FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 234: Chapter 234: Ambushed

The dense, thorny underbrush to his immediate right simply exploded outward in a shower of dirt shredded leaves, and pulverized wood.

A heavy, muscular blur erupted from the shadows of a petrified root, aiming a lethal, scythe-like swipe directly at his body. Sol didn’t even have time to blink.

Trusting entirely in the reflexes hammered into his cells, he violently pivoted on his heel, bringing the heavy shaft of his Void-Oak spear down in a brutal, sweeping block.

CLANG!

The impact didn’t sound like wood hitting flesh, it sounded like a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil. A jarring shock shot up Sol’s arms, making his teeth rattle.

The attacker didn’t bounce off. It absorbed the concussive blow with terrifying resilience, its massive claws tearing deep gouges into the dirt as it dug in, letting out a low, guttural hiss that sounded like grinding stones, followed by a wet, aggressive snarl.

Sol vaulted backward, kicking up a spray of damp moss, creating a solid ten feet of distance, and finally got a good look at his ambusher.

It looked like… well, a honey badger on steroids, easily possessing the bulk of a black bear but built incredibly low to the ground like a furry, heavily armored siege tank.

Its coarse fur was a stark, aggressive silvery-white along its broad back, contrasting fiercely with an obsidian-black underbelly.

But the most alarming feature was the raw, dense essence practically rolling off its thick hide in visible waves, actively hardening its fur into literal, jagged stone spikes that scraped against each other with a sickening clack-clack sound as it moved.

Sol’s Crimson-Sight flared automatically, piercing the creature’s thick hide to analyze the dense, chaotic red core burning inside its body.

An Omen-Blood, Sol realized, his eyes widening slightly in genuine surprise. Layer 1. Another one? That’s the second Omen-Blood I’ve run into since entering the deep woods. And it seems to be incredibly aggressive.

The Great Badger didn’t give him time to calculate the pros and cons. It charged, moving with a terrifying, low-to-the-ground speed.

Driven by the notoriously hyper-aggressive never-back-down nature of its species, it relied entirely on sheer, overwhelming physical mass and indestructible defense.

It closed the gap with a terrifying speed, a deep, rattling roar ripping from its throat as its jaws unhinged to reveal rows of yellowed, bone-crushing teeth dripping with foul-smelling saliva.

“Alright, tough guy,” Sol grunted, as he planted his boots, drew his arm back, and thrust the obsidian spear forward with the enough force to one-hit a normal layer 1 beast, aiming directly for the beast’s glowing yellow eye.

The Badger didn’t dodge and simply lowered its head.

SKREEEEECH!

It took the impossibly fast, obsidian tip directly against its reinforced, stone-fused skull. The spear sparked violently against the bone, the sheer kinetic force halting the beast’s momentum, dragging its claws through the mud, but the razor-sharp tip failed to pierce the armor.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sol muttered, his muscles straining as he felt the fierce resistance travel up the violently vibrating shaft.

The Badger lunged upward in immediate retaliation, ignoring the blow entirely, a furious barking snarl erupting from its maw. Its massive, scythe-like claws aimed to completely disembowel him in a single swipe.

Sol flooded his legs with strength and vaulted cleanly over the charging beast, feeling the sharp wind of the claws whistle just millimeters past his dark leather armor, carrying the rancid scent of wet earth and old blood.

Landing lightly behind the beast, Sol charged again. He swept the spear low, aiming for the beast’s flank, but just like before, the obsidian blade sparked and skidded harmlessly off the dense, stone-like hide with a loud thwack.

“I knew that badgers were tenacious animals, but not this tenacious,” he muttered, swaying backward as the beast immediately whipped around and snapped its jaws at his waist.

But of course, he didn’t give up easily and continued charging again and again, targeting different regions… the joints, the throat, the underbelly. The fight escalated into an unexpectedly brutal, high-speed brawl.

The Badger was a living tank, casually absorbing spear thrusts and heavy kicks that would have completely pulverized the jaguar he fought yesterday. It retaliated with a relentless, frantic flurry of slashes and bites. Snip. Slash.

Sol swayed, parrying a claw strike with the shaft of his spear and sidestepping a lunging bite, forcing him to weave, duck, and parry constantly. The clearing was rapidly being torn to shreds, the damp earth churned into a muddy arena of flying moss, shattered roots, and grunting exhales.

But Sol was a biological engine of infinite stamina. He didn’t tire, and he didn’t slow down.

After exchanging a few more heavy, sparking blows without any lethal result, Sol parried a massive claw strike, created a solid distance between them, and quickly re-evaluated his strategy.

Piercing damage doesn’t seem to be much use against that specialized earth-armor, Sol analyzed, watching the Badger aggressively shake off a thrust to the ribs like it was a minor annoyance. I need more raw, concussive blunt-force trauma to rattle its brain inside that thick skull.

He suddenly got an idea.

As the massive Badger spun around, tearing up chunks of moss to re-engage with another roaring charge, Sol became a blur. He didn’t retreat, instead, he continued relentlessly battering the beast. Meanwhile, he used his superior speed to step directly inside the beast’s guard.

The Badger snapped its jaws with lightning speed, missing Sol’s thigh by an inch, its teeth clicking together with the metallic CLACK of a sprung steel trap.

In the exact same moment, Sol channeled his pure, unadulterated physical strength into his arms, turning his muscles into hardened steel cables. He didn’t use his heavy essence, relying solely on his strong body. He swung the heavy Void-Oak spear like a colossal baseball bat.

CRUNCH!

He bypassed the heavily armored skull entirely and drove the solid, dense wood directly into the softer, slightly less protected base of the Badger’s neck.

The impact was absolutely devastating. It sounded like a thick tree branch snapping in a quiet forest. The sheer, crushing density of Sol’s physical strike hit with the force of a runaway boulder, shattering the beast’s cervical vertebrae instantly with a sickening snap that echoed through the trees.

The massive badger collapsed. Its own forward momentum carried it so fast that its heavy snout plowed a deep, three-foot trench into the dirt, kicking up a wave of mud before it finally stopped.

It twitched once, a low, gurgling sigh bubbling up through the blood filling its jaws, before going completely, permanently still. The heavy earth essence surrounding it instantly fizzled out, leaving just a dead, oversized mammal in the mud.

Sol stood over the massive carcass, panting slightly, rolling his shoulders to bleed off the surging adrenaline.

“Tenacious little bastards, aren’t they?” he breathed, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. It had been a surprisingly tough fight for a Layer 1, proving that bloodline quality drastically altered a beast’s combat potential.

But well, it was also a fact that he hadn’t used his Golden Liquid essence or his Free Use energy in the fight. He had deliberately kept his magic leashed, wanting to test his pure physical limits and hone his martial reflexes in a real, life-or-death brawl. And his body had passed with flying colors.

He relaxed his grip on the spear, taking a moment to catch his breath. But before he could even reach for his bone knife to inspect the corpse, the distant rumbling he had been following suddenly escalated into a deafening, earth-shattering noise.