The giant's scream came from a place no human could understand.
A sound mixed with pain, terror, and animal rage.
The human faces on both sides of its head had completely burst, blood pouring from them like red waterfalls.
Each face represented a consumed soul… and each tear meant the spiritual strike had ripped through another layer of its stolen consciousness.
The monster, despite its terrifying size, looked for a moment like a lost child trapped inside a nightmare.
Ashen stood facing this scene…
His body breathing out a dense, savage intent that made the surrounding rocks tremble.
Every muscle was tense, every drop of blood moving so fast it felt like his veins were being torn from the pressure.
There was a single pure desire inside him…
Primitive.
Uncontrollable.
The desire to kill.
The giant crimson eye above the monster lowered slightly, its pupil widening…
Then it fired another pulse.
The giant tried to protect its head with its four arms…
But the spirit cannot be protected by flesh.
The pulse hit it like a hammer striking a huge bell.
Every cell in its body shook, every nerve, every bit of its rotten blood.
The vertical eye on its face split open slightly, dark black blood dripping down and burning the rocks where it fell.
The monster lost balance again and fell to its knees, sending small tremors through the ground with each impact.
But it did not die.
Instead…
Something else began.
Something worse.
---
A strange heat started rising from the giant's body…
At first like steam…
Then like energy.
Energy that felt like boiling blood.
It wasn't just rage… it was ignition.
Ashen recognized that feeling.
The same feeling he sensed when the faction leaders used it in their previous fight.
Blood Ignition.
A desperate technique…
Used only when the user knows he will cease to exist if he doesn't use it.
The giant, even though it was only a monster… even though its life was nothing but a stolen mixture of souls and corpses…
Still, in that moment…
It chose to live.
Its massive body rose slowly, red steam rising from it like smoke from a volcano.
Bones in its back cracked, reforming as flesh reattached itself. The wounds sealed shut at incredible speed.
The sound of snapping bones echoed, as if a new beast was being rebuilt inside it.
Then…
Its aura exploded.
Not like the energy of ordinary fighters… but like an ocean of blood flooding everything.
Rocks lifted from the ground…
Stone pillars split apart…
And the poisonous fog returned three times thicker.
The monster's strength…
Sixteen thousand kilograms…
Now became much more.
It pushed one enormous foot forward, its step carving a deep crater into the ground from the pressure.
It roared.
Then charged.
It charged like a moving mountain of flesh.
The stone forest shook under its feet, dust rising like storms, the air itself fleeing from its path.
Each step was faster than the last…
Until the monster rushed like a train that had broken off its tracks.
---
Ashen did not run.
He did not retreat.
He did not even think about it.
Blood Fury—Five Stars—exploded inside him.
A terrifying bloody aura surged from his body.
Thick… warm…
Then hot…
Then wild.
His muscles swelled slightly, veins glowing, his chest expanding, his gaze narrowing to a single point:
The giant.
His strength doubled instantly.
His speed doubled.
His reaction speed doubled.
His sense of battle doubled.
His blood ignited like fire running through his veins.
Then he moved.
He shot forward like an arrow, kicking off the ground with all his strength, leaving a crater behind him and a blast of dust.
His body became a straight red line in the air…
Crossing the distance to the monster in less than a second.
The giant swung its four arms, each carrying a massive blood blade.
Strikes from above… from the side… slicing the air before even reaching him.
But Ashen…
Looked at them with indifference as if they didn't exist.
The savage aura around him heated up, and the huge blood blades melted like ice near a flame.
Then, when he got close enough…
The Blood Bear Fist ignited.
A bloody aura formed around his arms in the shape of giant bear limbs, claws glowing a dark red, the pressure around them creating shockwaves.
Not only that—an orb of blood energy wrapped around his fists, distorting the air itself.
Ashen slipped between the giant's arms like a thread between axes.
Then he struck.
His fist hit the giant gorilla-like elbow joint.
The shockwave did its job.
The massive bone compressed inward…
Then an internal burst ripped through the flesh layer.
The entire arm shook as a wave of disintegration spread inside it like spiritual poison.
The giant roared.
Its arm detached from its body.
But it did not stop.
It raised the remaining three arms and smashed them down toward Ashen like he was nothing but an insect.
Ashen jumped above one of them, spinning in the air…
But before he could strike again—
He felt something.
Something cold.
Sharp.
Lethal.
Behind him.
One feeling only:
Death.
The danger was so close his back burned from the warning of pure instinct.
He didn't think.
He twisted his body with insane force, turning his upper half away just in time—
And saw it.
A blood blade.
Not like the ones the giant generated.
This one was different.
A blood sword…
Cutting through the air like lightning.
It passed behind him by a hair…
Then pierced straight into the giant's chest.
The first impact pushed the monster two meters backward despite its immense size.
Then the sword… changed.
It expanded.
Stretched.
Opened like a waking beast.
It became a seven-meter-long blood sword.
It transformed from a thin blade into a massive chunk of condensed blood.
It tore through the giant's chest, through flesh and bone, then pinned it to the ground under its own weight.
The giant's entire body shook…
Black blood burst from the wound…
The crack of breaking bones echoed even through the fog.
Ashen did not move.
Not because of the attack he avoided…
But because of the person who threw the sword.
In the middle of the stone forest, standing on a high rock…
Someone was there.
His body was covered in a torn robe, with lines of blood dripping like markings.
Thin… tall… but his aura was dense, a wave of blood pressure moving around him like the air feared him.
His hands hung calmly at his sides…
And his eyes—
His eyes were staring directly at Ashen.
A cold look.
Calm.
Showing no interest in the giant, even though it was still raging and trying to pull the sword out of its chest.
Ashen clenched his fist…
And frowned.
The man smiled… a thin smile… empty of life.