The beast that was once Elder Garen let out a wet, guttural roar that sprayed a thick mist of blood across the front row of the terrified crowd. Its skin hung in tattered, smoking ribbons, revealing pulsing, hyper-extended muscles that glowed with a corrupt, sickly holy light. This was the 'Village Guardian'—a forbidden, desperate ritual that traded the caster's very humanity for a fleeting moment of monstrous power.
"Ashura... die!" the beast hissed, its voice a horrific mess of gurgling blood and shattered vocal cords. It lunged, its massive, bone-clawed hand sweeping through the air with the force of a falling mountain.
Ashura didn't flinch. He didn't dodge. He stood his ground in the center of the lake of blood, his black eyes widening with a predatory, almost sexual delight.
CRUNCH.
The beast's claws slammed into Ashura's shoulder, tearing through flesh, muscle, and bone. Crimson sprayed across Ashura's face, painting his white hair in a grotesque mask of red. But instead of screaming, Ashura laughed. It was a cold, hollow, and haunting sound that seemed to chill the very marrow of everyone watching.
"Is that it?" Ashura whispered, his voice dripping with absolute malice. "You sacrificed your soul, your pride, and your humanity for a strength that can barely scratch my surface?"
[Ability Triggered: Abyssal Consumption.]
The black, ink-like veins on Ashura's skin began to glow with a violent, electric purple hue. The blood leaking from his wound didn't hit the ground; it defied gravity, turning pitch black in mid-air and flowing back into his body. As it entered, it brought with it the raw, stolen mana of the beast.
Ashura grabbed the beast's wrist with a grip that shattered the bone into a dozen splinters. "My turn to show you what real hunger looks like, old man."
With a roar that silenced the forest, Ashura summoned the Abyssal Chains. But this time, they didn't just wrap around the target. They burrowed. The jagged obsidian links dived into the beast's open wounds, stitching themselves into its pulsing meat like parasitic vipers.
RIP. TEAR. SCREAM.
Ashura yanked the chains with a brutal, visceral force. The beast was literally disassembled in front of the entire village. An arm was torn from its socket in a fountain of hot crimson; a leg was snapped backward until the jagged white marrow of the bone pierced through the muscle. The plaza was no longer made of stone; it had become a swamp of raw meat and bile.
The villagers were no longer screaming—they were paralyzed by a fear so primal that their hearts were stopping in their chests. Even Kael had collapsed into the filth, his eyes vacant and glazed as he watched his last hope being turned into a pile of twitching, unrecognizable gore.
Ashura stood over the remains of Garen, his white hair now completely dyed in the blood of his enemies. He reached into the mess of flesh and pulled out the shattered, glowing core of Garen's Spirit Stone. Without hesitation, he crushed it in his palm, swallowing the last remnants of light into his darkness.
[Notice: Core Saturated. Evolution Path: Abyssal Monarch - 15%...]
"Oakhaven," Ashura said, turning his abyssal gaze toward the trembling survivors. His voice was a layered echo from the deepest pit of the void. "You watched them break me. You cheered when they dragged me through the mud. Now, watch as I leave you with nothing but the eternal silence of the grave."
He raised both hands, and the shadows of the entire village—the houses, the trees, even the shadows of the people themselves—began to rise like black, suffocating tidal waves.
"Ashura, wait!" Zen stepped forward, his voice trembling as he held up his hands in a pathetic plea. "We'll do anything! We'll be your slaves! We'll worship you! Just don't—"
Ashura didn't let him finish the lie. A shadow-blade shot from the ground like a spike, piercing Zen through the jaw and exiting through the top of his skull in a spray of brain matter and bone. His body was hoisted high into the air, a silent, twitching warning to the rest.
"I don't need slaves," Ashura whispered, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, hollow light. "I need fuel."
Just as the black waves of shadow were about to descend and erase Oakhaven from the map, a strange, piercing silver light flickered at the edge of the forest. A group of riders in heavy, black-iron armor, carrying banners with a Crescent Moon, were approaching at high speed.
The Imperial Inquisitors. The world's elite hunters of "Abominations."
Ashura looked at the approaching knights, a twisted, jagged grin spreading across his blood-stained face.
"More playthings..." he whispered, licking the copper-tasting blood from his lip. "How generous the world is today."