Jason stood at the edge of the crater, his chest heaving, his knuckles still dripping blood onto the broken stone. The golem loomed behind him, a mountain of wood and fury, its golden eyes fixed on the ruined giant below. Maldred lay crumpled in the depths of the crater, his iron-grey skin cracked and oozing, his breath coming in shallow, rattling gasps.

"I could end this now."

The thought surfaced momentarily, Jason truly believed he could kill this thing right here.

One more strike, one more blow from the golem. One final surge of power to crush the giant’s skull and scatter his consciousness across the void and it would be over.

The Marrow would be free of its oldest predator.

But Thalion’s voice echoed in his mind.

"You’re the catalyst, Jason. You’re from outside. That’s why you can do what no one else can."

He had told him how to put Maldred into an eternal slumber. The vessel of pure blood. The sacrifice of equal power. And the catalyst from outside the Marrow.

Jason hesitated for a second because did this mean he had become an equal with this monster laying on the ground?

If he killed this body, would he also kill Thalion? The soul was trapped inside, fighting, resisting, buying Jason time. If the vessel shattered, would Thalion shatter with it? Or would he finally be free?

There was no body laying around either for him to body hop into as Jason’s mind had shown it was incapable of housing a consciousness that didn’t belong to him or tried to forcefully take over his mind.

"I don’t know. I don’t have time to figure it out."

But the battle beneath his feet was not the only war being fought.

Something was happening inside him.

Jason felt it as a pressure behind his eyes, a weight settling into his bones, a presence that had been growing since the lord of vines had transferred his power. He didn’t understand it, didn’t know what it meant. All he knew was that he was becoming stronger—stronger than he had any right to be.

It was why he had been able to fight Maldred at all. It wasn’t that the giant had suddenly become weaker. It was that Jason had become stronger considerably ever since the fight began.

But the power came with something else. A heaviness. A feeling of being tied to something vast and unkown, something that was slowly pulling at him. He didn’t know what it was but he feared he didn’t know how to stop it.

What he did know was that he was running out of time, he needed to save Thalion before this beast could pull a trick.

"I need to end this. Now."

He raised his hand. The golem’s fist lifted in response, its massive arm poised to deliver the killing blow.

Then he heard footsteps.

Jason turned.

Ylva stood at the edge of the chamber, her chest heaving, her claws extended. She was covered in dust and small cuts, her fur matted, her ears flat against her skull. She had run through the chaos of the Marrow to reach him. She had fought her way through rubble and rot to stand at his side.

She was ready to fight.

But the moment their eyes met, she stopped.

Her green eyes widened. Her claws retracted. Her tail, which had been rigid with readiness, slowly sank to a limp hang. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

And in that moment, Jason knew.

She could see it. The power, the perverse corrupted change. There was a time that Jason couldn’t even take a life but he had done so rapidly in quick succession these past couple of hours.

There was nothing behind those eyes.

The gold light in his eyes flickered briefly.

"Ylva," he said, his voice raw. "I don’t have much time."

But in the moment of distraction, a huge hole appeared right in his chest.

Jason had let his guard down for a second.

"H-Huh?" Jason muttered under his breath, the golem he made suddenly crumbled to the ground.

"JAAAASSSOOONNN!"

Ylva screamed at the top of her lungs as she rushed to pick him up.

But the moment her hands made contact with his skin, she instantly knew what had happened.

"H-He isn’t breathing!?"

Maldred smiled as Jason fell head first into the ground right in front him.

This was a fatal blow, and there was no way he was going to survive that.

She was the one responsible for this because if she had stayed where she was supposed to.

Jason wouldn’t have let his guard down nor be distracted by her presence.

Maldred slowly got up to his feet with a smile plastered across his face.

All the damage he had accumulated during his fight with Jason was healed.

"That was fun! I haven’t had this much excitement since my first fight with the Lord of Shadow!" Maldred exclaimed.

"A-Am I really going to die here?" Jason thought to himself as his consciousness slipped away and his heart gradually came to a stop.

-

Jason was dying or at least, his physical body was but The Marrow’s authority was slowly coming to an end too.

Jason found himself in a vast field of nothing.

"Is this purgatory?" Jason thought to himself but looking at his body, it was in the state he was in on the day he died in his world.

"I see... Was everything that happened all just one big wet dream?" Jason’s thought drifted.

He knew this was a possibility but it felt too real.

But Jason saw something or someone standing in the distance.

But this thing looked familiar the closer it looked.

It began to mirror Jason’s movements, every single thing.

"Um...?" Jason muttered to himself.

He was confused why it was mirroring him.

Jason reached for his crotch and this thing copied him.

Jason thought about momentarily but pushed that thought out his mind.

He walked towards it because he wanted to see what he was looking at.

And the closer he got, it became even more unmistakable what the thing in front of him was.

"Y-You are...!" Jason muttered because he was staring right at himself.

But it mirrored him, even with speech.

Jason thought it was copying him but this was simply his consciousness being replicated by "him".

They simply existed at the same time in the same space having the same train of thought.

But Jason noticed this place was different from the place he was.

Jason vaguely recalled what happened, he remembered being in a fight but he wasn’t quite sure with who or why he was even fighting in the first place.

"Something is wrong..." Jason thought, looking at the him standing in front of him.

He moved towards it and stretched his hand to touch it.

And just like he suspected, it replicated his very actions right back at him.

And the moment he made contact, memories flooded through his mind.

But there was something wrong with this, these memories didn’t belong to him.

"What the fuck is going om!?" Jason screamed at the top of his lungs, clutching his head in pain as his knees buckled almost instantly.

He rolled on the floor because his body reacted like this was the first time he was feeling pain.

Because what he saw, he had no words to explain. He didn’t experience these things from multiple perspective.

He experienced it from a stagnant one, like he was an observer.

Jason knew everything about the Marrow, the way it was formed, why it was formed, and everything else that came with it.

But it wasn’t for the reason he initially thought, if the Marrow’s barrier fell.

The world could very well go extinct because something dangerous rested here.

"Do you understand now?" The Jason standing right in front of him finally said something that differed from his own train of thought.

"Y-You...! You are the Marrow!" Jason barked but the pain grew worse.

Blood leaked from his eyes and mouth, Jason could barely breathe as he felt his life flash before his eyes.

The Marrow needed four lords not because they created a fixed point.

It was for one reason alone, there wasn’t a single person who could hold all its power.

[Ding!]

[System upgrade in progress....!]

[Applying update...!]

[Congratulations! Adaptation system successfully updated!]

Jason peaked at the system, for the system to even function in this state, it was proof he wasn’t dead.

But he peaked at "himself" and noticed it didn’t react to the system.

It was almost like despite being in this plane, it still couldn’t see his system.

The Marrow was on the verge of collapsing and this wasn’t just a barrier.

It was something sentient, it was something that he still couldn’t explain despite having all of the memories that came with it.

"It looks like I can finally rest..." Jason’s replica said but Jason wondered what it was talking about.

If his system was upgraded and he was still alive, it should be adapting to whatever it was what happening to him right now.

He had no idea if this was reality but if he could feel pain, it meant he was still grounded to reality to a certain degree.

Jason got up to his feet, the blood in his eyes had stopped flowing, the him he was looking at opened its mouth slowly in a very unnatural way before letting out a terrifying shriek as it titled its head upward.

A black mass shot out of it, but three more similar things occurred from three different axis. North, south, and east, all cumulating into the one his other form had just released.

Jason took a few steps back but with newfound memory.

He knew exactly what was going on.

The Marrow had taken back its powers granted to the lord and was about to manifest its true form right in front of Jason.

-

The Lord of Ruins felt it right away, the power and immortality granted to him by the Marrow was being striped away.

No, it was being siphoned right into Jason, Maldred felt his body became heavier all of a sudden like his lifespan had been cut into half.

He fell to his knees, his vision was blurry but the most concerning thing wasn’t what was going on externally but rather internally.

The souls and power he was able to accumulate thanks to the Marrow began to rebel against him.

He could no longer keep it all in check.

He began to trash around, his body and mind began to act like they had mind of their own.

His left arm moved without his permission and when he managed to regain control of it, his right hand did the same.

Ylva watched all of this in confusion, Jason was dying and this man was acting strange.

Ylva saw something in Jason’s pocket, it was the potion he was given by bandits they encountered before gaining access to The Marrow.

She had no idea what it was but she knew it wasn’t for consumption.

She threw it with pinpoint accuracy and it landed right into the mouth of Maldred.

For a second, it did nothing but the moment it dissolved into his mouth.

Maldred’s mana instantly became unstable, and without further ado.

He could no longer keep the soul contained, Maldred opened his mouth and every soul he consumed.

Or at least, still retained its sense of self, shot out of his mouth in large numbers.

Ylva was too stunned to speak or move.

She looked down at Jason and noticed the bleeding had somehow stopped.

"Are you the one doing this?"