The silence that settled after the fighting stopped was unnatural.
It was not the silence of relief… but the silence before an explosion.
The air became too heavy to breathe, as if the stone forest had been injected with ancient, rotten blood coming back to life.
The old master stood firm, his five scorpion tails moving slowly, soaked in blood.
The leader of the Blood Blade Sect wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at the shadows crawling between the rocks.
The leader of the Blood Hands Sect lifted his spear carefully, the bloody hands surrounding him trembling as if sensing something that should not exist.
Even the two giant wolves stopped.
They growled, but not with the rage of battle… it was instinctive fear, something approaching that could unsettle a beast that never knew fear.
Then…
The scream came.
A scream that was not human… not animal… not beast.
A scream like rusted iron being dragged through a pit full of corpses.
A scream announcing that something had emerged from underground… something that did not belong to this world.
Every fighter felt the scream strike their soul.
The battle between the three human sides and the two giant wolves stopped.
With an unspoken agreement, they turned their temporary war toward the new arrivals.
Ironically, the battlefield was about to shift to yet another front.
At the edge of the stone forest, the ground began to shake.
Rocks trembled, dirt swirled into small vortices, and the air was pushed backward as if something massive was forcing its way forward.
Then the horde appeared.
Dozens—then hundreds—of small and medium grotesque blood-born humanoid beasts, looking like failed attempts at creating blood zombies.
Each one had glowing red eyes, cracked skin, exposed bones, and mouths full of serrated teeth.
They ran wildly, pushing each other, climbing over one another in a living wave of flesh and blood.
Behind them…
The real zombies appeared.
Swollen bodies, split skin, massive bulging veins. They moved slowly but steadily.
Each step shook the earth, and each one of them was strong enough to crush a human like straw.
Their bodies were poisonous.
A simple scratch from their claws could burn skin and rot flesh.
They were not fighters… they were a slow-moving disaster.
The three leaders and the two wolves watched…
Even before the horde reached them, everyone who was still standing understood:
This new battle would not let anyone survive easily.
Time felt frozen. Everything moved slowly.
The wolves stepped back, their eyes widening.
The old master lifted his head to the sky, his breath shaking.
The Blood Blade leader tightened his grip on his giant blood blades, a faint light cutting through the air around him.
The Blood Hands leader opened his palms, the red glow growing stronger.
The blood wolves howled wildly.
Soldiers on all sides clenched their teeth and tightened their grip on their weapons, knowing their chances of survival were tiny, but still holding on… holding on to an empty hope.
A battlefield in ruins, drowned in blood.
The leaders were exhausted.
The wolves were panting.
The soldiers were bleeding.
The wolf pack was howling.
And the zombie horde was approaching as if hell itself had opened.
A small beast leaped onto one of the giant wolves, biting into its shoulder, but the wolf struck with its massive bloody claws, cutting the monster in half. Blood sprayed into the air.
A massive zombie marched toward the old master, raising its thick arms.
The old master shot a scorpion tail forward with great speed, piercing the zombie's chest…
But the body did not fall.
The tail got stuck inside, and the poisonous flesh started corroding its end.
The old master pulled it out by force, cutting it himself before the poison spread.
He muttered quietly:
"This… is troublesome. The poison spreads even through the technique."
The Blood Blade leader stepped forward, dozens of blood blades spinning around him like a storm.
Each step shredded ten monsters at once.
But zombies did not die in one strike.
One of them stood behind him, raising its massive arm to strike.
Before it could hit…
The Blood Hands leader extended his arm, and a huge blood hand smashed the zombie into paste.
"Focus. This is only the beginning of the disaster."
Suddenly…
The ground shook again.
Stronger.
Deeper.
More terrifying.
A black crack opened in the earth, as if the world itself was bleeding.
A concentrated red light poured out from inside.
The air turned poisonous, as if blood had evaporated into it.
Then it appeared…
The abomination.
A massive, deformed body, dark red with hints of black, covered with layers of living flesh.
Its upper torso was full of arms.
Its main arms were like those of a huge twisted gorilla.
Its head was filled with human faces, and a single huge eye sat at the center.
Suddenly, dense bloody light gathered inside that eye.
A powerful beam shot out, slicing wolves, soldiers, and zombies instantly.
Then…
From the human faces covering its head, bloody threads burst out—sharp, corrosive, cutting through the air and leaving red smoke behind.
From its spider-like legs, poisonous blood fog rose and spread across the ground.
The human arms on its torso ignited with bloody fire.
Blood arms emerged from the earth around it, twisting and reaching up as if the ground itself wanted to kill anyone standing on it.
"Hahaha! Wonderful, truly wonderful! After devouring everyone here, it will become much stronger and more complete!"
The one who seemed to be the leader of the Corpse Purification Faction laughed crazily.
The abomination did not scream…
It made a sound like boiling blood.
The wolves roared like never before.
Fear.
Real fear.
They charged at the zombies, trying to clear a path.
The old master stepped back, lifting his remaining four scorpion tails in a defensive stance.
The Blood Blade leader launched all his blades forward.
The Blood Hands leader spread dozens of hands around himself to form a living wall.
But the abomination…
The abomination saw only blood to consume.
---
The giant eye flared…
The bloody beam aimed at the old master.
He saw the light reflect off the veins in his tails.
He closed one eye—
Boom—!!
The beam tore through the battlefield.
The ground melted.
Rocks evaporated.
One of the old master's tails was burned completely, turning to ash instantly.
The four main fighters split their positions:
The two giant wolves leaped left and right, attacking the blood arms emerging from the earth.
The Blood Blade leader focused completely, cutting the bloody webs before they wrapped around his neck.
The Blood Hands leader released a wave of giant hands, tearing apart dozens of small monsters.
The old master used two tails to defend and one to attack, while his arm turned into a giant scorpion limb that blocked a secondary beam aimed at his chest.
But the abomination advanced.
Step…
Then another…
Each step crushed a blood wolf into pulp.
Its massive arms grabbed soldiers like insects…
Then crushed them into mush, while the faces on its head absorbed their blood in a horrifying frenzy.
As the battle intensified and chaos grew…
One of the giant wolves was caught by the countless bloody webs and arms erupting from the ground.
Blood threads wrapped around its neck, chest, and limbs.
The wolf screamed, but the webs tightened, slicing its skin and piercing bone.
The Blood Blade leader rushed in, slashing the webs with insane speed, but they would not break easily.
Each strike sent bloody sparks flying.
The old master jumped in, trying to reach the wolf,
But the abomination's poisonous fog filled the area, burning his tails and destabilizing his stance.
The blood arms pulled the giant wolf slowly toward the abomination.
The wolf bled…
Screamed…
Collapsed to its knees…
And at the last moment,
Its head was severed by a wave of the abomination's beam.
Its fall shook the ground.
The second wolf released a thunderous cry…
Then went into complete madness, attacking everything without distinction.
The battlefield was bleeding.
No—more accurately, it had become an open slaughterhouse.
The sky was red from the density of blood.
The earth screamed from pain.
And the cursed aura grew stronger.
Suddenly…
The abomination froze.
Its giant eye turned toward the sky.
It narrowed…
As if sensing something unseen.
The wind stopped.
The beasts went silent.
The zombies froze.
The wolf stepped back, whimpering.
The old master opened his eyes:
"Now what… what is this terrifying aura?"
The Blood Blade leader whispered:
"This… is not a human aura… not a beast… this is…"
The Blood Hands leader shivered:
"…an aura from underground."
Everyone stopped.
Exhausted, covered in blood, bodies torn apart…
And all eyes turned toward Ashen.
Who slowly stood up…
And opened his eyes for the first time since the hell began.