FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 238: Chapter 238: Dual Silver-Golden Eruption

They aren’t using their acid, Sol noted, sidestepping a lunging insect and driving the butt of his spear into its thorax.

It was true. The Dreadwings, usually so eager to rain bone-melting venom from the sky, were engaging entirely in close-quarters physical melee. The sheer density of the horde was actually saving his life. If the insects started spitting their radioactive green acid in this tightly packed, chaotic encirclement, they would inevitably melt dozens of their own allied Badgers and fellow Dreadwings. The friendly-fire risk was too high, even for the primitive, blood-crazed minds of the beasts.

If they could spit, I’d have been a gurgling puddle of soup five minutes ago, Sol thought grimly, deflecting another heavy blow.

But even without the threat of the acid, he couldn’t go on like this.

He vaulted off the broad, stone-spiked back of a charging Layer 2 Badger, gaining a precious moment of altitude. In mid-air, he spun his spear like a propeller, cleanly decapitating two leaping Layer 1 insects before landing heavily back in the churning mud.

He was an engine of infinite stamina, yes. His muscles wouldn’t tire. But his spatial awareness and his reflexes were being pushed to their absolute limits. Eventually, the sheer law of averages was going to catch up to him. A Layer 2 beast was going to get a lucky hit, sever an artery or crush a joint, and it would be game over.

Worse, the distant, earth-shaking booms of the Lord beasts were still echoing through the forest. They hadn’t finished their duel. If he got bogged down in a war of attrition here, the winner of that apocalyptic clash might eventually notice this massive congregation of essence and come looking for a snack.

He was a goner either way if he stayed in this clearing.

Seeing the sheer, overwhelming numbers of the armored insects and mammals pressing in, a sudden, terrifying memory clicked in his brain.

The ants.

He remembered the shifting, undulating sea of matte-black and rusted red armor. He remembered the massive, depressed crater housing an entire colony of giant, highly acidic, ferociously territorial ants that had melted a beast into sludge in mere seconds.

It was a great idea. It was also an incredibly, hopelessly, suicidally risky idea. Leading an army of apex predators directly into the home of an even larger army of apex predators was the definition of playing with fire while drenched in gasoline.

But staying here means certain death anyway, Sol reasoned, his gamer-logic overriding his self-preservation. So why the hell not give it a try? Let the mobs fight each other.

He didn’t just need physical strength to break out of this encirclement, he needed an explosive, overwhelming burst of absolute, tyrannical power to shatter their frontline.

Sol parried a heavy strike from a Badger, kicked it away, and closed his eyes for a fraction of a millisecond.

He turned his focus entirely inward.

Deep in his solar plexus, the vast, heavy ocean of his Golden Liquid core roared, the source of his indestructible density and physical strength. But higher up, sitting in the center of his chest near his heart, was the Silver Liquid… the newly evolved, metaphysical form of his ’Free Use’ Domination power.

Normally, he utilized them separately. The gold fortified the body, the silver projected the mind.

Not today. Time to break the limiter.

Sol violently slammed the internal spiritual floodgates open. He actively forced the heavy Golden Liquid and the ethereal Silver Liquid to merge, flooding his entire circulatory and nervous system with both essences simultaneously.

The reaction was instantaneous, violent, and explosive.

Sol’s eyes snapped open. His pupils were no longer just crimson, they were glowing with a blinding, terrifying mixture of radiant gold and liquid silver light. The air around his physical body literally distorted, warping the ambient light. A visible, roaring aura of impossibly dense essence exploded outward from his skin.

The sheer metaphysical weight of the merged aura hit the surrounding beasts like a physical wall of gravity. The nearest Badgers were literally pushed back several inches, their claws carving trenches in the mud as they whined in sudden, instinctual terror.

Sol felt an incredible, mind-shattering surge of power course through his veins. Every cell in his body vibrated with limitless energy. He felt exactly like a character from Dragon Ball who had just screamed his lungs out, shattered his physical limits, and powered up to the next tier. His perception of time slowed to an absolute crawl. His body felt as light as a feather, yet his strikes carried the crushing mass of a dying star.

He didn’t waste a single millisecond admiring the massive buff. He had a window of opportunity, and he was taking it.

He attacked frantically, going on an absolute, blurred killing spree.

His analytical mind adapted instantly to the new speed. He didn’t focus his energy on fighting the massive Layer 2 Omen-Bloods; they were too thick, too heavily armored, and would take too much time to kill, even with his power-up. Engaging them was a trap.

Instead, he targeted the weak links. He aimed exclusively for the small fries… the Layer 1 lackeys and the common Essence-Born beasts that made up the bulk of the physical wall blocking his escape path back toward the South.

He became a hurricane of obsidian, dark leather, and blinding silver-gold light.

He dashed forward, moving so fast his body left glowing afterimages in the heavy twilight of the canopy. He swept his Void-Oak spear low in a devastating arc, the blade meeting absolutely no resistance as it shattered the stone-armored legs of three lesser Badgers simultaneously.

Without stopping his forward momentum, he dropped his spear entirely into his right hand, freeing his left. He punched his empty, aura-infused fist straight through the chitinous thorax of a descending Layer 1 Dreadwing. The Silver-infused aura didn’t just break the shell, it shredded the creature’s primitive soul on contact, instantly killing it before the physical trauma even registered.

CRUNCH! SNAP! SQUELCH!

The sounds of the slaughter blended into a single, continuous roar of violence. Beasts flew into the air, their bodies broken and pulverized by the sheer, absurd kinetic force of Sol’s desperate, powered-up rampage.

In less than ten seconds, he had carved a brutal, bloody, twenty-yard corridor straight through the dense, writhing wall of monsters.

He didn’t stay for some prideful revenge killing. He didn’t pause to gloat or absorb their souls. He used the momentary shock and physical disruption of his explosive breakout to shoot directly through the gap in the encirclement, leaving the roaring, confused horde behind him in the dust.

He made a run for it.

But of course, they weren’t going to just let him off.

The shock of the breakout lasted only a moment. When the horde realized what had happened, they went completely, unapologetically mad. Seeing the strange, hairless monkey suddenly explode with terrifying power, effortlessly slaughter dozens of their companions, and slip from their absolute grasp triggered a primal, unending fury within the beasts. The prideful Layer 2 beasts let out deafening roars of sheer outrage.

They abandoned the clearing entirely. The entire massive herd turned as one and used all their might to give chase, physically tearing down the smaller trees and ripping up the jungle floor in their wake to pursue him.

Hearing the apocalyptic cloud of dust and the furious swarm of crystal wings filling the sky behind him, Sol didn’t feel worried. He didn’t feel afraid.

A deeply cruel, utterly feral smirk stretched across his face as he pushed his aura-enhanced speed even higher.

“Come,” Sol whispered to the wind, his dual-essence aura leaving a glowing, comet-like trail in the dark woods. “Come, come, you persistent bastards. Continue following me straight to your deaths.”