FREE USE in Primitive World - Chapter 447: Pure, Cold Infantry Work

“You see that?” Sol asked, looking down at the fallen warrior before turning back to the rows of recruits. “If you try to push straight back against an enemy who has more momentum than you, you break your own wrists.

But if you angle the shield sideways while you slide backward, their own charging speed will force them to glide right off your surface, throwing them off balance.

While they’re stumbling past your side, the man behind you uses a low spear-butt trip to smash their shins. A monster with a broken leg can’t chase a routing line. It just becomes a log that trips up the warriors running behind it.

I know it’s dirty, but it’s fast, and it keeps our flanks clear without stopping the retreat.”

The recruits stared at the demonstration, their eyes widening as the dirty, practical brutality of the strategy sank in. It was completely unrefined, stripped of any artistic tribal flair or glorious martial spirit.

It was pure, cold infantry work designed to mutilate and disrupt a charging mass through simple tricks.

He pointed back to the line. “Get up. We’re running the moving plow drill until the outermost rows can drop, angle, and slide back without disrupting the inner columns. If a single column chokes, we reset from the beginning.

Log-bearers, split into two groups. Don’t hit the center this time. Move to the flanks. I want you sprinting along the edges of the formation, slamming those ironwood trunks into the angled shields at full speed while the line moves backward.”

The recruits shifted their weights, their jaws tightening as they prepared for a completely different kind of impact.

The exhaustion caking their limbs was heavy, but the steady, unchanging confidence radiating off Sol’s black-armored frame acted like an iron anchor for their nerves.

They didn’t question the logic; they just locked their teeth and braced.

“Formation lock!” Sol called out.

The two hundred and sixty men snapped together into their curved crescent wedge.

“Engage retreat! Double whistle!”

PHEW-PHEW! PHEW-PHEW!

The whistle blasts rang out. The center of the line began its fast, controlled backwards sprint, but on the outer edges, the designated flankers instantly dropped their hips, angling their heavy bone-shields outward at a sharp slant.

The log-bearers charged from the sides, slamming the thick petrified trunks against the moving flanks.

BANG! SLASH! SHUCK!

The sound was a chaotic mess of grinding wood and sliding boots. The first attempt was sloppy—two flankers on the left failed to lock their shoulders correctly, the ironwood log slipping past their guard and clipping a boy’s ribs, sending him rolling into the dirt with a sharp cry of pain. The outer column stuttered, the symmetry of the wedge warping dangerously.

“Stop!” Sol’s voice thundered, cutting through the clearing like an axe through dry timber. He didn’t check on the injured boy. He didn’t call for a healer. He just strode straight into the middle of the left flank, his silver-crimson eyes cold enough to freeze the mud under his boots.

“You’re tracking the log with your eyes instead of your base!” Sol muttered, pointing a thick finger at the flank leader’s stance. “The angled shield is a ramp, not a wall! You don’t fight the weight… you let the weight slide off the bone while your lower body keeps moving with the inner column.

If you freeze for even half a breath to take the full hit, the Zerith and marudrers will swarm over your head before you can lift your spear. Get up and fix the slant. Again!”

For the next two hours, the clearing was a chaotic, brutal symphony of grinding bone, tearing mud, and sharp, military barks.

Sol watched like a hawk, his eyes catching every single micro-fault with a chilling, detached precision.

He didn’t care about their fatigue, he didn’t care about the dark purple bruises blooming across their shoulders, and he didn’t care about the splinters of bone-shields embedding themselves into their palms.

He ran them through the plow-and-retreat loop over and over until their movements became entirely instinctive.

A boy in the fourth row turned his hips too early? Sol was there, a heavy palm slamming into the kid’s shoulder plate to force him back into position.

A reserve squad left a two-inch gap between their shield rims during the side-slide? Sol would launch a low, snapping kick right into the center of the opening, shattering the wooden shaft of their spear to show them exactly how a Zerith claw would find their throat.

He didn’t use grand spiritual techniques or flash his core energy to intimidate them. He used pure, unyielding discipline and raw physical mechanics.

He broke down their unrefined, instinctual tribal movements and rebuilt them into something cold, calculated, and efficient.

By the time the sun had completely slipped behind the massive ironwood canopy, leaving the clearing in a deep, purple shadow, the transformation was undeniable.

The sloppy, uneven clattering of the afternoon had completely vanished. When the two hundred and sixty men moved, they moved as a single, heavy organism.

The shields slid, locked, and pivoted with a synchronized, terrifying precision that made the packed dirt beneath their boots vibrate in a single, solid rhythm.

“Line lock!” Sol called out one final time.

The entire unit snapped into the inverted wedge, their shields creating a seamless, gleaming curve of white bone right across the dirt road.

“Moving plow transition! Go!”

PHEW! PHEW!

The whistles blew in rapid succession. The center columns began a fast, steady backward run, their spears extended forward in a tight defensive grid, while the outermost ranks smoothly dropped their hips, angling their shields at forty-five degrees as they slid along the edges of the path.

They guided the imaginary pressure outward, keeping the escape lane perfectly clean, before skidding to a brutal, locked halt right on the final pivot marker.

THUD.

The entire formation stood frozen, an unyielding vault of bone and wood, every single spear point perfectly aligned at throat level. Not a single shield wobbled. Not a single boy shook.

Sol walked to the front of the formation, looking at the two hundred and sixty mud-caked, sweat-stained faces.

Their chests were heaving, their muscles were bruised a deep purple from the hours of continuous impact, and their hands were caked in gray dirt.

But the wide, vacant terror that had filled their eyes at noon was entirely gone. It had been systematically ground away, replaced by a cold, sharp focus.

Even though time was short, they at least knew the best strategy for their survival now.

They knew exactly how many breaths they had to hold, exactly how many paces they had to run, and exactly how the trap was going to snap.

“The basics are done,” Sol said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp that carried a lethal confidence. “Go to the shamanic grove. Have the shamans rub down your bruised pathways with fat, and eat until you can’t swallow another chunk of meat.

You aren’t out there tomorrow to die for some ancient glory. You’re out there to play the handle of an axe, and I’m the one swinging it. Get some rest.”

“For the Veynra!” the two hundred and sixty men roared back in unison, their voices creating a single, powerful wave of sound that shook the leaves of the nearby huts before they broke formation in a tight, orderly march.

Sol smiled in satisfaction, even though he could have trained them batter if given more time, but for now it was enough, anyway their goal was not to kill but to run and survive.

But with this training, he realized how powerful modern army knowledge was, if given enough time, implemented perfectly and combined with powers here, it could really do wonders.

And maybe he could also create a powerful force, but that was for later, right now, he had more important stuff to do, so he didn’t linger in the clearing.

He adjusted the belt at his waist, ensuring the scabbard of the Dreadwing Blade was resting perfectly against his left hip, and strode straight toward the central rings of tribe.

The atmosphere inside the main thoroughfares had hardened entirely while he was out training his unit. The civilian longhouses were still dark and dead silent, but the main paths leading to the High Hall were a choked, flowing river of bone-shields and heavy spears.

Compared to before there were even more warriors present now.