Chapter 682: Stop Playing Dead

The words rippled through the panicked crowds, seeping into every corner. The warriors paused, lowering their spears in confusion and relief.

The shouting died down into urgent, hushed murmurs. Reluctantly, the clan began to organize, pulling back from the palisades and drifting anxiously toward the central square, waiting for the first light of morning to bring answers.

Inside his wooden quarters, Sol kicked the door shut.

A large stone basin of cool river water sat in the corner. Sol ripped the dried fern leaf from his hip and tossed it aside into the hearth. He walked over to the washbasin, grabbed a bucket and dumped it straight over his head.

The freezing water shocked his skin, washing away the remaining beast grease and dirt down his broad torso, pooling onto the stone drainage trough below. He grabbed a rough hemp rag, aggressively scrubbing down his forearms, ribs, and neck until the skin burned pink and clean.

Kira stood near the doorway, crossing her arms, trying very hard to keep her eyes firmly on his face and failing completely. Her gaze kept darting down his chiseled, battle-marked torso, lingering on the broad muscles of his back, lingering on the dozens of shallow lacerations that were already beginning to seal and scab over thanks to his monstrous Layer 3 Peak recovery.

"You really fought beasts bare-handed?" Kira asked softly, her voice carrying a mix of awe and a strange, pouting annoyance. "Just... wearing that?"

"Beasts were loud," Sol grunted, splashing a handful of cold water over his face. "Had to quiet them down."

Kira walked in behind him, carrying the clean towel and fresh clothes.

"Sit down," Kira muttered, stepping toward him with a bone comb and a small pot of healing balm. "At least let me tend to those cuts before anything else"

Sol smiled faintly, sitting on the edge of the wooden bench and letting the young warrior woman carefully rub the cool, herb-scented salve over the stinging abrasions on his shoulders, though they were already about to completely heal.

While Kira’s fingers worked meticulously over his skin, Sol leaned his head back, closing his eyes and resting for a woman, not minding his nakedness.

After she was finished, he grabbed a dry linen towel, roughly drying his hair before pulling on a clean pair of dark leather trousers and pulling the laces tight.

He slipped into a dark-grey sleeveless tunic, cinching the leather belt and buckling his boots. The familiar feel of the real clothes immediately made him feel more human again.

Zeyra, leaning against the wooden post supporting the roof, watched him with amused, knowing eyes.

"And the sky cracking open?" Zeyra asked, tilting her head. "Was that the beasts being loud, too?"

"Sky had an itch," Sol said cryptically, turning to face them with a faint smirk. "Warchief scratched it. You’ll hear about it at the square like everyone else."

Zeyra let out a soft chuckle, while Kira puffed out her cheeks, clearly unsatisfied with the answer, but knowing better than to press him when he had that stubborn, immovable look in his eye.

Kira stared at him, her eyes narrowing as she picked up on the massive, glaring holes in his story. She smelled the air... she knew her mother’s scent, and she knew the faint, distinct trace of intimacy that clung to Sol’s skin despite the cold water wash.

But looking at the calm, immovable set of his jaw, she swallowed her questions. Kira was sharp; she knew when to push and when to let the silence sit.

"Get some rest," Sol added, his voice softening slightly as he rested a palm on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "The elders are going to make a fuss at dawn. You’ll want your head clear."

Kira let out a soft, resigned sigh, leaning her cheek briefly against his wrist before nodding. "Fine. But you’re telling me the rest of it later."

She turned and slipped into the adjoining sleeping quarters, leaving him alone in the main room.

Sol sat down on the edge of the low wooden cot, the room falling into quiet stillness save for the crackling embers in the hearth.

Now that the dirt had washed away and the immediate chaos had settled, his mind turned inward.

He closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness deep into his spiritual sea. There down into the center of the silent, bottomless abyss of his mind where the stolen soul-wisps of his enemies usually vanished.

There, floating in the dark, was the Divine Artifact Orphos.

The four-pointed compass of crystallized midnight was hovering completely still.

The hairline fractures along its sharp edges were gone, seamlessly sealed by the ocean of vitality it had siphoned from Prince Gorr, the coalition warlords, the Armored Blood-Bore, and the dozens of jungle beasts Sol had butchered.

The deep, broken crack running down its center was humming with a faint, concentrated thrum of pure, restored origin force.

Yet, right now, the damn thing was playing completely dumb.

It drifted lazily, emitting only a faint, dormant glow, pretending to be nothing more than an inert lump of ordinary obsidian dug out of a riverbed.

In fact he should have realized it sooner that it was this damn thing. It’s just since it never moved or absorbed any before he thought it was something else in his spiritual sea or maybe it was his soul.

Sol’s spiritual consciousness narrowed, poking at the artifact with a sharp jolt of intent.

Hey, Sol mentally barked at it, his tone laced with heavy sarcasm. Don’t play dead now, you little thief. You sat in my head acting like an empty bucket, siphoning thousands of soul-wisps from everything I’ve killed, and then you pop out of my forehead like an angry landlord to slap down a heavenly restriction. You’ve got eyes. You’ve got a brain. Stop pretending you’re a rock.

The compass didn’t move. It drifted lazily in the void of his mind, completely silent.

I know you can hear me, Sol pressed, refusing to let it slide.