I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 411: Let’s Talk

Loryn’s purple eyes tracked the divine arrow still embedded in the arena floor. ”That weapon...” he said quietly to Pho, who stood beside him. ”I recognize the craftsmanship. That works. Whoever sent that isn’t some minor deity. That’s one of the old gods. The ones who existed before the current regime.”

Pho’s blank white eyes studied the arrow with professional interest. ”The darkness it’s carved from isn’t normal shadow. That’s concentrated nothingness, the void between worlds given physical form.” His cold voice carried a note of respect. ”Whoever this ’Ereb’ god is, they command fundamental forces. Darkness. Shadow. The absence of light itself.”

”Which makes them extremely dangerous,” Loryn concluded. ”Gods who control primordial concepts don’t play by normal rules.”

Jack stood there breathing hard, his red eyes blazing, every muscle in his enhanced body coiled with the desire to fight something, anything, to have a target for this overwhelming anger...

A hand touched his shoulder.

Jack spun, Oscar materializing in his hand, the spear’s tip stopping inches from Pho’s throat.

The Deathfrost Demon didn’t flinch. His blank white eyes met Jack’s gaze with complete calm, and when he spoke, his voice carried the same cold certainty it always did.

”Breathe, brat. Screaming at the sky won’t bring Valdoren back. And if a god is willing to kill his own assassin to keep secrets...”

Pho’s expression shifted fractionally, something that might have been concern crossing his usually impassive features. ”Then we need to be smarter about how we proceed.”

Jack’s grip on Oscar trembled. For a moment, he teetered on the edge of lashing out anyway, of attacking something to release the pressure building in his chest.

Then, slowly, he lowered the spear.

”I was so close,” Jack’s voice came out raw, stripped of its usual confidence. ”He was going to tell me. I would have finally known who orchestrated everything.”

”And now you know part of it,” Loryn’s voice came from behind them as the shadow demon materialized from the darkness at the crater’s edge.

”A god whose name starts with ’Ereb.’ One of the primordial entities, based on that arrow’s construction. That’s more than you knew an hour ago, young master.”

”It’s not enough,” Jack growled, his voice carrying a dangerous edge.

”No,” Loryn agreed calmly. ”But it’s a start.”

Jack looked down at the dark coin, feeling its cosmic weight. This thing represented power over a deity, the ability to compel truth from a being who operated on scales mortals couldn’t comprehend.

But which god? And which three questions?

The wrong choices would waste this opportunity. The right choices could unlock everything.

”We need to find out which god this token works on,” Jack said, forcing his voice to steady. ”And we need to find out who ’Ereb’ actually is.”

”Young master!” Father Caelen’s voice called from the stands where he and Rhys had remained throughout the chaos. ”Are you alright?”

Jack took a deep breath, forcing his rage down into a cold, controlled place in his chest where it could fuel him.

When he looked up at his companions, his face had settled into a calm demeanor.

”I’m fine,” he called back, his voice steady despite the lie. ”Everyone, gather in the arena. It’s time to seal the floor.”

Rhys’s confusion was visible even from this distance. ”Seal the floor? What does that mean?”

Jack didn’t answer immediately. Instead, the arena floor moved beneath his feet.

The ground shook.

Not violently, but with a steady, purposeful tremor that made everyone in the Colosseum grab for handholds.

The arena floor split down the middle with a grinding sound of stone on stone, and a staircase began to rise from the depths.

It revealed itself, as if it had always been there, hidden beneath a layer of reality that Jack’s power had just stripped away.

The staircase descended into darkness so dark it seemed solid. No light penetrated the depths, and it was devoid of sound.

”Follow me,” Jack said quietly, already walking toward the revealed passage. ”We’re going to meet someone who has answers.”

Pho and Loryn exchanged glances, then followed without question. Father Caelen and Rhys scrambled down from the stands, the elf prince’s winter-ice eyes wide with a mixture of fear and desperate curiosity.

”Where are we going?” Rhys asked as he reached the arena floor, his voice shaking slightly. ”What is this place?”

”A staging area before the next floor,” Jack replied without looking back.

Jack descended the stairs without hesitation, his boots making no sound on steps carved from shadow itself. Behind him, his companions followed in silence, none of them daring to break the tension that had settled over the group.

The staircase seemed to go on forever, descending through layers of reality that made Rhys feel nauseous, and Father Caelen’s prayers became more fervent.

Even Pho and Loryn, powerful demons who’d existed for centuries, looked uncomfortable in this space.

Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, the stairs ended at a platform.

They stood on a circle of black stone. Above them were platforms. Off into the distance were mountains with lava flowing down into nothing.

And if one were to look off the edge. You could see platforms go on forever.

But it was the figure waiting at the center of the platform that drew every eye.

He was impossibly tall, easily nine feet, clad in armor that seemed forged from the nightmares of dying stars.

The metal was black as the void between worlds, shot through with veins of crimson that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Massive pauldrons rose from his shoulders like the wings of fallen angels, and his helmet was wrought in the shape of a skull whose eye sockets burned with the light of collapsing.

”Well, well, well. Took you long enough, Jack. I’ve been waiting down here for what feels like forever. Do you have any idea how boring it is watching you take your sweet time with the dramatic speeches up there?”

The God of Death tilted his helmeted head, regarding Jack and his companions with burning eyes that saw through flesh to the souls beneath.

”Though I will admit,” He continued, his tone shifting to one of notable admiration, ”that whole ’eating the Champion’s heart’ thing? Very mental. Very, very mental. I haven’t seen something that hardcore since... oh, what was it... the Fall of Atlantis? Yeah, that was a good Tuesday.”

Rhys made a strangled sound, his legs actually giving out as he recognized what he was looking at. Father Caelen caught him before he hit the ground, the priest’s own face pale, but his faith kept him upright.

Pho and Loryn bowed deeply, both demons showing more deference than Jack had ever seen from them.

But Jack just stood there, red eyes locked on to those burning sockets, the Black Token clutched in one hand and Oscar in the other, and when he spoke, his voice carried all the cold fury that had been building since Valdoren’s death.

”A god tried to silence someone who was about to tell me the truth. A god whose name starts with ’Ereb.’ I need to know who they are and why they want me dead, God of Death.”