FREE USE in Primitive World

He stood over the dying Chief, his black armor stained crimson with Vane’s blood.

”You wanted me dead,” Sol whispered softly, leaning down near Vane’s bloody, skinless ear. ”Well, seems like fate is on my side as I’m gonna live and you... die.”

Sol raised his left boot and brought it down with crushing force straight onto Vane’s head.

SPLAAT!

The skull exploded like a ripe melon against the white slate bedrock, ending his miserable life instantly.

Sol slowly wiped his blood-drenched boot against the stone. He turned around, his neon-crimson eyes sweeping across the completely paralyzed, utterly broken battlefield.

This time not a single Coalition leader remained standing. The Layer 4 powerhouses were annihilated. Their Grand Chieftain was decapitated.

Sol stood alone amidst the mountain of corpses, a dark, invincible executioner standing at the apex of the battlefield.

...

Even though he looked calm and imposing on the outside.... standing tall amid the carnage with cold neon-crimson eyes and an aura of absolute control... his mind was in quiet turmoil.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the deaths of these bastards. They deserved far worse than the relatively clean ends he had given them. In his eyes, their suffering had been too brief.

What truly disturbed him was something far more unsettling... something that had been happening since he began killing the Layer 4 warlords.

Every time he struck one of them down, a surge of pure spirit power and refined essence would flood into his body as expected. But before his chest hollow or his Sun Core... could properly absorb and refine it, the energy would mysteriously twist and vanish upward, shooting straight toward his head the moment it entered his body.

It disappeared without a trace.

No resistance. No feedback. No residual sensation left behind in his body anywhere.

It was the first time something like this had ever happened.

Sol’s expression remained perfectly composed, but behind those cold eyes, his thoughts raced. He had no idea what was occurring inside him.

Was it a hidden function of his Free Use power? Some unknown bloodline reaction? Or something far more dangerous taking root without his knowledge?

He wanted nothing more than to immediately investigate the phenomenon... to probe his own body and force an answer.

But now was not the time.

Thousands of eyes were locked onto him from every direction: Veynar warriors looking at him with awe and hope, Coalition remnants staring in fear and hatred, and the remaining powerhouses calculating their next move.

Any sign of distraction or internal conflict could shatter the fragile momentum he had created.

Sol forced the unease down and locked it away behind an iron will.

He still had a war to finish.

And more importantly... he still needed to deliver a proper, unforgettable prelude to this bloodbath... something that would make every remaining enemy understand exactly who they were facing, and why resistance was futile.

With a slow, deliberate breath, he straightened his posture even further, neon-crimson eyes sweeping across the battlefield like a predator selecting its next prey.

....

Sol stepped away from the red stain on the bedrock where Chief Vane’s skull had been crushed. The sapphire blade of the Dreadwing rested on his shoulder, leaving a thin, dripping line of dark blood along the black plate of his armor.

His neon-crimson eyes slowly shifted away from the shattered Coalition lines and locked onto the southern sector.

There, standing amidst his few remaining lineage guards, was Elder Thorne, his next and only remaining target.

The old traitor was frozen, his mouth half-open, his withered hands trembling so violently that the curved flint dagger he held vibrated extensively.

His Carrion Vulture spirit had already faded into faint, sickly wisps, thoroughly broken after Thauren’s Golden Lion had ripped its remaining feather.

When Sol’s crimson gaze landed on him, the remaining traitorous lineage guards surrounding Thorne broke completely.

The brutal, agonizing execution of Chief Vane had thoroughly incinerated whatever lingering ambition or loyalty they held toward Thorne.

”S-Spare us!” one of the guards shrieked, throwing his spear into the limestone dust.

WHOOSH.

Sol didn’t even speak. He raised his left hand, invoking the maximum wind-shearing resonance of the Dreadwing.

A single, horizontal crescent wave of razor-sharp, golden essence erupted from the blade, sweeping across the thirty-foot gap in a fraction of a millisecond.

SLASH-SQUELCH!

The traitorous guards who had been forced to huddle together to face the overwhelming number of Veynar loyalists, didn’t even have time to scream.

The golden wind-blade passed through their torsos like a hot wire through fat. All remaining men were neatly bisected at the waist, their upper bodies sliding off their legs to crash into the dirt in a synchronized spray of gore.

Elder Thorne was deliberately left standing entirely alone, covered from head to toe in the warm blood of his own lineage kin.

THUD!

The old man’s knees gave out.

He collapsed hard onto the blood-slicked limestone, throwing his curved dagger away as he began to frantically slap his hands against the stone, dragging his withered body forward in a desperate, crawling plea.

Tears, sweat, and dark blood from his internal spirit-backlash streamed down his wrinkled, pale face.

”S-Sol! Lord Sol! Great Warrior!” Thorne wailed, his voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical screech. ”Wait! Please, listen to me! I was forced! I was coerced by Vane and the Marauders!”

He beat his chest with his trembling, arthritic hands, weeping openly as he crawled toward Sol’s boots.

”Everything I did... every single choice... it was all for the Veynar!” Thorne sobbed, his eyes wide with a desperate, manic performance of righteous agony. ”Yes! Yes! It was all for the survival of our tribe! I knew we couldn’t defeat the Coalition in a straight war!

I-i feigned the betrayal so that even if the worst happened, I could secure a place for our people under their rule! I took the sin upon my own shoulders so the Veynar bloodline wouldn’t be wiped out! It was all a calculated act to save us!”