All Chapters of THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL HEIR : Chapter 41
- Chapter 50
57 chapters
Chapter 41 – The Abyss That Bites Back
Camilla’s scream cut through the inferno. Jeffrey’s eyes snapped wide as he felt her flesh searing beneath his fire.He tried to pull the flames back, tried to cage them, but the power was alive now, wild, merciless, surging through him like a beast that had slipped its leash.“NO!” he roared, forcing his arms tighter around her as the molten abyss swallowed them both.The cavern was gone. There was only fire, falling rock, rivers of magma clawing upward to meet them. The colossus’s broken body dissolved into embers above, its death scream echoing endlessly.Jeffrey’s grip on Camilla tightened. She thrashed in pain, but he refused to let go. His flames coiled around them, fighting to shield her from the lava even as they licked hungrily at her skin.“Stay with me!” he shouted, his voice ragged, half human, half something deeper.Her eyes, wide with pain and terror, locked on his. “Jeffrey… you’re… not you…”The words sliced deeper than any blade. The abyss welcomed him like a throne.
Chapter 42 – The Abyss Wakes
The platform exploded. One instant Jeffrey was clutching Camilla, the chain branding into his chest. The next, the molten rock beneath them shattered, flinging them into the air as the abyss itself reared to life.The shadow rising from the magma had no face, no body, only vast wings of fire and a crown of molten stone. It towered over the cavern, its roar making the rock walls quake as if the mountain itself would collapse.Jeffrey’s fire flared in instinctive response. For a breathless moment, abyss and heir glared at one another like two predators deciding which would devour the other first. And then, it struck.A hand of molten stone the size of a building shot upward, slamming across the cavern. Jeffrey barely had time to wrap Camilla in a cocoon of flames before the impact hit.The force hurled him across the abyss, smashing him into a jagged cliff wall. Rocks shattered, dust billowed, his bones screamed in protest. He tasted blood.But worse, the chain still burned against his
Chapter 43 – Fire Against Fire
The Doppelgänger struck first. No hesitation, no words, just a blade of flame tearing from its hand like a scythe meant to split the world.Jeffrey barely had time to drag Camilla aside before the molten wall where they’d stood was sliced in two, stone turning liquid under the heat.He staggered upright, chest heaving. The Doppelgänger straightened, its body glowing like a forge, its face an uncanny reflection of his own, only stripped of doubt, sharpened into cruelty.It smiled. His own smile, but wrong. And Jeffrey knew: this was what he would become if he surrendered.He met the Doppelgänger head-on, flames igniting into a sword in his grip. The abyss-born copy mirrored him instantly, summoning an identical weapon. Steel wasn’t necessary. Fire was enough.The cavern became a storm of clashing blades, sparks showering across molten air. Every strike from Jeffrey was answered with perfect symmetry, same speed, same strength, same fury.It was like fighting a mirror that anticipated e
Chapter 44 – The Crown of Ash
The roar shook the world. Jeffrey’s ears rang as if thunder had burst inside his skull. The molten throne blazed with a power that wasn’t just heat but dominion, the cavern trembling under its weight.And on that throne sat his reflection, his Doppelgänger, wearing Jeffrey’s face twisted into something crueler, prouder, absolute.The army of molten creatures knelt, bowing as though welcoming the only king they would ever recognize. For the first time since entering the abyss, Jeffrey’s fire guttered small. He had been rejected.“Do you see now?” the Doppelgänger’s voice rang out, warped with fire and authority. “This empire was never yours to reclaim. Above ground, you were disinherited. Below, you are unwanted. I am the Goodman heir the abyss accepts.”Its eyes glowed like suns, pinning Jeffrey in place. “You are nothing.”Camilla grabbed Jeffrey’s arm, hauling him upright though his body screamed with pain. Blood dripped down his chin, his skin burned raw where the fire had seared.
Chapter 45 – The Collapse
The world came down. Stone split apart in deafening cracks, fire pillars swallowed the air, and the molten throne shattered into shards of burning obsidian.Jeffrey hit the ground hard, his lungs crushed under falling debris. Heat clawed at his skin, ash filled his throat. He coughed blood, eyes burning, but he could not stop.Above him, the Doppelgänger ascended like a blazing crown of fire, no longer a man, no longer his reflection, but a god being born.The abyss was rejecting stone and shaping fire. And Jeffrey Goodman was seconds from being buried alive. “Jeffrey!” Camilla’s scream ripped through the chaos.Through the smoke he glimpsed her, pinned against a boulder, molten cracks spreading toward her feet. She fought to free herself, fire cutting at the stone, but the ground was giving way beneath her.Jeffrey forced his battered body up, staggering against the avalanche of falling rock. His muscles screamed, but rage was louder. He grabbed a flaming shard of stone and hurled it
Chapter 46 – The False Heir’s Reign
The sky was burning. The Goodman Capital had never seen fire like this, not in its wars, not in its riots, not in its darkest nights.Flames fell from the heavens like meteors, igniting rooftops, sending spires crashing into streets. The air boiled with heat, choking the screams of thousands.And at the heart of it all, suspended in the flames above the shattered skyline, floated him. Jeffrey Goodman, yet not Jeffrey.The Doppelgänger’s blazing form loomed over the city like a god of fire, eyes glowing pits of molten rage. His voice thundered across the trembling metropolis, every syllable carved in flame.“I AM THE HEIR! The firstborn of Goodman blood! You cast me aside, but I have risen in fire! You will kneel or burn.”Below, chaos swallowed order. Guards dropped their weapons and fled, merchants trampled their own customers, children screamed as mothers dragged them through falling ash.The proud Goodman banners that lined the grand avenue ignited, curling into blackened scraps.A
Chapter 47 – Fire Against Flesh
The world held its breath. Two Jeffreys, one wreathed in blood and shadow, the other crowned in fire, faced each other across the burning avenue of the Goodman Capital.The kneeling crowd stared, wide-eyed and trembling. Mothers held children tighter, guards clutched useless weapons, and merchants prayed to gods they’d long forgotten.For years, the Goodman heir had been whispered about in exile, in scandal, in shame. Now he stood alive in the ashes, yet his face was mirrored in the monster of fire above.The people didn’t know who to believe. All they knew was that their city would not survive both. The Doppelgänger’s molten eyes widened, then narrowed. His lips twisted into something too cruel to be Jeffrey’s smile.“So,” he thundered, “the shadow crawls out of the abyss. Pathetic. Broken. Yet you still dare to stand before me?”Jeffrey’s fists clenched. The heat from his twin’s fire seared his skin, but he forced his gaze steady. “You’ve stolen my face, my name, my people. But you’
Chapter 48 – The Heir Who Burns
The world was fire. Jeffrey’s body hung limp in the Doppelgänger’s flaming grip, his veins scorching as if molten lead flowed through them. His skin blistered, his muscles convulsed, his lungs refused to draw breath.The crowd’s screams blurred into the roar of the inferno. Somewhere, faint but piercing, Camilla’s voice cried his name.The Doppelgänger raised him higher, the firestorm wreathing them both like a crown of damnation. “Behold!” he thundered to the city. “This is the fate of weakness. This is the end of false heirs!”And then, with terrifying finality, he began to close his burning fist. Pain ripped through Jeffrey’s consciousness, but in the darkness of near-death, something stirred.A voice, not his Doppelgänger’s, not his father’s, whispered like steel dragged across stone. Get up, Jeffrey.He remembered exile, the alleys soaked in blood, the throne of the underworld he carved with his own fists. He remembered the scars that no fire could erase. He remembered his father
Chapter 49 – Into the Inferno
The fall felt endless. Jeffrey’s body plummeted through darkness that wasn’t just absence of light, it was alive, pressing against him, whispering with the voices of the damned.Heat licked his skin, ash burned his throat, and his ears roared with the sound of a thousand unseen wings. He slammed against stone, hard enough to break a lesser man.Agony shot through his ribs, but he forced himself to breathe, coughing blood and dust. The world around him glowed dimly, an underground chasm lit by rivers of molten fire that ran like veins beneath the earth.He wasn’t dead. Not yet. And from the shadows, something laughed.It was low, guttural, echoing through the cavern. “Finally,” it rasped. “The heir of Goodman returns to the place where his blood belongs.”Jeffrey staggered to his feet, his broken blade still clutched in his burned hand. “Show yourself.”From the fire, shapes emerged. Twisted figures with skin of stone and eyes like coals. Chains rattled across their bodies. The smell o
Chapter 50 – Fire and Shadow
The fire swallowed him whole. Jeffrey’s scream was drowned in the roar of molten flame. It seared his skin, clawed down his throat, boiled the blood in his veins.His body should have disintegrated instantly, reduced to ash, yet something deep within him refused. The beast’s voice thundered through the inferno. “Die, Goodman. Die as your father should have.”Jeffrey’s vision blurred. The broken blade slipped from his fingers. His knees buckled. And in that moment, between life and death, a shadow moved.It wasn’t the beast. It wasn’t the chained remnants. It was something else, darker, older, sharper than fire. A voice that coiled inside his skull.Stand, heir. This fire is not your enemy. It is your birthright. Jeffrey’s eyes snapped open, his pupils contracting to slits.The flames that should have consumed him bent, spiraled, and wrapped around him instead. They didn’t burn, they bled into him, stitching wounds closed, filling his lungs with power.The beast roared in fury. “Imposs