FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 268: Chapter 268: The Divine One Has Returned!

Just as he tied the final knot on his makeshift rucksack, a sound rolled over the valley.

It wasn’t the mechanical clicking of insects or the territorial roar of a normal mammal. It was a low, unnatural, multi-tonal hum that physically vibrated the muddy water in the acid pools. The ambient temperature seemed to plummet. It echoed from the deep, uncharted northern expanse of the jungle, carrying an aura of ancient, suffocating hunger.

The dinner bell had officially been rung, and the Great Orrath was answering.

Standing in the center of the ruined crater, Sol felt it before he heard it… a deep, rhythmic vibration thrumming through the soles of his boots, accompanied by a heavy, suffocating pressure in the humid air.

The sheer volume of Lord-tier blood and vaporized essence coating the valley had acted as a beacon, cutting through the natural territorial boundaries of the jungle. From the deep, uncharted northern expanse, the true apex horrors of the primordial world were finally waking up, slithering, and stomping toward the free buffet.

Sol felt a prickle of genuine danger raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Let them fight over the scraps,” Sol murmured, a cold, exhilarated smirk playing on his lips.

Leaving behind thousands of tons of high-tier essence meat, volatile acid sacs, and the shimmering, indestructible stone spikes of the Badgers felt like a massive, tragic waste. His innate hoarder instincts screamed at him in physical agony. It was a literal mountain of priceless crafting materials and residual soul fragments. If he had a spatial ring or a bottomless inventory slot, he would have picked the valley clean down to the bedrock.

But Sol was a pragmatist above all else. His physical vessel, carrying two apex Sovereign souls, was infinitely more precious than anything left bleeding in the mud. He wasn’t about to die out of sheer greed.

So, he wasn’t going to stick around to become dessert for whatever nightmare was slithering out of the deep woods.

He turned his back on the valley of death. He didn’t need to sneak anymore, nor did he need to carefully map out the patrol routes of lesser beasts.

Taking a deep breath, he utilized the remnant power of the twin Layer 3 spirits within his core. The Golden Liquid in his solar plexus acted as the ultimate, miraculous stabilizer, weaving the Dreadwing’s weightless, hyper-kinetic speed seamlessly into the Great Badger’s unyielding, tectonic density. He flooded his legs with the supersonic lightness and pushed off the earth with absolute, gravity-crushing force.

BOOM!

The mud violently cratered beneath his boots, a foot ring of displaced and acid splashing outward from the sheer kinetic force. Sol launched himself into the dense jungle canopy like a fired cannonball.

The sensation was entirely different from flooding his limbs with basic Golden Essence. Before, he was just a very strong human running fast. Now, he was fundamentally ignoring the physical resistance of the Great Orrath.

He moved so fast he seemed nothing more than a blurred, silver-crimson phantom weaving flawlessly through the ancient branches. The world around him seemed to decelerate. The Dreadwing’s thirty thousand microscopic lenses, now fully integrated into his own vision, processed the dense, chaotic labyrinth of petrified roots, hanging vines, and massive purple ferns with terrifying clarity. He didn’t just see the obstacles, he saw the exact, mathematical trajectory required to bypass them.

Of course, he didn’t just run on the ground, he bounded through the mid-canopy. He leaped from the side of one colossal Void-Oak trunk to another, covering tens of yards in a single, blurring arc. The wind physically screamed past his ears, tearing at his sweat-stained leather clothes.

“This is insane!” Sol laughed, a manic, breathless sound that was immediately whipped away by his own wake.

He was running backward, traveling back to the Veynar tribe exponentially faster than he had left it. The journey that had taken him hours of harrowing, stealth-focused creeping was melting away in minutes.

He felt utterly ecstatic. The heavy, oppressive weight of the primitive jungle… the constant, suffocating feeling of being at the absolute bottom of the food chain… was completely gone.

Within an hour of unbroken, super speed free-running, the dense, overlapping canopy began to thin out. The oppressive humidity broke, and he caught the faint, familiar scent of woodsmoke and the low, melodic hum of the singing moss.

He burst through the final line of dense foliage, sliding to a mathematically flawless halt just at the edge of the expansive clearing that housed the Veynar tribe.

His sudden, explosive arrival didn’t go unnoticed for long.

The sentries posted in the high watchtowers blew their carved bone horns… a sharp, frantic blast indicating a high-speed approach. But as Sol stepped fully into the morning light, his Void-Oak spear resting casually on his shoulder, the alarm abruptly cut off.

The sentries posted in the high watchtowers blinked, rubbing their eyes as if a ghost had just materialized from the shadows, before frantically bringing their carved bone horns to their lips. A sharp, booming announcement blasted across the settlement.

“The Divine One has returned! He’s back!”

The word spread like wildfire.

Within minutes, the sprawling tribal grounds transformed into a chaotic sea of movement. Warriors dropped their training weapons, gatherers abandoned their baskets, and nearly the entire population of the Veynar tribe rushed toward the main square to witness the outcome of his solitary hunt.

Standing at the forefront of the gathering crowd were Warchief Veylara, High Shaman Zephyra, and Kira.

Kira’s face was deathly pale, her hands tightly gripping the hilt of her bone-sword. She had been waiting anxiously, imagining the worst horrors the jungle had to offer. The moment she saw Sol ,the rigid tension in her feline stance evaporated, her shoulders visibly slumping in a profound sigh of relief.

But as Chief Veylara and Zephyra stepped forward, their eyes swept over him, and a complex mixture of relief and heavy disappointment settled over their features. Sol was covered in dried, foul-smelling mud, streaks of dark blood, and his clothes were heavily singed by vaporized acid. More importantly, his hands were empty. There was no massive beast carcass dragging behind him, no glowing core held aloft in triumph.

Sol walked calmly toward the center of the square, his expression carefully neutral, the empty pure Blood-Jades tucked safely out of sight.

Chief Veylara stepped forward, her stormy eyes tight with unspoken regret. “Sol… you have returned alive. That is a blessing in itself. Tell us, which spirit did you manage to secure?”