Chapter 95: Weight Of King
Everyone was pinned to the ground, unable to move. Athena could barely lift her notebook off the stone. Sun’s face pressed flat against the floor, unable to force it back up. Even Kong strained against the weight bearing down on him and couldn’t rise.
Arthur tried to stand.
He failed.
The statue watched silently from the center of the garden, its golden eyes brightening slightly as it observed them. The pressure increased just a fraction more, and cracks spread further through the stone beneath everyone’s bodies.
Athena forced the words out through gritted teeth. "It’s reacting," she said, "to resistance." The more they struggled against it, the heavier it seemed to become.
While everyone else remained pinned, Mara forced herself to crawl forward, inch by inch, toward the base of the statue. She noticed faint writing carved into the stone around its feet. Her vision blurred from the strain, but she pushed through it, forcing the ancient words out one at a time.
"Only those who continue forward," she read, "may receive life."
Arthur lifted his head as much as he could. "Continue forward?" he managed.
Mara kept reading. "Strength alone cannot reach the garden," she said. "Only resolve."
Silence settled over the group.
Arthur understood then. This wasn’t a battle they could win by fighting.
"Don’t attack," he called out, voice strained under the weight pressing down on his chest.
Sun tried crawling forward and made it only a few inches before collapsing again. Mithra managed to get one knee beneath her before the pressure forced her back down. Athena nearly blacked out just staying conscious. Even Kong, for all his strength, couldn’t advance a single step further.
Everyone made some small amount of progress, then collapsed all over again.
Mithra forced herself forward.
One step and then collapsed.
Sun gritted his teeth until blood filled his mouth and managed half a step. Athena couldn’t even stand. Still, she never stopped trying. Even Melo dug her claws into the stone, dragging herself forward inch by inch.
Nobody succeeded but they never stopped trying.
The statue simply watched.
No emotion crossed its stone face.
No attack came.
It only waited.
Arthur planted Dusk into the ground beside him and used it like a cane, forcing his body upward against a weight that felt like it wanted to crush him back into the stone. His arms shook violently with the effort. Blood began dripping slowly from his nose, falling onto the cracked floor beneath him.
Every step sounded like thunder rolling through the chamber.
Boom.
Step.
Boom.
Step.
The King’s Mark on his hand began to glow, not because it was lifting any of the weight from his shoulders, but because it recognized something in what he was doing.
Athena whispered his name. "Arthur," she said, barely audible.
Then he fell.
Hard.
The floor cracked wide beneath him where he landed, and silence swallowed the chamber whole.
Before he could force himself back up, another spear planted itself into the stone right beside his own.
Vedas.
He said only one word. "Together."
Arthur smiled despite the blood running down his face. "Yeah," he said.
Nothing more needed saying. Everyone watching finally understood what made the two of them work the way they did. Not rivals competing to prove something. Partners, carrying the same weight because neither one would let the other carry it alone.
The pressure increased again, heavier than before. Both of them knelt. Both of them rose. One step forward. Then another. Every step left new cracks spreading across the stone floor. Blood fell freely now, dotting the ground beneath them. Neither one said they were tired. Neither one said they couldn’t continue.
Everyone else could only watch.
Sun whispered under his breath. "Those two are monsters," he said.
The statue’s eyes burned brighter still.
The gravity climbed to six times its original weight.
The air itself became heavy and breathing hurt. Even sound seemed slower. Arthur could hear his own heartbeat echoing inside the chamber.
Then seven.
Arthur laughed through the strain. "You really," he managed, "don’t want us reaching you."
Vedas tightened his grip on his spear. "Then let’s disappoint it," he said.
Arthur laughed again, and together they began to charge.
Ten steps.
Both still standing.
Nine.
Arthur stumbled but Vedas caught his shoulder.
Eight.
Blood dripped onto the stone.
Seven.
Neither stopped.
Six.
The statue never moved.
Five.
Arthur smiled. "...Almost."
The King’s Mark blazed with golden light. Vedas’s spear glowed in answer beside it. The entire chamber shook around them as they closed the distance.
Everyone watching braced for a fight.
Instead, Arthur thrust forward, not at the statue’s massive stone body, but directly at its eyes, at the glowing golden core burning within them. The King’s Mark flashed brilliantly the instant the spear made contact.
Crack.
The light inside the statue shattered.
Everything stopped.
Silence swept through the chamber, and the crushing gravity vanished all at once, releasing everyone from the ground beneath them.
The statue didn’t fall immediately.
Instead, it smiled, just slightly, an expression carved so subtly into the stone that it might have been imagined.
Golden light drifted across the chamber. It paused before every member of the group. And then the statue bowed slowly like offering respect to something it had waited a very long time to see.
Cracks spread rapidly across its entire body, and it began falling apart, piece by piece, the same way the Guardian Spirit’s memory had once dissolved before them.
The stone crumbled until nothing remained but scattered rubble across the garden floor. Then, from within the wreckage, a fragment of an ancient crown rose slowly into the air, wrapped in soft golden light.
It drifted toward Vedas and settled gently against his arm.
Silence held the room.
Then the fragment Arthur had already carried inside his storage pouch began to shine on its own. It rose out of the pouch and floated beside the new piece, both fragments drifting together until they met.
Click.
They joined seamlessly, becoming part of the same ancient crown.
Nobody said a word for a long moment.
Arthur finally smiled. "Looks like," he said, "the King accepted us."
Vedas stared down at the fragment resting against his arm, hands trembling slightly.
Arthur stepped beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "It’s good you didn’t look away, buddy," he said. A small smile crossed his face. "We’ll make sure people remember them."
Vedas nodded quietly. "Yeah," he said.
Then Arthur’s vision blurred, and a familiar notification appeared before his eyes.
[Additional Evolution Data Unlocked]
[Goblin King Evolution — Requirement Updated]
[Restore Ancient King’s Authority: 2 / 3]
Arthur smiled to himself. "One more," he said.
He didn’t explain what it meant. He just closed the notification and let it fade.
The garden around them began to glow. Every flower bloomed at once, opening fully in a wave that spread across the entire chamber. Every tree swayed gently despite the complete absence of wind. Golden water began flowing through the ancient irrigation channels lining the garden floor, spreading outward through roots and stems and soil.
It wasn’t treasure. It wasn’t raw mana.
It was life itself.
The entire greenhouse felt like it was breathing again, alive in a way it hadn’t been since long before any of them were born.
Mara stared at the flowing water in disbelief. "The Golden Spring," she whispered.
Athena’s voice came out just as quiet. "So this is what kept everything alive," she said, watching flowers long thought extinct bloom brighter than anything else around them the moment the water touched their roots.
Arthur knelt down slowly beside the nearest channel and filled a crystal vial with the glowing liquid, watching it settle inside the glass. He held it up, studying the light pooling within it.
Every challenge they’d faced since entering the Trial had led to this single moment.
He smiled softly. "For Voro," he said.
Mara grinned at him. Athena nodded firmly. Sun simply smiled without saying anything. Mithra’s eyes softened as she watched. Even Vedas’s expression eased into something quieter than before.
The mission that had brought them all this far was finally complete.
Arthur sealed the vial carefully, and the King’s Mark on his hand grew warm one last time. Golden light spread slowly across the chamber floor, and an ancient doorway began forming where none had existed a moment before.
Slowly the wall pulled apart and a door leading to pure darkness appeared.
Arthur froze the instant he saw it. His breath caught in his chest.
He knew this doorway.
"This," he said, unable to finish the sentence right away.
Athena looked over at him. "What is it?" she asked.
Arthur stared at the glowing entrance, his voice quiet. "It looks," he said, "exactly like the doorway inside the Goblin King’s castle."
The same darkness radiance.
The same certainty that stepping through would lead somewhere far beyond the ordinary world they had known until now.
The doorway finished opening, and waited for them to enter.
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