Chương 33: Chapter 30: The Weight of a Mountain

The Gravemantle Colossus fell toward the valley with enough mass to turn survival into a problem of geography. Its crippled left leg folded beneath the torso, broken mantle plates tore loose from its ribs. The entire sections of living stone came down around James in pieces larger than houses. Kevin's warning hit through the bond before the nearest slab separated, and James ran while gravity changed direction beneath every third step. Julie remained somewhere inside the ruined ankle.

James could feel pain, anger, and movement through their bond, which meant she was alive even if several thousand tons of collapsing monster currently stood between them.

"Julie, get the fuck out of there," James shouted as he jumped over a widening crack, and her answering irritation carried enough strength to reassure him.

"Yes, I know you were already doing that." Kevin fired silk into a tilted ridge and caught James around the chest. The strand tightened as a section of the Colossus's shoulder crashed where James had been running, launching stone shards in every direction. James swung beneath the web, released at the far end, and landed hard on a section of the boss's exposed thigh. The impact drove the air from his lungs.

He rolled before unstable gravity could pull him back toward the broken ankle, then planted the warhammer against the stone and forced himself upright. Kevin landed beside him with three legs already laying new lines across the moving mantle. Julie burst from the shattered ankle behind them. She used one collapsing plate as a ramp, launched across the gap, and wrapped around James's torso just as the Colossus finished crashing onto its side.

The valley shook beneath the impact, one nearby ridge split through the center, and violet crystals shattered beneath the boss's shoulder. James dropped flat until the worst debris passed.

"Everybody alive?" he asked as Julie tightened briefly around him and Kevin tapped the warhammer shaft. Across the valley, Isaiah raised one arm while Elizabeth stood beside him with blood already staining the cloth around her throat. The Colossus moved again. Its right leg pushed against the valley floor, trying to lift the ruined torso despite the destroyed ankle core.

Violet light gathered beneath the opposite knee, and Kevin's vibration sense found the second secondary core before Workman's Appraisal fully resolved it. [Secondary Gravitic Core detected.] [Location: Right knee.] James wiped dust from his mouth.

"Apparently one broken leg wasn't enough," he said as the boss forced its upper body several feet higher. Julie slid down from his torso while Kevin began mapping a path across the moving thigh.

"Let's make the other one match." The knee sat above them at an awkward angle. Living stone closed around the core every few seconds, and gravity repeatedly reversed across the joint as the Colossus tried to use the remaining leg for leverage. James activated Measured Strike and watched pale lines spread through the armor until one pathway converged near a narrow metallic channel. Isaiah saw James pointing and understood immediately.

His first arrow curved away beneath the gravity field, so he adjusted for the distortion and fired again. The second projectile crossed the valley almost sideways before striking the marked channel and lodging between two stone plates. Kevin attached silk to the arrow. The Colossus reversed gravity. James, Julie, Kevin, and every loose stone nearby launched away from the knee. Kevin's anchored lines caught them before they disappeared into open air, but the sudden pull tore the spider from James's shoulder.

James caught Kevin with one hand. That left him hanging from the warhammer with his other arm while Julie wrapped herself around his chest and locked her tail into a fracture in the mantle. The damaged weapon remained buried near the marked channel, and Kevin's silk still connected the hammerhead to Isaiah's arrow inside the knee. The Channel Rune Fragment pulsed against James's belt. He looked at the connection.

"Kevin, link the fragment," James said as he fought to keep his grip on the warhammer. The spider climbed along his arm, reached the belt, and ran one strand through the yellow-green crystal before reconnecting it to the arrow line.

"Keep the physical structure together. I'll deal with the force." The temporary Channel structure awakened. Violet energy traveled through the silk and entered the damaged spatial rune inside the hammer. The weapon sank deeper into the living stone as gravity transferred through the improvised connection. The Colossus reacted by increasing the reversal. James's legs lifted higher.

Julie's scales flared as she absorbed the edge of the gravitational field, but James felt the pressure building through their bond and sent a warning before she tried taking more.

"Save enough for the core," he said as another stone the size of a refrigerator flew past them.

"We only need one opening." Julie released the accumulated gravity through her next movement. She launched along James's body, crossed the warhammer shaft, and struck the cracked armor around the knee. Violet force discharged through her bite and opened the fracture farther. The core appeared. James activated Measured Strike. A golden path formed through the hammerhead, Kevin's silk, Isaiah's embedded arrow, and the exposed secondary core.

The System no longer treated them as separate pieces; the runes and silk had turned the entire arrangement into one temporary structure. James stopped trying to swing. He twisted the warhammer instead. The damaged spatial rune pulsed. Force traveled through the Channel connection and entered the knee core from inside its own gravitic pathway. Violet crystal cracked from the center outward. The core shattered. [Gravemantle Colossus secondary core destroyed.] [Secondary Cores Remaining: 2/4.] [Gravitic control significantly reduced.] [Outer mantle regeneration reduced.] Gravity returned to something closer to normal. James dropped onto the Colossus's thigh hard enough to make his vision flash white. Kevin struck beside him, immediately climbed back onto the hammer, and began replacing damaged silk without any concern for his own stiff movements. Julie remained wrapped around James until he forced himself onto one elbow.

"I'm alive," he said as her worry pushed through the bond, and he coughed dust from his lungs before sitting up.

"Everything hurts, but that seems to be the default setting now." The right leg collapsed. Both lower supports failed at once, twisting the Colossus farther onto its side. Its shoulder smashed through the already damaged ridge, exposing several inner layers of metallic stone. Elizabeth saw the opening. Isaiah grabbed her arm when she inhaled, but she pulled free before he could stop her.

Her throat was already badly damaged, and the pulse she released came out narrow enough that James barely heard it from across the valley. The effect was immediate. Sound struck the opened shoulder cavity. Several layers of living stone fractured inward and exposed another violet core beneath them. Elizabeth dropped onto one knee afterward and coughed blood into her hand while Isaiah reached her again. James stared at the opened cavity.

"That was the last one," he shouted toward her as he pointed to his own throat and then made a firm downward gesture. Elizabeth gave him a glare that said she understood perfectly and disliked the instruction anyway.

"Good. Be pissed at me quietly." Isaiah actually laughed. The Colossus slammed one hand into the ground. Stone across the valley began moving. Boulders, broken ridges, and entire sections of the mountain tore free and traveled toward the boss's arm. The material passed through channels inside its palm before spreading across damaged sections of the torso. James watched the repair process with Workman's Appraisal. Every piece of replacement stone passed through the newly exposed shoulder core.

"If we destroy that one, the regeneration ends," James said as he climbed onto a moving mantle plate. Kevin immediately followed, and Julie slipped ahead through the broken armor.

"Everything we break afterward stays broken." They crossed the Colossus while stone flowed in the opposite direction. James jumped between moving slabs before they fused into the mantle, while Kevin repeatedly pulled him clear whenever armor plates began closing around his legs. Julie reached the shoulder first. She disappeared into the cavity Elizabeth had opened. James followed until the passage became too narrow for the warhammer.

He left the weapon with Kevin, drew his carving knife, and crawled through the final gap on his elbows. The third core pulsed ahead. Dozens of channels connected it to the Colossus's arm and the western territory beyond. Gravity around the crystal pulled hard enough that Julie could barely move without being dragged toward its surface. James reached for her. The same force caught his hand.

His armor creaked as the Runebark plates, Iron Fox metal, and Hydra materials strapped across his body shifted toward the crystal. The core did more than alter weight; it pulled useful matter inward and fed that material into the boss's repair system. Workman's Appraisal highlighted a narrow channel carrying damaged material away from the core. Every structure that accepted material needed some path for waste, and the Colossus had built one directly into the same network. James drew the Anchor Rune Fragment.

He pressed it against the expulsion route and sent mana through the contact until the outward path fixed itself to the surrounding structure. Then he placed the Channel Fragment against the largest intake channel. The runes reacted. [Compatible runic interaction detected.] [Anchor establishes destination.] [Channel establishes transfer path.] James smiled.

"Kevin, I need a connection in here," he shouted toward the narrow passage, and a silver strand appeared seconds later along the floor. Kevin could not fit through the opening, but his silk could.

"Perfect. Connect intake to waste." The thread crossed the core. One section joined the Channel Rune Fragment to the largest intake path, while another connected to the anchored expulsion channel. James pulled the First Measure Carpenter's Square from his belt and pressed the Structural Foundation Rune between both connections. Pale-blue light spread across the arrangement. The core continued pulling stone inward. Then the Channel Rune caught the force.

Energy traveled through Kevin's silk and exited through the anchored waste route. The secondary core began drawing against itself, forcing matter inward while the same structure expelled it through the redirected pathway. Cracks spread across the violet crystal. Julie felt the pull weaken. She launched herself forward and buried her fangs into the largest fracture. Venom darkened the crystal around the bite, proving again that the Colossus's cores were something stranger than ordinary mineral.

James drove his carving knife into the crack beside her fangs. He twisted. The fracture widened. James planted one boot against the surrounding stone and shoved with both hands. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. The core split. [Gravemantle Colossus secondary core destroyed.] [Secondary Cores Remaining: 1/4.] [Regional stone absorption disabled.] [Outer mantle regeneration halted.] The Colossus screamed.

The sound traveled through stone instead of air, vibrating through James's teeth and bones while the shoulder cavity collapsed around him. Kevin hauled on the silk, and James grabbed Julie before both of them were crushed inside the broken mantle. They escaped seconds before the passage closed. Outside, the boss stopped healing. Every crack across its torso remained open. Stone that had been traveling through the valley dropped where it was, and the surviving secondary core glowed brightly inside the lower spine.

Isaiah pointed toward it from the far ridge.

"We know where the last one is," he called as Elizabeth leaned against him and remained mercifully silent.

"I assume you have another terrible plan." James watched violet energy leave the lower spine. It traveled upward through the boss. The light gathered inside the center of the chest.

"No," James replied as Workman's Appraisal finally penetrated the structure that had been hidden behind the distributed cores. He retrieved the warhammer from Kevin and watched the Colossus's back split apart.

"I think the mountain has one." The surviving secondary core tore free. It traveled through internal channels and entered the Colossus's chest, where another much larger crystal waited. The two fused together. Every floating boulder in the western territory stopped moving. [Gravemantle Colossus has abandoned distributed gravitic control.] [Final Phase initiated.] [Central Core exposed.] [Localized gravity output increased.] The chest opened.

A violet crystal larger than a wagon rose from inside the Colossus, surrounded by rotating rings of metallic stone. Gravity across the entire valley collapsed toward that single point. James's feet left the ground. So did everything else. Broken stone, shattered crystal, discarded arrows, and pieces of the Colossus rose around him. Kevin fired strands in every direction, but every anchor eventually tore free and joined the growing vortex around the central core. Julie wrapped around James's torso.

Her Rune-Touched Scales blazed as gravitational energy passed through them, and James felt pain build rapidly through the bond.

"Don't try to hold all of that," he said as another boulder spun past.

"This thing has more gravity than you have snake." Julie's answering annoyance remained strong. James considered that a good sign. Workman's Appraisal activated on the exposed central core. [Gravemantle Central Core] [Critical overload in progress.] [Localized gravitational collapse projected.] [Collapse imminent.] James stared at the final warning.

"Of course the fucking mountain has a self-destruct," he said as the vortex pulled them closer. Kevin's concern sharpened, while Julie tightened around James.

"Breaking it immediately might trigger the collapse, and leaving it alone definitely does." He looked toward the western mountains. The core could move boulders. It could lift pieces of the valley. It could pull James through open air. The mountain range itself remained where it was.

"Kevin," James said as the plan formed. He pointed toward the nearest cliff, several hundred feet beyond the Colossus.

"We need a line to something that bastard can't move." Kevin followed his gesture. Direct silk would curve into the core. James pointed at the stones orbiting the vortex instead.

"Use those as relays," he said as another slab passed near them, and Kevin understood before James finished.

"Build outward." The spider fired. One strand caught a rotating boulder. When the rock crossed the far side of the vortex, Kevin launched another line toward the next piece of debris. He repeated the process until a moving chain of connected stones stretched farther and farther from the central core. Several collisions destroyed sections of the route. Kevin rebuilt them. The final strand reached the mountain. It caught inside a deep fracture. Kevin reinforced the entire network.

[Living Reinforcement connection established.] [Recommended range exceeded.] [Structural instability detected.] James pulled the Anchor Rune Fragment from his belt.

"Efficiency can complain later," he said as he pressed the rune against Kevin's silk and sent mana into the connection.

"Right now it just needs to hold." Blue-green light moved across the floating chain. Each temporary connection fixed itself to the next. The rocks continued rotating, but the network stopped slipping. [Temporary Anchor network created.] James removed the Channel Rune Fragment. He connected it between the central core's field and Kevin's anchored path. The three-rune structure awakened. Structural Foundation held the connection together. Anchor fixed the destination. Channel provided the route.

Gravity began flowing away from the central core. The effect reached the mountain. A crack split across the distant cliff. James's eyes widened.

"Holy shit," he said as more force left the core.

"We're making the mountain carry its own gravity." The vortex weakened. Julie launched herself toward the exposed central crystal. She crossed the rotating rings and sank her fangs into one existing fracture. Violet energy entered Rune-Touched Scales, and James felt her body strain under the load. Kevin's silk began snapping. He replaced every broken strand. Silver fluid leaked from several leg joints, but he refused to release the network.

"Kevin, keep the channel open and stop reinforcing the hammer," James shouted as the weapon's outer Runebark plate cracked beneath incoming force. Kevin ignored the instruction completely and reinforced both.

"You stubborn little asshole." The damaged spatial rune became visible beneath the failed plate. Violet light filled its fractures. James activated Workman's Appraisal again. The central crystal had weakened enough for him to see through the outer layers. A new crack extended from Julie's bite through the center and crossed the fused secondary core inside. Measured Strike marked it. James needed one clean hit. The problem was the hammer.

While the Channel formation remained active, gravitational force made the weapon too heavy to swing. If James disconnected the system himself, the central core would immediately regain control of the valley. He looked toward Elizabeth. She hung near the ridge with Isaiah holding her upright. James pointed at the Channel Fragment attached to the hammer. Then he mimed knocking it away. Elizabeth understood. Isaiah grabbed her shoulder the moment she inhaled. She shook him off.

James would have yelled at her if there had been any other option. Elizabeth placed two fingers against the bruised hollow of her throat and released the smallest sound she could manage. The note crossed the valley as a narrow distortion and struck the Channel Fragment cleanly. The crystal separated from the hammer. The runic formation broke. Gravity surged back toward the central core, but most of the stored force had already been transferred into the mountain.

The exposed crystal shuddered as the unbalanced field returned. The warhammer became light. James planted both boots against one rotating metal ring. He raised the weapon. Julie still held the cracked core.

"Move!" James shouted, and the command carried through their bond with more clarity than his voice ever could. Julie released. James swung. The Warpstone Warhammer struck the glowing weakness. Measured Strike guided the impact through the crack. The Structural Foundation Rune held the damaged weapon together, lingering gravitic energy multiplied the effective weight at contact, and the broken spatial rune twisted the force through the outer crystal. The central core shattered. Violet light swallowed the valley.

James felt himself thrown backward. Kevin's silk caught his waist. Julie struck James's chest a moment later, and he wrapped both arms around her before all three crashed against the Colossus's ruined mantle. Then the mountain died. Metallic channels went dark. Stone plates separated. Crystal formations broke loose and shattered against the valley. Kevin anchored them again and again as the enormous corpse collapsed beneath their weight.

James slid down the dead Colossus with Julie wrapped around one arm and the warhammer dragging behind him until they finally reached the valley floor. Dust covered everything. The final section of the Colossus's head collapsed several yards away and disappeared inside the gray cloud. James remained on one knee until he became certain the ground had finally stopped trying to kill him. The System appeared. [Regional Boss defeated.] [Gravemantle Colossus — Level 15 slain.] [Third Regional Seal released.] [Regional Bosses Remaining: 1/4.] [Experience awarded.] Golden light entered James. [Level up.] [You are now Level 15.] [Automatic Rune Carpenter growth applied.] [Strength increased by 2.] [Intelligence increased by 2.] [Endurance increased by 1.] [5 Attribute Points available.] [Maximum Mana increased.] Additional light moved through both familiar bonds. [Julie has reached Level 14.] [Kevin has reached Level 14.] James remained still while the Level increase settled through him.

Strength returned to exhausted muscles, his breathing became easier, and the expanded Intelligence made the wreckage around him resolve into structures and materials he could understand despite the dust. He placed two free points into Vitality and one each into Agility, Willpower, and Perception. The boss had spent the entire fight proving that surviving long enough to use the right tool mattered more than adding every available point to raw force. [Vitality increased to 22.] [Agility increased to 16.] [Willpower increased to 18.] [Perception increased to 19.] Mana filled the expanded core. [Mana: 520/520.] Julie rested across James's shoulders. Several scales were missing near the lower half of her body, and the red-gold lines along her sides remained dim after absorbing more gravity than James wanted to think about. Kevin climbed onto the damaged warhammer. One of his legs moved stiffly, and silver fluid covered two joints, yet the spider immediately began checking the cracked plates around the hammerhead.

James stared at him for several seconds before laughing.

"You two are terrible at resting," James said as he lowered himself onto a flat piece of dead Colossus. Julie pressed closer against his shoulders, while Kevin continued inspecting the weapon as though James had said nothing.

"That is probably my fault." Elizabeth and Isaiah approached through the settling dust. Isaiah supported her with one arm, and the bruising around her throat had darkened until speaking looked like an objectively terrible idea. Elizabeth opened her mouth. James pointed at her immediately.

"No," he said as he gestured toward the mountain they had just killed. She narrowed her eyes, and he kept going before she attempted sound.

"You helped kill that. You are officially allowed to shut up for ten minutes." Isaiah smiled.

"I've been trying to tell her that for two Regional Bosses," he said as he lowered himself beside a broken crystal plate. Elizabeth gave him a silent glare, and he looked toward James.

"I think this officially qualifies as the worst hike I've ever taken." The dead Colossus shifted. All four of them reached for weapons. A small section of rubble rolled away from the center of the corpse. A fist-sized violet crystal floated above the stone, still glowing despite the destruction of every major core. James approached carefully. Workman's Appraisal opened. [Gravity Rune Fragment] [Contains a partial representation of the Gravity Rune.] [Potential applications: altering weight, directing gravitational force, anchoring moving objects, increasing or reducing impact force.] [Compatibility detected with Warpstone, Structural Foundation Rune, Anchor Rune, and Channel Rune.] James picked it up. The fragment became extremely heavy for half a second, then adjusted until it rested comfortably in his palm. Violet lines moved through the crystal in patterns that already made his Rune Carpenter instincts itch with possibilities.

"A Gravity Rune," James said as Kevin immediately climbed down to investigate the fragment. Julie lifted her head from his shoulder, while Elizabeth and Isaiah both watched the crystal carefully.

"That would've been useful before fighting the gravity monster." Isaiah looked across the cratered valley.

"The System appears committed to teaching through inconvenience," he said, and James could not find anything wrong with the assessment. Another notification appeared before anyone continued. [Western Regional Territory cleared.] [Gravemantle materials may now be harvested.] [Regional Seal location revealed.] A column of violet light rose through the Colossus's corpse. It turned north. Far beyond the mountains, lightning filled a sky that had become almost completely black. [One Regional Boss remains.] [Northern Territory: Stormcrown Roc — Level 15.] [Defeat the final Regional Boss to unlock the Central Territory.] James closed his hand around the Gravity Rune Fragment. His hammer needed major repairs, his armor had survived mostly because Kevin refused to let it fail, Julie had missing scales, Kevin was leaking silver fluid from multiple joints, and Elizabeth should probably be forbidden from making noise for the rest of the day.

"We're staying here tonight," James said as he looked across the enormous quantity of usable Colossus material around them. Isaiah released an obviously relieved breath, while Elizabeth nodded without argument.

"We rest, we harvest, and then I rebuild everything that mountain tried to destroy." James looked down at the rune fragments gathered across his belt and pack. Structural Foundation. Anchor. Channel. Gravity. For the first time since becoming a Rune Carpenter, the runes felt like pieces of the same toolkit instead of isolated tricks. He could stabilize a structure, fix it to a location, move force through it, and now manipulate the weight carried at the end. James looked toward the damaged Warpstone Warhammer.

Kevin followed his attention. Both of them reached the same conclusion.

"We're rebuilding the hammer first," James said as the spider tapped the shaft. Julie's amusement entered the bond while James glanced toward the northern storm.

"Then we go kill the bird." Lightning crossed half the horizon. Something enormous moved inside the clouds. The Stormcrown Roc knew it was the last Regional Boss alive.