Ashen floated in space, his body drifting inside the bloody gray light that seemed like the lifeblood of a dead planet. Everything around him was silent… the silence was not just the absence of sound, but a heavy feeling pressing on his soul, as if the universe itself was watching, observing, and judging every step he took.
As the light around him faded, he felt a shiver running through his core, sometimes shaking his body, sometimes piercing his mind. He raised his eyes… and saw the golden chains.
They were enormous chains, twisting around the blood planet like an endless celestial serpent. Each link was made of pure gold, engraved with strange ancient symbols that no human mind had ever seen. Yet that was not what made him stop… it was the strange feeling that two giant, hidden forces surrounded the chains, like demonic hands holding something incomprehensible, binding something greater than his understanding, something deeper than his own existence.
Then came the first sound… but it was not a sound, rather a huge sensation that shook every cell in his body, echoing within his soul. He did not dare open his mouth, for any word would fall short before the greatness he witnessed.
Then the darkness began to break apart, and within the chains, a massive golden eye started to form, stretching for tens of thousands of kilometers, watching him tirelessly.
This eye did not make a sound Ashen could hear… it spoke directly to his being, shaking the depths of his mind, showing him his fears, touching his regrets, stirring self-hatred and sorrow for his destroyed clan.
"The path to transcendence… can only be reached after passing through the great trial… the trial of purification."
Ashen felt a strong instinct, without words, without thought… he knew he had reached a place beyond his current strength, and that this eye was part of the supreme Dao, a being watching every step, testing his will, and measuring his intentions.
The eye continued to expand and began to glow with golden fire, shining as if it would consume everything. Suddenly, it transformed into a massive celestial sword, blazing with golden flames and surrounded by angry black lightning. The sword was enormous, thousands of kilometers in size, moving toward him at an unstoppable speed.
Inside him, mixed emotions exploded: regret for not avenging his clan's death, anger for not preventing the loss, hatred for himself for not being strong enough. All these feelings surged, burning within him, increasing the terror he faced.
Then he felt something else… the void began to whisper to him, testing him: cosmic winds whistled around him, hidden murmurs crossed his mind, memories, fears, visions of his shattered clan, as if the place wanted to consume him completely.
Suddenly… everything froze. The light, the darkness, the winds, the cries, all stopped. It was as if time itself had turned backward, and the universe became dead, silent, completely empty.
Directly beneath Ashen, a massive spatial rift opened, black as the original void of the universe, gradually swallowing him. He felt stretching and compressing, as if the space itself was distorting him, pulling him into an unknown depth without end.
At that moment, he faced his true fear: not the sword, not the eye, but the void itself, the unknown that cannot be predicted, the absolute nothingness that consumes everything, even his own existence.
Everything vanished… the golden chains, the eye, the sword, even the bloody gray light. Only the void remained… and the only identity left with him was his body and soul, facing a new test, an endless journey, a confrontation with the unknown, with cosmic terror, with himself… alone.