FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 199: Chapter 199: Why Destroy What You Could Share?

She asked questions like a barrage, barely giving him time to think.

“Rivers of honey?” Sol shrugged, his crimson eyes reflecting the emerald light of the forest. “I didn’t see any of those. But there were cities made of glass that reached the clouds, and carriages that moved without beasts, and people could talk to each other from across the world using little black stones.”

Lumi’s jaw dropped. She stopped walking, causing a group of passing warriors to grumble as they navigated around her. “Glass cities? Carriages without beasts? Wow… that sounds even better than honey rivers! Was it really cool there?”

Sol thought of the pollution, the noise, the endless stress of his old life, and then he looked at the breathtaking, living paradise of the Great Heartwood. “In some ways, it was. In others… I think I prefer the singing moss.”

“You’re weird,” Lumi decided with a decisive nod. “But a good weird. Like a Spirit-Hare. By the way, and is it true you can walk on the wind?”

“No, where did you hear that, I can’t walk on the wind. I just fall less gracefully than most.”

“Liar!” Lumi giggled, skipping ahead and then spinning back to look at him. “I have heard from others that you came from a flash of light!”

“Well, it was kinda true, but I definitely can’t walk in air, at least not yet.”

Lumi laughed, a bright, melodic sound that seemed to make the star-wing birds in the branches chirps in response. “I like you! You’re easygoing. Most of the ’other’ guys are total jerks. They walk around with their phantoms out just to make us step off the path.”

As they talked, they reached the massive circular building at the base of the Great Heartwood. The guards with the Bear phantoms were the same as yesterday. They didn’t say a word this time, their golden phantom eyes lingering on his new Veynar clothing, but they didn’t say anything and let him through with a grunt of acknowledgment.

However, instead of heading toward the main throne room where he’d met Veylara, Miya led him down a wide side-corridor lined with murals of ancient hunts. They emerged into a massive side hall, a semi-circular chamber with tiered stone seating that looked out over a private grove of the Heartwood.

The atmosphere here was the polar opposite of Lumi’s cheer. It was thick with tension, the air vibrating with the low-frequency hum of multiple high-tier phantoms.

As they approached the heavy doors, the sound of heated voices bled through the wood.

“…cannot trust their word! The Zharun have the souls of scavengers!” a deep voice roared.

Lumi winced, her bubbly demeanor faltering for a second. “They’re at it again,” she whispered. “The politics. It’s been like this since the war started.”

“I really don’t understand those marauder bastards,” Lumi said, her voice carrying a kind of naïve brightness even as her brow furrowed. “Isn’t this world big enough? Do they really need to annex others to survive?” She spoke half to herself, half to Sol, as though hoping the silence would answer back.

Her eyes were wide, and there was no bitterness in her tone… only confusion, the kind that belonged to someone who still believed the world could be fair if people chose it to be.

Sol looked at the closed door and spoke. “The world is big,” he said slowly, “but greed is bigger. For some, survival isn’t enough. They want control, they want power, and they’ll take it even if it means burning everything around them.”

Lumi tilted her head, lips pressing into a small pout. “But that’s so… stupid. Why destroy what you could share?”

Sol gave a faint, humorless smile. “Because sharing means seeing others as equals. Some people take because they are hungry,” he said. “Some because they are afraid. Some because they were taught to take.” He let the words settle, then added, softer, and some… some take because they think taking will make them larger than they are.”

Lumi frowned, puzzled by the last part. “Larger how?”

“Larger in their heads,” Sol said. “Larger than the land will allow. Larger than their own Sun Core can hold.” He looked past her, as if his eyes could see the horizon “When a person feels small inside, they try to fill the hollow with other people’s things. They bind themselves to violence because it makes them feel full for a moment. But it never lasts. The hollow stays.”

Lumi blinked, then laughed a little, the sound fragile. “Then how do you stop it? Teach everyone to be brave? Teach them to be kind?” Her questions were like small torches in the dusk.

Sol let out a breath that might have been a smile. “You teach what you can,” he said. “You bind spirits that will not devour you, you grow your Sun Core so you can stand when others fall, and you teach the children not to be afraid of the dark. But you also learn that some things are not fixed by kindness alone. Sometimes you must be the wall that keeps the tribe whole, and sometimes you must become someone you hate, you gotta kill, devour and survive” He looked at her then. “Mostly, you keep going. That is all anyone can do.”

Lumi nodded hard, as if he had given her a clear roadmap of the future. She looked at him and gave a bright smile and said, “I understand, now let’s go, lest everyone thinks I’m slacking off.”

Sol smiled and nodded, as Lumi pushed the door open.

…

The room was crowded. In the center, near a large stone table etched with maps of the forest, stood Warchief Veylara. She looked as majestic as ever, though there were dark circles under her stormy eyes. High Shaman Zephyra was there too, leaning against a pillar, her silver hair shimmering as she puffed on her blue-bone pipe, her eyes half-closed as if she were dreaming.

Kira was there, standing stiffly behind her mother, her face a mask of iron, and her eyes fixed on a man standing at the center of the floor.

And then there were the Elders… six older men and women dressed in heavy ceremonial furs, their phantoms manifesting as various predators that paced the floor behind them.

But the most glaring presence was a man standing at the center. He was older, his skin like wrinkled leather, with a hooked nose that made him look like a bird of prey, wearing a heavy cloak made of Vulture feathers. Behind him, a massive, translucent Vulture phantom with a twelve-foot wingspan circled slowly, its beak snapping in a sound that mimicked dry bone breaking.

Beside him sat Korash, the Boar-warrior Sol had met before. The resemblance was unmistakable. According to Lumi, this was Elder Thorne, Korash’s father and the leader of the Council’s “diplomatic” faction.

As Sol entered, the room went quiet. A dozen pairs of eyes fixed on him. Thorne took a particularly long, calculating look at Sol, his gaze lingering on Sol’s crimson eyes with an intensity that made Sol’s skin crawl. Korash simply narrowed his eyes, his Boar phantom letting out a low, territorial grunt.