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Chief Vane, the Zerith leader, and the Veynar traitors... who had been on the absolute verge of routing moments earlier... suddenly erupted into wild, hysterical cheers.

”THE GRAND CHIEFTAIN IS UNKILLABLE!” they roared, their faces contorted with manic relief and bloodlust. ”KILL THE OUTSIDER! SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!”

The Zerith stalkers joined in, their earlier despair vanishing in an instant as they raised their poison-dripping bone daggers high. Even Elder Thorne’s traitorous Veynar followers shouted in a frenzy, sensing that the tide of death had finally turned back in their favor.

The sight of the Grand Chieftain rising again, his fatal chest wound squirming shut and his aura surging like a volcanic eruption, filled the Coalition with renewed, desperate confidence. To them, it looked like an absolute, unstoppable recovery.... proof that their greatest Layer 4 powerhouse simply could not be brought down.

But among the Marauder ranks, there was no celebration.

A grim, suffocating silence fell over the true Marauder veterans. Their faces were tight with tension and poorly concealed dread as they stood frozen in the white limestone dust. They alone understood what had truly just occurred.

The Grand Chieftain had not simply recovered.

He had forced a temporary, high-risk Bloodline Overdraft.... a forbidden, desperate art unique to the Marauder lineage.

By burning through the deepest foundations of his lineage, Bruga had forcibly accelerated his healing and pushed his Layer 4 physical body into a state of hyper-evolutionary overdrive. His muscles were densifying far beyond their natural limits, his bones reinforcing with compressed atmospheric essence, and his speed surging to terrifying levels far beyond a normal Layer 4 peak.

But the price was catastrophic.

This overdraft was not a free recovery. It was a desperate gamble that permanently sacrificed his future cultivation path.

The very potential of his bloodline was being consumed as raw combustion fuel. Every second he remained in this state damaged the foundation of his power, potentially locking him at his current realm forever... or worse, causing irreversible decline once the forced overdrive ended.

The Marauder veterans exchanged dark glances. They knew their Grand Chieftain had chosen short-term survival and dominance at the cost of his long-term future. It was a decision only made when death was the alternative.

The Veynar loyalists, possessing no knowledge of the Marauders’ forbidden Overdraft, suffered the full, crushing weight of the spectacle.

Just seconds ago, they had been standing on the heavens themselves, believing the war was finally won. Sol’s overwhelming strength, the collapse of enemy morale, the sight of the titan falling... everything had pointed toward a hard-fought but decisive victory.

Then this sudden, impossible resurrection pulled them down... not merely back to the ground, but deep underground into a pit of cold, crushing despair.

The collective mood of the Veynar forces shattered in an instant. Warriors who had been raising their weapons in triumph now stood frozen, faces pale. The light of their spirits flickered unsteadily as fear and disbelief swept through the ranks like a plague.

”By the Ancestors...” Commander Thauren whispered, his voice barely audible over the sudden silence.

His knuckles turned bone-white around the hilt of his golden broadsword. Behind him, his majestic Golden Lion spirit let out a low, uneasy whimper, its blazing mane dimming slightly as it sensed the sudden, unnatural surge of power radiating from the recovering Grand Chieftain.

Thauren’s eyes were locked on the rising figure, wide with dread.

”He’s recovering... and he seems... much stronger than before!”

Across the clearing, Sol stood alone in his black armor, his right hand gripping the hilt of the sapphire Dreadwing blade.

A ripple of horrified murmurs spread among the nearby Veynar warriors. They gripped their weapons tighter, as if trying to hold onto the fading hope that this was somehow a temporary illusion. The emotional whiplash was brutal... the heights of near-victory crashing into the depths of renewed terror in the span of a few heartbeats.

What they had believed to be the end of the war had instead become the beginning of an even greater nightmare.

...

Across the clearing, Sol stood alone in his black armor, the heavy Dreadwing blade held firmly in his right grip.

Seeing Bruga stand back up, Sol didn’t flinch. But his neon-crimson eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits of icy, calculating focus.

His sun core thrummed quietly, analyzing the massive surge of mutated essence in front of him.

He didn’t just heal, Sol calculated, his mind running hyper-speed simulations of Bruga’s new mass, density, and kinetic displacement. He used the trauma of my strike to trigger a desperate bloodline transformation. His physical hide is now fifty percent denser, his reach is longer, and his environmental essence control has doubled. Of course, this type of power doesn’t come without any consequences, so a forced ignition means he is burning its own potential. He’s on a ticking clock.

But the problem is... I have to survive until the bomb goes off.

Even though he knew that situation took a grim turn, still a wide, cold, and deeply psychotic smirk stretched across Sol’s face.

”You really don’t know when to stay dead, do you, ugly bastard?” Sol muttered.

Without waiting for Bruga to complete his loud, triumphant bellow, Sol took a single, fluid step forward... and vanished into thin air.

WHOOSH!

The air ruptured with a high-pitched, deafening sonic boom as Sol engaged both the Dreadwing Wings and the Great Badger’s momentum conversion simultaneously. He didn’t approach from the flanks this time; he charged straight down the center path, a black-and-sapphire hurricane traveling at speeds that defied human perception!

Bruga’s glowing yellow eye tracked the incoming shockwave. ”FOOL! MY HIDE IS NOW AS HARD AS THE VALLEY CLIFFS!”

The giant brought his newly spiked, colossal left fist backward and drove it straight down in a devastating Essence Shockwave Punch!

BOOM!

A five-foot-wide cylinder of compressed, slate-grey kinetic force erupted from Bruga’s fist, plowing through the bedrock toward Sol like a siege cannon blast.

Sol didn’t dodge sideways. Instead, right as the kinetic cylinder was about to obliterate him, he crossed his forearms in front of his chest, invoking the maximum, unyielding weight of the Great Orrath Badger!

BANG!

The Badger’s metallic-grey phantom armor flared into a spiked, absolute-defense shield. Sol took the full, kinetic brunt of the Layer 4 essence punch head-on! The ground beneath his boots shattered into dust, but instead of being blown backward, Sol used the Badger’s mechanics to absorb the kinetic energy, convert it into forward momentum, and launch himself through the core of Bruga’s punch like a piercing drill!

He burst out from the compressed dust cloud directly in front of Bruga’s face!

”WHAT?!” Bruga gasped, his massive jaw dropping in shock.

”YOUR HIDE IS HARDER?” Sol roared, his voice booming through his visor grille. ”THEN I’LL JUST HAVE TO CUT HARDER!”

In mid-air, Sol executed a high-speed, dual-spirit rotational spin! The four-foot sapphire blade of the Dreadwing blade flared with a blinding, golden-crimson aura as Sol channeled every drop of his Golden essence straight into the blade!

CLEAVE!

Sol brought the Greatblade across in a horizontal, mountain-severing slash aimed straight for Bruga’s throat!

CLANG-CRUNCH!

Sparks erupted like fireworks as the sapphire blade struck the newly grown bone spikes around Bruga’s neck. The bone spikes shattered into a million flying splinters, the blade slicing two inches deep into the giant’s obsidian hide before stopping dead against his dense, mutated muscle tissue!

”HAHA! IT CAN’T REACH MY BONES NOW!” Bruga screamed.

Before Sol could retract the blade, Bruga’s right hand snapped forward like a mountain trap, wrapping his colossal fingers tightly around Sol’s torso mid-air!

GRAB!

”I HAVE YOU NOW, YOU LITTLE DEMON!” Bruga roared with murderous glee.

The giant’s grip closed like a hydraulic vise. Sol’s black armor creaked and groaned violently under the sudden pressure of over ten thousand pounds of raw, mutated force.

CRACK-CRACK!

”AAAGH!” Sol spat a spray of dark blood directly onto Bruga’s knuckles. A few of of his ribs snapped instantly, the sharp pain firing straight into his central nervous system.

”TRY TO RUN NOW. WHAT ARE NOT YOU RUNNING!” Bruga roared, his yellow eye flashing with murderous glee. Instead of throwing Sol, he raised his heavy, seven-foot bone club with his other hand, intending to slam the weapon straight into him and smash him into pulp!

Sol was trapped in a Layer 4 titan’s grip, his ribs groaning under the crushing force, he didn’t exepect his defense, reaction speed and strength to increase so much.