Free Web NovelChapter 122: Shadow And Ember Lord! [FIXED!]
Jason rose to his feet with a motion that was not quite human.
His body moved, but there was a wrongness to it, a mechanical precision that belonged more to a puppet than a man. His arms hung at his sides. His head tilted forward, chin almost touching his chest. His footsteps, when they came, were slow and deliberate—a casual, unhurried stride that carried him across the shattered stone of the chamber. Each step echoed through the ruins, a hollow sound that seemed to come from somewhere far away, somewhere beyond the walls of this ancient place.
Maldred watched him approach.
And for the first time in centuries, Maldred felt fear.
Not the cold, calculating caution of a predator sizing up a rival. Not the sharp spike of alarm that came with an unexpected blow. This was something deeper, something primal, something that crawled up from the oldest part of his consciousness—the part that remembered being small and weak and afraid. It was the fear of a creature that had never known true vulnerability, suddenly confronted with something it could not understand.
This is impossible.
Jason continued walking. His eyes—those empty, hollow eyes—were fixed on something far away.
Something that Maldred could not see. Something that existed beyond the physical realm, beyond the boundaries of the Marrow itself. They were the eyes of a man who was no longer entirely present, whose consciousness had been submerged in something vast and unkown.
This should not be happening.
Maldred’s mind raced, grasping for explanations that did not exist. He had spent centuries accumulating power. He had consumed dozens of souls. He had cheated the cycle of the Marrow. He had grown strong enough to challenge the other lords.
He had taken everything the Marrow could offer and squeezed it dry.
And even he was incapable of containing the Marrow’s full power. The weight of it was too immense, too vast, too absolute. It was designed to be split among four, each bearing a portion of the burden. No single vessel could hold it all.
The Marrow’s power was not meant to be contained in one being—it was a force of nature, a living entity that required multiple anchors to remain stable.
But Jason was walking toward him. Jason was absorbing it all. And Maldred could feel it—the Marrow’s presence flowing into the creature before him like water into a bottomless well.
No one should be able to get this strong. No one should be able to contain the Marrow. Even I was incapable of such a feat.
Maldred’s mind raced, grasping for an explanation, for a way out, for anything that would make sense of what he was seeing. And then, beneath the terror, a spark of calculation flickered—a desperate, cunning hope.
This was also good news.
If Jason was containing the Marrow, then the other two lords—the ones that had been sleeping, the ones that the Marrow had placed handicaps upon to force them into slumber—would be waking as well.
Their cases were unique. Unlike Maldred and the lord of vines, the Marrow had not blessed them with additional abilities. If anything, it had done the opposite. It had bound them, crippled them, forced them into an endless cycle of sleep from which they could not escape.
But they were still the two strongest creatures in the Marrow. They had been chosen for a reason—their raw power was unmatched, their potential limitless. The Marrow had placed handicaps on them not because they were weak, but because they were too strong to be allowed to remain awake.
And with the Marrow’s power now flowing into Jason, those handicaps would be undone. They would wake. They would rise. And they would come for Maldred.
For revenge.
He had cheated the cycle, he had consumed his own children.
He had grown fat on the souls of the innocent while they slept.
They would not forgive him. They would not even ask questions. They would simply tear him apart, piece by piece, soul by soul, until nothing remained.
And if they saw Jason—if they saw what he had become—they would redirect their attention toward him. He would be the vessel, the source. The thing they needed to destroy to reclaim what had been taken from them. Their hatred for Maldred would pale in comparison to their fury at the being who had stolen the Marrow’s power.
I need to buy time.
Maldred forced himself to his feet. His body screamed in protest. Every joint ached. Every muscle burned. His iron-grey skin cracked and bled, ichor dripping down his chest.
But he stood, he planted his feet, raised his fists and prepared to fight for his existence.
Jason took another step.
The air around him shimmered, as if reality itself was bending to accommodate his presence. The stone beneath his feet cracked and reformed, the roots along the walls twisted and writhed. The chamber seemed to hold its breath.
And then, softly, barely audible, Jason muttered a single word.
"kneel."
The command hung in the air like a prayer. Like a plea. Like the last echo of the man he had been, reaching out from somewhere deep inside the void that had consumed him. It was not loud. It was not forceful. It was simply... spoken.
And Maldred fell to his knees.
The impact cracked the stone beneath him. His legs gave out without warning, without resistance, as if the very concept of standing had been stripped from him. His arms dropped to his sides. His head bowed. He could not move an inch. His body had become a prison, his limbs dead weights that refused to obey his commands.
W-What is this?
He tried to summon his decay. Nothing. He tried to summon his strength. Nothing. He tried to move a single finger. Nothing as well.
Jason continued walking.
His footsteps echoed. He had not even looked at Maldred, had not acknowledged him, had not even seemed to register his presence.
But his hollow eyes remained fixed on that distant, unknowable point, as if Maldred was beneath his notice entirely.
And yet Maldred was frozen in place, pinned to the stone by a force he could not see and could not fight. It was not magic. It was not telekinesis. It was something far more terrifying.
How? How is he doing this to me without breaking a sweat?
The answer was simple in its horror.
Jason was not using telekinesis. He was not using magic. He was not using any power that Maldred recognized. He was simply willing it to happen. And the Marrow—the ancient, endless, absolute Marrow—was obeying.
Because Jason was no longer just a man.
He was the vessel.
And the Marrow had chosen him.
-
Ylva and Mae watched from the shadows of the ruined chamber, their breaths held, their bodies pressed against the cold stone.
Dust still swirled through the air from the collapsed walls and the debris scattered across the broken floor. The chamber, once a place of power and ancient authority, had been reduced to rubble and ruin. fгeewebnovёl.com
Before them, Jason faced Maldred with an ease that should have been impossible. The giant who had terrorized the Marrow for centuries, who had consumed souls and cheated death knelt before a man who had been dead minutes ago. Maldred’s massive frame was frozen, his golden eyes wide with terror and disbelief.
But this was not the Jason they knew.
There was no humor in his movements. No warmth in his posture. No trace of the man who had cracked jokes in the face of death and held Ylva’s hand when she was afraid. This was something else and hollow. Something that wore his face like a mask but had forgotten what lay beneath.
Ylva’s heart pounded against her ribs, a frantic rhythm that matched the chaos of her thoughts.
It wouldn’t matter if he defeated Maldred. Not if that’s not Jason at the end of the day.
The thought chilled her to the bone, colder than the Marrow’s grey winds, deeper than the fear that had gripped her during the crawl. If Jason was not behind these actions—if the man she loved had been submerged, consumed, replaced by whatever now wore his skin—then there was a high chance that after this thing was done killing Maldred, it would turn its attention to them.
She had to be sure.
"Mae," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the distant groans of the crumbling chamber. "Take a few steps back. Give them space."
Mae’s brown eyes widened. Her hooves scraped against the stone. Her hands trembled at her sides. "What? Why?"
"Because I need to see if it’s really him." Ylva’s voice was steady, but her hands trembled. "If he’s still in there, he’ll show it. If not..."
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. The weight of the unspoken words hung between them like a guillotine.
Mae complied. Her hooves clicked softly against the stone as she retreated, putting distance between herself and the figures in the center of the chamber.
Her chest heaved, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps but she did not run. Not yet. She waited, watched, and prayed to gods she did not believe in.
Ylva’s eyes never left Jason’s face.
For a moment, nothing happened. Jason stood over Maldred, his hollow eyes fixed on something far away, something that existed beyond the boundaries of the physical world. The giant remained on his knees, frozen by a force he could not comprehend. His chest heaved, his breath ragged, his massive frame trembling.
And then something shifted.
Jason’s head tilted slightly. His lips parted, as if he was about to speak. Ylva’s heart leaped.
Is he coming back? Is he still in there?
But before she could find out, the earth shook.
It was not the tremor of collapsing stone or the aftershock of battle. It was something else.
The ground beneath them groaned and split, sending cracks racing across the chamber floor like veins of lightning.
Dust rained from the ceiling. The roots along the walls writhed and twisted, as if they too could feel what was coming.
Mae stumbled, catching herself on a broken pillar. "What was that?" freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Ylva’s ears swiveled, tracking the vibrations. Her nose flared, tasting the air. "It’s not Jason. It’s not Maldred either."
"Then what?"
Before Ylva could answer, the walls of the chamber exploded inward.
Two figures stood in the rubble, silhouetted against the grey sky beyond. They were massive—each one easily the size of Maldred, their bodies radiating power that made the air itself feel thick and heavy.
One was shrouded in shadow, its form indistinct, its eyes glowing with pale, spectral light.
The other burned with molten fire, its skin cracking and shifting like living lava.
The Shade Lord and the Ember King.
They had traveled at almost light speed to this location.
Their slumber had been broken, their handicaps had been undone. And they had sensed Maldred’s presence—the betrayer, the one who had cheated the cycle, who had consumed his own children while they slept.
They had come to kill him.
Ylva’s blood ran cold. She looked at Jason, still standing over Maldred, still hollow-eyed, still unreachable. Then she looked at the two lords, their fury palpable, their power immense.
This battle is about to go up a notch. And there is nothing we can do for Jason at this moment.
She grabbed Mae’s arm, her claws retracted, her grip firm. "We need to retreat. Now."
Mae’s eyes were wide, her body trembling. "But Jason—"
"We can’t help him. Not like this." Ylva’s voice was sharp, urgent, cutting through Mae’s hesitation. "If we stay, we’ll be in the way. Or worse, we’ll be targets. We have to trust him!"
Mae hesitated. Her gaze lingered on Jason’s still form, her brown eyes searching for any sign of the man she had traveled with, fought beside, grown to trust despite her cowardice.
Then she nodded, her hooves scraping against the stone.
"Where do we go?"
"Anywhere but here."
They turned and ran, their footsteps swallowed by the roar of the two lords as they advanced toward Maldred. The air behind them crackled with power, the sound of ancient fury unleashed.
Behind them, Jason stood motionless, his hollow eyes fixed on nothing.
