I Died and Became a Noble's Heir-Chapter 384: Listen

Tap...

Tap...

Tap...

The servant spun around, but the corridor was empty.

Tap...

Tap...

Tap...

He spun around again, but this time his eyes went black.

Blood sprayed across pristine stone. The servant’s body convulsed once, then went limp as Pho crushed their skull between the palm of his hand.

The communication crystal fell from nerveless fingers, clattering against stone. It glowed brightly, still connected to whoever had been on the other end.

Jack stepped through the shadow wall, his red eyes blazing as he regarded the corpse with complete indifference.

"Good work," Jack said to Pho, his voice carrying no particular emotion. Just an acknowledgment of a task completed.

Pho grunted.

"You can have the heart. Give the body to Loryn, see if he wants to do anything with it."

The heart was still beating despite its owner’s death. It was extracted with almost surgical care. A perfect circle was left where Pho had retrieved his heart.

Pho consumed it in a single gulp.

Jack ignored the feeding, his attention fixed on the communication crystal still glowing on the floor. He crouched beside it, studying the swirling colors with interest.

He picked up the crystal, feeling the mana still flowing through it. On the other end, someone was listening. Someone who’d been spying on him through their now-dead servant.

"Your puppet can’t speak."

...

...

...

"I know you can hear me," Jack said, his voice carrying that same cold clarity. "So let me make something very clear."

He channeled a fraction of his mana into the crystal, feeling the connection strengthen. Whoever was on the other end would hear every word with perfect clarity.

"I don’t know who you are yet. I don’t know why you’re watching me. And honestly?" Jack’s lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. "I don’t particularly care about your reasons."

Behind him, Pho finished consuming the heart and picked up the body.

"But here’s what’s going to happen," Jack continued, his red eyes fixed on the crystal as if he could see through it to whoever listened on the other side. "I’m going to find out who you are. It may take weeks, or it may take months. But I will find you."

His grip tightened on the crystal, mana flooding through its structure with intensity that made the colors swirl faster.

"And when I do, when I finally stand in front of you and look you in the eyes, I’m going to rip your heart out of your chest. I’m going to hold it in my hands while it’s still beating, and I’m going to make you watch as I eat it. Every. Single. Bite."

The crystal pulsed, and for a moment, Jack thought he heard something. As if whoever listened found his threat entertaining rather than terrifying.

That made Jack’s smile widen.

"Laugh while you can," he said quietly. "Enjoy whatever plan you think you’re executing. Because the moment I find you, all of that ends. And I promise it will happen. I always keep my promises."

His hand closed completely, crushing the crystal into powder. Shards of enchanted glass ground between his fingers, and the connection severed with a pulse of dissipating mana.

Jack let the powder fall from his hand, watching it scatter across stone still wet with blood.

"Clean this up," Jack ordered. "Make sure nothing remains that could be traced back to me or identified."

Pho sighed. Clearly, he would rather be doing something else.

He lifted his hand, and the blood on the walls lifted from the ground and swirled above his head.

Jack turned back toward the shadow wall, his anger had dissipated as he wondered how his following conversation would go.

-----

In a dimension that existed outside normal space, in a fortress carved from a titan itself, lounged a powerful demon.

The sound echoed through the hallways. It was the laugh of someone who’d waited centuries for a plan to finally come to fruition. Who’d invested resources and patience into a gamble that was finally paying dividends.

The communication crystal before him had gone dark when Jack crushed his servant’s receiving end, but the Sovereign had heard every word. Every ounce of cold fury in the young Soul Warden’s voice.

"Perfect," the Sovereign whispered to empty air, his ancient voice carrying satisfaction that bordered on ecstasy. "Absolutely perfect."

He got up from his throne, moving perfectly so he wouldn’t waste any energy.

"Getting stronger," he mused, pacing before his throne with hands clasped behind his back. "More arrogant. Embracing the demon side more with each passing day. The essence consumption was just the beginning."

He stopped pacing, his dark eyes, darker than the void between stars, fixed on something only he could perceive.

"The prophecy foretells the emergence of an individual destined to unite the mortal and divine realms and transcend the boundaries of mortality to achieve divinity."

"But the best part of that prophecy is whether he’ll kill the divine, or kill the mortals."

His smile widened, revealing teeth that were perhaps too sharp for human comfort.

"And young Jack Kaiser is walking that path with such beautiful, terrible determination. He doesn’t even realize how perfectly he’s fulfilling every requirement. Every choice he makes, every power he claims, every threat he issues. All of it is pushing him closer to his true potential."

The Sovereign returned to his throne, settling into it with the satisfaction of someone watching a masterfully orchestrated performance reach the end.

"Threaten me, little Soul Warden," he whispered. "You promise to rip out my heart and eat it while I watch. Let that fury burn inside you, fuel your growth, and live up to heights you never imagined."

He leaned back, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

"Because the stronger you become, the more you embrace that demon heritage, the closer you get to becoming exactly what I need you to be. And when the time comes, when you finally understand the role you were always meant to play..."

His laugh returned, quieter now but no less satisfied.

"You’ll thank me for it."

------

Jack passed through the shadow wall, emerging into the space dedicated to Dreknar.

The shrine to Dreknar spread before him in a vast chamber that had no business fitting beneath the Kaiser manor. The ceiling rose hundreds of feet overhead.

Columns rose from the ground, standing twenty feet tall. Green flames burned atop each column.

The floor was obsidian and inscribed with symbols that glowed with the same sickly green as the flames. Chains hung from the walls, iron links thick as a man’s arm, connecting the walls to the columns.

Red tapestries lined the walls, each one depicting scenes of Dreknar’s battle with the previous Demon God.

And at the far end of the chamber, elevated on a dais of black stone, sat the throne.

The back throne rose twenty feet high, adorned with spikes and carvings that protruded from the sides.

Jack walked forward, his footsteps echoing in the vast space. The green flames burned brighter as he approached. The symbols on the floor pulsed with each step, responding to his presence, making the room feel alive.

The green flames atop the columns blazed higher. The chains rattled against stone. And somewhere in the darkness above, something stirred.

Jack sat on his knees and clasped his hands together. Focusing on the room before him.

Wind started to pick up as the chains thrashed violently and the tapestries flailed back and forth.

After a few seconds, Jack felt his soul being pulled from his body.