The darkness did not fade.
It spread...
It curled around Ashen like a living thing, breathing slowly, opening unseen mouths, crawling, pressing, slipping into his pores as if it were rotten air living on the exhalations of his soul.
There was no longer an arena.
No blood.
Not even gravity to hold him to anything.
Everything vanished except the void — heavy, damp, choking on itself.
Ashen stood, or what was left of him.
Half of him was peeling flesh, half was melting shadow, and his eyes burned with a color that resembled neither life nor death.
His gaze tore apart what remained of reality around him, as if existence itself refused to reflect his image.
Then the voice began.
Not from outside.
But from his heart… from his blood… from his marrow, which began to boil like a red volcano.
> "Why?"
"You are weak… weak… weak…"
"Give in… let us lead you… we are your true self."
The voices multiplied.
A thousand, then ten thousand, then millions of voices filled the void like shells screaming in unison.
Each one resembled him… each one whispered his name, cursed him, and tempted him at the same time.
The air around him began to pulse, rising from his chest in inhuman beats.
Consciousness crumbled, thought dissolved, and the self collapsed like a clay figure beaten by rain.
Memories ignited.
Faces he loved. Faces he killed. Faces he chose to forget.
All of them burned before his eyes, turning to ash that floated in the void and clung to his skin.
> "You are the cause…"
"You let them die…"
"You fell when you should have devoured."
Each word was like a dagger driven into his awareness.
Each voice tore out a piece of himself, slowly.
Then came the breaking.
His body was no longer his.
His limbs moved without permission, blood leaked from his veins but did not fall — it crawled upward, struggling to return to the heart.
Each heartbeat was like a slap from nothingness, redefining the meaning of pain.
The sound of grinding bones rose, mixed with laughter coming from inside him — laughter that wasn't his, yet knew his name.
Then the replicas appeared.
From the darkness emerged red, cracked creatures, their faces blank except for their eyes — all of them Ashen's eyes.
Each one represented something he had hidden:
his thirst for killing, his hatred of weakness, his pleasure in pain, his regret turned to poison.
> "You opened the door!"
"You allowed us to exist!"
"We are your buried truth!"
He tried to fight them, but they crawled from beneath his skin.
Each time he shattered one, ten more rose from his blood.
His being became a factory of madness he could no longer shut down.
The voices began to merge.
They became one metallic tone, lifeless and cold.
> "You will not escape… you will not survive… because you are us… and this savagery is what you truly are."
Blood exploded through his veins, bursting like sparks of liquid iron.
His body was no longer flesh and bone — it became an open vessel, filled with thousands of creatures wearing his face.
Each wanted to rule. Each wanted to be the "real Ashen."
The inner war began.
He saw himself tearing himself apart.
His fragments fought like beasts trapped in a pit — biting, clawing, laughing.
Consciousness shattered, vision broke into jagged lines, and breath stopped.
Everything inside him redefined the meaning of agony.
Yet, through it all, his heart kept beating.
One pulse, heavy and red, refusing to die.
Then everything stopped.
The voices, the replicas, the blood — even the void itself froze.
In that stillness, he heard another voice… not from the monsters, but from within.
A voice he had never heard since birth — soft, mocking, honest:
> "I… I exist."
"But… but…"
"Who… who… who am I?"
"I am… the promised vow…
I am… the destined trial…
I am the curse…
I am the regret…
the ordeal…"
"I am… Ashen."
The void trembled.
A scream burst out, not from his mouth but from his entire being — a cosmic scream that shattered the silence.
The replicas screamed with him, then shattered like boiling glass.
The burning blood returned to his body, gathering into a single red point in his chest that pulsed with strange rhythm.
Then light burst forth.
But it wasn't light — it was a dark red flash cutting through the void like a blade.
It flowed from his chest, touching every replica, every memory, every intent, and absorbed them all.
The light seemed to create a new world from his blood.
His body was being reshaped from the beginning — new flesh, new bones, red energy pulsing like the heart of the underworld.
When it ended, there was no longer a human.
Nor a beast.
But something between — a creature perfectly chaotic, its eyes burning with both black and red flames.
> "At last… the control begins…"
The voice whispered inside him, but it was not his alone — it was the echo of everything he had devoured.
Yet the silence did not last.
From the depths of the void, the two giant eyes opened once again — one gazing at his body, the other at his soul.
They were not watching this time… they were judging.
The void shook.
A silent cry rang out, as if existence itself asked a single question:
Can a monster born from pain control the chaos that created it?
Ashen raised his hands.
Not as a man.
Not as a beast.
But as a complete being, stretching between blood and nothingness.
Then, in absolute silence,
the absorption began.