FREE USE in Primitive World

Sol didn’t give him a single microsecond to breathe.

The moment his blade bounced off the cleaver, he spun his body, his left fist driving forward like a stone battering ram straight toward his ribs.

Malphas, his pupils dilated in pure survival panic, violently twisted his massive torso to the side.

The punch missed his heart, but it slammed hard into his thick shoulder, the kinetic force fracturing his heavy leather shoulder-guards and tearing the muscle beneath.

He let out a sharp, ragged gasp of pain, but his Layer 4 reflexes held and he didn’t completely freeze.

Using the momentum of his stumble, he swung his cleaver in a wild, desperate horizontal arc aimed at Sol’s neck, utilizing every ounce of his burning life force to force a trade.

Sol didn’t even flinch at the incoming weapon.

His silver-crimson eyes were fixed entirely on the grotesque trophy resting on the giant’s head, the fire in his chest burning hotter with every passing heartbeat.

He ducked his head by a fraction, letting the stone cleaver graze his hairs while his sapphire blade flicked out in a vicious, upward diagonal slash, aiming to split the giant from hip to jaw.

Malphas could feel his internal pathways tearing themselves to pieces under the sheer strain of survival.

His Layer 4 core was spinning like a rabid beast inside his chest, pumping a thick, muddy stream of essence through his limbs just to overcome the invisible gravity pinning his boots to the limestone flats.

He had always been the brute of the Zharun, a killer who used his overwhelming strength to crush opposing hunters into mush. He had survived three separate tribal feuds by out-muscling everything in his path.

But right now, he felt like a toddler trying to swat away a falling cliff.

Malphas swung his cleaver with a wild, desperate scream, but the sapphire edge of the Dreadwing Blade was already there.

SHUCK.

Even though the vibrating blade didn’t hit the giant’s torso, but it cleanly cut through the meat of his left forearm.

Three thick fingers flew into the air before dissolving into a spray of dark blood.

Malphas howled, a broken, guttural sound that echoed wildly in the battlefield.

He stumbled backward, his feet sliding through the red grease, but his Layer 4 strength somehow kept him from falling.

His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw snapping as he forced the latent potential of his core to burn.

The raw, heavy essence inside his body was practically boiling, tearing through his own pathways just to give his muscles enough juice to fight the suffocating weight of Sol’s dominion.

”You human piece of garbage!” Malphas roared, spitting out a mouthful of crimson foam. He didn’t retreat. He couldn’t. He knew that the moment he stopped swinging, the black reaper in front of him would take his head.

He raised his heavy cleaver with his remaining hand, the wood creaking as he channeled every scrap of his life force into a single, desperate overhead slam.

The air split with a loud WHOOSH as the cleaver descended with the full weight of his latent potential.

Sol didn’t even shift his footing. He stood right under the shadow of the falling cleaver, his expression entirely dead, while the silver-crimson fire in his eyes burned with an oppressive heat.

As the massive stone weapon came down, Sol simply shot his left hand upward, his bare fingers wrapping around the thick, rough stone head mid-flight.

BANG.

The ground beneath Sol’s boots instantly cracked, webbed fissures shooting ten paces across the dry clay flats from the sheer weight of the impact.

The shockwave blew the surrounding white dust into a violent circle.

But Sol’s arm didn’t even bend. He held the strike completely still in his palm, his grip slowly tightening until the solid stone head began to groan.

”Is that all your Layer 4 strength amounts to?” Sol asked, his voice flat, low, and chillingly rough.

Before Malphas could yank the handle back, Sol’s right foot kicked forward, his foot slamming directly into the giant’s left knee joint.

SNAP.

The sound of the thick leg bone shattering was sharp and clear, like a thick green branch snapping in the woods.

Malphas screamed again, his body violently twisting to the side as his leg buckled at an unnatural angle.

But before his body could hit the dirt, Sol’s left fist drove into his right ribs.

CRUNCH.

Five ribs instantly caved inward, driving the broken bone fragments deep into the giant’s lung tissue.

The muscle underneath went completely flat, turning purple instantly as the bone beneath splintered into his back.

Malphas coughed up a thick fountain of dark blood, his body flying backward by five paces before rolling heavily through the limestone gravel.

His leather armor was completely ruined, torn to pieces by the raw physical velocity of the strikes, and his breathing had turned into a wet, rattling gasp.

...

Any Layer 3 warrior would have been completely dead three times over from those injuries. Their internal pathways would have collapsed, and their hearts would have stopped from the sheer trauma.

But Malphas was a true Layer 4 powerhouse... the core inside his chest wasn’t a standard pool; it was a dense, highly compressed knot of primal essence that had been forged through decades of slaughter and survival.

Even with his lungs filling with blood and one leg entirely broken, his body refused to die. His survival instinct overrode the pain. Gritting his yellow teeth until they cracked, the giant used his one good hand to push his massive frame up from the red slush.

With death sitting directly on his chest, the giant didn’t give up. The absolute law of the Orrath... that the strong live and the weak turn into waste... ignited his latent potential to a terrifying level.

”Ancestors!” Malphas shrieked, his voice raw and broken.

Inside his chest, his compressed core violently fractured on purpose, releasing a sudden, volatile surge of unrefined essence directly into his damaged muscles.