Free Web NovelChapter 109: The Weight Of A God [FIXED!]
The creature lay crumpled against the wall of roots, its chest heaving, black ichor dripping from its broken fingers. Its white eyes darted between Jason and the gap in the vines.
Jason could have killed it.
One more punch, one more blast of mana, nne more squeeze of its throat to snap its neck. The creature was weak, wounded, and utterly defenseless. It would take less than a second to end its miserable existence.
That was if Jason chose to kill it like a senseless being.
But Jason lowered his hands. His barrier flickered and faded. He stepped back.
Ylva stared at him. Her ears were flat, her claws still extended, her body coiled like a spring ready to snap.
"Why did you let it go?" she demanded.
Jason didn’t answer immediately. He had watched the creature scramble through the gap in the roots, disappearing into the darkness beyond. Its footsteps faded. A few minutes later, the vines began to close behind it, sealing the passage.
"Use your nose," Jason said finally.
Ylva’s brow furrowed. "What?"
"Track it. Follow its scent." Jason turned to face her. "I let it go because I knew where it would go next. It’s bleeding. It’s scared. It’s running back to its master." He paused. "And wherever that master is, Mae will be there."
Ylva’s eyes widened. The realization hit her like a physical blow. He hadn’t shown mercy—he had shown strategy. He had used the creature as a guide, a blood trail leading straight to the heart of the castle.
"You didn’t have to kill it," Jason continued. "You just had to follow it."
Ylva stared at him for a long moment. Her tail flicked once. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips—not wide, not warm, but genuine.
"I don’t remember you being this smart," she said.
Jason shrugged. His expression was neutral, but behind his eyes, his thoughts churned.
"I’m a very good liar," he thought. "And I’ve been lying about my weakness since the day we met."
Ylva’s smile faded. She looked at him—really looked at him. The way he held himself. The way he had moved during the fight. The barrier that had appeared without conscious thought. The killing intent that had made her blood run cold.
She had never known he was this strong.
Until now.
Until this enemy they encountered, until the cave. He had been acting weak, pretending to be a liability, hiding his true power behind jokes and cowardice. Of course, this wasn’t the case but it was what she believed.
"Were these actions intentional?" she wondered. "Was he always this strong?"
She did not know about his system nor did she know about the adaptations, the percentages, the way his body had evolved after every near-death experience. She did not know that his power had been born from watching her bleed out on the black stone.
But this was not what she wanted to think about right now.
"Fine," Ylva said, pushing the questions aside. "I’ll track it."
She lifted her nose to the air and inhaled. The creature’s scent was strong—blood and fear and that strange, ancient rot that clung to everything in the Marrow. It was bleeding heavily, which made the trail easier to follow.
"The flowers," Ylva said, glancing at the walls. "They’re still not reacting to you."
Jason looked at the vines. They had not attacked him during the fight. They had not reached for him afterward. Even now, with the battle over and the creature gone, the roots remained still—watching, waiting, but not hostile.
"They’re not reacting to you either," Jason observed.
Ylva’s ears twitched. She had not noticed until he pointed it out. The vines that had grabbed her earlier, that had wrapped around her throat and arms, were now dormant. They did not reach for her but wasn’t the creature they just fought the one responsible for it?
It had managed to secrete pollen from it which showed it had some degree of control over it even though the flowers here were very much different from the ones outside.
In both size and overall appearance.
Ylva already knew staying close to Jason might be the key to whatever it was that was happening.
"Let’s move," she said.
They followed the trail.
The creature’s blood led them through a maze of corridors, past impaled corpses and withered flowers, through chambers filled with roots that pulsed with faint golden light. The castle seemed to hold its breath as they passed, the vines parting just enough to let them through, never attacking, never reaching.
Jason’s barrier hovered around him like a second skin—thin, invisible, but absolute. He had learned to maintain it without thinking, a constant shield against whatever lurked in the shadows.
Ylva walked beside him, her nose to the air, her ears swiveling. The scent grew stronger with every step. Fresher. The creature was close.
They rounded a bend.
And stopped.
The chamber before them was vast—larger than anything they had seen in the castle. Walls of woven root rose toward a ceiling lost in darkness. The floor was soft moss, green and vibrant, covered in flowers that seemed to glow from within. And in the center of it all, surrounded by roots that pulsed like arteries, stood Mae.
She was petrified.
Her brown eyes were wide. Her hooves were planted on the stone. Her hands were clenched at her sides. The ant king’s tiny form lay at her feet, hibernating—but one of his arms was missing. A jagged stump wept dark ichor onto the moss.
The creature Jason had spared lay crumpled near the entrance, its chest still heaving, its white eyes fixed on the figure at the center of the room.
But Jason was not looking at the creature.
He was looking at the lord.
The lord.
He sat on a throne of fused bone and root, his body bound to the wood, his skin grey and cracked like old bark. His face was asymmetrical, one eye higher than the other, his mouth too wide, his teeth yellow and jagged. But his eyes—those golden, slit-pupiled eyes—were fixed on Jason.
And Jason froze.
Not because the creature was attacking. Not because he sensed danger. He froze because of what he felt when those golden eyes met his.
Fear.
Pure, primal, paralyzing fear. The kind of fear that bypassed reason and logic, that crawled into the deepest part of his brain and squeezed. His limbs would not move. His breath would not come. His barrier flickered and died.
Despite all the power he had accumulated—the mana absorption, the barrier, the strength that had torn the watcher’s arm off—Jason could not move.
Ylva grabbed his arm. "Jason? Jason!"
He did not respond.
The lord’s cracked lips parted.
"Welcome," he said.
Jason could not adapt to the fear.
His system had reached its adaptation limits. The same system that had made him immune to mana manipulation, that had granted him barriers and absorption and strength beyond his natural body, could do nothing against this.
He had not upgraded it, he did not even know how. And now, standing in the presence of something ancient and absolute, he understood the cost of that limitation.
The creature had said "Welcome."
But Jason instantly knew death was all that awaited should he try and oppose this being.
His voice was heavy—not loud, but dense. It pressed against Jason’s chest like a physical weight, crushing the air from his lungs, forcing his knees toward the ground. Jason buckled with his legs giving out. freeweɓnøvel.com
He hit the moss hard, his hands pressing against the stone, his back bowed.
Beside him, Ylva collapsed. Her claws scraped against the floor. Her ears were flat, her body trembling, her jaw clenched so tight he could hear her teeth grinding because she was filled with rage, she was powerless in this situation.
Even the ant king, hibernating and missing an arm, seemed to sink deeper into the moss, as if the weight of the creature’s presence pressed him further into unconsciousness.
Jason could not move.
It was like gravity had multiplied, pinning him to the earth, squeezing the breath from his lungs. His barrier was gone. His mana absorption was useless. His strength meant nothing in this situation.
But he managed to raise his head.
The movement was agonizing—every muscle screaming, every tendon straining. But he lifted his chin. He met the creature’s golden eyes.
The creature’s brow rose. His cracked lips parted slightly.
"You can still move," he said. Not a question. An observation. Surprise flickered across the ancient creature’s face.
Jason did not answer. He could not. His throat was too tight.
The creature leaned forward. The roots around him creaked. The apple above him pulsed faster.
"You resonate with me," the creature said slowly. "You absorbed a piece of myself through the watcher. His mana, his barrier and a piece of my very essence." He tilted his head. "You carry a fragment of me inside you."
Jason’s mind raced. He had not know, he had not planned for something this extreme to happen.
The absorption had been instinct, survival, rage.
The creature seemed to understand. His golden eyes softened—not with kindness, but with curiosity.
"Why are you here?" the creature asked. "What are you looking for?"
Jason forced the words out, each one a battle. "My friend. An elf. Silver hair. He came here."
The creature’s expression did not change.
"The watcher attacked us," Jason continued. "We followed him back here. That’s the only reason I’m in this room."
Jason was sure to make sure this creature knew why he was here, it wasn’t because he targeted him specifically.
The creature was silent for a long moment. Then his lips curled into something that might have been a smile.
"You defeated my apparition," he said. "The creature you fought—the one you called the watcher—he was never alive. I absorbed him the moment he returned to me. He was never a separate entity, he was a part of me. A piece of my consciousness given form."
Jason did not understand. The words did not fit together. A part of him? An apparition?
There was no way in hell a magic this powerful even existed to begin with.
Unknown to Jason, this was how he kept contact with the outside world during his slumber.
But he played along. Because he understood one thing with absolute clarity.
This creature held all their lives in his hands.
