When the curtain fell on the final confrontations, silence did not descend immediately.
It remained hanging, heavy, as if the stone forest itself had not yet had its fill.
The corpses were dragged away.
The blood was wiped from the cracked pillars.
But the smell remained.
The smell of burned flesh, rotten blood, and fear that had not had time to cool.
Then the giant blood disk moved again.
Its rotation was slower this time, as if it were savoring the act of carrying the survivors, as if reminding them:
You did not win… you simply did not die yet.
A bloody light wrapped around the bodies, and the forest gradually vanished, throwing the young generation once more inside the flying royal palace.
The grand hall was as it always was.
Luxurious.
Majestic.
And sick.
The walls pulsed with living blood spells.
The symbols moved slowly, as if the palace itself was breathing with those inside it.
At the front of the hall stood Corval.
His smile was warm, controlled, fitting for a king who knew how to pat… and how to slaughter.
But his eyes were cold.
Sharp.
Counting every detail:
who had grown arrogant,
who had broken internally,
and who had begun to dream of the peak too early.
He stepped forward only once, then clapped.
Slow applause.
Each clap echoed clearly, as if sealing a grave.
"Alright…"
He said it calmly, and the hall fell silent at once.
"What we witnessed today was not just a display of power."
His gaze moved across the young faces, between eyes shining with pride and others swimming with fresh arrogance, arrogance not yet broken.
"You are the hope of your kingdoms.
The blood that will rule after us."
He paused, as if giving them time to taste the words.
"And perhaps…
after ten years…
or twenty…
some of you will stand in a place higher than where we stand today."
Some backs stiffened.
Some chins lifted.
Then his voice dropped.
It did not become weaker.
It became heavier.
"But…"
He said it slowly.
"Do not forget."
His cold eyes swept the hall.
"This world
is cruel…
treacherous…
and merciless."
Another step forward.
"Danger
does not come only from the front."
Silence.
"But from behind…"
A sideways glance.
"And from above…"
A look toward the glowing ceiling.
"And sometimes…"
He paused, then smiled a smile barely visible.
"From within yourselves."
The silence became suffocating.
"The Sect Convergence
is not a festival."
His voice hardened.
"It is a massacre
wrapped in rules."
Then he ended with a sentence that sank its claws into their minds:
"And whoever does not work hard…
is buried
without a name."
The young generation stirred.
Looks were exchanged.
Calculations began.
Jealousy ignited.
Plans were born in the shadows.
At that moment, a side door opened.
They entered.
Corval's children.
The boy, sixteen years old,
his back straighter than it should be,
as if he had learned early that bowing was nothing but disguised weakness.
His features were calm,
the calm of someone who knows the road ahead is paved with corpses.
The girl, fifteen years old,
her steps light,
but her gaze?
Steady.
Sharp.
Like the edge of a clean blade.
They bowed respectfully.
The hall whispered.
A king dared to ask, his voice mixed with curiosity and testing:
"Strange, Corval…
why did we not see your children
participate with the rest of the young generation?"
Corval's smile did not change.
"Not out of disrespect to any of them,"
he said in a perfectly diplomatic tone.
"But my children
inherited a special technique…"
He paused deliberately.
"From one of
the Imperial Guardians."
It was as if lightning struck the hall.
Breaths were held.
Fingers tightened.
"And if they succeed in refining it…"
he continued calmly, lethally,
"they will be accepted
as his direct disciples."
The words fell like a stone into still water.
The kings' faces hardened.
Sect leaders exchanged heavy looks.
As for the young generation,
envy was open.
Blunt.
Bitter.
Another king spoke, with a smile full of malice:
"Congratulations, Corval.
It seems glory
has chosen your house early."
But another voice pierced the air like a spear:
"If that is the case…
why did you stop their training today?"
Corval laughed lightly.
A short laugh.
Measured.
"Sometimes…
watching a real battle,"
he raised his gaze slightly, as if seeing something only he could see,
"a fight
that shakes the laws themselves…"
Then he added, his eyes gleaming with something close to hunger:
"is more important
than a thousand days of training."
A hidden tension spread.
"And such a battle…"
he continued,
"is rare."
Then he finished:
"And it would be a shame
for my children
to miss it."
One of the sect leaders did not hide his impatience.
"You have exaggerated the praise of your guests, Corval.
So far, we have seen nothing.
I do not believe that some youths
could stir such excitement in you."
Then he added coldly:
"I hope we are not disappointed later."
Corval's smile did not waver.
"Do not worry,"
he said simply.
"I promise you…"
He paused.
"That your horizons
will expand today."
Then he added, in a voice that allowed no argument:
"Whether
you want that…
or not."
In the midst of the discussion,
one of the kings raised his hand, pointing at the giant screen.
His voice came out low,
but mixed with something strange.
"Wait…"
His brows furrowed.
"Who is that boy
who has just entered your forest,
Corval?"
At that moment,
all eyes turned toward the screen.
As if the palace itself
held its breath.
There was nothing on the screen but the stone forest.
Towering rock pillars,
petrified trees like the bones of forgotten giants,
and heavy silence,
a silence fit only for places that had drunk blood until full.
Then—
he appeared.
One boy,
standing at the heart of the forest,
as if all that stone expanse existed only to serve as a backdrop for his presence.
He did not move.
He did not look around.
He showed no emotion.
A boy of fifteen years.
His height…
one meter and eighty-five centimeters.
A taut body, neither thin nor bulky,
a body that knew killing more than rest.
His hair was blood-red,
not the red of fire,
but the red of blood that had dried, then returned to pulse again.
And his eyes…
crimson eyes,
empty of any trace of emotion.
No surprise.
No caution.
No curiosity.
Absolute indifference.
The indifference of one who has seen every form of death,
and lost the ability to fear.
In the flying palace,
breaths shifted.
Corval…
was the first to smile.
A warm smile, calculated, wicked to the core.
"He has arrived…
our first guest."
All eyes locked onto the screen.
The kings leaned forward slightly,
the looks of hawks sensing something unnatural.
The sect leaders tightened their expressions.
Instinct whispered to them:
this is not an ordinary boy.
As for the young generation,
analysis began.
From head
to toe.
Looks of arrogance,
silent superiority,
failed attempts to discover what justified all this attention.
Corval's children,
the boy and the girl,
stared at him longer than the others.
They searched for an aura.
They searched for visible power.
They searched for something… anything.
But they found nothing but emptiness.
In the forest,
Ashen slowly raised his head.
He looked upward.
At the flying royal palace,
that structure suspended by blood engravings,
the place that made even kings reconsider their calculations.
He looked at it…
as one looks at a stone on the road.
Suddenly—
the air shook.
Beneath the palace,
a giant blood disk formed.
Interlocking blood circles.
Spells moving like living beings.
The disk began to descend.
Ashen remained where he was.
No surprise.
No movement.
When the disk reached him,
he stepped onto it with a single step.
The disk rose.
The ascent was silent,
but the pressure created by his presence
made the hall feel smaller without its walls moving.
Ashen entered the palace.
He stood at the center of the hall.
And then—
the mistake happened.
Everyone,
without exception,
looked into his eyes.
Kings.
Sect leaders.
Youth.
Even Corval's children.
In the same instant—
the world disappeared.
There was no palace.
No screen.
No people.
Darkness.
Absolute darkness.
And in that darkness,
only two eyes remained.
Crimson eyes,
radiating pure savagery.
A savagery that does not scream.
Does not threaten.
Does not need to prove anything.
The savagery of a killer
who slaughtered thousands of souls
without a single blink.
A savagery
that even the fiercest beasts fear
when they sense it.
A gaze that said only one thing:
I am the absolute monster and the supreme nightmare.
Hearts tightened.
Souls froze.
Some felt,
for the first time in decades,
that they were small.
Then—
the darkness shattered.
A laugh.
A warm laugh.
Corval.
He stepped forward and clapped lightly.
"Welcome…
Ashen."
The world returned to its place.
But…
no one forgot
that moment.