Chapter 843: Malakai’s Father

A blinding, silent shockwave of pure dark-gold light detonated outward from Jack’s chest, washing over the entire expanse of Floor Eleven.

The heavy, broken weight that had lingered within his spiritual core for months vanished instantly.

Within his spiritual core, the venerable Chain of the Soul Warden remained intact, its dark iron links pulsating with rhythmic, absolute authority and resonating in perfect synchronicity with his heart.

[System Notification: The Chain of the Soul Warden has been successfully restored.]

[Relic Status: Normal]

[Soul Bound Army Capacity Increased: +14,700]

[Total Soul Bound Army Capacity: 26,000]

[Congratulations! You have unlocked a new skill!]

[New Skill Unlocked: Soul Grafting]

[Description: Grants the Soul Warden the absolute capability to extract, transfer, and graft living or deceased souls into new physical vessels, corpses, or inanimate constructs.]

[Restrictions: Only one soul may be actively grafted at a time. The user may extract and displace a residing soul while inserting a new vessel. This skill requires direct, sustained physical contact with the target.]

Jack watched the glowing runes of the skill description dissolve into his vision.

The mechanical utility of the new authority was staggering.

The ability to manually displace a soul and graft an entirely different consciousness into a living vessel opened avenues of control, interrogation, and permanent battlefield subversion that bypassed traditional magical defenses entirely.

With Jack’s Soul Bound Army officially quintupled, the options he had for troops were staggeringly open.

Jack pointed his hand down again and allowed the chain to gather the rest of the dead Tidefang Demons.

He absorbed each one until he had gained 6,247 new demons.

With the trial’s progress forcefully advanced, Jack raised his right hand, tearing a fresh spatial passage through the air.

He stepped through the threshold, returning to the high plateau of Floor Twenty-Five.

Jack stepped out onto the dark obsidian stone of the upper overlook, the spatial rift snapping shut behind him with a dry pop.

The ten Council members drew back instantly.

Sylvea Starling pressed her back against one of the petrified cedar trunks, her lavender eyes wide with naked terror as her hands clutched her skirts.

Calix Meridan’s hand was frozen inches above the hilt of his rapier, his chest heaving with shallow breaths, while Elowen and Sable stood motionless, their aristocratic composure completely shattered.

They had watched every single second through Loryn’s scrying portal.

They had seen the sky turn to obsidian.

They had watched black lightning obliterate an ocean trench from five hundred feet in the air.

They had witnessed an ancient, white serpentine dragon manifest around his body, and they had seen a blue demon general jump out of the ocean to deliver the severed head of their enemy directly to their bleeding Praetor.

They understood now, with chilling certainty, that they were not dealing with a powerful mortal who had secured an army through clever diplomacy.

They were in the presence of an entity whose capabilities operated entirely outside the boundaries of mortal magic and natural law.

Above Jack’s shoulder, the ethereal form of Tharaxis remained visible, his massive white serpentine coils drifting through the mountain air like smoke.

The dragon lowered his ancient, horned head until his golden eyes were level with Jack’s.

’I apologize, Jack,’ Tharaxis’s voice resonated softly within the quiet space of Jack’s mind, deep and heavy with ancient weariness.

’I did not intend to cause you distress by maintaining my silence. But some truths carry a weight far greater than the battles of this mortal realm. It was not my place to speak before the foundation was set.’

Jack stopped walking. He did not turn to face the dragon, but his heterochromic eyes narrowed to razor points, the dark mana clinging to his coat flaring with sudden, sharp aggression.

"Shut up," Jack said aloud, his voice flat and cutting through the silence of the plateau like an iron blade.

The ten Councilors flinched, several of them dropping their heads in fear, believing the command was directed at their breathing.

"If you are going to cower behind cryptic warnings and act like a terrified child," Jack continued, his tone cold and unyielding, "then keep your mouth shut permanently. I have buried clans, slaughtered dragons, and rewritten the succession of a kingdom. I am finished listening to cowards who pretend their silence is wisdom."

Tharaxis’s ethereal form shimmered slightly, the ancient dragon lowering his horned brow in genuine, solemn humility.

’I was afraid, Jack,’ Tharaxis confessed, the resonance of his thoughts carrying a profound, cosmic sorrow.

’I was afraid that your mind would fracture under the reality of what your existence truly portends. I was afraid that you were not yet prepared to understand the burden of the throne you are building.’

Jack’s jaw set hard, his teeth grinding together as he kept his gaze fixed on the northern mountains. "Speak plainly, or return to the core."

’You will bring about the return of Sarin and Malakai,’ Tharaxis stated, each syllable falling like a stone into a deep well. ’I know this with absolute certainty, because Malakai himself spoke of your coming before the Great Shattering. He told me that one day, a Soul Warden would be born who would grow faster, adapt quicker, and rise higher than any keeper who came before him. He knew you would reach this point.’

Jack paused, his mind cataloging the two names.

In the ancient, forbidden archives of the primordial world, the name Sarin was spoken only in hushed, terrified whispers.

The progenitor of the original cosmic order, an entity whose existence predated the creation of the mortal realms.

Malakai was the legendary arbiter, the architect whose army shaped the world as everyone knew it. The original Soul Warden.

"Why are those two entities bound together in this prophecy?" Jack asked, his thoughts sharp and demanding. "What connects them, and what connects them to me?"

Tharaxis lifted his ancient head, his golden eyes filled with an unshakeable, sorrowful reverence as he looked down upon his master.

’Because Malakai,’ Tharaxis answered softly, ’is the only child of Sarin.’

The words settled onto the obsidian plateau, dense and immovable as iron.

Jack Kaiser stood in silence, the freezing wind whipping his coat as the realization clicked into place within his thoughts.

The Tartarus Spire, the trial of Caeloria, and the subjugation of the elven nobility were not the culmination of his journey; they were merely the foundational steps of an ancient, cosmic design set into motion before the stars had names.

Jack dismissed the manifestation with a single thought, the massive white coils of Tharaxis dissolving into thin air like morning mist.

He turned his gaze back toward the twin scrying portals.

On the left, Theo Althalos was weakly urging his dragon toward the spatial beacon of Floor Twelve, clutching his unearned trophies with trembling, bloody hands.

On the right, Prince Rhys and Mira were continuing their slow, quiet march through the frozen outskirts of Floor Twenty-Two.

Their figures were small against the towering fields of blue permafrost as they navigated the outer borders toward the distant Frost Demon territory.

Jack’s hands settled back into his pockets, a cold, unyielding smirk touching his lips as he looked out over the endless biomes below.

The trial was already over. All that remained was the execution.