I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 723: Inner Thoughts

The ancient elf’s consciousness, which had spent four hundred years, approximately forty-five years in human terms, mastering the art of political manipulation and strategic foresight, seized with deep-seated malice.

His hand gripped the edge of the council table with enough force to make the aged wood creak in protest. His veins began to bulge at his temples, his blood pressure rising as his ancient body processed the single, undeniable fact blazing across the scrying mirror.

He knew that woman.

He knew exactly who she was because he had seen her at their last meeting that long ago.

Mira had been a member of The Council, a woman of considerable power, and partnered with Warren.

So where was Warren?

...

Now she was walking across a battlefield, commanding creatures with the absolute authority of someone who had been resurrected by a force far more powerful than death itself.

Sariel’s jaw tightened so violently that his teeth ground against each other. His eyes, which had maintained their serene composure through centuries of political intrigue, began to flicker with something that transcended calculation.

This was not a variable he had anticipated. Nor was it a scenario that his mind had prepared him to address.

If Mira were alive, resurrected by the human, and serving them with that kind of loyalty, then everything Sariel thought he knew about Jack Kaiser was wrong.

On the scrying mirrors, the web that the massive spider had constructed suddenly began to disintegrate.

The black fire descended from the sky like a meteor. The heat was so intense that, even through the magical projection, it seemed to radiate outward, filling the observation chamber with a sense of overwhelming destructive force.

Gale Ashwood’s massive frame went absolutely rigid.

His hands, which had been unconsciously clenching and unclenching in that obsessive pattern that characterized his physical baseline, suddenly locked in place.

His fingers spread wide, his muscles contracted, and his entire frame seemed to vibrate at a frequency beyond normal physiology. His breathing stopped.

His consciousness was fracturing under the weight of information that he could not process.

A human whose magical capabilities transcended everything that Gale understood about how magic was supposed to function. But worse, far worse, was the age.

The human was eighteen years old. Just barely into adulthood by any reasonable measure, and yet he was wielding power that made the ancient warriors of elven legend seem quaint by comparison.

How was he this strong?

The question detonated through Gale’s consciousness with the force of a bomb. His OCD clenching pattern, which had been a constant companion throughout his entire existence, suddenly jammed.

His hands refused to move. His mind refused to process beyond that single, desperate question. How was an eighteen-year-old human this strong?

His neck muscles contracted so violently that the veins along his throat began to bulge. His jaw tightened until his facial structure seemed to reshape itself. But he remained silent, locked in internal paralysis while the battle continued to unfold on the screens.

But worse than anything was the magic fusion. Not everyone could fuse elements together. Some who did try failed by blowing themselves up.

Because some elements fuse cohesively while others are volatile, the biggest factor was the user and their skill. For someone of high magic talent, forcing elements together was easy.

Dragons that had been suspended in the web began to fall. Their scales melted. Their wings transformed into ash. Their bodies blackened under the intensity of a heat that transcended conventional understanding of magical theory.

Myrine’s other hand convulsed into a fist.

Her palms pressed harder against the table. Her nails dug deeper into her flesh. Blood began to well from the puncture wounds. At first, it was just tiny droplets, then they grew progressively darker as she unconsciously applied more pressure.

Her voice, when she spoke, had undergone a fundamental shift. It was no longer the measured, analytical tone of a strategic advisor. It was the fractured voice of someone watching her entire worldview systematically demolished.

"That’s not possible," she whispered. "No human should be capable of channeling that magnitude of destructive force. The magical theory alone, the control required, it’s not theoretically possible for a human to achieve that level of precision without centuries of training."

Her voice cracked as she continued, as the implications continued to avalanche through her consciousness.

"Unless she’s channeling conventional fire magic. Unless it’s something else entirely. Unless..."

She stopped speaking. Her eyes locked on the screens. Her consciousness was crystallizing around a singular realization that was too enormous, too terrifying, to articulate with words.

....

Fauna Meridan’s breathing had become shallow.

Her seat, positioned far to the side of the observation chamber where the primary light sources didn’t reach, had become her sanctuary.

She was hidden in the shadows, invisible to the council and the Queen. No one was looking at her. No one was observing her as her entire body began to respond to the spectacle unfolding across the scrying mirrors.

Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson. The color spread downward across her neck, consuming her collarbone and creeping beneath the neckline of her formal court robes.

Her breathing came in shallow, barely controlled gasps. Her hand pressed against her abdomen, moving downward with deliberate, careful pressure.

The absolute, world-bending power that was being demonstrated on the battlefield was triggering a response in her that transcended rational thought.

It wasn’t just Jack Kaiser, though his hidden capabilities certainly contributed. The undeniable reality was the existence of power in this world that was so overwhelming, absolute, and casually devastating that it rendered everything else insignificant by comparison.

A human woman had just incinerated dozens of dragons with casual ease. A human male had demonstrated capabilities that made the entire draconic empire seem quaint.

They possessed power that didn’t bow to elven authority, that didn’t acknowledge elven superiority, that simply existed at a level that transcended conventional understanding.

And it was absolutely intoxicating.

Fauna’s breathing became increasingly difficult to control. Her hand continued its downward motion. Her eyes remained locked on the scrying mirror, tracking every moment of devastating power with the intensity of someone experiencing genuine arousal.

Several of the guards stationed around the observation chamber noticed. Their eyes flickered toward Fauna’s position, their own breathing beginning to accelerate as they recognized what was happening.

Some of them shifted their posture, their bodies responding to the spectacle of both the battlefield and the aristocratic woman who was visibly unable to control her response to it.

...

King Maelor remained perfectly still.

His ancient eyes continued to track the visible portions of the battlefield with the measured precision of someone processing tactical information at the highest level. But his consciousness was occupied with something far more complex than immediate military assessment.

The wartime decree that he had signed just moments before suddenly felt like the most catastrophic mistake of his entire reign.

He had authorized the exile of a young human who had just demonstrated capabilities that made him potentially more powerful than any single entity in the entire elven kingdom, with the exception of himself.

He had, through manipulation by his own council, created a situation in which that human had been forced into isolation and combat against overwhelming odds.

And now, watching the human army systematically decimate creatures that had seemed unstoppable just moments before, Maelor recognized the true nature of what he had done.

He needed to reclaim control of his kingdom.