Chương 34: Chapter 31: Weight Shift

James gave the dead Gravemantle Colossus until sunrise before he started cutting pieces out of it. He had learned enough from the Hydra to respect any organ, crystal, gland, or suspiciously glowing lump that remained active after death, so Workman's Appraisal went over every section before his knife or chisel touched it. Kevin followed him despite the stiffness in one rear leg, while Julie spent most of the morning stretched across a sun-warmed slab and pretending her missing scales did not hurt.

The Colossus had lost most of its magic when the central core shattered, but several pieces retained useful properties. Thin violet crystals still changed weight unpredictably when James rotated them, metallic veins from the shoulder carried weak traces of gravitic energy, and several dark mantle plates became noticeably heavier when struck. Carrying all of it north would have been absurd, so James selected the cleanest pieces and left the rest where it fell. [Gravitic Channel Stone] [Uncommon crafting material.] [Conducts gravitic and force-altering effects with reduced structural loss.] [Compatible with Channel, Gravity, Anchor, and Structural Foundation rune structures.] James turned the narrow strip over in his hands.

"You're going in the hammer," he said as Kevin immediately crawled closer to inspect it. The spider tested the material with two strands of silk, then sent an approving pulse through their bond. Elizabeth had recovered enough to move without Isaiah constantly watching her balance, though her throat remained wrapped in clean cloth.

She helped sort usable Colossus material by studying how James tested each piece, discarding anything cracked through a primary channel and keeping the sections whose internal lines remained intact. When she handed him three nearly flawless strips of gravitic stone, James looked from the pieces to her.

"You've done this before?" James asked as he compared the channels. Elizabeth shook her head, pointed at him, then repeated the motions he used when examining the materials. James nodded once when he understood.

"You watched what I was doing." Elizabeth gave him a small, satisfied nod. Isaiah looked up from prying arrow-sized crystal splinters out of a broken gravitic formation and sighed dramatically.

"She learns disgustingly fast," he said as he braced one foot against the stone.

"It becomes irritating once you've known her long enough." Elizabeth threw a pebble at him. Isaiah ducked without looking.

"You see?" he said as he resumed working.

"Even her aim is improving." By midmorning, James had turned a flat section of mantle into a workbench. The Warpstone Warhammer lay across it beside his carpenter's square, Gravity Rune Fragment, Channel Rune Fragment, carving tools, replacement Runebark, Hydra scales, and several lengths of gravitic channel stone. Kevin positioned himself opposite James and immediately began removing the worst burned strands from the old reinforcement. The hammer looked terrible once James stripped the emergency repairs away.

The spatial rune remained fractured, two Runebark plates had split completely, and several internal connections depended on Kevin's silk because the physical joints underneath had failed during the Colossus fight. The Structural Foundation Rune had kept the damage distributed enough to prevent catastrophic failure, but James had pushed the weapon well beyond anything he would have considered safe before Integration.

"Every time I fix you, I make the next failure more expensive," James muttered as he removed one cracked plate. Kevin sent an image through the bond of James repeatedly hitting Regional Bosses with the hammer, followed by the obvious result of broken equipment.

"Yes, thank you. I understand cause and effect." James replaced the weakest reinforcement channels with strips harvested from the Colossus. He carved fragments of the Structural Foundation Rune across each one, aligned them with the existing geometry, and let Kevin stitch every connection together with thin Silver Thread. Pale-blue light spread through the new pieces once the structure became continuous. Then James brought the Gravity Rune Fragment close. Violet light moved through the channel stone.

The warhammer head lifted slightly from the workbench. Isaiah stopped cutting an arrow shaft.

"You just made the hammer lighter," he said as he leaned toward the weapon. His attention sharpened immediately, which James had learned was usually a warning sign.

"Can you do the opposite?"

"I haven't even confirmed the first part is stable," James replied as he watched the violet channels. Kevin extended silk across the hammerhead and measured how the shifting weight changed strain through the structure.

"So naturally, you're already asking how to weaponize the second part." Isaiah smiled.

"You understand me."

"That's unfortunate." James spent nearly an hour rebuilding the hammer before allowing himself to test it properly. The final result still carried scars from almost every major fight since the Warp Totem, but the head no longer shifted inside its reinforcement, and Kevin's Living Reinforcement could travel through the gravitic channel stone without crossing the most damaged sections first. A blue panel appeared. [Warpstone Warhammer repaired.] [Compatible material integrated.] [Gravitic Channel Stone incorporated.] [Temporary function available: Weight Shift.] [Weight Shift] [Temporarily alters the Warpstone Warhammer's effective weight.] [Current control remains limited.] [Incomplete Gravity Rune detected.] [Damaged spatial structure detected.] [Excessive use may cause structural failure.] James wrapped both hands around the shaft. He fed a small amount of mana into the violet channel near the grip, and the hammer suddenly felt light enough to move with one hand.

The head still occupied the same space and retained its physical size, but the burden on James's arms nearly vanished. He swung carefully. The hammer accelerated far faster than before. James cut the mana just before the head would have struck the workbench, and the full weight returned so abruptly that his shoulders jerked forward. He stopped the weapon inches above the stone and stared at it.

"Light during the swing," James said as he slowly straightened. He looked at the faint violet lines fading along the head.

"Heavy when it matters." Isaiah was already holding up an arrow.

"Three arrows."

"One."

"Two." Elizabeth raised two fingers from where she sat beside the harvested materials. James stared at her.

"You are supposed to help prevent bad ideas." She lowered one finger. Isaiah laughed.

"Compromise." James eventually accepted one of Isaiah's strongest arrows. He replaced the ordinary point with a narrow gravitic crystal splinter, added a tiny strip of channel stone beneath the head, and let Kevin wrap a fine silk line down the shaft to keep the assembly connected. The result became noticeably lighter when James brought the Gravity Rune Fragment near it. Remove the fragment, and the arrow returned to normal. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"This has no stable power source," James said as he handed it back.

"If it catches enough gravitic energy from somewhere else, it might become lighter. It could also become heavy while you're still holding the bow and dislocate your shoulder." Isaiah examined the arrow more carefully.

"Could also pull me toward the target." James stared at him. Isaiah shrugged.

"I'm identifying possibilities."

"You are not a Spiderman, dumbass." James laughed. Kevin looked at him questioningly, but James just shrugged in return. The breastplate took another hour. James replaced several torn Hydra-hide bindings, layered flexible neck scales across the openings left by the Colossus, and inserted short sections of gravitic channel stone where force had repeatedly concentrated during previous fights.

Kevin reinforced the new joining points, while James extended parts of the Structural Foundation pattern through the repaired layers. [Composite Monster-Material Breastplate improved.] [Runebark Plate retained.] [Hydra Scale incorporated.] [Gravitic Channel Stone incorporated.] [Structural Foundation compatibility increased.] [Potential upgrade path detected.] James dismissed the final notice.

"The System really enjoys reminding me everything I build is unfinished," he said as he tightened the breastplate. Elizabeth stepped over and tested one side by pressing against the Runebark, then checked the new Hydra-scale overlap near his ribs. She nodded when the layers returned to position correctly. James gave the central plate one final tug before securing his tools.

"Good enough until I have a workshop that doesn't double as the corpse of something we killed yesterday." The rest of the day and night they spent resting. They left the western mountains before midday of the next day. Gravity normalized as they traveled north, and James found ordinary weight strangely inconvenient after spending hours inside a region where rocks occasionally decided the ground was optional.

He resisted using Weight Shift simply to make the hammer easier to carry because the function remained unstable and the weapon had already suffered enough experimental abuse. The landscape changed steadily through the afternoon. Broken mountains gave way to rolling stone hills, then forests where every tree leaned north under constant wind. Clouds thickened ahead until the sky became a dark sheet flickering with blue-white light. Thunder stopped being an occasional sound. It became background noise.

By the time they reached the outer Northern Territory, James could feel electricity prickling through the metal in his armor. Kevin remained close to the hammer instead of spreading exploratory silk widely, while Julie tasted the air and reacted to warm shapes moving high above the trees. A blue warning appeared. [Northern Regional Territory entered.] [Regional Effect: Tempest Field.] [Electrical activity increased.] [Wind pressure increased.] [Storm-aligned creatures empowered.] Lightning flashed across the clouds. Something enormous moved behind them. James looked up. The Stormcrown Roc was still more than a mile away, circling one of the northern mountains. Even at that distance, the bird's wingspan looked ridiculous, and black horns curved around a crystal formation burning between them like a crown made from trapped lightning. [Stormcrown Roc — Level 15] [Final Regional Boss.] The Roc beat its wings once. The entire sky seemed to move.

"Down!" James shouted as he drove the repaired warhammer into the earth. Kevin fired silk toward trees, exposed roots, and boulders around the group while Elizabeth dropped low and Isaiah wrapped one arm around a leaning trunk. The wind hit. James's boots carved trenches through wet soil. Elizabeth caught one of Kevin's reinforced strands around her forearm, while Isaiah became fully airborne despite his grip on the tree.

Kevin tightened the line around his waist and dragged him back before the gust carried him over the nearby slope. Branches ripped from trees and spun through the air. One struck James's shoulder hard enough to crack bark, but the repaired breastplate spread the impact across Runebark, Hydra scale, and gravitic stone without folding inward. The wind finally weakened. Isaiah landed in the mud. He remained there for two breaths before looking toward the distant Roc.

"One wingbeat," he said as he climbed upright.

"It did that from over a mile away." James pulled the hammer free.

"We need cover before it decides to stretch." A flash of lightning illuminated the clouds. Dozens of smaller shapes appeared beneath them. Isaiah looked upward.

"Those aren't clouds." The first bird descended. [Stormwing Hunter — Level 12] Another followed. [Stormwing Hunter — Level 11] A third circled lower. [Stormwing Hunter — Level 13] James stopped reading after the System identified more than a dozen. At least twenty Stormwing Hunters spread across the sky, their blue-black feathers carrying branching lines of electricity beneath broad wings.

"The boss has friends," Isaiah said as he nocked an ordinary arrow. The experimental gravitic shaft remained secured separately in his quiver.

"I was hoping the giant murder bird had social problems." James raised the warhammer.

"We've met enough monsters to know optimism is dangerous." Elizabeth pointed toward a low formation of black stone several hundred yards ahead. The rocks formed a narrow break beneath an overhanging ridge, giving them cover from anything trying to attack directly from above. James nodded.

"We make the rocks. Force them low enough to hit." Isaiah fired first. The arrow entered the wind and curved sharply left, but Isaiah had accounted for most of the movement before releasing. The projectile crossed back through the Stormwing's dive and struck beneath one wing. The creature crashed through the branches of a leaning pine. Three more dropped behind it. Julie launched from James's shoulders when the first gathered lightning between its talons.

The bolt struck her in midair, blue-white energy spreading across Rune-Touched Scales until every red-gold marking on her body blazed. Pain hit through the bond. Julie kept moving. She caught the Hunter's neck between her jaws as it passed and discharged part of the absorbed lightning directly through the bite. The bird convulsed, its wings locked, and both creatures began falling. Kevin reacted instantly. A silk line caught Julie around the middle and pulled her sideways before the Stormwing struck the ground.

She hit James across the chest instead, hot scales steaming in the rain as she immediately began climbing back toward his shoulders.

"Good catch," James said as he steadied her. The remaining electricity moving beneath her scales felt uncomfortable even through the bond.

"Don't hoard that shit." Julie sent confidence. James had learned that confidence was not evidence. Another Hunter dived toward him. James activated Weight Shift. The warhammer became nearly weightless. He swung upward much faster than the bird expected, then released the effect immediately before contact. Full mass returned as the hammerhead struck beneath the Stormwing's chest. Bones shattered. The creature folded over the weapon and flew backward into another member of the flock. James nearly followed it.

The returning weight tore through his wrists and shoulders, forcing him to stagger several steps before Kevin reinforced the shaft and helped stabilize the weapon. James tightened his jaw while adjusting his grip.

"Timing needs work," he said as two more birds began descending. Kevin sent an image of the hammer breaking, followed by the head striking James directly in the face.

"I understand the concern. We're still using it." Elizabeth stepped forward without touching her throat. She drew her short sword and waited until the nearest Stormwing committed to the dive, then turned beneath its talons and cut through the thinner feathers below one wing. The bird crashed beside her. A second strike opened its throat. Isaiah put an arrow through another creature's chest, and Julie released stored lightning into the one she had already wounded.

James caught the final diving Hunter with another shortened Weight Shift swing, restoring the hammer's mass earlier this time and controlling the recoil far better. Then Kevin's warning hit through the bond. James turned. The last Stormwing remained higher than the others. Electricity gathered beneath both wings.

"Kevin, lines down!" James shouted. Too late. The bird released its lightning into the wet ground. The bolt struck mud, entered a tree root, and jumped into one of Kevin's silk anchors. Every connected strand flashed blue. Kevin convulsed on James's shoulder. Isaiah screamed as electricity ran through the silk around his waist. Elizabeth tore the line from her arm, while James felt Kevin's pain slam through the familiar bond hard enough to make his knees buckle. The spider fell.

James dropped the hammer and caught him against his chest.

"Kevin!" James crouched behind a fallen tree while another bolt struck nearby. Two of Kevin's legs remained curled beneath his body, and the pale-blue markings along his abdomen flickered irregularly.

"Look at me." Kevin's front eyes moved. The familiar bond remained. James exhaled hard enough to shake.

"No more wide networks in a lightning storm unless we give the electricity somewhere else to go." Kevin sent a faint image. Ground. James understood.

"Yeah," he said as he lifted the spider carefully onto the repaired hammerhead.

"We ground the fucking web." Another lightning strike hit the fallen tree. Wood exploded across James's armor. They ran. The black-stone formation waited ahead, and Isaiah covered the retreat while Elizabeth stayed close enough to keep him from being isolated. Julie remained on James's shoulders with her markings still glowing, and Kevin clung to the warhammer while James carried most of his weight for him. Stormwing Hunters circled above but could no longer dive cleanly once the group reached the rocks.

James crossed beneath the overhang and found a narrow opening extending deeper into the mountain, its walls threaded with metallic veins that glowed whenever lightning struck outside. Kevin stirred. His vibration sense touched the stone. Then the spider sent James an impression of open space somewhere deeper inside. Large open space. Multiple moving bodies. And something round. Three of them. James looked into the darkness. Lightning flashed inside the mountain.

For one instant, he saw metallic roots running through the walls toward a distant chamber. Something enormous screamed above them. A smaller cry answered from somewhere below. James tightened his grip around the repaired Warpstone Warhammer.

"Apparently the bird has a basement."