I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 797: Red Lakes

His body convulsed suddenly. His hands flew to his throat as if his own fingers could physically remove whatever was destroying him from the inside.

His mouth opened wide, and a choking sound emerged.

Not a scream, not a cry for help, but a wet, gurgling noise that something was breaking within his body.

His complexion became noticeably flushed.

This was not due to embarrassment or physical exertion, nor was it consistent with typical physiological responses to drinking water.

His skin appeared to be burning from the inside. The color spread across his pale elven complexion, transforming his face into a mask of internal hemorrhage.

His eyes began to bleed.

Blood oozed from the corners of his eyes, running down his cheeks in thin rivulets.

The liquid was dark, arterial blood flowing from ruptured vessels in his eye sockets. His mouth opened wider, and blood poured from between his teeth, coating his lips and running down his chin.

His body arched backward, his spine attempting to fold in half, his muscles contracting involuntarily as poison flooded through his nervous system.

He collapsed to the ground.

He was dead within seconds.

Around him, hundreds of other prisoners were experiencing identical symptoms.

A woman’s body convulsed with such large snaps that it sounded like her spine was attempting to separate from her body.

Her hands clawed at her own throat, her nails drawing blood from her own skin as she attempted to remove whatever was destroying her from, physically. Her back arched so severely that Maelor wondered if her spine would break.

Blood erupted from her mouth like a flood, washing all her teeth out. The liquid poured between her teeth, coating her chin and running down her neck.

Her eyes began to bleed simultaneously. The blood mixed with whatever fluid was exiting her mouth, creating a mask of hemorrhage that covered her entire face.

She collapsed like a puppet with its strings severed.

A man in the corner cell clawed at his own chest. His heart was rupturing. Maelor could see it in the manner of his collapse.

The prisoner’s hand flew to his sternum. Blood erupted from his mouth and nose simultaneously. His body went rigid for a single moment, and then something inside him broke irreparably.

A sudden, violent, final attempt to hold his chest as it exploded.

He fell to the ground.

The choking sounds filled the chamber.

Hundreds of prisoners are dying simultaneously. The sound of rupturing organs. The sound of hearts failing under the intensity of internal hemorrhage. The sound of lungs collapsing under pressure from poison flooding through the body.

A young elf, Korin, the one who had participated in gang assaults, managed to scream before his vocal cords filled with blood.

His scream transformed into a wet gurgling that cut off abruptly as he lost consciousness. His body convulsed twice and went still.

Another prisoner attempted to stand, to seek help, to communicate to the guards that something was catastrophically wrong.

He managed only two steps before his body failed him completely.

His legs gave way.

He collapsed forward, his head striking the stone floor. Blood poured from his nose and mouth, creating a growing puddle that reflected the torchlight.

The smell of iron and copper filled the chamber.

It was not a subtle smell. It was an overwhelming, omnipresent, inescapable scent. The smell of death from a thousand elves in a confined space.

The smell of one thousand bodies dying simultaneously, their fluids and life force being converted into the particular stench of mass mortality.

The floor of the dungeon began to stain with blood.

Rivulets of red ran across the ancient stone, pooling in cracks and imperfections that had accumulated over centuries.

The liquid was warm when it first flowed, and it created steam that rose from the cold stone. The blood accumulated in low spots on the floor, forming pools that reflected the torchlight and gave the appearance of small lakes of red.

Bodies convulsed and went still.

One thousand elves are dying.

Some managed to collapse into their cells. Others fell in the open spaces of the chamber. Some died gripping the iron bars of their confinement, their hands still clutching at the metal as their bodies went rigid and then limp.

A prisoner who had been confined for three hundred years died staring at the ceiling of his cell, blood running from his eyes like tears he could never shed in life, his body finally released from the captivity that had defined his existence for longer than most nations had maintained their borders.

A woman who had spent two hundred and seventeen years imprisoned for her crimes died alone in her cell, her body folded against the corner, her hand still extended toward the iron bars as if she had been attempting escape at the moment the poison activated.

Valerien’s corpse lay in the center of the chamber, his body twisted in the particular configuration of violent death, his face a mask of hemorrhage, his eyes staring upward at nothing.

The violence of it was staggering.

The scale of it was incomprehensible.

The brutality of it was something far more significant than simple poisoning.

Maelor’s hands gripped the stone railing so tightly that he felt the stone cracking beneath his palms. His breathing had become shallow and rapid.

His jaw was clenched so tightly that his teeth ached. His entire body was rigid with the weight of what he was witnessing.

One thousand prisoners.

One thousand deaths.

One thousand criminals who had spent centuries in confinement were suddenly freed through death.

The moment extended into silence.

The screaming had stopped.

The choking had ceased.

The sounds of rupturing organs had faded into nothing. Only the dripping of blood and the faint movement of poisoned bodies settling into the final configurations of death remained.

—————-

Jack Kaiser descended further into the chamber.

His footsteps were audible across the stone floor, crossing through the blood that had pooled in various places.

His boots made contact with the liquid without hesitation, traversing through the rivers of death with the particular confidence of someone operating in absolute control of his environment.

His expression remained unchanged as he observed the bodies arranged throughout the space.

One thousand failures. One thousand criminals who had ended their existence precisely as intended.

He moved to the center of the chamber and raised his right hand.

The movement was simple. The gesture was minimal. But something erupted from his palm.

Ethereal chains manifested. Magical chains that existed at a level between the material and the spiritual. The chains glowed with a faint luminescence. The light was pale blue, almost silver, creating the appearance of moonlight given substance and form.

The chains extended outward.

But instead of remaining as a single entity, they split.

One thousand individual chains extended from Jack’s outstretched hand.

Each chain found a corpse. Each chain wrapped around a soul.

The essence of the dead prisoner, the consciousness that had departed the body but had not yet begun its journey toward whatever existed beyond death.

One thousand essences bound by magical chains that held them in absolute captivity.

The chains were invisible except for their faint luminescence. They extended from Jack’s hand and connected to every corpse in the chamber.

A web of binding that existed between the material and the spiritual worlds.

Maelor’s breath stopped abruptly.

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