FREE USE in Primitive World

Sol nodded, satisfied that his hard work was at least paying out in raw materials. “Good. And what about their souls? The spiritual anchors? We dropped multiple Layer 3 beasts. That has to be a massive boost to the armory.”

The moment he asked the question, the atmosphere between the two girls completely shifted.

Kira let out a heavy, frustrated sigh, looking away.

“Unfortunately…” Zeyra chimed in, her dark eyes entirely serious, “it isn’t so easy to collect the souls. Especially from beasts of that caliber.”

Sol frowned, turning to look at her. Why not? They’re dead. You just extract the lingering essence anchor from them before it dissipates, right?”

“In theory, yes,” Zeyra explained, crossing her arms over her chest. “But Layer 3 beasts are not mindless animals, especially Lord Blood. They possess a high degree of sentience, intelligence, and a deeply ingrained, primal hatred for humanity. They know exactly what we do with their souls. They know we bind them, enslave them, and use them to power our own foundations.”

Zeyra looked toward the gates. “A Sovereign-class beast is incredibly proud. They would rather have their existence completely snuffed out than become a use for a human.”

“Exactly,” Kira added, her tone grim. “Even after the physical body dies, the soul continues the resistance. If the killing blow isn’t absolutely perfect, or if the beast realizes it’s going to lose, it will deliberately destabilize its own spiritual anchor. It will violently shatter its own soul into useless, chaotic fragments just out of pure, hateful spite, and High Shaman’s attack has completely obliterated them.”

Zeyra nodded in agreement. “So, out of so many Layer 3 Sovereigns… the elders were only able to successfully extract and stabilize the soul of one beast.”

Sol’s eyebrows shot up. “Just one?”

“Even getting one is a miracle in itself,” Kira said, defending the tribe’s extraction teams. “The spiritual backlash is intense. Many times, even after slaughtering tens of high-tier beasts, you may not get a single usable soul. The extraction process has an abysmal success rate.”

Kira’s expression darkened considerably, her hands curling into fists. “That is exactly why the souls stored in the tribal armory were our most precious heritage. They were carefully, painstakingly collected over generations of bloodshed. They were the foundation of our future strength. But unfortunately… because of the sabotage before the siege… they were all rendered completely useless. Corrupted beyond repair.”

Sol listened quietly, processing the new information.

He understood the situation much better now, but it also made him realize just how much of a walking anomaly he truly was.

Thinking back to his own experiences, he hadn’t faced any of these issues. When he killed the Dreadwing back in his first real fight, he had simply plunged his hand into its chest and absorbed the spirit. It had been chaotic, yes, but he hadn’t needed a team of elders or a perfect extraction ritual. The same went for the Great Badger.

He didn’t know if it was a unique perk of being a transmigrator, a hidden function of his ridiculously aggressive Sun Core, or maybe the mysterious “Free Use” silver essence subtly forcing the beasts’ souls into submission. Whatever the reason, he was apparently bypassing a massive, universal bottleneck that plagued the rest of this world.

He mentally filed that highly advantageous secret away. He definitely wasn’t going to tell them he could just suck up souls like a sponge.

“Speaking of the armory sabotage,” Sol smoothly pivoted the conversation, his silver-crimson eyes narrowing as he looked back at Kira. “What happened to the investigation? Do you know who corrupted the souls yet? And what about the elder who was in charge of the vault?”

Kira hesitated. She glanced nervously around the bustling dirt street, suddenly very aware of the tribesmen walking past them.

Zeyra noticed her hesitation and nudged Kira sharply in the ribs with her elbow. “Tell him, huntress. He bled for those walls just as much as we did. He has the right to know what kind of rot is festering inside our own camp.”

Kira scowled at Zeyra’s nudge, but she let out a defeated sigh and nodded. She stepped closer to Sol, lowering her voice so the passing warriors couldn’t overhear.

“Actually,” Kira murmured, “we don’t truly know who executed the sabotage yet. The Warchief has her best scouts looking into it. But the greatest suspicion is of course heavily placed on Elder Thorne.”

“Thorne,” Sol repeated the name, feigning ignorance to get more info. “The guy who was aggressively pushing for the alliance with the Zharun tribe during the council meeting.”

“Yes,” Kira confirmed, her eyes flashing with anger. “He is the main political force behind the Zharun faction. The sabotage happened exactly when we refused the alliance and you came.

It’s too perfectly timed. But we don’t have a single shred of hard evidence linking him to the corrupted vault. And since he commands the loyalty of quite a few elders and warriors, my mother cannot just arrest him on pure suspicion. It isn’t right to pursue him directly right now, not when the tribe is so fragile. It would spark a civil war.”

Sol scoffed quietly. Politics. Even in a savage jungle filled with giant spiders, old men still played their pathetic, treacherous little games for power.

“Fine,” Sol said, keeping his voice low. “But what about the elder who was in charge of the armory? The one you guys threw in the detention cells before the siege started? He was the inside man. He had to know who paid him off.”

Kira’s face turned incredibly grim. She looked down at her shoes for a second before meeting Sol’s eyes again.

“Well,” Kira whispered, her tone deadly serious. “It’s a tightly kept secret for now, but it’s okay to tell you. Actually… the very next day in detention, before the interrogators could get anything useful out of him… he was found dead.”

Sol’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes turned completely cold. “Dead?”

“They said it was suicide,” Kira finished, her voice laced with heavy skepticism. “He apparently hung himself in his cell using his own torn robes.”