Chapter 666: Nice Try

Dodge? Why waste the steps?

Sol dropped his center of gravity, planting his bare feet into the ground. When the lead boar reached him, its heavy snout aimed directly at his midsection, Sol calmly drove both palms straight out, catching the beast’s snout with the full, immovable force of his body!

BANG!

Even though it may not feel much, the collision sounded like a battering ram striking a fortress wall.

The boar’s massive momentum ceased instantly, the kinetic shock reversing back into its own skeleton. Its thick neck bones telescoped inward with a sickening crunch, and its rear legs lifted clean off the dirt from the sudden stop.

Without pausing, Sol grabbed the stunned, dying boar by its left tusk, pivoted with the fluid grace, and swung the massive animal like a massive club!

WHAM-CRACK!

The swinging boar slammed full-force into the second charging boar!

Both beasts collided in a horrific tangle of splintering flint ridges, snapping ribs, and flying gore.

The second boar shrieked as its chest was crushed by the weight of its kin, tumbling off the trail into deep shrubs. Sol let go of the carcass in his hands, shaking off a glob of dark bile that had splashed onto his chest.

Ahead, the path opened into a wider clearing where the main body of the beast horde had just congregated.

Over thirty beasts... a chaotic, writhing mass of snapping jaws, razor claws, and heavy hooves... were bottlenecked between two massive ironwood trees, all trying to scramble past each other to reach the light of the essence tornado.

When Sol stepped out onto the path, covered in dark blood, wearing only a fern leaf knotted with vines, the entire horde hesitated.

The sharp, metallic stench of fresh apex predator blood radiating from his skin momentarily cut through their frenzy. Several Shadow Wolves backed away, their ears flattening against their skulls, while the Stone-Spine Lizards hissed aggressively, their long, armored tails whipping against the stems.

Sol stopped ten paces away from the front line. He rolled his neck until the vertebrae popped loudly, the faint, neon glow of his eyes casting an eerie crimson sheen over the darkness.

"None of you are getting past this line," Sol rasped, his voice calm, flat, and absolute.

HISS-ROAR!

The standoff lasted only a second before the overwhelming pull of Veylara’s breakthrough shattered their fear.

Driven by primal greed, the horde surged forward in a deafening, unified wave!

Three Blood-Horned Stags led the rush, lowering their towering, bloody-dripping racks of antlers, their hooves leaving deep .

Sol didn’t care much about their hideous looks and blurred from his place.

WHOOSH.

Using a high-frequency burst of speed, Sol vanished from the trail.

He materialized directly above the lead stag, dropping out of the air and landing both bare knees straight onto the beast’s spine.

CRACK!

The stag’s back snapped like dry kindling. As it collapsed, Sol reached down, seized the thick, multi-pointed antlers with both hands, and brutally twisted.

SNAP.

He ripped an entire three-foot section of jagged, blood-crusted antler clean off the skull.

Now he had a weapon.

A dark, feral smirk curved Sol’s lips as he gripped the heavy bone horn like a spear-club weapon.

The second stag lunged, its venomous points grazing past his leaf loincloth. Sol side-stepped with effortless precision, driving the heavy point of the antler straight through the creature’s eye socket! The bone punch drove deep into the stag’s brain, dropping it instantly in its tracks.

Before the third stag could react, Sol whipped the base of the antler around in a vicious backhand swing, catching the beast flush across the temple. The skull shattered in an explosion of red, and the stag dropped limp into the dirt.

"NEXT!" Sol bellowed, his voice echoing like thunder.

But well, beasts ddidn’t seem to care about his weird antics and moment he turned, a massive Spiked Carapace Beetle... scuttled forward with terrifying speed, its four-foot mandibles snapping shut with enough hydraulic force to shear clean through a warrior’s waist!

Sol didn’t even blink.

As the mandibles clamped inward, Sol thrust the broken stag antler horizontally between the jaws, jamming them open with a loud, wooden screech.

While the giant insect struggled against the wedge, Sol stepped inside its reach. He cocked his right fist back, his sun core flaring with pure, golden essence that lit up the entire clearing.

BOOM!

Sol drove a bare, straight punch directly into the center of the beetle’s armored faceplate!

The heavy chitin... which could effortlessly deflect Layer 2 warriors spears and stone axes... shattered inward in a spiderweb of violent fractures.

The concussive force blew straight through the creature’s head, liquefying its internal brain organs and blowing a massive exit hole out the back of its shell! The massive insect didn’t even get to shudder, as its six legs giving out as green, viscous hemolymph poured over the rocks.

HISS!

A low, deceptive scrape came from his blind spot.

A Stone-Spine Lizard had scaled a tree above him, its eight-foot, scaly body dropping, and its heavy club-tail whistling through the air in a horizontal arc aimed straight at the back of Sol’s neck!

Lizard seem to have found an opening and gave its all, but Sol had alkready seen through it ages ago, he didn’t even turn around.

He simply raised his left forearm, catching the whistling club-tail against his bare muscle.

CLACK!

The impact sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil. But Sol’s arm didn’t even shake. The tiny, razor-sharp stone spikes along the lizard’s tail shattered on impact against his reinforced skin, crumbling into harmless dust.

Sol slowly turned his head, his neon-crimson gaze locking onto the terrified, reptilian slit-pupils of the lizard.

"Nice try," Sol whispered.

His left hand snapped shut, gripping the end of the lizard’s tail like an iron shackle. With a single, explosive heave of his torso, Sol yanked the entire eight-foot reptile off the tree, spun it through the air in a wide circle, and slammed it face-first into the ground!

SPLAT-CRUNCH.

A.N: Wow Chapter number today is really unique. We have really come a long way.