FREE USE in Primitive World

The perimeter that had kept the Veynar loyalists penned like sheep in a slaughterhouse was now completely shattered.

The northern and eastern sectors of the Coalition’s formation devolved into a churning, blood-soaked nightmare as eighty frantic, mind-controlled Blood Hounds tore through enemy ranks with unbridled, savage brutality.

The white limestone slate was painted crimson, slick with the gore of both Zharun riders and the Coalition warriors who had stood beside them moments before.

The sheer, unnatural horror of the spectacle broke the spirit of some Coalition troops, who threw down their weapons, turning to flee around, only to be chased down and dragged to the ground by six-legged crimson beasts that knew neither fatigue nor fear.

In the center of this screaming, chaotic slaughterhouse, Sol stood like an immovable monument of death.

He lowered his left hand, the blinding flare of his Free Use power subsiding back into the cold, deep hollow of his chest. His neon-crimson eyes spun slowly, tracking the invisible streams of soul-essence flooding back into his body.

SQUELCH. FLUID.

Every life snuffed out by the rabid hounds... every Zharun rider, every Zerith stalker, every Gray Marauder crushed under six-legged claws... released its lingering life force into the air.

Through his ancient, hungry soul-siphon authority, those drifting, ethereal threads were violently drawn toward Sol’s position.

They swirled around his black-armored form in thin, glowing crimson tendrils before plunging straight into his chest hollow.

Inside his body, the effect was immediate. The internal fractures in his essence pathways, scarred and burning from his earlier reckless release of the Golden Dominion, were being sealed.

The fresh, hot soul energy acted like boiling liquid steel, welding his damaged veins back together, smoothing out the turbulence in his body, and replenishing the dry reservoirs of his power.

His breathing, once a labored, turned deep, steady, and terrifyingly calm.

”A-Ah...” Sol exhaled, a small wispy cloud of dark, cindered mist escaping his lips. A raspy, satisfied chuckle rumbled in his throat. ”Now this... this is a proper harvest.”

He turned his head slightly, his sharp, dynamic vision cutting through the thick clouds of pulverized limestone dust and hovering over the southern edge of the battlefield.

There, the Veynar loyalists under Commander Thauren had seized upon the Coalition’s disarray.

Inspired by Sol’s impossible reanimation and the complete destruction of the enemy’s cavalry, the Veynar fought with the desperate, apocalyptic fury of men who had seen the gates of death open and chosen to drag their enemies down with them.

”Drive them back! Cleave the traitors where they stand!” Thauren roared, his broadsword flashing in a wide, radiant arc.

Directly behind him, the spectral manifestation of the Golden Lion let out an earth-shaking roar. Its blazing mane flared with blinding light as its spectral paws slammed into the dirt, releasing a wave of pure golden energy that incinerated three traitorous lineage guards in a single instant.

Around Thauren, the surviving loyalists pressed their advantage, their partial spirit manifestations... glowing eagle claws, spectral wolf jaws, and shimmering beast armor... cutting through Thorne’s panicked line.

The traitors, who had relied entirely on Elder Thorne’s poison and the overwhelming numbers of the Coalition, were now being pushed back, their ranks breaking under the righteous wrath of the men they had betrayed.

Above them, the air whistled and boomed as the Carion Vulture screamed in agony. Thauren’s Golden Lion had clamped its spectral jaws securely around the vulture’s left neck, ripping the ethereal feather entirely from its body in a shower of violent, dark-violet sparks.

Elder Thorne stumbled backward on the limestone floor, coughing up a dark, acrid pool of purple blood.

The destruction of one of his spirit’s feather sent a severe, agonizing feedback ripple straight through his spiritual pathways, causing his withered skin to turn a sickly, sallow grey.

”Curse you... curse you all!” Thorne spat, his narrow eyes wild with rising panic as he parried a furious downward strike from Thauren. ”You stubborn, mindless brutes! We could have submitted! We could have survived under the Coalition! You are throwing your lives away for a dying Warchief and an outsider monster!”

”We live as Veynar and will die as Veynar!” Thauren shouted, his eyes burning with absolute, unyielding conviction.

He slashed him with his sword, Thorne barely managed to avoid a fatal strike by letting his Vulture take the hit, but still blood sprayed across his withered cheeks as he was launched backward, tumbling across the gravel before crashing near the feet of the remaining Coalition commanders.

”USELESS OLD FOSSIL!”

A thunderous, booming voice roared from the center of the Coalition’s ranks, shaking the slate cliffs and causing loose pebbles to rain down into the valley.

Grand Chieftain Bruga, who had been chasing Sol earlier and had stopped due to sudden rabidry of Blood Hounds, stepped forward, his twenty-foot frame towering over the battlefield like a mountain of scarred muscle and iron-hard hide.

His face was contorted into an expression of pure, monstrous fury, his veins bulging like thick black ropes across his thick neck.

Beside him stood Chief of Zerith tribe, his narrow face pale and twitching with controlled rage, his bone daggers dripping with dark venom.

Further back, the Zharun Chief trembled where he stood, his hands shaking violently as he watched his elite Blood Hound cavalry... the pride and foundation of his tribe... wiping out his own ranks.

”Thousands of warriors! An entire alliance!” Bruga bellowed, his voice carrying the full, suffocating weight of his Layer 4 essence.

He slammed his colossal, seven feet bone club into the limestone bedrock, creating a mini earthquake that knocked dozens of nearby fleeing soldiers to their knees. ”And you useless insects are running from a pack of stray dogs?!”

The sheer, crushing pressure of the Layer 4 warlord’s voice awakened them from panic, forcing the fleeing Coalition soldiers to freeze in their tracks, paralyzed by the overwhelming authority of their Grand Chieftain.

Bruga turned his bloodshot eyes toward Sol, his breath coming in heavy, steamy gusts.

”I don’t care what cursed, forbidden art you used to stand back up, boy,” Bruga growled.