FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 248: Chapter 248: INTERCEPT!

Then he roared, driving forward with golden essence flooding his veins. The spear vibrated, light burning along its edge, and the impossible shell began to crack. The blade punched through, grinding past the chitin wall, splitting it open with a sound like stone shattering.

SQUELCH-CRACK!

The blade sheared cleanly through the cartilage and buried itself deep into the creature’s internal organs. Sol violently twisted the shaft and ripped it free in a geyser of superheated, acidic blood.

Guard A let out a horrifying, high-pitched mechanical shriek, It staggered backward, its life force rapidly draining from the massive wound.

But the mental stun had worn off.

Guard B, enraged by the mortal wounding of its partner, went completely berserk. Its crimson runes flared with an almost blinding intensity. It didn’t bother with calculated strikes anymore, it launched itself at Sol in a frenzied, desperate whirlwind of superheated blades, intending to chop him into pieces.

Sol was entirely off-balance from his killing strike. His left arm was still numb from the burn, and his lungs were screaming for oxygen. He parried the first frantic strike, the impact sending him stumbling backward. He dodged the second, feeling the heat singe his eyebrows.

But the third strike was a perfect hit.

Guard B swung its massive right scythe in a low, unavoidable arc, aimed directly at Sol’s torso.

The blow slammed into Sol’s torso with the force of a falling tree. His ribs crunched, his lungs collapsed, and the world went white. He was lifted from the ground, flung like a rag into the air.

His back slammed heavily against the petrified pillar, the stone biting into his spine. The impact stole the air from his lungs… his chest seized… no air, no breath, only fire in his lungs. He coughed, but nothing came, only blood rising bitter at the back of his throat. His vision blurred, stars bursting behind his eyes.

And a second later, pain radiated outward, sharp and endless, every nerve screaming, and the taste of iron rose in his mouth. His arms twitched, his spear was out of position, angled uselessly against the wall.

He tried to draw breath again, but it was like swallowing knives, and his ribs screamed, his breath finally coming in ragged bursts. But the scythe’s shadow fell across him like a closing night.

He tried to raise the spear, but it didn’t budge, so he had no leverage to block, no space to slip aside.

For a heartbeat, it felt as though the jungle itself had gone silent, waiting to see if he would rise or die where he lay.

I’m dead, Sol thought, time dilating as the glowing red blade came closer and closer.

Finally, as the glowing red blade carved toward his waist, Sol suddenly smirked and sent a violent, razor-sharp command down the mental link.

INTERCEPT!

SKREEEEE!

From the deep shadows, a small, rusted-red blur launched itself through the air. Bound by the absolute, tyrannical authority of Sol’s Domination power, the primitive insect didn’t hesitate. It was a flawlessly calculated trade: a pawn for a king’s life.

The scout threw its entire body directly into the path of the superheated scythe at the exact, perfect millisecond.

CHUCK-HISS.

The massive, glowing blade slammed into the worker ant. The Layer 1 carapace offered virtually zero resistance against the Layer 2 weapon. The worker was instantly, brutally bisected, its acidic blood exploding outward.

But physics still applied in the Great Orrath.

The impact of cutting through the dense, physical mass of the scout ant, combined with the sudden explosion of its internal fluids, caused the superheated scythe to drag. It lost its lethal momentum. The arc slowed down just enough.

The blade grazed Sol’s stomach, slicing a shallow, searing cut across his abdomen, but it failed to cleave him in half.

The scythe was momentarily stuck in the bisected corpse of the scout.

Sol’s eyes blazed. The calculated trade had worked flawlessly. He didn’t waste the opening he had just bought with blood.

Ignoring the burning pain across his stomach, Sol gripped his spear with both hands, stepping inside Guard B’s compromised guard. He channeled the absolute last reserves of his physical strength, letting out a raw, guttural roar that echoed through the massive chamber.

He drove the heavy, blunt butt of the Void-Oak spear directly upward into the underside of the Guard’s massive, faceted jaw.

CRUNCH!

The concussive force was apocalyptic. The impact shattered the creature’s mandibles, drove the bone fragments directly up into its brain cluster, and snapped its thick neck backward with a sickening crack.

The fifteen-foot monstrosity instantly went limp. Its superheated scythes hit the ground with a loud clang, the yellow runes on its carapace immediately fading to a dull, dead grey as it collapsed heavily into the sea of glowing royal eggs.

Silence slammed back into the Royal Chamber, broken only by Sol’s ragged, heavy panting.

He leaned heavily against his spear, his whole body trembling. Blood dripped from his seared shoulder and the shallow cut across his stomach. He looked down at the bisected remains of the rusted-red scout ant lying near his boots.

“Perfect aggro management,” Sol whispered hoarsely, a grim, ruthless smile cutting through his exhaustion. “A worthy sacrifice for the carry.”

He hadn’t forgotten about the Layer 1 ant he had hijacked. In fact, he had intentionally ordered it to keep closer and remain hidden in the shadow, and since they were the same species, the guards didn’t care about it, he kept the Silver Liquid tether active in the back of his mind for exactly this kind of worst-case scenario.

But the respite was an illusion.

The vibrations in the floor were no longer a dull hum. They were sharp, frantic, and rapidly approaching. The high-frequency, chemical clicks of thousands of enraged, panicking ants echoed down the labyrinthine tunnels, it seems they had found the dead ants.

They were coming. And they were coming fast.

Sol ripped his gaze away from the tunnel entrance and turned to the center of the room.

The massive, bloated Queen still rested on her dais. Her physical body was too weak and comatose to move, but the sudden death of her Royal Guards had finally triggered a reaction. Her massive antennae twitched. A slow, terrifyingly oppressive mental pressure began to leak from her form, pressing heavily against Sol’s skull.

She was waking up.