The stone forest became silent… A heavy, suffocating silence, as if the air itself held its breath waiting for the collision.
Ashen stood there, his blood-covered body trembling, his crimson eyes burning with a savage glow. The giant monster faced him, a massive bloody creature fifteen meters tall, its chest rising and falling like a beast inside another beast.
One second… Just one second, and everything collapsed.
BOOM!
They charged at the same moment, no skills, no techniques, only flesh against flesh. Their collision wasn't a sound… it was an earthquake. The ground beneath their feet shattered like broken glass, deep cracks spreading from the point of impact for dozens of meters.
Ashen shot upward like a missile, rising about fourteen meters until he was face-to-face with the massive chest. His arm came down on the monster's chest like a bomb, while the monster's upper arms fell toward Ashen like meteors.
Flesh against flesh. Bone against bone.
A muffled howl echoed from the forest's bones themselves. The giant rocks, which were as hard as steel, exploded like sand under the force of the clash.
Ashen fell downward like a meteor, his impact carving a five-meter-wide crater into the ground.
The monster… was pushed back seven meters.
The imprint of Ashen's fist sank deep into its shifting flesh, black blood flowing out like cold lava.
Ashen did not let it retreat.
CRACK!
He lunged like a beast breaking out of chains. His first kick hit the ground, not the monster… but the shockwave threw the monster into the air without him touching it.
Just one moment… and Ashen was above it, descending from the sky, his fist clenched like a hammer.
A single strike — broke the sky above them.
The monster crashed into the earth with a force that turned hundreds of rocks into dust. A fifty-meter-wide area sank downward, as if a mountain had been dropped on it.
The monster roared with a sound that did not belong to living creatures… A sound full of rage, pain, and madness.
It charged like a true beast a second later, its four huge arms closing off all space in front of Ashen like a death sentence.
BOOM.
Ashen was launched backward like a missile. His left shoulder shifted slightly out of place, the bone visible under torn flesh.
But his eye… his eye did not tremble. It did not blink. It did not fear.
It burned.
He charged again— A third collision. A fourth. A fifth.
Every collision destroyed an entire area. Stones flew. Dust covered the sky. The ground shook as if a volcano was underneath.
Neither of them used a single skill… And yet…
Every strike was enough to kill an entire army.
The monster fell on Ashen like a ten-story building, and Ashen leapt into the air and struck its giant face, blasting half of it apart.
The monster grabbed Ashen and threw him into a rock— but Ashen came out of it like a beast.
BOOM!
A complete collapse of an entire zone. Thousands of stone fragments flew like deadly arrows.
And in the middle of this hell…
Ashen stared without concern, and the monster screamed.
The real battle… had not even begun.