His body lay in a sea of blood. The head was severed, the heart exploded, and the air around him was thick with the smell of iron and burned flesh. There was no sign of life. But his eyes, even soaked in blood, remained open, clinging to the last thread between death and existence.
Darkness began to creep at his edges. A bitter feeling, as if the blood was being drawn from his veins drop by drop, as if his soul was being drained by cold threads. He could only hear a distant echo of drums; their sound no longer struck the ground, but hammered the depths of his broken heart.
"Is this… death?" His mind asked in a hoarse voice while his body lost the ability to answer.
Moments passed, and images started to surface before him.
He saw their faces. Fathers, brothers, children, women… they all stared at him with blood-soaked eyes, faces warped by death. That night when the clan burned, when blood flowed until the ground turned into a swamp. The cries for help, the blade that tore their throats, the fire that swallowed their homes… all returned to tear at his mind.
"I couldn't save you… I couldn't protect you…" His words poured out as red tears; he had nothing but to scream inwardly.
Their faces moved closer to him, like their spirits gathered around him, their whispering voices like a cold wind:
— "Let go, Ashn… you are tired… it is enough… join us, free yourself from this torment… here is rest… here is silence."
Their words were daggers in his chest, dragging him toward the abyss.
But amid that darkness, a spark ignited. Not a spark of life, but a spark of hatred, regret, and determination.
"Rest?" A bloody smile formed on his torn soul. "No… no rest for me. I will not join you until I drown this world in blood, until I slaughter everyone who tore my clan apart. Until I make them taste a thousand deaths before they are given true death."
His words were not a human cry, but a beastly wail that refused to go out.
Suddenly… the arena trembled. The blood that covered the ground began to boil, as if it were a pool of hidden fire. The air filled with dark auras; the beastly intent flowing from the drums and the corpses of the abominations began to gather.
They did not gather only in the air… they surged like red waves into Ashn's body, into his blood, into his mind, into his soul. The darkness around him was split by whips of bestial howling.
He felt as if thousands of beasts entered him. As if they were devouring his heart and soul, swallowing what remained of his humanity.
"Drown… drown into the brutality…"
"Drown in blood…"
"Drown in madness…"
They were the voices of the beastly intent, not a single voice but a terrifying chorus that besieged his consciousness.
The Heavenly Dao Eye
Then suddenly… the sky opened.
A giant eye, fused between blood and darkness, appeared above the arena. An eye not human, not merely bestial… it was the Heavenly Dao Eye itself.
It stared at Ashn with a cold gaze like death, heavy like a fate with no escape.
From it sprang a huge bloody beam that pierced the whole arena and focused on his torn body.
The closed wounds burst open again, then began to fuse. His severed head rejoined his neck, bones warped before regaining shape, flesh grew rotten before becoming solid. The shattered heart reformed, beating with dark red blood mixed with the beastly intent.
Ashn screamed, a cry full of pain and madness, an echo that shook the very universe.
He stood on his feet again, his body covered in scars, eyes burning with blood, breaths heavy like a beast risen from the dead.
He raised his head to the eye and asked in a hoarse voice, as if coming from a grave:
"How…? I died. My head was cut off, my heart exploded… I should have ended here."
A short silence, then the eye spoke. It was not a human voice, but like thunder, as if the earth itself spoke, a deep voice that penetrated the soul:
— "You who walk the path of blood… you did not pass the trial because you defeated the giant."
The air shuddered.
— "You passed it because you were more brutal with yourself than you were with your enemy. The beastly intent… is not just tearing your enemies' bodies, but tearing your soul, crushing your self, drowning yourself and the world in madness."
Its words were not just speech but iron laws, as if they were carved into the fabric of existence.
"More brutal… with myself?" Ashn muttered, blood dripping from his mouth as he gave a bloody smile.
— "Yes… the path of blood is not salvation… but ruin. Your path will only lead you deeper into madness, and the more you advance, the more the world around you becomes an endless slaughter."
Then the voice rang out again, like an unappealable verdict:
— "O you who walk the road of ruin and torment… prepare for the Fourth Trial."
The arena trembled. The blood boiled more, the darkness blazed, and the very sky convulsed.
Ashn stood in the center of the arena, his body surrounded by a bloody aura, his breath heavy, his eyes embers burning. He smiled a bloody smile and whispered with madness and brutality—
So… the Fourth Trial… let it come. Let us drown together.