I Died and Became a Noble's Heir-Chapter 404: +150,000/2 Seconds

The crowd was going absolutely insane, their voices creating a wall of sound that made rational thought difficult.

"THE CHAMPION IS MATCHING HIM!"

"LOOK AT THAT DEFENSE!"

"THE SOUL WARDEN CAN’T LAND A SOLID HIT!"

"ADAPTIVE EVOLUTION! IT’S REAL!"

Jack pressed the assault, not giving the Champion time to fully adjust.

He mixed spear techniques with brutal claw strikes, teleporting between attacks to make his patterns unpredictable.

Oscar’s tip scored several shallow cuts on the Champion’s arms and torso, and his demonic claws left gouges in the warrior’s newly restored flesh.

But the wounds healed.

Jack could see the process happening. It was happening terrifyingly fast. A deep gash across the Champion’s ribs closed in three seconds, skin knitting back together as if time were reversing.

A puncture wound in his shoulder sealed itself while Jack watched, and within five seconds, there was no evidence it had ever existed.

[Adaptive Regeneration: Active]

[Champion regenerates 150,000 HP every 2 seconds]

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Jack muttered.

The Champion’s counterstrike came like a thunderbolt. A savage overhead chop followed immediately by a horizontal slash that forced Jack to teleport twice in rapid succession just to avoid being hit.

When he materialized for the third time, the Champion was already there, his sword pommel driving toward Jack’s helmet with enough force to shatter his skull.

Jack twisted, taking the hit on his shoulder instead of his head. The impact still sent him sprawling across the sand, and he rolled twice before coming up in a crouch.

[HP: 10,487/11,250]

[-763 HP]

The crowd’s roar changed tone, bloodlust replacing shock.

"FIRST BLOOD AGAINST THE SOUL WARDEN!"

"THE CHAMPION ACTUALLY HIT HIM!"

"THIS IS WHAT WE CAME TO SEE!"

Jack touched his shoulder, feeling where the demon bone armor had cracked under the impact. His own regeneration was already working, but that had actually hurt.

[+563 HP]

"Alright," Jack said, his grin widening behind his helmet. "No more playing around."

Red lightning began crackling along his body, arcing between the spikes on his armor. The skull embedded in his chest piece blazed with crimson light, and the air around Jack began to distort from the sheer concentration of power building in his frame.

"Let’s see how well you adapt to this."

[Thunder Mantle: Active]

Jack moved, and this time he was the one who disappeared from perception.

His enhanced speed carried him across the arena in a blur, Oscar leading in a Piercing Strike aimed at the Champion’s heart.

The Champion blocked, but barely. Jack’s increased speed had thrown off his timing. The force of the impact drove the Champion back two steps, and Jack pressed the advantage immediately.

[Spear Barrage Activated]

Three strikes in less than a second, each one enhanced by Thunder Mantle’s damage boost. The Champion managed to deflect the first two, but the third slipped through.

Oscar’s tip punching into his abdomen and tearing free in a spray of blood.

The wound began healing immediately, but Jack wasn’t done.

[Lightning Shock Activated]

Red lightning exploded from Oscar’s spearhead, engulfing the Champion in crackling energy. The warrior’s body convulsed as voltage surged through him, his muscles locking up involuntarily.

[-6,860 HP]

The Champion’s HP bar appeared above his head for the first time, and Jack watched it dip slightly. Then immediately recover as regeneration kicked in.

"Boring," Jack declared.

He teleported backward, creating distance, and raised one hand toward the sky. Red lightning answered his call, gathering above the Colosseum in swirling clouds of crimson electricity.

The air tasted different. The static discharge made everyone’s hair stand on end.

"WHAT’S HE DOING?" Someone in the crowd screamed.

"THAT’S TOO MUCH POWER!"

"HE’S GOING TO BRING DOWN THE WHOLE ARENA!"

Pho’s expression subtly conveyed a sense of concern. "Looks like he’sgoing for it."

[Astrapon’s Reign Activated]

[Cost: 50% Maximum Mana]

[Duration: 60 seconds]

[Area: 30-meter radius]

[Cooldown: 20 minutes]

The red clouds above the arena began to discharge in a continuous barrage that turned the air into a forest of crimson lightning.

Bolts struck the sand around the Champion with thunderous impacts, each one leaving molten glass craters and filling the air with the smell of burning gas.

The Champion tried to dodge, his enhanced speed carrying him between strikes, but there were too many.

Lightning caught his shoulder, his leg, his back, each strike dealing massive damage that his regeneration struggled to keep pace with.

[-19,208 HP]

[-19,208 HP]

[-19,208 HP]

[-19,208 HP]

Jack stood at the center of the storm, untouched by his own power, and watched the Champion’s HP bar fluctuate wildly.

The regeneration was keeping the warrior alive, but barely. Every time he healed 150,000 damage, another three or four lightning strikes would hit him for nearly 20,000 each.

"MAGNIFICENT!" Valdoren’s voice boomed across the Colosseum, the lich’s commentary taking on almost religious fervor. "BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE SOUL WARDEN! LIGHTNING ITSELF BOWS TO HIS COMMAND!"

The crowd was beyond words now, just a continuous roar of shock and awe and terror.

Sixty seconds felt like an eternity.

When the storm finally ended, the Champion stood in the center of a field of molten glass, his body smoking from dozens of lightning impacts.

His regeneration kicked in immediately, wounds sealing, but Jack could see the toll it had taken.

The warrior was breathing hard, his glowing eyes fixed on Jack with new wariness.

Jack raised both hands, and red lightning began gathering between his palms.

Ten stacks of concentrated power coalesced, each one a miniature star of crackling electricity.

The lightning compressed further, becoming almost solid.

Jack could feel the power burning in his hands, eager to be released. Each charge represented a massive concentration of energy, and he was about to unleash all ten simultaneously.

But first, he needed one more thing.

[Judgment Bolt - Preparing]

Jack’s hands came together, and the ten lightning charges merged with the forming Judgment Bolt.

The combination created something that shouldn’t exist. A sphere of red lightning so dense it had weight, so powerful it warped the air around it.

The surface crawled with electrical discharge, and anyone looking directly at it felt their eyes water.

The sphere was roughly the size of Jack’s head, hovering between his palms, growing brighter with each passing second.

The sphere pulsed, drawing in more power from the ambient demonic energy saturating the arena.

The lightning sphere had grown to the size of his torso now, the concentrated power almost unbearable to maintain. Jack’s arms trembled from the effort of containing so much energy.

He drew both arms back, the sphere crackling as it transformed into a lightning bolt.

The Judgment Bolt crossed the distance between him and the Champion in perhaps a tenth of a second, moving faster than thought.

The Champion raised his sword defensively, trying to block.

The bolt hit him dead center in the chest.

And the world turned white.

The explosion was beyond sound. It was a physical force that rippled outward from ground zero, turning sand into glass, cracking the arena floor, and sending shockwaves through the stands that made thousands of demons grab for handholds.

The red light was so bright that even beings with natural darkness vision were temporarily blinded.

The thunder came three seconds later, a rolling boom that made the Colosseum’s foundations shake.

When the light finally faded, a crater twenty feet across marked where the Champion had been standing. Molten glass lined the depression, still glowing red-hot.

The air above the crater shimmered with heat distortion, and electrical discharge continued to arc across the destroyed ground.

At the center of the crater stood...

Nothing but bones.