FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 336: Chapter 336: Is This The End?

These were not Omen Bloods. These were not mere pack leaders.

Sol wasn’t entirely clear on their exact biological classifications yet, but from their sheer, mountain-like size, the oppressive, suffocating density of their essence, and the way the lesser beasts cowered and parted before them, Sol knew exactly what he was looking at.

Lord Blood! At least Layer 3 Entities.

Sovereigns of their respective territories.

And there wasn’t just one. Sol’s silver-crimson eyes darted across the horizon, counting the colossal shadows blotting out the lightning. One. Three. Seven. Ten…

Fourteen.

There were at least fourteen Layer 3 behemoths slowly marching toward the Veynar walls.

And behind them, forming an endless, churning ocean of death, was the true core of the horde. Almost all the unranked fodder was dead. What remained were the elites… tens of thousands of high-layer Essence Born or Omen Bloods, their eyes glowing with malignant, coordinated intelligence.

“Ancestors preserve us,” A warrior whispered, his bone-blade trembling in his hands as he stared at the approaching apocalypse.

Sol’s grip on the sapphire blade tightened until his bones creaked. The reality of the situation crashed over him. Almost all of their arrows, throwing spears were spent. The defensive traps were sprung. The Vanguard was exhausted, bleeding, and running on fumes.

This was it. This was the final wave. The survival of the entire Veynar tribe, the survival of Kira, and his own life depended entirely on holding this line.

A deafening, synchronized roar erupted from the fourteen Layer 3 behemoths. The sound was a physical shockwave that blew the rain sideways and almost shattered their eardrums.

The charge began.

“All Warriors!” Veylara roared, her voice echoing with the desperate, absolute finality of a last stand. “Draw your blades! Prepare for close combat!”

The survival of the tribe, of their entire history and future, depended entirely on this final, apocalyptic wave.

The horde surged forward. It wasn’t a mindless stampede this time. It was a highly organized military assault, directed by the terrifying intelligence of the Layer 3 commanders.

The collision with the walls was nothing short of catastrophic.

Without the suppressive fire of arrows and spears to thin them out, the beasts slammed directly into the base of the petrified fortifications. The massive Omen Blood Ursids and Rhino-Beetles acted as living siege engines, battering their heavily armored heads against the massive obsidian-timber gates.

The entire settlement shook with every impact, dust and splinters raining down on the terrified civilians hiding in the inner sanctum.

The agile climbers didn’t have to worry about spears raining on them anymore. They swarmed up the vertical face of the walls like a carpet of insects.

The hand-to-hand combat on the walls devolved into an absolute, visceral slaughter. The exhausted Veynar defenders, their arms heavy and their cores drained, fought with desperate, suicidal fury. Bone-swords clashed against iron-hard claws. Spears were driven into the open mouths of leaping predators.

Sol drew the Dredwing, the sapphire blade flaring to life. He threw himself into the breach, moving from section to section, acting as a bloody bandage wherever the line threatened to break.

He bisected a massive Spider-Fiend that crested the wall, kicking its twitching carcass back down into the horde. He parried the strike of a Mantis-Assassin, his Badger armor screaming under the pressure, before driving his fist through the beast’s thorax.

He truly fought like a man possessed. He pushed his Sun Core to the absolute breaking point. The golden liquid boiled, flooding his system with so much essence that his veins bulged against his skin, glowing with a faint, incandescent light.

He met a charging Jaguar head-on, the sharpness of the Dreadwing Blade clashing violently against the beast’s obsidian scales. The impact sent sparks flying into the rain. For the first time, the dreadwing Blade didn’t cut cleanly through.

The beast’s hide was as dense as a mountain. Sol snarled, engaging the Great Badger’s tectonic weight, physically wrestling the massive cat to the ground before driving the sapphire blade directly into its eye socket.

He ripped the blade free, gasping for air, only to be entirely blindsided by a massive, sweeping tail from a reptilian horror.

The blow sent Sol flying through the air. He crashed violently into the heavy timber gates, the impact cracking the wood behind him. He coughed, spitting a mouthful of blood, the silver-gray armor having barely saved his ribs from turning to powder.

He looked up. The battlefield was falling apart.

And they were losing.

The beasts were too powerful, too cunning, and there were simply too many.

The Elders and the High-Layer Elite Vanguard fought valiantly, their essence flaring in the dark. Elder Harkan was eventually overwhelmed, his bone-axe shattered by a massive club-tailed lizard, but using a bone balde, he held on as three Omen Blood Black Wolves cirlced him.

Kira was fighting desperately, her back against the wall, her bone-sword chipped and covered in gore, fending off a relentless assault from two venomous stalkers.

“Hold the line!” Veylara screamed, her White Tiger phantom tearing through a cluster of Omen Bloods, her spear a blur of lethal, desperate motion.

But the walls were shaking so violently now that the wooden planks were beginning to splinter and crack. A massive, horrifying fissure appeared in the center of the main gate, the thick obsidian bands bending under the repeated, multi-ton assaults of the beasts below.

They weren’t going to hold.

The walls were buckling. The gates were splintering. The tribe was dying.

Sol pushed himself off the mud, his muscles screaming, his vision swimming with exhaustion. He raised the Blade, refusing to die on his knees, and charged forwards again.

He severed the head of an attacking wolf, his breathing ragged, his Sun Core feeling the agonizing strain of continuous output. He looked at the cracking gate, the overwhelming swarm of beasts scaling the walls, and the fourteen massive Layer 3 shadows slowly, inevitably marching closer to finish the job.

Is this it? Sol thought, a cold, bitter frustration rising in his throat. After everything… we just get buried in meat?