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Chapter 275: Chapter 275: Zharun Envoy

“Alright,” Sol said smoothly. “Do you want to come to the High Hall too?”

Kira nodded instantly, seemingly relieved by the change in topic, and grabbed her bone sword.

The three of them stepped out and began the walk toward the center of the settlement. The atmosphere in the Veynar tribe had fundamentally, irrevocably changed.

Before, even though Sol had been a divine one, most people really didn’t know what the divine one even was, and just thought of him as a guest from afar.

Now, the crowd practically parted like the Red Sea. Seasoned Layer 1 hunters stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads respectfully as he passed.

Women whispered excitedly behind their hands. Children stared at him with wide, idolizing eyes. He truly was viewed as the “Divine One” now, the undisputed apex predator of their walls.

They reached the High Hall, a massive structure built directly into the hollowed-out base of the Great Heartwood tree.

Inside, the air was thick with burning incense. Warchief Veylara sat upon the elevated, carved wooden throne, looking regal and imposing. High Shaman Zephyra sat to her right, puffing on a freshly carved bone pipe, while a few of the remaining, loyal elders stood along the walls. Elder Thorne was conspicuously, delightfully absent.

“You summoned me, Warchief,” Sol announced, stepping into the center of the hall, flanked by Kira and Lumi.

Veylara nodded, her stormy eyes serious. “I did, Sol. You have achieved the impossible. You have anchored a Layer 3 Lord Blood… two of them, from the chaotic feel of your aura, though I dare not ask how. But with that miraculous power comes an equally terrifying burden.

Because you are an outsider, you do not know the ancient mechanics of the Spirit Warrior. It is time to explain the deeper details regarding your power, and what you must do next to survive it.”

Sol stood up straighter, his full attention locked on the Warchief. This was the lore drop he desperately needed. He had the hardware, but he lacked the instruction manual.

“The power you hold,” Veylara began, her voice echoing in the cavernous hall, “is not just a weapon. It is a living, breathing parasite. As you may already know this center of our power is called ’Sun Core’. You might feel it as a dense heat in your chest.”

Sol nodded. The Golden Liquid in his solar plexus.

“Think of the Sun Core as a Second Stomach,” Zephyra croaked from the side, taking over the explanation. “Just as your physical stomach digests the meat of beasts to nourish your flesh, your Sun Core digests the invisible ’Wild Essence’ floating in the atmosphere to nourish your soul and your anchored spirits.”

Veylara leaned forward, her gaze intense. “There are two primary functions you must understand, Sol. First, is the Fuel. Whenever you activate your Beast Transformations… whether it is projecting the aura, enhancing your speed, or manifesting the physical characteristics of the beast you have… you are actively burning the Essence stored in your core. It is the fuel for your miracles.”

“And the second?” Sol asked, his brow furrowing.

“Nourishment,” Veylara said darkly. “Your Sun Core acts as a Spirit Womb. The magnificent, terrifying Lord Blood spirits you captured are not dead. They are bound. They float inside this golden energy within you, in a state of suspended animation. But they are hungry.”

Zephyra pointed her pipe directly at Sol’s chest. “If you over-exert yourself, if you burn through all your essence in battle and your core runs dry… the womb becomes a cage. The spirits will starve. And a starving Sovereign does not simply fade away, Divine One.

If your Sun Core runs empty, the beasts will turn on the host. They will cannibalize your core, eat your human soul from the inside out, and burst forth from your corpse as vengeful wraiths.”

A cold chill ran down Sol’s spine. His Golden Liquid was incredibly dense, but it wasn’t infinite. He had felt the agonizing drain when he projected the aura in the square. If he ran out of mana, his own loot would literally eat him alive. He needed to constantly hunt and consume high-tier essence meat to keep the ’Second Stomach’ full and the beasts pacified.

Sol was just about to ask how to maximize his essence absorption when a sudden, violent commotion erupted outside the Hall.

BANG!

The heavy wooden doors to the High Hall were violently shoved open, hitting the walls with a deafening crack.

Sol frowned, turning around. He was about to demand who had the audacity to interrupt the Warchief’s council, but someone else was faster.

One of the elders standing near the wall… a man Sol recognized as one of Thorne’s former lackeys… hurriedly scrambled forward.

“Greetings!” the lackey elder announced loudly, his voice trembling. “Greetings to the esteemed Envoy of the Zharun Tribe!”

Sol’s frown deepened into a scowl as he looked at the intruder.

The man standing in the doorway looked like a nightmare crawled out of the deep rot. He was dressed in thick, matted black fur and wore a cloak of oily raven feathers. His face was painted with jagged, hideous black markings that made him look like a grinning skull.

But what immediately put Sol on high alert was the Envoy’s eyes. The moment the hideous man stepped into the hall, his gaze locked directly onto him. It wasn’t a look of curiosity or diplomatic neutrality. It was a look of pure murderous intent. The Envoy glared at Sol as if he wanted to skin him alive, boil his bones, and wear his teeth as a necklace.

The Envoy let out a cold, arrogant humph, ignoring the elder entirely. He looked up at Warchief Veylara, completely bypassing any standard tribal formalities or respect.

“I have relayed the information to your border guards, and now I bring it to you, Warchief,” the Envoy said, his voice grating and harsh like stones grinding together. He spoke with the supreme, arrogant confidence of a man who held all the cards. “Tomorrow, at midday, Prince Gorr of our esteemed Zharun Tribe will personally come to your gates. He will finalize the deal.”

The Envoy smiled, a horrific stretching of his black-painted lips, and shot another venomous glare directly at Sol. “You guys had better prepare to welcome him properly. Do not disappoint the Prince.”

Warchief Veylara’s face was an unreadable mask of stone. Her knuckles were white on the arms of her throne, but she didn’t say a single word. She didn’t deny the Envoy, nor did she kick him out for his blatant disrespect.

Instead, the lackey elder who had greeted him hurriedly nodded his head, bowing obsequiously. “Yes, yes, of course! We will be ready for the Prince’s arrival!”

Sol stood to the side, completely and utterly confused.

Deal? Sol thought, his eyes darting between the silent Warchief, the groveling elder, and the arrogant intruder. What deal? And why the hell are the Zharun here?

Before Sol could demand an answer, the hideous Envoy turned on his heel. He threw one final, lingering, hate-filled glare at Sol… a silent promise of imminent violence… before his feather cloak swished, and he marched out of the High Hall, leaving a suffocating, heavy tension in his wake.