The blood-red arms rising from the ground were gripping Ashen tightly, wrapping around his chest, arms, and legs like merciless hellish restraints. Hundreds of zombies rushed toward him, their open mouths leaking black poison, their bodies shaking with hunger. Above them all, the giant abomination focused its single eye on him, its bloody circle widening and glowing.
Then—
The beam exploded.
A burning, concentrated blood beam tore through the air with a sound like iron melting. Everything screamed that it would crush Ashen, erase him, turn him to ash.
But Ashen?
He was still.
He did not shake.
He did not scream.
He did not even blink.
As if he did not see death approaching,
or as if he did not think it was worth noticing.
As the beam approached his body, before it could touch him…
Something changed.
A savage aura filled the place in absolute silence.
The silence of a predator watching its prey.
The atmosphere twisted.
The air itself…
seemed to stop for a second.
Then—
It boiled.
Something inside Ashen ignited, something ancient, wild, so primal that the stone forest itself shook.
His killing intent burst out like a giant beast opening its mouth for the first time.
It was not just killing intent.
It was judgment.
An intent that pushed the world toward madness and forced it into bloodshed.
The forest air became heavy.
So heavy that no one inside it could breathe.
Faction leaders fell to their knees without control, their foreheads dripping sweat, their teeth clenching, their eyes widening with pure animal fear… the kind that appears when the body understands it is in front of a higher predator.
Humans collapsed.
The girl fainted.
The trembling boy's heart stopped for moments.
Even the giant abomination…
its limbs shook.
As for the zombies?
Some collapsed without being touched.
Some froze like statues.
Some literally melted under the pressure.
The blood beam that was cutting the sky…
began to crack.
As if it had struck an invisible wall,
a wall wrapping the world itself.
The red light dissolved,
broke apart,
and then vanished completely as if it never existed.
The faction leaders shouted:
"What… what is this? What the hell?!"
But none of them could move to understand.
The giant abomination opened its mouth in a sharp howl, unable to understand how its beam failed, how it vanished before even touching a single strand of Ashen's hair.
Ashen simply raised his hand in response.
Not fast.
Not violently.
He raised it like someone lifting a branch that has no value.
But when that hand moved…
Disaster moved with it.
The great shock.
An explosion of blood energy mixed with savage intent created destruction.
The zombies did not turn to ashes.
They evaporated before their ashes could fall.
The blood arms holding him…
dissolved.
The strike moved through the air like a massive wave of dark blood light…
and hit the giant abomination.
Doom.
The stone forest shook.
Rocks shattered.
Blood scattered through the air like a red storm.
The abomination's body flew backward dozens of meters, slammed into the stone wall, and deep cracks spread across its twisted flesh.
Ashen's aura remained still…
savage…
suffocating…
announcing that something inside him had awakened—
Something not human.
And not a beast.
The dust settled slowly.
Shattered rock, splattered blood, evaporated zombie remains…
everything was silent.
Not normal silence.
A silence like "after the slaughter";
a heavy, frozen silence…
the silence of a world forced to kneel before one being.
In the middle of the destruction, Ashen stood.
He was not panting.
Not trembling.
There was no sign that he had just fought.
Only his aura…
rising from him like black ash, wrapping around him like a demonic curtain, hiding his features and making the shadow around him unnaturally deep.
The old man was the first to catch his breath.
He bowed halfway toward Ashen… not out of respect, but because survival instinct told him:
"Do not look into the predator's eyes."
The boy who insulted Ashen minutes ago had his clothes soaked in sweat. His eyes could not stay focused, and his lips were shaking as if he was seeing his father's corpse reborn. He tried to scream, but no sound came out.
The twelve soldiers who formed the defensive line?
Some fainted, the rest did not dare lift their heads.
The leader of the Blood Blade Faction whispered with a strangled voice:
"This… this is not a Blood Trainee… this is something else…"
The leader of the Blood Hands Faction had pale lips as he gripped a man's shoulder:
"If we had fought him… we would be ash."
Then words escaped him uncontrollably:
"This… is a higher predator."
On the other side, the Corpse Purification Faction froze.
None of them moved.
The deputy tried to raise his weapon but gasped when he realized his arm was shaking without control.
The leader tried to give an order… but forgot how to speak.
They were like rodents cornered by a tiger.
One of them said with a broken voice:
"Impossible… this… this cannot be real…"
They stepped back one step.
Only one.
But even that one step was enough to feel Ashen's aura following them.
As if saying:
"One more step… and you will become a memory."
The abomination was still alive… barely.
Its torn body was bleeding blood-like light.
Its limbs trembled.
Its single eye turned toward Ashen like it was looking at its natural enemy, its ultimate nightmare.
It was created to be nothing more than a mindless experiment, yet now it felt fear, awe, and a burning desire for madness and power.
The savage intent around Ashen activated its blood and freed it from the Corpse Purification Faction's control without them noticing.
But instead of going insane or running away, something in its instinct screamed:
If it devours this boy, it will finally become complete.
It looked at Ashen with hunger mixed with madness and wild desire.
The human faces on its head began screaming, their eyes crying blood— tears filled with the longing to devour and kill.
Ashen did not move.
But his eyes…
They held something completely new.
Not the look of an angry child.
Not the look of a fighter wanting to survive.
It was the look of a being awakening to a part of its true nature.
A nature built on madness and pure savagery, shaped by hundreds of years of trials and suffering.
His savage aura decreased slightly… only enough for the others to breathe.
Then Ashen spoke, in a low, calm, emotionless voice.
A voice that fell on everyone like blades:
"Annoying."
It was not a threat.
It was a fact.
A fact that everyone in the forest felt…
even the stones.
Ashen lifted his foot and took one step forward…
Dust rose around him in a spiral.
Everyone froze.
No one dared to move.
Even the wind…
seemed to wait for his command.