Tug-of-war

"Jason..." His mother's voice sounded softly beside his ear, carrying a quiet strength. "Look at it. It's devouring, but it's also exposing itself. Its power doesn't come from nowhere. It's plundered-and what's been plundered leaves traces."

His mother's hand settled gently on his shoulder. The touch carried a hint of chill warmth, a reassuring connection belonging to the graveyard, to their blood.

Things buried deep in his memory were unearthed. Luo Ya's name exploded in his mind alongside that face. Those sweet apple pies, that Christmas present, those fragments of everyday life he had thought would never disappear-all of them now turned into searing rage that burned until even his bones trembled.

Despair wasn't an abyss. It was fuel.

The Necronomicon seemed to sense the change in him. The patterns on its cover churned even more violently, and a surge of dark energy, sickly sweet with blood, slammed toward him as though to devour him too. Wrapped in the wails of countless dead souls, that energy burrowed into his pores, piercing his entire body with agony.

But something stopped it again. The Necronomicon remembered the deal they had made. Jason couldn't hurt him, but likewise, he couldn't hurt Jason. He had been played.

But this time, Jason didn't swing his blade. Destruction, death, and slaughter had forged a violence that had practically become synonymous with him, but this time, he seemed to have another idea.

Something inside his body seemed to be driving it. He abruptly raised his hand, his palm facing the book on the desk-or rather, the phantom that had just formed.

Those newly formed, flesh-like things seemed to be drawn toward him, slipping into Jason's body strand by strand-the awakening brought by his mother, Luo Ya's death, had thoroughly ignited the power that had slept within him for far too long, a power sharing its source with the darkness.

If the Necronomicon's power was brutal "plunder," then his power was absolute "protection."

A bizarre scene unfolded.

The flesh the Necronomicon hadn't yet finished constructing trembled wildly. Its black patterns writhed like venomous snakes gripped by the throat, but still broke away from the phantom, dispersing like smoke before slowly drifting toward Jason and merging into his body.

Damn it... How dare you! You...

Those dark things, those wails from hell, those things that made up the book's energy-Jason was drawing them all out bit by bit, sending them surging along his arm and into his body.

He could feel the energy crashing around inside him, only to be tamed by a greater power-the obsession with protecting, the resonance of their origins, the backlash born of despair.

A faint layer of black mist, glinting coldly, began to coil around his body. This wasn't the Necronomicon's foul, filthy control, but power he had absorbed, power he commanded.

The Necronomicon let out a piercing screech, as though in pain, or in fear. The monsters it had summoned lost their supply of energy and dissolved into black smoke one after another.

But how could the Necronomicon willingly lose its power so easily? It frantically muttered incomprehensible incantations. This grand ritual suddenly came to a halt, and he sucked that power back instead.

"Ha ha..."

But this time, he wasn't merely taking back what was his. He wanted to seize Jason's too. This wasn't harm; this was fusion. He, too, had realized why Jason could absorb his energy.

Ash couldn't make sense of it, but he more or less understood that these two things had turned against each other. He had no regard for either of them, but between the two, he still hoped Jason would win.

But he couldn't decide or interfere with any of this, so while the two held each other in check, he planned to steal my corpse. Of the thirty-six stratagems, fleeing was best.

Hugging the wall, he slowly made his way to the other side. Indeed, neither of the two things present could spare any attention for him now.

Well then... good...

He had only just propped up Luo Ya's corpse when something flowed out: tiny remnants of golden fluorescence. They swirled around before those scattered golden specks finally settled on the Necronomicon's phantom. The Necronomicon felt his power increase a little more.

The Necronomicon laughed loudly. Looks like I win in the end...

But he soon stopped laughing. Those specks of fluorescence joined the soul within him that had been completely digested, then served as a guide, carrying his other powers with them as they surged toward Jason.

The Necronomicon could scarcely believe it. This soul could actually retain some awareness, and could even favor Jason. The Necronomicon began to struggle and writhe frantically. He could vaguely sense that he seemed to be finished.

Jason sensed something. He clenched his fist, the desire within him growing even stronger. He watched the frantically struggling book, his gaze beneath the hockey mask as cold as the ice on Crystal Lake.

Veins bulged along Jason's arm. His breathing beneath the mask gradually grew steady from its earlier heaviness, and the black mist around him became denser too, a sign of power settling within his body.

"No!"

The Necronomicon's screeches grew increasingly shrill. Those powers he could only make use of had actually become one with Jason. The phantom above the Necronomicon dissipated completely, and he returned to the form of a book. The black patterns on his cover began to crack inch by inch.

Jason didn't stop.

Suddenly, the Necronomicon unleashed a black shock wave, trying to blast Jason away and interrupt the final process. The blast sent a great swath of dust flying, even whipping the hem of Jason's clothes into a flutter.

But it was all futile, a final death struggle. When the last speck of golden fluorescence vanished entirely from the Necronomicon's pages and slipped into Jason's body instead, he slowly withdrew his palm-all the dark energy carried in those shock waves was greedily swallowed into his body, flowing through his blood vessels into every limb before merging with him.

The book no longer possessed any of its former splendor. Something had replaced it, becoming a more powerful existence.

Jason walked toward the constantly trembling book, his footsteps making dull sounds against the fallen leaves. The book wailed, unable to utter so much as a taunt. Jason seized him with both hands.

"Roar!"

Jason let out a restrained roar and pulled hard.

Riiip-

With a teeth-grating crack, a great gash tore straight through the Necronomicon's cover. A final surge of power erupted from within. The wails of countless dead souls poured out of the opening, but before they could scatter and escape, all that pain, all that despair, or whatever else had formed them-

Jason swept it all away, turning it into pure energy that flowed into his body. He could feel his strength growing wildly. The monsters he had once only been able to crush through brute force now looked flimsier than paper to him.

The Necronomicon's last remaining consciousness gathered together, shrinking frantically as it tried to turn into a thin wisp of black smoke and flee.

But Jason didn't give him that chance.

He raised his other hand and made a grabbing motion toward the black mist trying to escape. An invisible force instantly imprisoned it. No matter how it struggled, it couldn't break free.

He bent down and picked up the tattered Necronomicon.

The instant his fingertips touched its pages, as the book turned entirely to ash, countless pieces of information flooded his mind-the book's origin, the incantations he commanded, the magic he knew.

This long tug-of-war finally ended, with Jason winning an overwhelming victory.

And there in the cellar, beside the desk, his mother was still watching him tenderly, as though he were still that eight-year-old child. His mother embraced him one last time, kissed his forehead, and gently stroked Jason's mask.

"Goodbye, my child. May you always be happy and well."

Smiling, she gazed at Jason, this unfortunate child who had suffered discrimination since birth, but who was still his precious child. The two shared a final embrace. Then Pamela slowly faded before Jason's eyes, turning into specks of starlight.

Jason stared lingeringly at the last afterimage, his lips murmuring the syllables. "Mom, goodbye."

Jason understood that this time, his mother had truly left.

Perhaps there had been enough preparation, or perhaps this parting had given them enough time to say goodbye to each other. This time, Jason could finally accept it calmly, even with a little gentleness.

Immediately afterward, Jason instinctively looked for Luo Ya's corpse, only to discover that he was the only one left in the cramped cellar.

Ash had long since fled with my corpse. At that moment, he was putting on a Fast and Furious performance with my corpse in tow, flooring the accelerator through the potholed mountain woods and artfully turning everything in the car into grains of fried rice bouncing in a frying pan. He even had to reach over and buckle me in after my head hit the window.

He felt that something major had happened, but he couldn't say what. The surrounding fog had completely dispersed, and with his suicidal driving, he would soon be out of this place altogether.

Ash was both resentful and grief-stricken. He utterly loathed these things. They had taken everything from him: his girlfriend, his friends, and his sister... and now... He had truly considered him a friend, but it was too late to say anything now.

The car soon approached the edge of the dense forest, where people had been standing guard all along. When they saw Luo Ya's corpse, they gathered around, but that was all. They showed no other emotion, like a group of robots, merely bringing over some equipment to check for vital signs. The answer, of course, was no.

Ash grew even sadder. Look at you. So rich, yet your death was so senseless. Even now, I'm the only one grieving and mourning you.

He was escorted away and returned to his car. After receiving final instructions denying anything to do with a nuclear bomb, he left without anyone even telling him when the funeral would be.