FREE USE in Primitive World

Chapter 294: Chapter 294: Precious Offerings

“Good,” Prince Gorr rasped, taking a slow, deliberate sip from the wooden cup Lumi had left him. He placed the cup down with a heavy thud that echoed in the tense silence of the High Hall. “Now that we have finalized everything and agreed on the battle plan… it’s time for you guys to show your sincerity.”

Elder Thorne, practically vibrating with the desperate need to prove his worth to the Zharun delegation, eagerly seized the moment. He stepped directly into the center of the room, turning his back on Warchief Veylara to face the Prince.

“Of course, Prince Gorr! Of course!” Thorne boomed, his voice echoing off the petrified timber pillars. He puffed out his chest, attempting to project an image of grand authority. “The Veynar tribe understands the heavy price of war. We have prepared an offering worthy of our great alliance! High-quality essence meat, the most exotic fruits gathered from the perilous inner canopy, and our finest medicinal herbs!”

Thorne raised his hands and clapped twice, a sharp, commanding sound.

The heavy side doors of the High Hall swung open. A line of Veynar helpers and junior hunters marched into the room, their backs bowed under the immense weight of what they carried. They hauled multiple, massive woven baskets, setting them down in a neat row before the low wooden table separating the two factions.

The Warchief’s remaining loyal elders murmured with a mixture of pride and profound anxiety. To the Veynar, this was no small gesture. It was a king’s ransom.

The first basket was pulled open, revealing massive, prime cuts of Layer 2 Razor-Boar and Iron-Hide meat, the dense muscle fibers still radiating a faint, residual glow of raw earth and wind essence.

The second basket contained carefully wrapped bundles of highly volatile Blood-Roots, pulsing with a deep, bioluminescent crimson light that cast eerie shadows across the floor. The third held jars of pure, unadulterated golden tree-sap, a vital alchemical catalyst that took months to harvest safely from the deep woods.

It was a literal fortune in cultivation resources and survival rations. The tribe had effectively emptied their emergency storehouses to appease the Zharun.

Sol, leaning quietly against his shadow-draped pillar at the back of the hall, analyzed the loot. It was a massive haul, enough to feed and supply a small army of Spirit warriors for weeks. He expected the Zharun Prince to nod, accept the tribute, and move on.

But Prince Gorr didn’t even lean forward.

He sat slouched in his ornate stone chair, his bone armor clacking softly as he tilted his head. His iridescent, oil-slick eyes slowly drifted over the overflowing baskets. He didn’t look impressed. He looked entirely, profoundly bored.

Gorr reached out with a single, pale finger and prodded a glowing Blood-Root resting at the top of a pile. He let out a wet, dismissive click of his tongue.

“I knew the Veynar were poor,” Gorr rasped, his grinding voice carrying effortlessly through the cavernous hall. He wiped his finger on the armrest of his chair as if the root had soiled his skin. “But I honestly didn’t expect you guys to be this poor.”

The proud, anxious murmurs of the Veynar crowd were instantly snuffed out. Absolute, suffocating silence fell over the High Hall. The junior hunters who had carried the baskets looked down at their feet, their faces burning with deep humiliation.

An older, heavily scarred Veynar elder sitting near the front… the same man Gorr had metaphysically crushed with his aura moments before… couldn’t contain his indignation. He stood up, his hands trembling slightly as he gripped his wooden staff.

“Prince Gorr,” the elder spoke, his voice tight with suppressed rage and offended pride. “We have already done what we could. We stripped our own cellars bare. These are all our most carefully selected, precious things! We have shown our utmost sincerity to the Zharun!”

Prince Gorr slowly turned his head, his rotting gray aura flaring slightly, causing the bioluminescent moss on the ceiling to dim.

“It may be precious for you starving, pathetic rats,” Gorr sneered, his bloodless lips pulling back to reveal graying teeth. “But it is nothing but dust and scraps to us. If you truly want to show your sincerity… if you want the mighty Zharun to bleed on your walls…”

Gorr paused. He slowly stood up from his stone chair. His towering, corpse-like frame dominated the center of the room. He took a long, deliberate look at his surroundings, his oily eyes sweeping over the Veynar elders, evaluating everyone’s worth like a butcher inspecting a pen of livestock.

His gaze bypassed Warchief Veylara entirely, dismissing her authority, before finally stopping with pinpoint precision on the woman standing to her right.

Kira.

She stood tall, dressed in her sleek, pale leather Vanguard armor, her hand still resting aggressively on the pommel of her bone sword. The ambient light caught the tips of her hair and the fierce, undeniable beauty of her stormy feline eyes. She glared back at the Prince with absolute, unfiltered hatred.

Gorr’s smile widened, taking on a sickening, predatory edge.

“How about marrying your daughter to the mighty me?” Gorr stated, his grinding voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “I believe claiming the Warchief’s bloodline will be just enough to show your absolute sincerity.”

The silence held for a single, stunned heartbeat.

And then, absolute uproar detonated across the High Hall.

The Veynar elders erupted from their seats, shouting in outrage. Vanguard warriors near the doors drew their weapons half an inch from their scabbards, the rasp of bone against leather cutting through the shouting.

It was one thing to demand food and essence, it was an entirely different, unforgivable insult to demand the Warchief’s only daughter, the pride of the tribe’s younger generation, as a political hostage and a bed-slave to a rotting tyrant.

From the shadows of his pillar, Sol’s brow furrowed deeply into a dark, dangerous scowl.

His rational mind…the cold, calculating logic that had kept him alive…immediately threw up a wall of detachment. It’s an internal tribal issue, his brain rationalized rapidly. You are an outsider. A guest. You are only here to use their walls as a funnel for your growth and eventually leave when you outgrow this place. Do not get involved in primitive political marriages. It has nothing to do with you.