The silence… was unnatural.
A distorted silence, as if the stone forest was holding its breath, afraid of what was coming.
Dust fell slowly…
The air was heavy…
The ground still trembled lightly, as if the previous battle had left a memory of fear.
Suddenly—
A stone explosion!
Red rock shards shot into the sky, and from beneath them, a human body, covered in blood, broken, yet… standing.
Ashen.
His chest rose and fell with difficulty, his left shoulder soaked in blood, ribs partially exposed on one side, his arm trembling with every breath…
But his eyes…
His eyes were not human.
They were crimson sparks shining in the darkness.
Half his face was covered in a layer of dried blood, the other half dripping.
But he stood.
He stood tall…
A destructive specter…
But alive.
Then he heard it…
"Grrrrrrrr…"
It was a tremor, not a sound.
A hoarse roar… from something that should not still be alive.
Tens of meters away, rocks stacked over a deep pit began to rise one by one.
A rock…
Then another…
Then a third…
In a moment, the pit erupted like a volcano!
The giant monster emerged.
But it was not as before…
It was worse.
Its chest was open in the middle…
Ribs protruding, some broken, some bent outward like the teeth of another beast.
Half its face had melted from previous devastating attacks, and the giant eye in its forehead dripped thick black blood, flowing like a stream of lava.
Yet…
It stood.
It breathed.
And it was angrier than the mind could imagine.
It raised its head toward Ashen…
And Ashen raised his toward it…
A silent moment.
Not respect…
But the instinct of a killer seeing another killer survive death.
The silence before the second round…
Was like a monster's smile before it sinks its fangs.
Ashen stood, chest rising and falling, his old wounds still seeping…
But the Blood Rage ignited around him like a volcano devouring itself to be reborn.
The giant monster also…
Stood towering fifteen meters tall, its broad body like a castle wall, flesh regenerating over cracked bone at incredible speed.
Blood Manifestation on its four arms gleamed like lava, binding muscles and healing wounds.
They stared at each other with a chilling cold that made the skin crawl, ready for the second round of mutual destruction.
Suddenly,
The giant monster blew with force.
Not air.
But a river of evaporated blood.
In a moment, a dark, sticky wave swept across the battlefield, rising tens of meters into the air, spreading like a red cloud over the rocks, over debris, over the ancient stone corpses.
The smell?
A mix of rusty iron…
Rotting flesh…
And stifling heat.
Ashen could see nothing.
Everything disappeared, even the sunlight.
But what he felt…
Was worse:
The skin over his shoulders began to boil.
His chest cracked.
Thin layers of flesh fell like candles melting under flame.
Blood Rage renewed…
But the fog destroyed it faster than it could regrow.
With every second…
He heard tearing sounds from his body.
But Ashen did not kneel.
On the contrary… he raised his head.
He activated Iron Skin.
A dark black layer crawled over his body…
Primitive iron, condensing, wrapping around his muscles, forming a shield harder than rock.
Then—
Crocodile Blood Rune.
Blood scales burst over his skin, layer upon layer, each glowing dark red.
His defense doubled.
His flesh stopped melting.
But the fog… was not just poison.
Suddenly…
Fwoooosh!
Hundreds of bloody arms appeared from nowhere.
Not from the ground… but from the air itself.
Each arm five meters long, thick, red, dripping poison, moving like snakes.
The giant monster had combined its bloody arms with the poisonous blood fog…
Creating something new…
Something that didn't exist in the first round.
The arms surrounded Ashen from every direction.
Above him…
Beneath his feet…
From the void itself.
Some struck him directly.
—Tak! Tak! Tak!—
Iron Skin cracked.
Blood scales split.
Some poison reached his flesh.
Ashen was trapped…
Inside a suspended torture chamber.
An arm strangled him.
An arm held his foot, another dragged him toward the ground.
Ten arms dug their claws into his back, pulling flesh as if tearing a bag of skin.
Ashen could no longer see the place…
He could only hear the arms scraping against the scales.
But inside him…
Blood Rage
burned brighter.
Then…
Ashen opened his eyes.
The Great Shock.
His body glowed.
The ground trembled.
Rocks began to rise from the pressure.
Then—
Booooooooooom!!!
A circular wave of blood energy exploded from him,
cutting, breaking, and wiping out all the bloody arms within a fifty-meter radius.
Even the fog receded from the blast's power.
The ground beneath him cracked from the force.
Ashen emerged from the explosion, gasping, half of his body flayed…
But his eyes:
A monster.
Searching for its opponent.
He raised his head toward the giant…
And—
He leaped.
He leaped like a cannon.
He leaped as if the earth itself had thrown him.
And this…
Was the beginning of true hell.
Ashen's leap was not just movement…
It was a primitive attack erupting from a body on the verge of exploding from power.
The air tore behind him like a blade cutting thick cloth, and the wave from his momentum alone shattered dozens of stone pillars.
The giant monster raised its head.
Its vertical eye widened slightly.
It was the first time it saw something small… rising toward it like a meteor.
Yet—
It did not retreat.
It didn't even try to defend.
It extended its four arms, and Blood Manifestation burned around them like a sun of lava.
Its fists were the size of small houses, each strike enough to flatten a mountain.
But Ashen…
Was faster.
His feet disappeared in a dark heavenly light,
His body tore through the air,
Then appeared in front of the giant at an impossible speed.
At that moment…
His arms turned into blood bear arms.
Huge fists,
Each claw like a celestial blade.
But Ashen did not stop there.
He extended his hands forward—
Seismic Shock.
Spherical blood energy formed around each fist, trembling like a small earthquake,
Energy that didn't just pierce,
It shattered everything it touched…
Flesh, bone, even other energy.
The giant monster struck with its four arms, trying to crush Ashen from the air.
But Ashen let out a short shout,
A warrior's cry, his heart a bomb.
Then—
Impact!
Booooooooooooooooom!!!
The sky itself split in half.
Ashen's fists struck the giant monster's face directly.
Half of the giant's face vanished.
Dozens of human faces on the side of its head evaporated.
The giant eye exploded like a bubble.
Its upper torso bent backward with unbearable force.
The energy shock penetrated its head and traveled down its spine.
The enormous giant rose from the ground…
Rising despite its massive weight…
Rising as if a mountain had been kicked.
It flew tens of meters,
Body flipping in the air,
Blood raining down,
Sounds of breaking bones audible from afar.
It was one of the fiercest blows ever witnessed in this stone world.
Ashen did not let it fly alone.
He kicked the rock he had stood on—
The rock exploded—
Then disappeared.
He appeared above it…
Then beside it…
Then below it…
Sky Leopard Rune made his speed
greater than the monster's fall itself.
He raised his hand…
Opened his palm…
Blood Chain.
Three bloody lines shot from his body like whips,
Then turned into red spears,
Then—
Launched.
It wrapped the giant monster's legs in less than a second,
Twisting around it dozens of times,
Binding it like a crocodile holding its prey before drowning.
Then—
Ashen spun the giant's body brutally.
Spinning.
Spinning.
The air itself became a tornado,
Rocks flew,
The ground beneath cracked.
Then he released it.
Booooooooooooooooom!!!
The giant's body fell like a red meteor.
It struck the ground with a force that shook the entire area like a level-ten earthquake.
A crater the size of a small city appeared at the impact,
Dust rose hundreds of meters,
And the sound… was like a mountain collapsing.
Ashen landed slowly…
Ready to end the battle.
But…
The second round
Was far from over.