FREE USE in Primitive World

He kept his eyes fixed on Veylara, continuing his cynical speech about territory borders and power distribution as if no one had spoken at all.

But his casual dismissal didn’t last long.

Sol suddenly stepped up,He moved past Veylara’s shoulder, his black Rockhorn carapace glistening with the dried crust of his earlier slaughter.

He cut right through Vane’s words, his voice carrying a stern, incredibly angry, and freezing weight that instantly silenced the entire clearing.

”Since you planned to betray the Veynar from the very start,” Sol said, his silver-crimson eyes locking onto Vane’s face like two hot pieces of iron, ”then what about LUMI? Where the hell is she?”

The Zharun Chief stopped his talk, his smooth smile finally faltering as his eyes panned over to Sol’s black-armored body.

He let out a long, slow sigh, his face turning into a mask of pure annoyance.

”Hmm, I have been quite curious since earlier,” Vane muttered, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. ”But who the heck are you to dare stand there and command us around? I do admit that your little bottleneck plan was good, and you clearly have some decent raw strength to kill those guys earlier.

But in the end, you are just a weak layer 2.

SO KNOW YOUR PLACE!”

With the last shout, Chief Vane’s face twisted into an ugly snarl. He opened his internal channels wide, unleashing the full, suffocating weight of his Layer 4 essence pressure directly onto Sol’s body.

The air between them warped from the heavy gravity, a physical force meant to force Sol’s knees to violently smash into the gravel.

Sensing the massive spike in energy, Veylara’s expression tightened. She immediately moved her body, preparing to step forward and use her own Layer 4 core to help Sol mitigate the crushing pressure.

But before she could take a single step, Sol stopped her with a hand signal.

Sol stood right in the center of the focused pressure. Even though he was momentarily surprised by the sudden action,and had been forced a bit down.

Slowly, deliberately, he straightened his spine, his neck rotating with a loud, heavy CRACK that echoed cleanly through the quiet clearing.

He looked at Vane’s shocked face, his lips pulling back into a dark, confident smirk.

”Oh, layer 2?” Sol said, his voice rough and casual. ”Who told you I’m a layer 2?”

With those words, Sol completely released the suppression bindings around his internal channels.

BOOM.

A heavy, roaring wave of fiery energy exploded outward from his body, instantly colliding with Vane’s suppressive incoming aura.

The sheer density of his presence didn’t just block the Layer 4 weight... it completely erased it from the air, turning the surrounding wind hot and dry.

He was a true Layer 3 warrior.

Every single person present in the clearing went completely rigid, their faces freezing into an array of shocked expressions.

Chief Vane’s smooth face cracked, his eyes widening as he felt the sheer density of the aura neutralizing his own.

Even the twenty-foot Gray Marauder Chieftain narrowed his yellow eyes, his lazy boredom vanishing instantly as he felt the raw density of Sol’s new core.

Behind him, the Veynar lines were filled with a collective gasp. Warchief Veylara’s eyes widened in pure shock, her spear lowering by an inch, while High Shaman Zephyra stared at his back with a look of utter bewilderment.

Kira and Zeyra’s jaws dropped, their minds completely blown.

He had been a Layer 2 just yesterday in the square, to see him suddenly stand up as a full Layer 3 master was a reality-shattering development for the primitive warriors.

Of course, they didn’t know the secret behind his rapid growth.

Previously inside the narrow mountain pass, Sol had single-handedly slaughtered hundreds of elite enemies.

He had funneled the vast majority of those fallen souls straight into his Free Use power to evolve his golden-silver pool... which acted like a bottomless, ravenous pit.

But he wasn’t stupid.

He knew he needed a higher baseline power to deal with the chiefs, so he had funneled a significant portion of those souls straight into his Sun Core.

He had broken through the barrier and reached Layer 3 right in the middle of the slaughterhouse, surrounded by the blood of the Marauders and Zerith.

But he had simply used his highly refined golden-silver liquid to tightly suppress the new aura, hiding his true strength, so he could continue to casually butcher the incoming batches without alerting the rear chiefs.

...

The heavy silence stretched over the gravel flats for several long seconds. The primitive warriors unable to process how an outsider could reach layer 3 so fast.

Chief Vane was the first to break it, his jaw clenching as he forced his facial expression back to normal, though his eyes were still twitching with a deep, hidden fury.

”So what?” Vane growled, his voice losing its smooth warmth, turning dark and sharp. ”So what if you are a Layer 3? In front of a true Layer 4 powerhouse, you are still nothing but a slightly bigger bug for me to crush under my foot.”

Saying this, he suddenly stopped dramatically, his eyes shifting toward Kira and then Sol again, his lips pulling back to reveal his yellow teeth in a savage, terrifying smile.

”And... since you lots are so incredibly eager to meet that young girl again,” Vane said, his voice full of a disgusting, playful warmth, ”let me be a good ally and help you guys have a proper meet up right now.”

He turned his body toward the center of his thousand-man infantry line, his lungs expanding as he spoke loudly.

”Come out!” Vane shouted.

A heavy, booming footstep echoed from deep within the Zharun ranks.

The dense columns of leather-armored warriors smoothly parted, creating a wide lane right down the middle of their formation.

Walking slowly down the path was a massive, scarred Zharun warrior.

He stood nearly seven feet tall, his bare chest covered in old tribal markings, but what caught every single eye in the clearing was the bizarre, oversized head accessory he was wearing.