Chapter 422: Chapter 422: Resentment Of Girls

"Of course," Veylara said calmly, her voice flat and even as she handed her bloody spear to a nearby guard. "The trash has been cleared from the ridges."

Sol blinked, his silver-crimson eyes flashing with confusion as he gently pried Kira’s face away from his chest plate. "Wait. What do you mean ’got them all’? I thought I cleaned out the perimeter."

Seeing his genuine confusion, Zephyra turned back to him, her expression softening. "Chief Veylara wasn’t idle last night, Sol. The moment those first survivors you saved staggered through the gates, Veylara knew exactly what was happening.

She didn’t wait for the council either. She immediately went into the deeper jungle alone."

The High Shaman paused, her eyes shifting to the Warchief. "There were high-layer Zerith warriors out there.. Layer 3 commanders... keeping a tight eye on the infiltration and directing the smaller squads from the outer periphery.

If they had moved in, your night would have been a lot different. But Veylara hunted them down and slaughtered every single one of them before they could reach your sectors."

Sol paused, his brain processing the information. A sudden, unexpected warmth hit his chest, cutting through the icy disgust he had carried since the gully.

He hadn’t encountered a single Layer 3 monster during his midnight run because the Warchief herself had been silently ghosting through the dark right beside him, taking out the heavy hitters before they could cross his path.

It wasn’t like a Layer 3 commander could have truly threatened his optimized, physics-based cutting power anyway... but still, in a world this brutal and unforgiving, it felt remarkably good to know that someone actually had his back.

"Thanks, Chief," Sol said, offering Veylara a sharp, respect-filled smirk through the dirt on his face.

Veylara simply grunted, a rare, faint smile touching her scarred lips. "Save the thanks for the battlefield, young man. The scouts are back, and the perimeter is clear. Wash that filth off your skin. We’ll be having a meeting later."

Saying this, she turned around and left, Zephyra looked at him one last time and seeing him tightly held by girls, smirked internally and also left.

...

Kira and Zeyra didn’t say a single word as Warchief Veylara and High Shaman Zephyra turned around and strode out of the narrow alcove.

Their heavy robes and reinforced battle gear rustled with each step, the sound fading quickly down the stone corridor until only silence remained.

The moment the two older women disappeared from sight, the air grew thick and suffocating.

Sol stood motionless like a statue, still completely caked in the dried filth of his night’s work. Green blood, yellow ichor, and chunks of moss clung to his black Rockhorn armor like a second, rotting skin. The sour, metallic stench of dead Zerith warriors radiated from him, heavy and nauseating in the confined space.

But girls didn’t seem to mind this smell, as they held him tightly.

He helplessly looked down at the two girls.

Kira was still trembling with barely contained fury. Her knuckles had turned bone-white as she clutched the edge of his breastplate, as if she wanted to rip it off him. Her sharp eyes were wide, wet with unshed tears of rage and worry, burning with raw resentment.

She looked like she was one second away from punching him in the face.

Beside her, Zeyra was deathly quiet. She wasn’t crying, but her dark eyes were heavily ringed with red from the sleepless night she had clearly endured.

Her jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles in her cheeks kept twitching. The usual smitten in her expression had been replaced by something fierce and wounded.

Both girls stared at him like they wanted to tear him apart themselves for daring to walk straight into a meat grinder without them.

The silence stretched painfully.

Sol let out a dry, helpless chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck with the only relatively clean patch of his hand.

"Look... I’m sorry," he said, trying to keep his voice smooth and casual, though it came out as a tired rasp. "The situation out there escalated too fast. I didn’t have time to circle back. I promise I won’t go rogue like that again."

Kira let out a sharp, angry sniff, her grip tightening on his armor. Zeyra’s gaze somehow grew even more intense, her lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. Neither of them looked even slightly pacified by his half-hearted apology. The weight of their combined anger pressed down on him harder than any Zerith’s claws ever could.

Sol cleared his throat, suddenly feeling the thick stench of dried ichor on his skin more acutely than before. The sour odor was becoming unbearable even to him.

"Right... Well, I should go clean up before the war room meeting starts calling for me."

Before either girl could find their voices to unleash the storm he knew was coming, Sol quickly pivoted on his heel and escaped down the corridor. His footsteps echoed heavily against the stone as he retreated (ran) toward his assigned quarters in the Feline Spire. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Behind him, he could feel their burning stares drilling into his back. He didn’t need to turn around to know that this conversation was far from over.

...

The wooden room was exactly as he had left it... quiet, dim, and entirely isolated from the buzzing panic of the tribe.

Sol unbuckled the thick leather fasteners of his new Rockhorn carapace, setting the pitch-black plates carefully on the table. He stripped off the linen tunic and leather pants, tossing the blood-stained rags into a far corner.

He walked over to the large wooden tub in the corner of the room. It had been filled earlier with fresh, cold well water by the spire attendants.

Sol stepped into the freezing water and sank his heavy frame down, letting out a long, satisfied grunt as the chill hit his hyper-dense muscles.

He leaned his head back against the thick wooden rim, closing his eyes. His Layer 2 Sun Core thrummed steadily in his gut, easily radiating enough internal heat to keep the freezing water from shivering his skin. He grabbed a rough linen cloth and began to casually scrub the dried green crust off his forearms, listening to the ambient rustle of the wind outside.

Click.

Suddenly, the wooden latch of his door snapped open.