WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 196: Apophis Goal
Chapter 196: Apophis Goal
Apophis energy burst out.
The battlefield trembled under the crushing weight of Apophis’s power. Gravity bent wildly around Ben, dragging his limbs down as if the world itself wanted to bury him alive.
He grit his teeth, blood dripping from his mouth as his knees buckled. Bones creaked under the strain, and even his reinforced muscles began to tremble beneath the impossible pressure.
“I told you,” Apophis said, floating above the broken field like a goddess of ruin. “You’re nothing without me. Your body, your system, your evolution, it all came from us. And now you’ll die beneath the weight of your own arrogance.”
Ben didn’t answer because he couldn’t. The air had grown too thick, and the pressure crushed every breath from his lungs before he could speak.
The tendrils on his back spasmed violently. One of them snapped off under the strain and disintegrated into ash. Cracks formed across his skin, and his vision blurred at the edges.
Yet somewhere deep inside him, something began to stir.
It wasn’t rage, and it wasn’t fear. It was instinct the kind that no longer belonged to a human being.
A soft hum resonated through his bones. The glowing veins across his arms pulsed with energy, and his core, began to change.
One of the remaining appendages twitched before moving again and slamming hard into the ground.
[Aphopis essence consumed. Acquired 18 Aether, New Trait Acquired The Serpent of Chaos (Incomplete.]
Ben’s eyes snapped open, now filled with black dots and glowing violet irises.
“You’re right,” he rasped, voice hoarse but steady. “So I’ll just keep taking it, until all of it become mine.”
A shockwave burst outward from his body. For a brief moment, the pressure holding him down began to falter. Apophis’s control over gravity slipped.
“What?” she hissed in disbelief.
With blood soaking his shirt and his legs barely holding steady, Ben began to rise to his feet. His body screamed in protest, but he forced it to move.
Each step forward sent waves of pain through his body. The gravity still pushed down on him like a mountain, but his body was learning how to survive it.
His muscles, bones, and tendons twisted and rebuilt themselves, shifting with every movement.
The air around him distorted, making it hard to tell where he ended and the world began. Pebbles rose around his feet, and his shadow stretched in ways that defied natural law.
Apophis snarled and raised both arms to the sky. The clouds split open as an obsidian meteor formed high above her head, a singularity of pure gravitational force wrapped in black flame.
“Fall, then!”
She hurled the meteor straight at him.
Ben didn’t even try to dodge.
Instead, he reached up with both hands and caught it. The ground beneath his feet cracked like glass, forming a spiderweb of destruction as shockwaves exploded outward.
He roared from the strain, arms shaking and skin tearing as the impact fought to crush him. But the appendages on his back didn’t fall.
They rose again. Two of them wrapped around the meteor’s surface and dug in deep.
Consume!
The obsidian shell began to unravel under his will. Energy poured into his body like a flood, searing through every vein and nerve.
Ben’s muscles grew even larger as his body bulked up. The glow in his eyes intensified, and when he finally spoke, his voice no longer sounded completely human.
Ben grinned, his cracked lips pulling into a crooked smile.
“Thanks for the gift.” His voice boomed, crackling with energy.
The last of the meteor crumbled in his grasp, turning to dust and light. That power, once meant to crush him, now surged through his veins like liquid fire.
His body radiated pressure, his shadow stretching unnaturally across the shattered earth. Every step he took forward now bent the gravity around him.
Apophis hissed and raised her hand, trying to pull the force back into her control.
But it was too late.
Ben flicked his fingers, just a small motion, and the space behind Apophis twisted. Gravity bent the wrong way. The terrain behind her folded like paper, distorting with violent force.
“You dare, !” she snarled, but her voice cracked as she floated back to avoid the pull.
Ben’s tendrils lashed out. One struck the ground and sent a gravitational pulse that lifted stone pillars into the air like they were feathers. Another slammed toward her like a spear, wrapped in warped force.
Apophis snapped her hand, and a barrier of black flame formed around her. The tendril struck and shattered it, sending her flying back through a wall of bone.
She recovered mid-air, but her face twisted in rage now.
“You Thief!”
Ben rolled his neck, the ground breaking beneath his feet. freewebnσvel.cøm
“Yes, and I will take more of it!”
He raised his hand. All at once, the gravity in the area shifted. The battlefield turned sideways.
Apophis dropped like a falling star, crashing into the terrain with an explosive burst.
She roared, sending out a wave of pure void magic, carving a trench between them. Shadow spears rose from the cracks again, now enhanced with twisted symbols of authority.
Ben didn’t dodge. He slammed a foot down and the air cracked. Every spear bent mid-flight and spiraled around him, caught in his warped gravitational field.
He pointed, and they hurled back at her.
Apophis twisted, shadows forming wings behind her. She flew high, dodging the first volley, but not the second. One of her arms was pierced, another spear grazing her side.
She floated above, blood dripping. Breathing harder. Watching him. And Ben, standing below her, body glowing, shadow burning, eyes like stars, looked up and smiled.
“You’re running out of tricks, Aphopis.”
Her eye twitched. “You think you’ve won?”
“No.”
Ben crouched, legs bracing.
“I know I’m winning.”
And with a sonic boom, he launched upward appearing behind her.
“How about we stop fighting, Apophis? You’re just going to keep losing strength.”
He hovered there, gravity warping around him, tendrils flickering with restrained power.
“Follow me. In exchange, I’ll find a way to send you back to your world.”
He paused, eyes gleaming.
“Isn’t that what you really want?”
