Chapter 98: Ylva Is... Dead!? [FIXED!][05/31]

The ant king launched himself at the watcher.

Six arms extended, claws gleaming, mandibles wide. He moved faster than thought—a red and black blur that crossed the distance between them in less than a heartbeat.

His claws struck something invisible. A shimmer in the air, like heat rising off summer stone. The watcher didn’t flinch, nor did he move. An invincible barrier surrounded him, thin as glass but hard as diamond.

The ant king rebounded, landed, and attacked again. Left, right, high, low—a blur of strikes that would have shredded steel. Each blow connected with the barrier, sending ripples of light across its surface. The watcher stood still, his empty sockets fixed on the creature with something that looked like boredom.

The ant king screamed—a screech of frustration and rage. He circled, looking for weakness. There was none. He lunged again, this time driving all six claws into a single point.

The barrier cracked.

A spiderweb fracture spread across the invisible wall. The watcher’s head tilted.

"You are persistent."

The ant king pressed harder. The crack widened. His claws pierced through—

The watcher raised a hand.

Not at the ant king. At the air behind him.

A shockwave exploded outward, sending the ant king flying. He tumbled across the black stone, carving furrows with his claws, and slammed into a boulder. The rock shattered.

Ylva watched from the ground, her body still paralyzed, her green eyes wide with terror. This wasn’t the creature that had followed them like a loyal pet. This thing was different. Its eyes burned with something evil, something hungry. It felt evil.

Mae trembled behind a fallen pillar, her hooves frozen, her breath caught in her throat. She had seen monsters before. She had never felt one.

The ant king rose.

His chest was heaving. Black ichor dripped from his mandibles. He charged again—faster this time, more desperate. He feinted left, then right, then dropped low and swept his claws at the watcher’s legs.

The barrier held once again.

The watcher sighed in disappointment, he expected more considering it was able to bypass his hold but the ant king had been underwhelming.

"You tire me."

He stretched out his hand, palm facing the ant king’s chest. A point of light gathered at his fingertip—white, blinding, humming with power.

The ant king tried to dodge but the light moved faster.

A beam of pure force punched through the ant king’s torso. Chitin exploded outward. Black ichor sprayed across the basin, The creature’s six arms went limp, its legs buckled.

The shockwave that followed was worse.

It radiated outward from the point of impact, cracking the black stone, toppling the pillars, sending Ylva skidding across the ground. Mae screamed and covered her head. Dust and debris filled the air, blotting out the grey sky.

When the dust settled, the ant king lay in a crater, a hole the size of a fist punched clean through his chest. His eyes were still open. His mandibles clicked weakly. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

But he was not dead.

His chitin began to knit slowly and painfully. The edges of the wound pulsed with dark light, regenerating, rebuilding.

The watcher lowered his hand. His empty sockets stared down at the creature.

"You will not die," he said. "Not yet."

The watcher’s hollow face turned toward Ylva, not because she was his target but due the fact that she had made a choice that ultimately shaped her fate.

She had struggled to her knees, her body still twitching from the disrupted nervous system. Her claws scraped against the black stone. Her breathing was ragged, but her green eyes burned with defiance.

"I am going to kill everyone," the watcher said, his voice dry and calm, as if discussing the weather. "Every last one of you." He tilted his head. "It will be slow. It will be painful. And there is nothing you can do to stop it."

The watcher spoke like he was trying to remind Jason how powerless he was but this amount of animosity made no sense for someone he didn’t even know.

But this was a place renowned to house all sort of crazies, it was no surprise this creature exhibited traits of a sadist. Ylva pushed herself to her feet.

Her legs trembled, her arms hung limp at her sides. But she stood. She stood in front of Jason, her body a broken shield between him and the monster.

"Run," she whispered.

Jason’s eyes widened. "Ylva—"

"Run!" Ylva was clearly ready to sacrifice herself for him, throwing her life in a heartbeat.

The watcher smiled.

It was not a human smile. There were no lips, no teeth, no warmth. But the skin around his empty sockets crinkled, and the air grew colder.

"You will be the first to fall," he said.

He flicked his finger.

Ylva flew forward as if pulled by an invisible rope. Her body sailed through the air, helpless, her claws grasping at nothing. The watcher caught her by the neck.

His grip was iron. There was no way in hell for Ylva to break free from it.

Ylva choked. Her feet kicked uselessly, her claws raked against his arm, drawing shallow lines across his grey skin but despite how hard her claws were, it didn’t pierce his skin.

The watcher didn’t flinch.

He pulled back his free hand—the long, clawed fingers curling into a fist—and drove it into her torso.

The sound was wet. Flesh tearing, bone splintering. The fist emerged from her back, covered in blood and viscera. A hole the size of Jason’s fist had been punched clean through her upper stomach.

Ylva’s mouth opened. No sound came out except blood.

The watcher pulled his hand free. Her body slumped in his grip, lifeless, limp. He tossed her aside like a rag doll.

She landed on the black stone, her green eyes still open, her chest not moving.

Silence fell everywhere, Mae had tears in her eyes, cursing her weakness.

Jason stared at the body. The blood pooling beneath her, the way her tail had gone still. The way her claws had retracted.

Something inside him cracked.

Not broke. It cracked. Like a dam holding back an ocean, and the first fissure had appeared.

He had seen death before in his past life, in this world. The orc in the alley. The spiders crushed beneath the ant king’s claws. But this was different, this was her. The woman he had just confessed to.

"Ylva... This cannot be real," Jason muttered to himself.

The werewolf who had saved him. Who had carried Thalion on her back through a city of enemies. Who had accepted Mae. Who had accepted his confession about Mira. Who had said "I love you too" with tears in her eyes.

And now she lay motionless on the black stone, a hole in her stomach, her blood soaking into the earth.

For the first time since coming to this world, Jason felt unfiltered rage.

Not the hot, sharp anger of a fight. Not the cold, calculated fury of revenge. This was something else. Something primal, something that rose from the deepest part of him, where reason had no foothold and mercy was a foreign language.

The light in his eyes drained right away.

In its place, something hateful emerged because all he could see right now was red.

Jason looked at the watcher and for the first time, exhibited killing intent.

The creature stood over Ylva’s body, his empty sockets fixed on Jason, his grey skin splattered with her blood. He was smiling again—that terrible, skin-crinkling smile.

"You are next," the watcher said.

Jason didn’t speak, he didn’t scream but the emotion was there, he just didn’t know how to process it.

He didn’t crash out because he had no reason to.

Something changed in him. Deep inside, behind his eyes. In the core of his being where the system resided.

[Ding!]

A cyan screen materialized in his vision, glowing bright against the grey darkness of the Marrow.

[Ding!]

[1020 minutes elapsed!]

[Adaptation to mana manipulation: 60%!]

The ant king had access to blood manipulation magic and had been monitoring Jason with it, this was why he was able to read and know his moods.

Jason blinked. His vision swam. The rage was still there, burning, but something else was happening. The system was accelerating.

[System: !@#$%#@!]

The text glitched, characters twisted into symbols Jason didn’t recognize. The screen flickered in and out showing there was something abnormal going on with his system.

[Forced Adaptation!]

[Ding!]

[Adaptation to mana manipulation: 80%!]

Jason’s body trembled. His veins pulsed with something that wasn’t blood. Energy—raw, hungry, devouring—rushed through him. Jason couldn’t even think straight, the only thought in his mind was to kill whatever was standing in front of him.

[Ding!]

[Adaptation to mana manipulation: 100%!]

The screen flashed gold but it looked like it was glitching, flickering in and out of his vision.

[Congratulations! The host now has immunity to mana manipulation!]

Jason’s breath caught. The energy surging through him didn’t stop. It built. It compressed. It demanded release.

[Ding!]

[New skill unlocked: Mana Absorption!]

The screens vanished.

Jason’s eyes had a strange light in them now—a faint, flickering gold that echoed the ant king’s gaze. He got to his feet.

His body felt different. Lighter, faster and stronger. As if the chains that had been holding him down had been severed.

The watcher’s head tilted. His empty sockets seemed to narrow.

"Interesting," he said. "Your body is changing. But it does not matter. You cannot—"

He stretched out his hand and tried to snap Jason’s neck.

Nothing happened at all, Jason was now immune to mana, which was the source of magic.

The watcher’s fingers twitched. He pushed more power into the spell—enough to shatter stone, enough to kill a dozen men.

Jason stood still. Unharmed and unmoved.

The watcher’s smile faded.

"How?"

Jason didn’t answer. He didn’t know how. He only knew that the mana the watcher had sent toward him had vanished—absorbed into his skin like water into dry earth.

He took a step forward.

The watcher raised his barrier—the same invincible shield that had stopped the ant king’s claws. It shimmered in the air, thin and transparent, radiating power.

Jason kept walking.

There was something different about him. The watcher could see it now. Behind those eyes, there was no one home. Not the Jason who cracked jokes and smiled. Not the Jason who fed hungry snakes and went back for his friends.

This was something else.

Something empty, something vengeful, something that had watched the creature he loved being injured right in front of him and had decided that the universe owed him a debt.

Jason moved and he was fast.

Faster than the watcher had anticipated. His feet carried him across the black stone in a blur, his fist already cocked back, his jaw set.

The watcher didn’t flinch. His barrier was impenetrable. It had stopped the ant king’s six arms. It had stopped Ylva’s claws. It would stop this—

Jason’s fist landed square on his face.

The barrier shattered with no resistance whatsoever.

Invisible shards flew outward, dissolving into motes of light. The watcher’s eyes—his empty sockets—went wide for the first time as Jason absorbed it into his skin to grow even stronger.

But the fist didn’t stop.

It connected with his jaw—his grey, ash-colored jaw—and the force behind it was unlike anything the watcher had felt for centuries, it wasn’t just Jason’s strength. It was the watcher’s own mana, redirected, repurposed, absorbed and then released in a single devastating impact.

The watcher’s head snapped back and his entire body followed.

He flew like a weightless doll.

Through the air, through the twisted trees. His spine cracked against one trunk, then another, then another. Wood splintered, bark exploded. He crashed through seven trees before finally coming to a stop, embedded in the eighth, his grey robes torn, his chest heaving.

Jason lowered his fist.

He didn’t know what had happened. Not really. He had felt the barrier—felt its energy pressing against his skin—and something inside him had reached out and taken it. The mana had flowed into his arm, into his fist, and then out again, amplified, hungry.

It was Mana Absorption.

He looked down at his hand. The skin was red, raw, but unharmed.

He looked at Ylva.

She hadn’t moved but Mae had rushed over to her side to give her some milk, but she looked frightened of Jason.

The rage returned, colder and sharper now. Jason turned back toward the watcher’s crumpled form in the distance, the dust clouding his vision momentarily.

-

Somewhere in the distance, Thalion felt the disturbance and a single word left his stunned lips.

"Jason!?"