FREE USE in Primitive World

The golden essence in Sol’s gut gave a sharp, ravenous thrum, violently pulling the fresh essence straight out of the dying guards and feeding it into his Sun Core.

At the same time, the silver pool in his chest spun lazily, absorbing their core souls and expanding his internal sensory network.

The cold fluid hummed inside his ribs, giving him a live map of the chaotic heartbeats of every sleeping body inside the settlement.

Peeking inside, he could feel the silver liquid was also reaching the breaking point, it just needed a few more souls to evolve. He was curious to see what changes it will produce.

"Move in," Sol commanded with his hand, without making any sound.

Hargon, Mara, and the rest of the small hunting packs poured past the tree trunk like an invisible wave, scattering instantly into the random maze of mud mounds and hide tents. Their feet moved across the dry stone ground without snagging a single thorn, their bone-daggers ready for action.

The silent slaughter had begun.

Sol led his team, stepping into the messy, unorganized gaps between the shelters with silent detachment.

He focused entirely on the guards and the most powerful-looking warriors.

He didn’t use the sapphire blade for the weak ones; his bare hands and short bone-daggers were more than enough to execute the sleeping giants.

He moved from one random tent to the next, his blade sliding through their throat-membranes with a clean, wet shuck, silencing them permanently before they could even understand they were being hunted.

Beside him, Zeyra moved with a liquid, snake-like fluidity. She stepped inside a low lean-to where an eight-foot youth was sleeping, her fingers driving a sharp bone-needle straight through the soft spot behind his ear, severing his internal core path instantly. The youth didn’t even twitch; his breathing simply stopped.

Kira wasn’t going to be left behind, she also strode forward and plunged her bone knife into a powerful looking marauder, killing it without any suspense.

In the third random cluster of tents, a massive Marauder warrior groaned loudly. He had eaten too much heavy thunder-boar meat during last night’s feast, and his bladder was bursting from the blood he had guzzled with his pack-mates.

He rolled off his pile of mammoth pelts, his sleepy, bloodshot eyes blinking heavily as he rubbed his hairless skull.

He grunted, adjusting the loose fiber bindings of his tunic as he prepared to stand up and go pee against the side wall of his mud house.

The giant turned his body around, stepping out of the hide flap into the dim morning shadows, his mouth opening to let out a massive, sleepy yawn.

He froze mid-breath.

Standing right in front of his face, less than a foot away, was a human figure clad in pitch-black Rockhorn carapace armor. Two silver-crimson eyes were staring straight into his soul, burning with a cold, terrifying light through the dawn gloom.

The Marauder’s eyes instantly went completely wide with a messy mix of shock and horror. His sleepy brain completely scrambled to understand how an enemy warrior was standing inside his tribe.

His chest expanded rapidly, his mouth splitting wide as he prepared to let out a deafening, camp-wide roar that would alert the whole tribe.

But of course, Sol didn’t give him the chance.

Before the giant’s vocal cords could even begin to vibrate, Sol’s right hand shot forward like a lightning strike. His fingers clamped over the Marauder’s split-mouth with a vice-like grip, forcefully crushing his jawbone together so hard the yellow teeth shattered inside his mouth.

At the exact same heartbeat, Sol’s left hand gripped the giant’s shoulder plate for leverage. With a sudden, cold torque of his wrists, he twisted the giant’s neck completely around.

SNAP.

The clean sound of the thick neck vertebrae fracturing echoed loudly. The Marauder’s red eyes remained wide open, frozen in that final, terrifying look of shock as his massive body went entirely slack.

Sol didn’t let the heavy body crash into the dirt; he held it tight against his chest armor, lowering the giant silently into the ground before sliding past the wall into the next hut.

On the other sides of the camp, the other small hunting packs were also executing the slaughter according to the plan.

However, because the tents were sprawled so randomly without clear streets, the coordination was naturally messy, and some noise was bound to happen.

In the western sector, a small five-man Veynar pack stepped inside a large, irregularly shaped hide tent where three giants were sleeping together.

A young warrior drove his bone-knife toward a sleeping giant’s chest, but because these giants had incredibly dense skin, his blade hit a thick, dense rib-bone instead of the heart.

The bone tip scraped loudly, and the Marauder let out a loud, painful grunt, his massive arms swinging wildly as he woke up from the shock.

His heavy fist caught the young warrior across the shoulder, knocking him back into a pile of decorative beast skulls with a loud, clattering CRASH.

"Agh! Up!" the injured giant groaned, his red eyes snapping open in the dark as he scrambled to reach for his heavy club resting on the dirt floor.

Thankfully, the Marauders were naturally heavy sleepers, even when the clatter of the skulls and the brief struggle happened in the middle of the tents, the nearby giants in the adjacent huts simply groaned in their sleep.

They rolled over onto their sides, pulling their mammoth skins tighter over their heads because they thought it was just their pack-mates fighting over the furs or wrestling in their dreams.

But the Veynar spirit warriors couldn’t take any chances. Before the wounded giant could lift his club to alert the others, other warriors slid through the hide flap, their speed traits firing at maximum capacity. They used their superior speed and numbers to overwhelm the massive ten-foot frame instantly.

One of them used the dagger to cut the giant’s front leg tendons with a sharp shuck, collapsing his heavy weight back into the dirt before he could stand.

At the exact same instant, the second one drove his bone-knife straight into the base of his spine, severing the pathway tension and freezing his limbs.

The third one followed immediately.

The moment the first two pinned the giant down, he followed through with a brutal, immediate palm-strike directly to the massive throat. The heavy blow landed with devastating precision, crushing the windpipe instantly.

The giant’s eyes bulged wide in shock as his warning cry turned into a wet, gurgling choke. No sound escaped... only a pathetic, bubbling rasp.

"Hold his legs!" The first one whispered hoarsely, his hands drenched in the thick fluid as they pressed the thrashing giant into the dirt.

The giant bucked wildly beneath them, his enormous body convulsing with desperate strength. His arms flailed, smashing against the wooden supports of the hut, but the three attackers held on with grim determination, using their combined weight and training to keep him pinned.

For a moment, it looked like they had succeeded in silencing him completely.

But it was a bit too late.

In the corner of the dark hut, another sleeping giant stirred. His heavy eyelids cracked open, revealing cold dark pupils that slowly focused on the violent scene unfolding just a few feet away.