Jack's smile widened further, his dual-toned face splitting in an expression that transcended satisfaction.

The demonic urges weren't whispers anymore. They were screams.

Demands that grew louder with each passing second, amplified by a transformation reshaping his psychology.

His mismatched eyes blazed.

Jack started to walk forward.

Each step was slow and meant to draw out his fear.

Pho struggled to his feet in the rubble of the collapsed wall.

His blank white eyes tracked Jack's approach, watching the Soul Warden walk through the ruined throne room with hands still spread at shoulder level, electricity crackling between his fingers.

Jack's demonic hand came up slowly, clawed fingers extending toward the ceiling. Lightning gathered in his palm.

Deep violet energy that pulsed with power that sent a chill down your bones.

The lightning coalesced, taking shape, forming into a bolt perhaps three feet long and thick as a spear shaft. It crackled and writhed in Jack's grip, casting purple shadows across his scaled skin.

"One last chance," Jack's dual-toned voice carried across the throne room, somehow it was still audible despite the crackling energy in his hand. "Who told you about Sarin?"

Pho's blank white eyes met Jack's mismatched gaze. His mouth opened and closed.

Then it opened again.

Words formed on his lips, they died before reaching the air, replaced by defiance born from decades of dominance, of ruling through fear, of never submitting to anyone.

"I won't…"

"Wrong answer. Judgment Bolt."

Jack's arm snapped forward.

The purple lightning bolt launched from his palm like a javelin thrown by a god.

It crossed the throne room in less than a heartbeat, trailing violet energy that scorched the air itself, reality seeming to ripple around its passage.

Pho tried to dodge. He tried to use Black Ice Soul to build a wall to stop the skill. To try something. After all, trying anything was better than standing there and taking the hit.

The thunderbolt mark on his chest pulsed once.

The purple bolt course-corrected itself mid-flight, adjusting trajectory with impossible precision, tracking the mark like a predator locked onto prey. The bolt ignored the wall entirely.

Pho's eyes went wide, understanding too late that dodging was meaningless, that defense was irrelevant, and the marj.meant his death.

The Judgment Bolt struck him dead center, directly over the thunderbolt mark.

Purple lightning exploded outward in a sphere perhaps twenty feet across. The energy discharge turned the air violet, screeching as it hit Pho.

[-88,322 HP]

[Pho HP: 32,755/227,000]

The damage calculation appeared in Jack's vision, processed and dismissed in the fraction of a second it took for Pho's body to react to the catastrophic trauma.

The Deathfrost Demon's scream cut off mid-sound as the blast launched him backward.

He went threw what remained of the wall, through the next corridor, and out into the open area where the fortress's eastern courtyard had once been.

He crashed through rubble, through debris, through demons who'd been standing too close to his trajectory.

His three-meter black form tumbled end over end, armor shattered completely, Black Ice Soul flickering like a candle in hurricane wind.

He hit the frozen ground hard enough to create a crater, bounced once, twice, then slid perhaps thirty feet before momentum finally died and left him lying in a spreading pool of blue blood.

Silence fell across the courtyard.

Demons gathered everywhere.

Thousands of them. Twenty-seven thousand, four hundred seventy-nine to be exact.

Every demon Jack had bound through blood contracts, every creature that had knelt before him in the slave pits, every soul that used to belong to Pho, now served the Soul Warden.

They stood in loose clusters throughout the courtyard, on walls, in windows, anywhere that offered a view of what was happening.

Their eyes tracked Pho's broken form, then shifted to the ruined wall where Jack would inevitably appear.

They waited patiently for their new master.

Pho's blank white eyes stared at the sky, his breathing coming in wet, ragged gasps.

Blue blood poured from his mouth with each exhale, pooled beneath his body, spread across frozen ground in patterns that looked almost artistic.

Black Ice Soul flickered around him one final time, trying to heal and do anything except acknowledge that its wielder was dying.

It failed dramatically.

The technique collapsed entirely, ice melting, energy dissipating, leaving Pho with just his remaining HP and wounds that should have killed him five times over.

'I'm going to die.'

The thought came clearly, cutting through pain and shock with absolute certainty.

He wasn't mad or scared anymore.

He just accepted the reality of the situation.

'After decades of ruling, building an empire and surviving challenges from dozens of demon who thought they could take my territory. I'm going to die. Here and now, killed by a human who transcended..'

His blank white eyes tracked movement near the ruined wall.

Jack appeared.

Space compressing and reality bending as Jack appeared out of nowhere.

Abyssal Steps depositing him directly in front of Pho's broken body.

The Soul Warden stood there, his asymmetrical form towering over the Deathfrost Demon.

Half human, half demon.

Blue and purple lightning still crackled across his scaled skin from Judgment Bolt's residual energy.

His tail coiled behind him slowly, wing spread slightly, mismatched eyes boring into Pho's blank white gaze.

Pho's mouth worked, trying to form words.

His voice came out as barely more than a whisper, blue blood bubbling between his lips with each syllable.

"I... I'll tell you."

Jack's expression didn't change.

His dual-toned face remained fixed in that same unsettling smile, his eyes tracking Pho with predatory focus.

Pho could tell that death was coming regardless of what secrets were revealed.

"I was approached," Pho continued, each word costing him effort that made his wounds leak more blood. "When I was young. Barely past my first decade. I was weak and insignificant. Destined to die in some minor demon's territory dispute."

His blank white eyes tracked memories visible only to him. "He appeared one night. There was no warning or announcement. He just... stood there. Standing in my dwelling like he'd always been there."

Twenty-seven thousand demons listened in absolute silence, their eyes fixed on their former master's confession.

"He offered me power. True power. Not the scraps that lesser demons fight over, but mastery. He touched me…" Pho's hand moved weakly toward his chest, "...right here. Where your mark burns now. And knowledge flooded in. Ice manipulation. Black Ice Soul. Techniques that should have taken millennia to learn, given to me in seconds."

Blue blood ran from the corner of his mouth. "He made me stronger. Exponentially stronger. Told me I was blessed. That I had been chosen for something greater than ruling a section of Floor 24."

Jack's tail stopped moving. His full attention focused on Pho's words despite the demonic urges screaming to just kill him and be done with it.

"He told me a prophecy," Pho's voice dropped even lower, forcing demons to strain to hear. "Said I would remember it when the time came. That I would know its subject when he stood before me."

His blank white eyes locked onto Jack's mismatched ones.

"He who fell shall rise again, and the legions of hell will bend the knee. At the end of all roads, he must choose, cast down the father who cursed him, or march at his side as the world collapses."

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