FREE USE in Primitive World

(Intense gore and brutality ahead. Reader discretion is advised.)

His fingers locked firmly into the prince’s long, braided hair, and with a single, brutal upward jerk, he yanked Gorr’s entire body off the ground, forcing his neck to snap backward.

”No! Wait! You nodded! You—” Gorr shrieked, his eyes expanding to the size of coins as the icy terror rushed right back into his chest.

Sol didn’t waste his breath answering the coward and threw him on his back. He didn’t promise to let him live; he had only demanded the truth.

And the truth didn’t change the fact that this boy had marched into the Veynar village, dragged the Lumi away with intent to sacrifice her, and more than that ordered a human tribeswoman to be skinned alive just to create a mocking trophy.

Sol stepped over him, his heavy boot coming down flat against the prince’s throat, pinning his windpipe with just enough pressure to stop him from thrashing, but leaving his lungs just enough air to keep his senses wide awake.

”Your father ordered a young girl from your own blood to be skinned alive just to clear his pride,” Sol said, his voice dropping into an unyielding sheet of ice. ”He wanted to see a Veynar warrior blind with rage. He wanted to play with the skin of humans.”

Sol inverted the grip on the Dreadwing Blade, the sapphire edge humming its quiet, high-frequency vacuum song.

”Since your family loves the art of skinning so much,” Sol muttered, his silver-crimson eyes burning with a dark, terrifying concentration, ”let’s see how much you enjoy as your own skin is removed.”

SHUCK.

With a smooth, incredibly precise motion, Sol didn’t drive the blade deep into a vital organ. He had something far crueler in mind.

He aligned the vibrating, sapphire-rimmed tip of the Dreadwing Blade with the top of Gorr’s forehead, right along the hairline. The high-frequency edge hummed hungrily, almost eager.

SHUCK.

He angled the blade with surgical perfection, letting the edge kiss the skin before sliding it just a millimeter beneath the surface. Then, with a slow, deliberate pull, Sol began to peel the prince apart.

The execution was unhurried, methodical, and brutal beyond anything the battlefield had yet witnessed.

Sol moved the blade with the steady, practiced hand of a village skinner breaking down a prime tusk-deer... calm, focused, and utterly detached.

The vacuum effect of the high-frequency edge sliced through flesh and connective membranes like warm grease, separating the skin from the underlying bone and muscle with terrifying cleanliness.

He kept the major veins and arteries intact, ensuring the heart continued pumping, forcing Gorr to remain conscious through every agonizing second.

A long, curdling scream of pure, unadulterated agony tore out of Gorr’s throat... a sound so sharp and inhuman it seemed to split the sky above the clearing. The prince’s body convulsed violently, limbs flailing through the empty air as his own face was slowly torn away.

The first pull stripped the forehead and brow in one clean sheet. Exposed red muscle glistened wetly under the dying sun, twitching and pulsing as blood wept from the raw surface.

Gorr’s eyes widened in absolute horror, the whites showing all around as he realized what was happening.

The second pull curved around the eye sockets and down the bridge of the nose.

Cartilage parted with soft, wet pops.

The skin peeled back like wet parchment, revealing the prince’s face as a grotesque, bubbling crimson mask. His eyelids were gone.

His nose was reduced to two flaring, bleeding holes. Every nerve ending screamed as the hot air and sunlight burned across newly exposed tissue.

Gorr’s screams grew hoarse and broken, dissolving into wet gurgles and animalistic whimpers. His body thrashed wildly beneath Sol’s boot, but the Golden Dominion held him firmly in place, denying even the mercy of unconsciousness.

With a final, deliberate twist of his wrist, Sol tore the entire scalp and facial skin clean off the skull in one heavy, dripping sheet.

The wet slap of flesh hitting the dirt echoed sickeningly. What remained of Prince Gorr’s face was now a horrifying, bleeding skull wrapped in raw muscle and exposed sinew... teeth bared in a permanent, lipless grimace, eyes rolling madly in their sockets.

Sol held up the bloody trophy in his left hand for a moment, letting it unfold in the breeze like a macabre banner, while his right hand casually shoved the faceless, screaming body of the prince backward into the limestone dust.

Across the battlefield, reactions rippled through both sides like shockwaves.

Among the Veynar warriors, there was no horror... only grim, savage satisfaction.

The young recruits who had once looked uneasy now clenched their fists with burning pride. One veteran spat into the dirt and growled, ”That’s right. Let the bastard feel exactly what he did to that poor girl. No mercy for Zharun beast.” Another nodded fiercely. ”General Sol is only returning the favor. This isn’t cruelty... this is justice.”

Even the more disciplined warriors watched with cold approval. They saw no excess in Sol’s actions. The Zharun had brought this upon themselves.

On the Coalition side, the remaining Zharun warriors watching felt their spirits completely shatter. Some of them even felt their stomachs turn inside out, their bodies shaking so badly that their wooden spear shafts rattled against their still bodies.

The sight of their prince reduced to a screaming, faceless horror broke something deep inside them. Many wept openly, not from sadness alone, but from overwhelming dread. He isn’t a man... he’s a devil.

They looked at the faceless thing squirming in the dirt, then looked up at Sol’s black silhouette, a deep, sickening dread infecting their minds.

He wasn’t a warrior fighting a war; he was a monster that had crawled out of the dark to turn their entire lineage into loose meat.

But no one’s reaction was more devastating than Chief Vane’s.

The Zharun chieftain... Gorr’s father... was trapped mere yards away, knees locked, body completely immobilized under the crushing weight of Sol’s Golden Dominion.

His eyes were bloodshot, bulging with unimaginable agony as he watched his only son being skinned alive.