As Ashen nodded to the commander of the Corpse Purification Faction, the beastly intent inside him partially faded… It wasn't a retreat, but a deadly contraction, like a monster pulling its claws in before striking deeper.
At that moment, the Imperial Guardian slightly raised his head, exhaling calmly amid the charred stone forest, most of which had been flattened. There were no signs of fatigue or irritation on him. It was as if he had just returned from a short walk, not a massacre. Suddenly, blood began forming in front of him, shaping into a sword—the same bloody sword stuck in the giant fiend's chest. He slowly raised the sword… The coagulated blood dripped from it like raindrops. The burning blood flames above him gradually went out—he no longer needed them.
He whispered softly, as if speaking to himself:
"Now… we begin."
Then he vanished.
He appeared directly in front of Ashen.
The distance between them disappeared, and the air vanished. Time itself seemed to shatter in that moment.
The Imperial Guardian swung the sword horizontally. A strike without any flourish… just pure, raw, lethal force.
Ashen raised his arms to block it, but the sword cut through the air before he could move. The shockwave reached him before the blade even touched him. His body compressed, bones cracked, skin tore, and blood exploded from his shoulders before the sword even hit.
Then came the blade.
Ashen rolled on the ground, cutting through rocks with his body like a stone from a sling, leaving a long trail of scattered blood.
But he rose. Slowly… coldly… as if pain was not part of his life. The beastly aura around him stopped shaking and became steady again. His empty eyes gained deep red shadows.
On the other side…
The giant fiend was still being roasted alive by the bloody sword stuck in it. Its skin peeled, died, and regenerated simultaneously, in a continuous cycle of torment, neither dead nor alive.
But… when Ashen's beastly aura vanished from the spell, the void around the fiend trembled.
Its twisted biological system began to comprehend… to absorb… to respond.
The blood chains binding it broke one by one.
It let out a deep roar… like something born from hell, not a womb. Then the sword fell from its body, and a mass of twisted, hardened flesh poured out, reforming its four limbs in seconds.
It raised its head toward the Imperial Guardian.
Its single vertical eye—even though split in half—shone with a sickly light.
The giant fiend roared… and the forest roared with it.
The Imperial Guardian didn't care. He looked back at Ashen only, as if the real threat was there alone.
"You're not ordinary…" he said with a small smile. A sincere, warm, and twisted smile.
That smile made the abyss itself feel embarrassed.
In a single second, he struck at Ashen again.
The sword lunged toward Ashen's head in a devastating vertical attack. Ashen planted his feet and used three blood runes instantly. The air twisted around his fist, a seismic shockwave formed beneath him, and his beastly intent surged like a crimson storm.
The fist collided with the blade.
The shock shattered dozens of stone pillars within fifty meters. The ground shook, and dust erupted between the rocks like compressed steam.
But…
Ashen stepped back. Only a quarter step. And that was enough to understand: the power between them was not on the same level.
The Imperial Guardian smiled wider.
Then he attacked again.
Before the sword reached Ashen, the giant fiend charged from the side like a storm of flesh and smoke, four massive glowing blood blades in its hands, behind it waves of poisonous fog, and blood arms spreading like the forest itself trying to engulf the Guardian.
The Imperial Guardian didn't turn.
He raised only his left hand—and blocked the entire attack of the giant fiend.
The impact echoed through the forest like a massive explosion. Rocks shattered, the ground sank, and the air vibrated in all directions.
Then the tragedy.
The Imperial Guardian shattered all four blades of the fiend with a single hand.
The bloody blades turned to red dust in the air, before the blood sword in his other hand shot directly into the fiend's chest.
This time he didn't just cut… he erased.
Its body split like a ripe fruit, releasing a huge wave of blood that soaked the stones, turning them a rotten red.
But… the giant fiend did not fall.
Instead…
Blood arms erupted from everywhere, hundreds of them, wrapping around the Guardian, twisting around his arms, legs, and neck, trying to tear him apart, crush him, swallow him.
The poisonous blood fog surrounded them completely, as if the entire stone forest became a closed torture chamber.
Ashen saw all this… and did the only thing no one expected:
His beastly aura disappeared…
Then it flared up.
Its density increased. Its depth increased. Its darkness intensified.
The air above him opened… a massive crimson eye—five meters wide—formed above his head.
A full eye of pure beastly intent. It stared directly… at the soul of the Imperial Guardian.
At just one glance…
Blood erupted from the Guardian's eyes, nose, and ears. His soul shook, contracted, and pierced.
He froze. For less than a second… but it was enough.
The giant fiend tore itself from its restraints, gathered all its strength, and hurled itself at the Guardian like a wild fiery mass.
On the other side, Ashen surged forward. His fist ignited, the seismic shockwave spread around him, and the beastly intent formed massive claws along his arm like a primal monster's limb.
The three collided.
And the stone forest exploded.
The triple impact tore the forest apart.
Massive stones that had withstood thousands of years crumbled like soft clay. The ground sank two meters at once, and a shockwave destroyed all remaining stone pillars. Blood, dust, shards, and brutal screams mixed into a single mass.
Ashen was the first to surge forward.
The beastly aura behind him shaped into a massive red arm extending from his fist, like a primal creature standing over him and striking with him. His fist slammed into the Imperial Guardian's chest, sounding like a boulder hitting a mountain slope.
But… the Guardian's chest did not open.
It did not crack.
It did not even stagger.
His body absorbed the blow like the sea absorbs a small stone. Water moves… the surface trembles… then nothing.
At the same moment, the renewed blades of the giant fiend—this time more grotesque, thick, chaotic, like blood-stained bones—impaled the Guardian.
Three blades struck his body. The fourth pierced his shoulder directly.
But…
The blood sword in the Guardian's hand moved.
Simply, without extra force, just a wrist motion. The blades sliced the four blades as if they were threads of cotton.
The giant fiend didn't understand what happened until it saw its arm fly backward. The open wound on its shoulder erupted with blood, then reignited with blood flames.
Ashen seized the moment. He raised his arm and struck again.
But this time…
The Guardian vanished.
He appeared directly behind him. His sword moved in a semicircle. One strike.
Ashen turned his head… seeing only a red line across the horizon.
Blood flowed from his shoulder to his hip in a straight line. His two lower ribs were visible beneath the skin.
But he did not fall.
He simply turned, as if the wound meant nothing.
The beastly aura flared. The runes on his skin opened like glowing scars.
The beastly intent around him became so dense that the air shattered. The ground under his feet sank, and a deep, thick sound came from his throat… not a scream, not anger, but something like… primal awakening.
The soul eye above him slowly lowered, steady, like a supreme eye about to issue judgment.
The Imperial Guardian sensed it. For the first time… he stepped back. One small step. But it was a real retreat.
The giant fiend didn't wait.
Blood arms erupted again, hundreds of them, this time more violent, thicker, more chaotic. They moved like massive snakes, each as tall as a tree.
They wrapped completely around the Imperial Guardian, strangling him, pulling him, trying to tear him from all directions.
The poisonous blood fog returned, covering the area, making the air heavy and deadly. The Imperial skin began to peel for the first time.
But…
The blood sword flared.
A pure red light exploded from it, and red energy rose like a pillar of fire in the forest.
One strike.
All the arms split. Torn into small pieces, scattered like bloody rain. The poisonous fog split in two. The ground within ten meters sank two more steps, turning into a black pit of burning and blood fire.
The giant fiend stood in shock… for the first time, it looked afraid.
But Ashen didn't give it a chance to understand.
In the blink of an eye, he was within attack range. The beastly intent exploded behind him like wings of blood.
He raised his fist—seismic shockwave glowing around his arm, the ground cracking before he even struck.
He struck.
And this time the strike was not toward the body…
But toward the soul.
The massive eye above Ashen lowered completely, curved, and emitted an invisible beam only visible by its effect:
The Imperial Guardian's soul trembled. His core power column shook. The first layer of his blood core wavered.
Blood spurted from his face again. His left knee sank slightly… just a few millimeters, but it was a fall.
The beastly intent seeped inside him like a spiritual invasion, slow but inevitable.
Ashen did not stop. Strike two. Then strike three. Then a massive shockwave struck the ground beneath him and surged forward in a huge wave.
The Imperial Guardian was thrown backward tens of meters. He collided with a massive stone, shattering it completely, and his body sank into the debris.
The forest trembled completely. Dust covered the sky. The ground turned to pits and cracks in every direction.
And when everything calmed…
The Imperial Guardian emerged from the rubble.
Walking.
His clothes torn. His chest covered in dozens of superficial wounds. Dried blood on his face. His right eye bleeding. His skin peeled from the poisonous fog.
But… no fatal injuries.
His aura was bigger, heavier, denser.
As if he was… waking up.
He raised his head toward Ashen, wiped the blood from his mouth with his thumb, and smiled—another genuine, disturbingly warm smile.
Then he said in a calm tone: "You're amazing. Your strikes attack the soul directly. Your strength at this level terrifies my bones. If I were at Blood Warrior stage, I wouldn't last ten seconds against you. But unfortunately, cultivation is still power. But… excellent… now I feel something like enjoyment."
The bloody aura erupted from him like a tornado. The air turned red. The energy shattered rocks.
The Imperial Guardian… entered serious combat for the first time.