The imperial guard was still wiping the blood from his mouth after the last spiritual attack when the air around them suddenly changed. The entire stone forest trembled as if a giant rock had struck its heart, and a low sound… a deep, wild hum rose from beneath Ashen's feet, climbed upward, and exploded into the sky.
A crimson eye… an eye not born in the world of humans…
Opened above Ashen's head, massive and feral, shining with a flame-like glow, but it was not fire. It was pure savage intent, dense and filled with the primordial instinct that existed before language and laws.
The Eye That Gazes Upon the Body formed in the sky like a heavenly command for execution.
The air shivered.
The rocks shivered.
And the imperial guard's soul shivered.
The effect began immediately.
The eye was looking straight at him, as if it could see inside his skin… inside his bones… inside his blood itself.
In a single moment, the imperial guard felt his body fall out of his control.
His feet no longer felt like they belonged to him, and his fingers no longer moved by his will.
His chest tightened.
His back froze.
His eyes widened in true shock for the first time in centuries.
"What… did you do to me?"
His voice came out trembling and heavy, like a shattered throat trying to speak.
Ashen did not answer.
He was completely silent, his expression empty, his burning eyes reflecting in the sky of the stone forest as if they were splitting the heavens themselves.
His body began to deteriorate… in a terrifying way.
Suddenly… the guard's blood started flowing backward.
He felt something gripping his veins from the inside and pulling them with brutal force.
His veins swelled.
Then twisted.
Then started to tear.
Then came the real pain…
His skin began to ulcerate.
Huge bulges formed under his skin, then burst open into dark red flesh, and bloody, fleshy flowers emerged, pulsing with the savage intent flooding his body.
The flowers opened and closed as if breathing…
They produced a wet, disgusting sound that tore through the silence of the stone forest.
The imperial guard gasped.
He tried to lift his arm… but it did not move.
The red bulges on his arm swelled to a horrifying degree…
Then the skin fell off completely, like burned fabric, revealing red, twitching flesh, exposed tendons, trembling muscles, and wet white bone shining under the light of the giant eye.
Even the ground trembled from the horror of the scene.
It was grotesque…
Savage…
Without mercy…
Something that drew blood before it drew fear.
The imperial guard felt fear for the first time.
For the first time since entering the stone forest…
For the first time since becoming a royal guard…
He felt fear.
Not simple fear…
But existential fear, the fear of a powerful being realizing he was no longer the master of his own body, that something beyond this world was gripping his soul like a predator holding prey by the neck.
Cold sweat ran down his back in streams.
His bones began producing a harsh grinding sound, as if crushed slowly between invisible teeth.
His skin shredded.
His muscles tore.
His blood burned.
He tried to regain control of his blood but…
The savage intent that Ashen released was raging inside him like an eternal storm.
"This… this is impossible…"
He stuttered, his voice shaking between agony and terror.
His healing attempt… complete failure.
He forced his blood toward his exposed arm, trying to heal it.
But…
As soon as the energy gathered, the savage intent tore it apart again.
A large wound burst open near his shoulder, as if something inside refused to let him heal.
His bones partially melted.
His veins peeled away.
His body temperature rose to insane levels.
His body was turning into an internal torture chamber.
And for the first time… he realized Ashen was beginning to use his full power.
He opened his mouth to scream…
But the sound came out as a choking gurgle.
"If… I don't fight seriously… I will die here."
This was the truth.
He had no luxury to deny it.
Blood exploded from his pores, forming a violent bloody vortex around him.
The red energy rose like a volcano erupting beneath his feet.
The explosion's sound tore through the stone forest.
And with extreme speed…
He vanished.
He appeared in front of Ashen.
He swung his remaining arm, a blow meant to tear a city apart, not a living body.
But…
The giant savage eye looked at him.
The moment he stared into it…
His arm exploded.
It turned into a cloud of blood in a single instant.
Nothing remained but a red mist drifting in the air.
But the imperial guard did not collapse.
He lifted his head, his eyes burning with pain and madness…
Then he shaped the blood mist into sharp blood wires, which shot like thousands of daggers toward the giant eye.
They pierced it.
The sky trembled.
The stone forest choked on dust and blood.
At the same moment… he appeared in front of Ashen and struck him in the chest with a force that made the air explode.
Ashen flew dozens of meters.
His chest caved inward.
The ground shattered beneath him.
Dust exploded around him.
He stood slowly.
And healed…
And healed…
And healed…
As if his body did not understand the meaning of wounds.
Ashen raised his head.
His crimson eyes glowed with calm, deadly light…
Then savage intent burst from him, enough to destroy the mind of any ordinary being.
In the sky…
Two giant eyes formed:
The first: the Eye That Gazes Upon the Body
The second: the Eye That Gazes Upon the Soul
They hung above him like signs of the world's end.
Then…
The three runes above his body shattered.
They broke into crimson sparks.
The sparks merged into his flesh… into his bones… into his blood.
The imperial guard felt the air grow heavier.
The forest grow narrower.
The world itself shuddered at the transformation.
Then… the indescribable happened.
Ashen began to transform.
Blood rose around him as mist…
Savage intent swirled like a storm…
And the two fused, forming a new body.
Ashen rose…
His height grew to three meters…
He turned into a primal crimson beast, as if nature had created a killer long ago and left him waiting for this moment.
His feet turned into those of a blood panther, black and veined with red.
His arms turned into the arms of a massive blood bear, furred and covered with small shining scales.
His chest, back, and legs were covered in crocodile blood scales, hard, serrated, glowing with black lines.
His head and face were a twisted mass of blood and pure savagery, showing nothing except his two crimson eyes.
He was a fusion of:
Panther
Bear
Crocodile
Blood
Savage instinct
Destruction
A primitive killing machine built for slaughter.
The imperial guard, standing there with almost no arms left, stared at him with a shock he never thought he could feel.
Then, with a burning smile, he whispered:
"What a… monster."
The imperial guard did not get a single second to prepare.
Because the two giant eyes above Ashen looked at him at the same time.
Body and soul together.
What he felt was more than pain.
It was crushing.
Grinding.
A nightmare draining his body and soul at once.
The guard's blood exploded like a waterfall.
It poured from his nose, ears, eyes, mouth, and pores.
Before he could scream…
Ashen vanished.
Completely vanished.
The ground under his feet exploded, leaving a deep crater dozens of meters wide.
Ashen appeared directly in front of the imperial guard.
Then the beating began.
One punch.
Two.
Ten.
Fifty.
A hundred.
The punches were no longer countable.
Ashen's speed exceeded the ability of the human eye to follow.
Each punch tore a piece of the imperial guard's body.
Each strike broke a bone, exploded flesh, or ripped a vein.
The guard's scream was not the scream of a warrior…
It was the scream of a being realizing it was dying.
A punch to the stomach…
Launched him seventy meters into the air.
Ashen appeared above him instantly.
Then came down with a massive fist…
The imperial guard was thrown downward like a missile.
A crater three hundred meters wide formed.
The stone forest exploded.
The stone trees shattered like fragile pottery.
Waves of dust rose like a giant wall.
Blood filled the air as if the sky itself rained crimson.
And Ashen stood at the edge of the crater…
Alone…
Huge…
Savage…
With primordial intent glowing around him like an eternal flame.