The air in the rocky forest was trembling.
Dust, blood, and the leftover ash from the giant sword's discharge were still drifting slowly.
The giant monster was lying on its back, its split chest bleeding thick rivers of blood, and its massive body shaking.
The human faces on the sides of its head twisted, some crying, some screaming, some laughing in madness.
But among all that chaos, one voice came out.
From the giant wolf's throat.
From the depth of a distorted consciousness that should not exist at all.
"…Why…?"
It lifted its head with difficulty, blood flowing from its vertical eye.
It looked at Ashen, the child who barely reached its knee height.
The monster only needed to raise its neck to see him.
A deep, broken, choking voice came from its mouth:
"Why… did you help me?"
The sentence was cracked, as if thousands of throats said it at once.
Some were angry, some lost, some afraid of death.
Ashen stood beside the monster's huge feet, watching it with calm coldness.
His eyes had no depth, no emotion, as if the matter did not concern him.
He wiped blood from his cheek with his finger only because the blood annoyed him, not because he had just survived a deadly battle.
Then he spoke in a quiet, still voice, as if talking to a stone:
"I did not help you."
The monster froze for a moment.
The human faces fell silent at once, as if silence itself feared him.
Ashen continued without blinking:
"I was going to let you die. And that is what should have happened."
He tilted his head slightly, as if remembering something far away, something only he could see.
"But your words… the ones you said a moment ago."
His eyes narrowed.
Not in anger, but something deeper.
An ancient shadow moved behind his soul.
"The words… stirred something inside me."
He raised his shoulder casually, like someone apologizing for forgetting someone's birthday.
"An old promise. It seems I forgot it."
Then he looked at the giant monster with a cold gaze:
"So… my body moved before I thought."
"Don't consider it help."
"Consider it… instinct."
The giant monster trembled, not from pain but from a shock it could not understand.
Then its massive chest began to rise and fall violently.
It breathed, as if for the first time it felt alive.
"I feel…"
Its voice cracked, and the faces around it twisted in strange harmony.
"I feel… like I know your anger…"
Ashen answered simply:
"You know nothing."
He paused for a moment, then added:
"But we share one thing."
The monster stared with its bloody vertical eye.
"And what… is it…?"
Ashen turned toward the place where the imperial visitor had fallen.
The air there began to tremble.
The Emperor's Twin Flame ignited above the man's shoulder.
Ashen replied in a low, cold, sharp voice:
"Both of us… don't want to die before finishing something."
The monster growled softly.
Not a chaotic howl this time, but something like agreement.
It slowly stood up, its giant bones producing sounds like cracking stone.
Ashen took one step forward.
The giant monster took a step that shook the ground.
Both fixed their eyes on the same target.
The new visitor.
Then Ashen spoke:
"We will fight him together."
And the monster murmured:
"Together…"
The rocky forest trembled from fear.
The air became heavier.
And the intent coming from both of them formed a black shadow over the ground.
An alliance that should not have happened, but it did.
And the next prey was the imperial guard.
When their auras erupted, the entire rocky forest shook as if two mountains had awakened at the same moment.
Ashen's aura was bloody, dense, and wild.
His five-star blood frenzy burst around him like a sea of blood in a storm.
The sky above him turned red, the rock beneath him cracked, and even the poison in the fog seemed afraid to approach.
The three runes burned across his body.
Crocodile scales formed across his primitive iron skin, making his body a mix between animal and ancient armor.
The Sky Leopard's Feet became a flashing aura around his legs, exploding with speed whenever he moved.
The blood around his arms gathered to form Bear Fists, huge blood arms that shook with buried power and impact force.
Ashen was no longer human.
He became something like a creature from an extinct bloodline, something born only in moments of slaughter.
As for the giant monster…
The air split around it.
Two curved blood blades formed above its head, pulsing with energy.
Their effect was instant.
Its speed doubled.
Its strength doubled.
Its four arms ignited with a dense bloody aura.
A blood manifestation surrounded them like primitive weapons created only for killing.
Each movement from the gorilla-like arms left behind something like a storm.
Each movement from the giant human arms cracked the rock and made the earth boil.
Then they leapt.
No one saw the beginning of the movement.
There was no initial sound.
They simply vanished from their place.
And appeared in front of the imperial guard in the same instant, as if the distance never existed.
Silence…
It did not last even half a heartbeat.
The monster struck first.
Four giant arms came down at once on the imperial guard.
The force was enough to crush an entire building or ten Blood Trainees at once.
The sound was like a mountain exploding.
But the guard…
Raised his arm only.
A normal human arm, with no special ability around it except a very light aura.
Two-star blood frenzy only.
And yet—
He stopped the strike completely.
The ground behind him cracked, the rocks collapsed, but his body did not move a centimeter.
Ashen appeared above the monster, above the guard's head level, and attacked with a seismic shock directly at the skull.
Seismic Shock.
His fist covered with Bear Fist aura struck the guard's head in a vertical drop.
It blew the air apart.
It shattered the ground beneath them.
Even the giant monster was pushed back from the force.
But the guard…
Simply turned his head slightly.
The fist passed beside his cheek.
And then air stopped.
Then with a small jump he rose to the monster's chest level.
One kick.
One kick from the imperial guard.
Fast, simple, with no extra aura.
It hit the monster's chest.
The sound that came was not the sound of flesh.
It was the sound of rocks collapsing inside a sealed cave.
The giant monster was thrown back 50 meters, dragging a wave of blood and dust with it, destroying several massive rocks on the way.
Ashen did not escape either.
A single slap hit his shoulder while he was in the air.
No blood power.
No technique.
Nothing.
A slap from the guard's empty hand.
Ashen rolled three times on the ground, then stood again, but his left shoulder was completely destroyed, the bone sticking out even through the iron skin.
His eyes stayed cold.
He did not blink.
But his body understood the truth:
This man was stronger than him.
Stronger than the giant monster.
Stronger than both together.
The monster charged again, enraged, using blood manifestation at its limit.
The ground shook with each step.
Ashen vanished and reappeared at the guard's right side.
The Sky Leopard's Feet left behind a blood trace, and the place he passed over evaporated from speed.
Their joint attack was destructive.
The monster struck down with the gorilla fists to crush the body and squeeze the bones.
The two giant human arms attacked from both sides to break the ribcage.
Ashen attacked from behind with double seismic shocks, each strong enough to break stone and spirit.
The attack came from three directions, five points, at the same moment.
An attack designed to kill anything that faced it.
But the guard…
Smiled.
A small calm smile, not mocking, but the smile of someone who knows he cannot be harmed.
He said in a low voice:
"Too slow."
Then—
The slaughter began.
A side kick hit the monster's jaw.
Half of the wolf's face exploded, and dozens of the human faces on its right side turned into bloody paste.
A punch to Ashen's stomach.
His hand did not move much, but the strike bent Ashen's back backward until he nearly broke in half.
The guard disappeared and appeared behind the monster, his hands hitting in all directions like a ghost.
Every strike hit a nerve.
Every strike hit a weak point.
Every strike opened a hole in the monster's flesh.
Each hole was large enough for a small boy to pass through.
The attack was so fast it looked like a metal rain piercing the monster's body.
Ashen tried to seize the moment and attacked from behind, but the guard grabbed him by the throat, lifted him like a small animal, and smashed him into the ground.
One hit broke half his ribs.
Blood everywhere.
The scene was catastrophic.
The giant monster lost an entire arm.
Dozens of human faces on its body melted and dissolved.
The ground beneath it became a pit of crushed flesh.
Ashen breathed slowly, blood pouring from his mouth.
And the guard…
Without a scratch.
Without a wound.
Without fatigue.
With only two-star blood frenzy.
He raised his hand slowly, as if announcing the start of the second phase of the slaughter.
And said calmly:
"The game ends here."