FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 468: Blades In The Smoke

They tensed their bodies aggressively as they tried to gather the fleeing guards around them.

"Don’t panic! Gather the weapons! And hold the lines!" the largest of them shrieked in his rough dialect, his body pulsing with a violent light.

But of course, shouting like this was akin to openly inviting the enemy to kill.

And Sol wasn’t gonna miss this chance, he didn’t even let him finish the command and blurred through the smoke, covering the twenty-pace gap before the captain could even register his presence.

He pulled deeply at the cold, viscous silver liquid sitting stagnant within his chest cavity.

His right hand flipped the Dreadwing Blade out of its leather scabbard. The sapphire edge hummed with a quiet ZIIING that was completely swallowed by the roaring fires in the east.

And executed a clean, horizontal diagonal cut.

The high-frequency vacuum edge sliced through the morning air, parting the captain’s heavy spiked club and his entire chest shell in a single, seamless transition.

It looked like cutting through soft river weeds.

The top half of the captain’s body slid cleanly off his hips, green ichor spraying across the dirt as his lower legs stood frozen for a second before collapsing into the black sludge.

The silver pool in Sol’s chest gave a sharp, ravenous thrum. The soul of the Layer 2 captain was torn out of its dying body by the hungry vacuum, washing up Sol’s arm and settling directly into his chest.

The internal disturbance grew another fraction clearer, the spatial map of the surrounding swamp expanding in his mind until he could feel the whole world getting a notch brighter and sharper.

The remaining two captains let out a high-pitched screech of shock and fury, their yellow needle-teeth bared as they launched a desperate, simultaneous strike at Sol’s head from the flanks.

The captain on the left swung his spiked club with full Layer 2 force. Sol didn’t dodge, and instead he shot his bare left hand forward, his fingers clamping directly around the raw wood of the club, stopping the full kinetic momentum instantly thanks to his incredibly strong body.

Before the captain could yank the weapon back, Zeyra stepped into the gap from the side. Her mid-stage Layer 1 pathways fired with a burst of essence. She drove her weight downward, and plunged her bone dagger into his throat, without waiting for him react, she plunged ther other one into his eye.

The monster’s warning screech was cut off, and only a few bursts of air escaped his mouth.

The third captain tried to thrust his spear straight into Sol’s exposed ribs.

TWANG.

A heavy obsidian-tipped arrow tore through the black smoke from the high ironwood tree above, driving straight through the captain’s left eye socket.

The force of Kira’s shot shattered the head-shell completely, the tip extending out the back of his neck. The captain froze, his spear dropping from his limp fingers as his body crashed face-first into the mud.

Sol didn’t waste a micro-second. He stepped over the fallen bodies, his silver core pulling the remaining two souls straight into his chest pool. The cold energy expanded within his body, flushing out the heat of the battle and stabilizing his stability.

"Don’t stop and continue creating the chaos," Sol growled, looking back at Joran who was running up with a group of ten veterans. "Joran, take your squads and clear out the smaller hide tents along the western area. Burn everything."

"Right away, General Sol!" Joran shouted, his face flush with excitement as he led his men into the remaining tents, their spears diving through the leather with relentless force.

Down at the northern end of the outpost, the strategy was working with terrifying precision.

Nearly eighty Zerith warriors, completely terrified by the roaring fires in the east and the brutal frontal assault at the main gates, had broken from their lines and fled toward the narrow, rocky ravines to escape into the deep jungle. They were running blindly, their long limbs shuffling through the mud, completely unaware that they were heading straight into a trap.

Teams Three, Four, and Five were already waiting for them, completely hidden beneath the weeping ferns at the mouth of the pass.

The moment the first ten Zerith Stalkers sprinted into the narrow bottleneck of the ravine, thinking they had found an easy path to flank the Veynar, the squad leaders blew their bone whistles twice in quick succession.

PHEW-PHEW!

Sixty elite spirit warriors instantly rose from the grass, their heavy bone-shields creating a seamless, curved wall that sealed the exit of the ravine completely.

The front row dropped low, angling their shields sideways at forty-five degrees to form a moving plow, just like Sol had taught the recruits.

In fact, ever since he had started training the recruits, everyone was curious and went on to see what he was teaching.

At first, when Sol began demonstrating this strange new shield technique during training, many warriors had laughed behind his back. "What is this? Playing cowards?" they had sneered. They were Veynar... proud warriors who relied on raw strength, spirit power, and ferocious charges. Why would they hide behind shields like cowards?

But the high-level warriors and leaders who watched closely quickly shut the mockery down.

They saw it immediately.

This wasn’t just defense. This was a revolutionary way to use their overwhelming power. For years they had relied on brute force and individual skill, wasting most of their essence in wild, uncontrolled attacks.

Sol’s technique allowed them to focus their strength, conserve energy, and turn their entire formation into a living, unstoppable weapon.

Word spread fast. Even the skeptical veterans secretly practiced it at night and was amazed by its effectiveness.

And now, in real battle for the first time, the technique proved its worth.

The Zerith Stalkers realized too late that they had charged straight into a death trap.

"SHIELD WALL.... ADVANCE!" a Layer 2 Zerith Packleader roared.

The sixty warriors moved as one. The angled bone shields formed a deadly ramp, and the entire formation began pushing forward like an unstoppable avalanche.