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Chapter 220: Chapter 220: Dreadwings

Sol shot Thorne a knowing, razor-sharp, absolutely terrifying smirk. It was a look that said, I know exactly what you are doing, and I don’t care. Thorne’s poisonous smile faltered instantly. The Elder took a subconscious half-step back, suddenly feeling like he was the prey.

“It would be incredibly rude of me to refuse my birthright,” Sol continued smoothly, turning away from the sweating Elder to face the Chief. “I can’t just stay here to hide behind wooden walls.”

“Or… or you can just wait!” Veylara suggested frantically, her tactical mind racing for a compromise, seeing that his insistence was unbreakable. “Stay in the village! We will mobilize the hunting parties. I will personally lead our strongest, most elite warriors into the deep Orrath. We will track a high level beast, weaken it, and bring it back to the Grove for you to anchor safely!”

Kira immediately nodded heavily, her armor clattering. “Yes! Yeah, that seems like a perfectly good option! We can hunt for you, Sol. Just give us a week!”

Sol shook his head slowly, rejecting the offer outright.

“That won’t work, Chief, and you know it,” Sol said, his tone shifting from casual to the grim reality of a military commander. “We are at war right now. The Zharun Vanguard is massing on your borders. If you take your strongest warriors… your Layer Three elites… and vanish into the deep woods for a week to hunt a single beast, it will leave the Great Heartwood completely exposed. It will give the enemy the perfect chance to invade, breach the walls, and slaughter your people wantonly while you are out playing errand-boy for me.”

Veylara’s jaw clicked shut. She hated it, but his tactical logic was absolutely flawless. She couldn’t abandon the defense of the tribe.

“No need for more persuasion,” Sol said, offering Kira and Veylara a bright, surprisingly gentle smile. “I can understand your fear, and I appreciate your concern. Truly. But I am not as weak or as fragile as you might think. I have some… unique abilities. And my physical body is vastly stronger than it looks.”

He tapped his chest, right over where his heavy, Golden Liquid core resided.

“It won’t be easy for something to just snap me in half,” Sol assured them, projecting absolute, unwavering confidence. “And if there really is a fatal risk? If I run into something I absolutely cannot handle? I promise you, I will just turn around and run back. I’m pretty confident in my speed. I won’t throw my life away.”

Seeing the unyielding, iron resolve burning in his crimson eyes, Chief Veylara knew that it would be utterly useless to attempt to persuade him any further. He was a force of nature, and you couldn’t command the tide.

She let out a long, heavy, incredibly weary sigh. She gave a slow, reluctant nod, her face settling back into the stern, hardened expression of a Warchief who had seen her fair share of the world’s brutality.

“Okay,” Veylara conceded, her voice gravelly. “I understand.”

Kira opened her mouth to protest again, but Veylara silenced her daughter with a sharp, raised hand.

“But,” the Chief continued, pointing a stern, gauntleted finger directly at Sol’s chest, “you must keep your pride in check. Do not wander too deeply into the dark. The periphery of the Great Orrath is still somewhat safer than the depthI. f you encounter a beast and you realize you cannot fight it out, do not try to brave through it. Do not let your ego trap you. You have a blindingly bright future ahead of you, Sol. There is absolutely no need to waste it in some brief, foolish burst of heroism.”

“Understood, Chief,” Sol nodded respectfully.

“Yeah,” Zephyra croaked, hobbling forward again, her trembling hands clutching her staff. “Listen to her, boy. And remember this above all else… no matter what happens, no matter what tracks you find, do not go into the Eastern Swamps.”

The High Shaman pointed a finger toward a specific, sickeningly dark patch of fog in the distance.

“That is where the Dreadwings nest,” Zephyra warned, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “They are one of the absolute most fearsome, unnatural beasts in the entirety of the Great Orrath vicinity.”

Sol paused. He was arrogant in his physical cheats, but he wasn’t stupid. Information was the currency of survival in a fantasy world. If he was going into a high-level zone, he needed the monster manual.

“Hmm,” Sol hummed thoughtfully, crossing his arms. “What type of beast is it? I want to go in and take a calculated risk, High Shaman, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to blindly throw my life away. Getting specific information on dangerous areas and apex predators would be extremely helpful.”

Zephyra closed her milky eyes, shivering as if a cold wind had just blown through her bones. The mere memory of the creatures seemed to physically drain her.

“They are an abomination of the sky,” Zephyra began, her voice taking on the rhythmic, haunting cadence of a tribal storyteller reciting a nightmare.

“Picture a beast with a wingspan wider than three or four fully grown, armored men standing shoulder-to-shoulder,” she described, her hands outlining a massive shape in the air. “Their wings are not made of feathers or leathery skin. They are entirely translucent, like thin, stretched crystal, but they are deeply streaked with thick, pulsing black veins that glow with a sickening, faint light when the storm clouds gather.”

Sol visualized it, his mind rendering the creature in high definition. A giant, corrupted insectoid.

“Their bodies are incredibly long,” Zephyra continued, her voice trembling. “Segmented, and heavily armored like overlapping plates of jagged grey stone. They possess massive, wicked spines jutting aggressively from their thorax, designed to impale anything that tries to drop on them from above.”

Chief Veylara stepped in, taking over the description with the grim, clinical accuracy of a warrior who had fought them and lost good men to their jaws.

“Their mandibles curve outward and inward like paired, hooked executioner’s blades,” Veylara stated, her eyes dark with terrible memories. “And they are constantly dripping with a highly corrosive venom. It is a foul liquid that literally smokes and burns the grass when it touches the earth. It melts bone in seconds.”

“And their eyes…” She couldn’t help pause remembering thhem”They are vast. Bulging. Faceted like thousands of shattered, cursed gems. They glow a sickly, toxic green, or sometimes a burning amber, depending on the phase of the high moon.”

“But the true horror is not how they look, Sol,” Zephyra interrupted, slamming her staff into the moss for emphasis. “It is how they sound. Their flight is utterly deafening. It is a thrumming, vibrating, mechanical roar that literally shakes the branches of the ancient trees and makes the blood vessels in your own head hum until they feel like bursting.”

The High Shaman stepped closer to him.

“Listen to me carefully, Sol,” Zephyra pleaded, staring up into his face. “If you are walking in the deep woods, and you hear a sound like a thousand war-drums vibrating in the sky… just run. Drop your weapons, abandon your pride, and do not stop. Do not even look back over your shoulder. Just run as fast as your legs can possibly carry you.”

“They do not hunt alone like proud lord blood beasts,” Veylara added grimly. “They hunt in massive, coordinated packs. They swoop down from the canopy like diving sky-hawks, but they strike with the terrifying, mathematical precision of an insect swarm. Their crystal wings slice through the air with enough sheer, physical force to knock smaller beasts… and heavily armored men… completely off balance before the mandibles even reach them.”

Zephyra nodded slowly, her blind eyes staring into the dark fog of the Eastern Swamps.

“And they are ravenous,” the old woman finished, her voice a papery rasp. “They feed on both the physical flesh and the spiritual essence of their prey. When a pack of Dreadwings descends upon a herd, they do not leave bones to be scavenged. They drain the meat, the marrow, and the soul, until only dry, hollow, crumbling husks remain scattered in the mud.”

The Shamanic Grove was dead silent, the terrifying lore hanging over the initiates like a shroud.

“The ancient legends of the ancestors carry a specific warning,” Zephyra whispered to the wind. “To see a single Dreadwing circling in the sky above your village is the ultimate omen of famine, of massacre, or of war… for they devour not only the weak prey of the earth, but they devour the very spirits that give the world life.”

Sol stood in the silence, processing the horrifying description. Translucent, veined wings. Stone armor. Bone-melting venom. Faceted gem eyes. Pack-hunting essence-drainers.

He uncrossed his arms. A slow, terrifying, and completely inappropriate grin spread across his face, his crimson eyes burning with absolute, unrestrained excitement.