Squads fanned out across the blood-soaked clearing. The kneeling Coalition warriors offered no resistance as their arms were pulled behind their backs and tightly bound. Many were still trembling too hard to even lift their heads.
Sol remained where he was for a while longer, resting the Dreadwing Blade against his shoulder as he watched the process in silence.
The neon-crimson glow in his eyes had dimmed slightly, though the cold pressure of his presence still blanketed the field.
Only when the majority of the prisoners had been restrained did he finally allow himself to exhale.
The manic edge that had driven him through the slaughter of the Zharun was gone, replaced by a deep, bone-heavy weariness. The mysterious void in his head that had hungrily consumed every soul he harvested remained silent and unreadable.
No sense of fullness. No feedback. Just an empty, bottomless quiet that somehow felt more unsettling than before.
Later, he told himself. I’ll deal with whatever that is later.
His gaze drifted toward the Veynar lines and found Kira and Zeyra again.
Both women were still watching him, though the pure horror in their expressions had softened into something more complicated... relief mixed with lingering unease.
When Sol’s eyes met theirs, Kira gave a small, almost hesitant nod. Zeyra crossed her arms and looked away first, though the tension in her shoulders had eased.
Sol gave them the slight incline of his head in return, then turned his attention to the poisoned Zephyra and Veylara.
...
Sol stepped down from the mound of corpses, the sapphire blade of the Dreadwing blade resting loosely in his grip.
As he moved past the bustling, blood-soaked clearing, Veynar warriors hurriedly stepped aside, casting hushed, reverent, and deeply terrified glances at his black-armored form.
He ignored them all, his boots leaving faint, crimson-stained prints on the limestone slate until he reached the sheltered stone ledge where High Shaman Zephyra lay propped against the jagged rock face.
Despite the agonizing heat gripping her lungs and the toxic, purple spiderwebs crawling violently up her neck, Zephyra forced herself to show a cool, unyielding composure as she watched him approach.
She was pale as a corpse, her breathing a harsh, metallic rattle, yet her posture remained stubbornly upright, her spine pressed hard against the broken stone.
Sol stopped right in front of her. He looked down at the old shaman, tilting his head slightly.
The neon-crimson glow had almost dimmed entirely, revealing the dry, tired smirk on his face.
"Okay, okay, no need to force yourself to look so stern," Sol rasped softly, giving her a quick, casual wink. "It’s not like I haven’t seen your worst side before."
Zephyra’s lips twitched, rendered momentarily speechless by his sheer, unbothered audacity.
Here she was, on the absolute threshold of death, and this dark, blood-drenched monster was winking at her like they were sharing a joke at a village festival.
She let out a dry, raspy cough, dark purple blood leaking from the corner of her lip. "You... arrogant child," she spoke with immense difficulty, her voice sounding like grinding flint.
"It’s no use. Save your strength... I know this poison. It is the Heart-Freezing Bog-Marrow... extracted from the deepest roots of the forbidden sectors.
Unfortunately, even you can’t do anything about it. It simply rejects essence itself, blocking the channels from within."
Sol crouched down on one knee, setting the hilt of the blade against the stone beside him.
"How would we know without trying?" Sol replied calmly, his voice lacking any trace of panic. "There is nothing in this world that doesn’t have its counter. It’s just that people usually die before they find it."
He reached out, pressing his hand against her collarbone, right over the dark purple vein crawling toward her heart.
He focused his mind, channeling a thin, controlled stream of his newly replenished Layer 3 Peak essence... a warm, golden-crimson thread... straight into her body.
For a fraction of a second, the golden essence slammed into the hot sludge, physically pushing the dark purple discoloration back by half an inch.
Seeing this Zephyra was in disbelief as a spark of hope ignited in her dimming eyes. It’s moving—!
But before the thought could even finish, the toxic resin reacted violently to the presence of external essence.
Like a provoked nest of pit vipers, the purple spiderwebs surged back with five times their previous fury, wildly thrashing through her channels and tearing through her internal tissue!
"AAAAAGH!"
Zephyra let out a high-pitched, agonizing scream, her entire body arching violently as her vision swam with blinding white sparks. Fresh purple blood erupted from her mouth and nose.
"Damn it—!" Sol instantly cut off his essence flow, pulling his hand back.
The poison immediately settled back into its dormant state, but the brief retaliation had left Zephyra gasping desperately for air, her pulse flickering like a dying candle in a gale.
Sol stared at his hand, his eyes narrowing into razor-thin slits of deep, calculating focus.
Dman, this fucker feeds on essence, Sol analyzed, his mind working with hyper-speed efficiency. The moment external essence touches it, the toxin treats it as fuel to ignite and wreck havoc on the host’s pathways. Standard essence, spirit totems, and physical healing definitely won’t work here. It really is insidious, fuck you bastards for even using that.
He exhaled sharply and closed his eyes, this definitely couldn’t go on, he had to try something else, just then he remembered his Free Use power.
He instantly turned his focus inward toward his chest hollow.
Deep within the cold, bottomless abyss of the hollow lay the unique, reality-bending reservoir of his Free Use power... an absolute, boundary-defying authority that operated entirely outside the laws of standard essence, spirits, or physical bloodlines.
If essence doesn’t work... what about this? Sol thought. It’s miraculous enough to rewrite beast minds and hold physical objects mid-air... let’s see if it can order a poison to get out.
Sol opened his eyes and looked into her eyes.
"Hold still," Sol muttered softly. "This might feel strange."
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