The rain had stopped.
But the ground was still damp, soaked with the scent of blood and ash.
The faint smoke rising from the mud-stained wagons made the scene look like a painting from the end of the world.
In the middle of that ruin, Ashen walked slowly, his eyes glowing faintly beneath the dark clouds.
With every step he took, the ground seemed to breathe beneath him—
as if the forest itself was watching him.
Not with fear, but with obedience.
He approached one of the wagons, the least damaged among them, and stopped at its broken door.
He raised his hand and touched the burned wood with his fingertips, whispering softly, barely audible:
"I felt before… that the savage intent had become… like an extension of my consciousness."
His words came out not with the tone of someone confident, but of a being trying to understand what he had become.
He stared at his hand, still holding traces of that crimson glow that had drowned everything in death.
"It's connected to me… no, it's not just energy. It's a separate awareness—an echo of myself in another form."
He entered the wagon and sat on the floor stained with dried footprints.
Silence filled everything.
Even the wind seemed to stop, listening to him mutter to himself.
"Although it's not a perfect extension of my consciousness—since I can't control the trace it leaves when it moves too far away… I can still feel it.
It's like a hidden thread connecting me to everything it touched."
He closed his eyes and extended his awareness slightly.
Indeed, he sensed something faint in the distance—
a residue of that intent that had exploded moments ago.
It wasn't consciousness, but a shadow, a mark left on the fabric of existence itself.
"It changes life around it," he said slowly, then added in a sharper tone:
"The Absolute Classification mentioned by the Heavenly Dao Eye… it still hides many secrets."
He opened his eyes again.
The sky had turned a darker gray, and dim light filtered through the wooden cracks in the wagon's roof.
He stretched his hand upward, letting the remaining raindrops fall onto his palm, and whispered:
"But the real question is… who am I, really?"
His voice echoed inside the wagon, as if it were answering him.
"Was my existence limited to that savage place?
That hell where I was born?"
He paused.
His face was expressionless, yet his tone cracked slightly—something like longing, though he didn't know for what.
"But I feel something… something telling me I had a life once. A past.
Something that tells me I am guilty.
That I once had emotions… that I used to be, like everyone else… human."
His voice trembled briefly, then the cold calm returned.
He raised his head slowly, the shadows swirling in his eyes like a vortex of blood and light.
"And what is this urge? Why do I constantly feel this desire for vengeance?
A feeling that wants to drown creation itself in blood?"
He reached out as if trying to grasp that feeling, then slowly closed his fingers.
"Who… am I?"
Silence answered him.
A dense silence, not empty, but filled with distant whispers—
as if the earth itself was trying to remind him of something he had forgotten.
He stood and began walking among the scattered wagons around the pit.
He moved without hurry, his eyes scanning everything, picking up what seemed valuable:
iron boxes, fabric bags filled with gems, flasks with glowing liquids, and weapons of strange design.
He gathered them into a pile in front of a destroyed wagon, while the rain fell gently over his shoulders again.
By the end, piles of bloody treasures lay before him.
The colors—gold, crimson, and silver—intertwined like a chaotic painting symbolizing the world he had awakened into.
He sat before them, eyes moving between treasures, maps, and scattered scrolls.
He opened one and found faint lines forming a map of a vast continent.
Another contained fine writing in a language he didn't recognize, but his mind translated it unconsciously—
as if an old memory had awakened inside him.
"Maps… trade records… notes about caravan routes…"
he whispered, turning the pages slowly.
"But how will I carry all of this?"
He paused.
Then, something stirred inside him—
a faint voice from deep within his awareness, not like his own thoughts, saying slowly:
Check your Sea of Consciousness.
His eyes widened.
He didn't think—he simply obeyed the call.
He sat cross-legged on the ground and closed his eyes.
He sank into himself, toward that mysterious sea he had felt since escaping the savage ordeal.
The darkness within was not empty—it was an immense space filled with faint crimson light.
And within that light, something floated—a simple, silver ring with no decorations.
"This…?"
He reached for it in his mind, and as he touched it, a strange vibration passed through him.
He pulled it slowly, then opened his eyes—
the ring was in his hand, in the real world.
It looked ordinary, cold under the rain, but it pulsed with something alive inside—like a tiny heart.
He raised his hand and looked at it for a while.
"This feeling… it's familiar… but I don't remember from where."
He closed his eyes again and focused his spiritual energy on the ring.
A thread of his awareness seeped inside—
and suddenly, another world unfolded before him.
A vast space stretched about a hundred square meters, lit by dim light like dawn.
Inside were small piles of tools and a ground as solid as black stone.
But what caught his attention most were two massive stone tablets in the center.
He approached them within his consciousness.
Strange engravings covered their surfaces, intricate lines glowing with ancient power.
His mind recalled—faintly—that he had seen them before, in a place filled with death and blood.
"The tablets… same shape… same feeling.
The same ones that held the Heavenly Records of the Pure Soul and the Energy Shock Technique…"
he whispered in his mind.
"But where did they come from? What are they for now?"
He thought of inspecting them further but stopped.
"Later… there will be a better time for that."
He withdrew his awareness from the ring and returned to reality.
He looked at the ring in his hand and murmured:
"An internal storage space… a rare artifact, no doubt."
He began experimenting with it.
At first, he failed to store anything.
Then he focused harder, channeling part of his spiritual energy—
but the ring remained silent.
He clenched his fist tighter.
At that moment, his eyes glowed faint crimson, and the savage intent within him stirred.
Thin threads of energy emerged from his body, merging with his soul, and entered the ring.
Suddenly, he felt a new connection—a link between him and the ring, pulsing in sync with his own rhythm.
He smiled faintly.
"So that's how it is…"
He raised his hand again and began directing his energy.
One by one, the treasures before him vanished—dissolving into faint red mist, transferring into the inner space of the ring.
Jewels, maps, weapons, scrolls, even glowing stones—
all of them entered the small world now under his control.
When he finished, he sat, staring at the ring again.
"I can fill it with my own energy… so I can sense it completely."
Then he closed his eyes, releasing a thread of savage intent mixed with his spirit.
Two crimson eyes formed within the ring—
the same eyes that had merged with his spiritual embryo…
the giant eyes that watched both body and soul.
The ring glowed briefly, then calmed.
When he opened his eyes, he felt the ring had truly become part of him.
He exhaled slowly and returned his breathing to normal.
Then he pulled out some maps and scrolls from the ring to examine them.
Most were trade records.
But one stood out—
a solid card with golden edges and an engraving shaped like bird wings.
He lifted it to his eyes.
"An invitation card…?"
He turned it over and read the words engraved on it:
"Invitation to the Fifth Imperial Conference for Young Talents."
It was stamped with multiple seals from sects and academies.
He opened the rest of the papers and found more details—travel routes, general instructions, and the names of sect representatives.
Reading softly, he said:
"A conference to recruit young talents…"
He paused, then continued, gazing through the wagon's doorway at the distant horizon:
"Maybe… this is the fastest way to understand this world.
If I join one of these sects, I can learn, understand the laws that govern power here…
and maybe find something about my past."
He stored the card and records inside the ring, keeping only one map.
He spread it on the ground, examining the lines carefully.
It pointed to the conference's location, but it was far—hundreds of kilometers beyond the forest's edge.
The map wasn't detailed enough to lead him there directly,
but he noticed something else—a nearby city.
The word was written in ancient script:
"Valdo City."
"A nearby city…" he muttered, tracing its mark on the paper.
"If it really exists, maybe I can find a way there to reach the conference."
He folded the map carefully and tucked it into his coat.
Then he stood, giving one last look at the field of death around him.
The blood had dried, the savage intent had calmed, but its trace lingered in the air like a mark that could never fade.
He walked deeper into the forest, his footsteps merging with the rustling leaves.
The sky opened to distant flashes of lightning, and the wind warned of an approaching storm.
As he walked, another voice crossed his mind—he wasn't sure if it was a memory or an illusion:
"Every new path… begins from an old corpse."
He didn't look back.
He just kept walking, heading toward the horizon, where the first city of his new journey awaited—
the first step on the path that would lead him to discover who he was…
or what he had become.