Sol walked slowly over to the edge of the smooth crater. He looked down into the sheer, polished bowl of earth. There was no rubble. No debris. It was a perfect testant to absolute, overwhelming power.
He rembered the feeling of helplessness when the spider had looked at him. The suffocating weight of knowing his Layer 2 foundation was completely, hilariously inadequate. He rembered the feeling of his own ’Free Use’ power... the cheat that he thought made him special... cowering in fear inside his core.
He hated that feeling. He despised it with every single fiber of his being.
Sol planted the butt of his bone-spear into the mud. He leaned his weight on it, letting his head drop. He took a long, deep breath of the foul, rotting jungle air.
He had spent the last few weeks surviving. He had spent the last three days resting. He had spent the last few hours celebrating his victory in a bed.
But Elyndra was right. He was crawling. He was getting comfortable in the dirt.
The waking calamity might be dealt with by the alien girl, but there would be others. The Great Orrath was just one tiny, insignificant patch of a massive, terrifying world filled with beings that could erase him with a tap of their finger.
If he wanted to live... if he wanted to ensure he never felt that suffocating, helpless terror again... he couldn’t just sit behind the wooden walls of the Veynar tribe and play hero.
He had to get stronger. He had to consu.
Sol pulled the bone-spear out of the mud. The silver-crimson glow in his eyes flared back to life, burning away the shock and awe, replacing it with a cold, terrifying, and utterly ruthless hunger.
His Sun Core seed to roar in agreent, the golde essence thrumming heavily in his veins. The Dreadwing and the Great Badger, fully synchronized with his Layer 2 foundation, practically vibrated with anticipation.
But as he took his first step toward the tree line, his practical instincts violently kicked back in.
Wait. He stopped and turned his head, looking back at the mangled, pulverized corpse of the Layer 3 Stone-Back Boar sinking slowly into the bloody mud.
"Before I go devouring the whole damn world," Sol muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing. "Let finish what’s on my plate."
It was just a Layer 3 beast, and a heavily injured one at that, but in the Great Orrath, essence was essence. You didn’t just leave a loaded battery lying in the dirt.
Sol walked back over to the massive carcass. The crushed skull was leaking a thick mixture of brain matter and volatile earth essence. He didn’t hesitate or care about the ss. He slamd his bare, calloused hand directly onto the cracked bone plating of the boar’s forehead.
He engaged his core.
Instantly, the heavy, thick vitality remaining inside the massive beast rushed up his arm like a rising tide. But as the raw energy hit his solar plexus, Sol paused, feeling a distinct, dual pull inside his body.
He had a choice.
He could funnel this raw beast essence into the hollow, silver space in his chest to replenish and strengthen the "Free Use" power. Or, he could dump it straight into the roaring, golden furnace of his Sun Core.
Sol considered it for exactly two seconds.
The silver essence was incredible. It had just proven its absolute, terrifying worth back in the Shamanic Grove, effortlessly bypassing a powerhouse’s ntal defenses and turning Zephyra into a pliant, begging ss. It was the ultimate cheat code for control and pleasure.
But pleasure didn’t keep you alive when a three-story mutant spider tried to bite you in half.
The silver power useless itself in the face of true, absolute danger, at least for now.
In the end, it was more of a tool for manipulation, not raw survival.
Increasing the raw, destructive output of his Sun Core was the absolute first priority. The golden essence was his armor, his speed, and his overwhelming strength. It was the only thing that helped him get stronger faster and stay breathing in the mud.
Sol ntally locked the hollow silver space tight and aggressively funneled every single drop of the incoming essence straight into his Sun Core.
The golden furnace roared, happily incinerating the raw, chaotic beast essence and refining it into pure,golden essence. The newly evolved, Layer 2 Dreadwing and Great Badger eagerly drank the refined fuel, their spiritual forms solidifying and growing even denser.
Under Sol’s palm, the massive, multi-ton boar rapidly emptied of its essence, not like it needed it now that he was, and it was just gonna evaporate in the atmosphere in a few minutes. So, he had absolutely no qualms or pity.
Within a minute, all the essence was sucked dried by him.
Sol pulled his hand back, letting out a hot, satisfied exhale.
His reserves were topped off. His spirits were nurtured and deeply anchored in their new Layer 2 state. He felt like a coiled spring forged from solid steel.
He picked up his heavy bone-spear from the dirt, rolling his shoulders.
Then, he turned his head and looked at the other side of the ravine.
He stared at the massive, perfectly smooth, fifty-foot spherical crater. The empty, polished bowl of earth where Elyndra had casually deleted the Layer 4 Obsidian Weaver.
Sol let out a long, heavy, thoroughly depressed sigh.
"What an absolute, tragic waste," Sol grumbled, kicking a frozen clod of mud into the empty crater.
The awe and terror of the alien’s power had faded just enough for his ntality to realize exactly what he had just lost. That Weaver wasn’t just a threat; it was a walking, skittering goldmine. It was a genuine Layer 4 Apex predator. A Lord Blood beast heavily saturated with the essence.
If he had been able to kill that thing... or even just scavenge its corpse after Elyndra killed it normally... the amount of pure, ultra-dense essence he could have devoured would have been astronomical.
He could have upgraded so much. That single beast could have likely pushed his newly evolved spirits halfway to the peak of Layer 2 in one massive gulp.
But Elyndra hadn’t just killed it. She had completely erased it from the loot pool.
"Next ti," Sol muttered darkly, turning his back on the crater for good. "Next ti, I’m taking the kill."
He tightened his grip on the shaft of his spear and stepped out of the blood-soaked ravine. He didn’t look back again.
He began walking back toward the Veynar settlent.
His strides were long, heavy, and full of absolute, uncompromising purpose. The tribal gas, the political bickering, the comfortable life behind the high wooden walls... all of it felt completely irrelevant now.
...
The trek back to the Veynar settlent didn’t take much long. With his newly evolved Layer 2 Dreadwing spirit and stronger body, he practically glided over the thick undergrowth of the massive trees. His boots barely left imprints in the mud. The suffocating, heavy pressure of the jungle that used to drag at his muscles felt like a gentle breeze against his reinforced, hyper-dense bones.
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