FREE USE in Primitive World

Sol stopped three paces away. He didn’t raise his blade. He simply tilted his head slightly, his neon-crimson eyes staring down at the old man with an expression of profound contempt.

It was the look a man gives a squirming, helpless insect that had spent the last hour convincing itself it was a dragon.

”A calculated act?” Sol muttered raspy, his voice dripping with dry, mocking boredom. ”Yeah, yeah... the classic villain’s pathetic cliche show. ’I did it for the greater good. I did it to save everyone.’ Did you really think I would buy this absolute shitshow?”

Thorne’s sobbing faltered for a fraction of a second, his yellowed teeth grinding together as he realized his grand, tragic speech hadn’t moved the black-armored reaper by a single inch.

”I-It’s the truth!” Thorne shrieked louder, pulling himself closer, his hands reaching for the hem of Sol’s boots as if begging for absolute salvation. ”I swear on the ancestors! I loved this tribe! Veylara’s father was my brother-in-arms! I only wanted us to live! Please! Have mercy on an old man who lost his way—!”

As Thorne’s face hit the dirt near Sol’s boots, a dark, murderous gleam flashed in his tear-filled eyes.

DIE, YOU OUTSIDER DEMON!

Thorne’s right hand, buried beneath the blood-stained limestone dust, suddenly whipped out. Hidden inside his sleeve was a thin, three-inch bone needle coated in a concentrated, pitch-black drop of Heart-Freezing Bog-Marrow.... the exact same fatal poison he had used to paralyze Veylara and Zephyra.

With the desperate, explosive speed of a cornered viper, Thorne lunged upward, driving the poisoned needle straight toward Sol’s neck!

”DIE!” Thorne screamed in insane ecstasy.

The needle was three inches from Sol’s exposed flesh.

But Sol didn’t even move his head or raise his arm. Heck, he didn’t even blink.

FREE USE: ABSOLUTE HOLD.

BANG!

An invisible, suffocating pressure of Free Use detonated in the air half an inch from Sol’s neck.

Thorne’s lunging body froze completely mid-air. The bone needle stopped dead, hovering helpless in the empty space. No matter how hard the old man grunted, how much his veins bulged, or how fiercely he pushed his internal Layer 3 essence, his arm was locked in a psychic vice that defied physical reality.

Sol looked down at the frozen, trembling needle, then slowly moved to meet Thorne’s bulging, horrified eyes.

”A bastard until the very end,” Sol whispered softly.

CRACK-TWIST!

Without touching him, Sol snapped the invisible mental force inward. Thorne’s right arm was forcibly twisted violently backward, snapping his elbow joint inside out with a sickening pop.

”AAAAAAAGH!” Thorne shrieked as the force turned the needle back toward its owner, driving the poisoned bone tip deep into Thorne’s own throat!

PLUCK.

The black Bog-Marrow immediately hit Thorne’s open arterial blood, igniting in reaction to his surging Layer 3 essence.

The old man’s skin instantly turned a terrifying, mottled purple-black as his internal channels seems to began burn from the inside out. He dropped to his back, gasping, choking, his hands clawing at his own neck as the exact agonizing torture he had designed for Veylara devoured his own organs.

”You’ve been jumping around too much today,” Sol rasped, stepping over the twitching traitor. ”Showing off one pathetic trick after another. It’s time to close the circus.”

Sol raised the Dreadwing blade with one hand, pointing the dark sapphire tip straight down over Thorne’s twitching chest.

STAB!

The tblade plunged straight through Thorne’s sternum, pinning the old traitor to the limestone bedrock. Sol opened his chest hollow, unleashing a brief, violent burst of Soul-Siphon that ripped the last remnants of Thorne’s poisoned life force out of his body, turning the elder into a dry, withered husk before he could even finish his final gasp.

SLURP.

Sol pulled the blade free, dusting off the dark blood.

As he turned back toward the center of the clearing, his sharp, dynamic vision caught a sudden movement near a pile of stones.

Looking closely, it was a young Veynar warrior...despite being in such a bloody war wearing the fine leather armor... was frantically trying to scramble over a pile of broken stones to flee.

And voila, It was Korash, Thorne’s only surviving son, the arrogant bastard who had been chasing Kira and had beaten by Sol an

Korash looked back over his shoulder, his face pale as chalk, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated horror as he saw Sol standing over his father’s withered corpse.

”N-No! Don’t look at me! I wasn’t part of it! It was my father—!” Korash whimpered, his boots slipping on the slick stone as he tried to jump off the pile of stones.

”As if I’m gonna believe that, if you aren’t with him, why are you standing with him? Why didn’t you inform Veynar about the betrayal plan?” Sol sneered.

”I-i....” he opened and closed his mouth uselessly, but couldn’t make up any word.

”I-I...” he stuttered, scrambling backward on his hands and heels, kicking up dust. ”I didn’t know the full plan! He only told me parts! I was scared! I didn’t know what to do!”

Sol kept walking toward him at a calm, measured pace. The Dreadwing Blade rested loosely in his hand, still dripping with Thorne’s blood.

”Scared?” Sol repeated, tilting his head. ”You had plenty of chances. Before the battle. During the planning. When the Coalition first arrived. You could have gone to Veylara. To Zephyra. To Thauren. Hell, you could have even come to me. But you didn’t.”

Korash’s back hit a large boulder. He had nowhere left to run.

”I was going to!” he cried, voice cracking. ”I was going to tell them after the battle started! I swear! I just needed the right moment! My father... he would have killed me if he found out!”

Sol stopped a few paces away, looking down at the trembling young man with the same profound contempt he had shown the father.

”You needed the right moment,” Sol said quietly. ”While your father was poisoning the Warchief and the High Shaman. While he was selling out your entire tribe to the Coalition. While people were dying. That was the moment you were waiting for?”