutiny.

“You’re done playing dress-up?” she asked, stopping ten paces away. She crossed her lean, muscular arms over her chest, the scarred leather of her vest groaning under the movement. Her amber eyes swept from Jack’s boots to the crown of his white hair, assessing him with clinical, unsparing interest.

“Pity. The horns suited you. It’s rare to see someone walk in here who actually knows how to use his fists instead of crying behind an elemental wall.”

“You watched them get dismantled,” Jack said, his voice flat. “And you didn’t draw a blade.”

“Why would I?” She snorted, a sharp, barking sound that carried across the quiet caldera. “Those five have spent three hundred years polishing their armor and reciting their glory days like senile crows. Watching you drive their faces into the bedrock is the best entertainment this lightless furnace has offered in a century.”

She took two steps closer, her head tilting slightly. Her nostrils flared, drawing in the dry, sulfurous draft rolling off Jack’s coat.

Her smirk faltered for a fraction of a heartbeat. Her sharp, feral gaze narrowed, piercing straight through his physical layer to read the subtle spiritual residue woven into his personal space.

“Interesting,” she murmured, her voice dropping into a dangerous, lower register. “You reek of the Spire, boy. You reek of dead gods, crushed demons, and stolen authority. But beneath all that abyssal filth… there’s a scent I’d recognize in any hell.”

Jack didn’t shift his stance. “The scent of blood.”

“The scent of my blood,” she corrected sharply, pointing a calloused finger at his chest. “A specific little viper. Sharp tongue, cold eyes, and a habit of smiling right before she drives a poisoned needle into your kidney. Tell me, boy. How do you know Mira?”

“She serves my interests,” Jack replied calmly. “And she runs my logistics.”

The woman stared at him in dead silence for three heartbeats. Then, the tension broke.

She threw her head back and unleashed a roar of explosive, unhinged laughter that rattled the loose gravel on the ridges. It wasn’t the bitter laughter of a betrayed matriarch; it was pure, unadulterated triumph.

“She survived!” the woman bellowed, slapping her thigh in delight. “The little wretch actually survived to claim a seat at the high table! And she found herself a monster to walk behind!”

She wiped a tear of mirth from her sharp cheekbone, shaking her head. “I am Valeria Fireheart. Former Soul Warden of this miserable domain, and the one who taught that girl how to hold a blade without cutting her own fingers off.”