When the black rift swallowed Ashen, he felt as if all the laws of the universe had suddenly broken.
The darkness was not just the absence of light… it was thick, alive, wrapping around him like thousands of black snakes crawling under his skin.
No time, no direction, no ground, no sky.
Only an absolute void that ate him from within, tearing his existence layer by layer.
He tried to scream… but his voice was trapped in his throat, as if the air itself had been erased from existence.
He tried to breathe… but nothing entered his chest, only emptiness drilling into his lungs like icy needles.
With each moment, his body began to stretch.
His bones pulled one way, his flesh another. His organs twisted in the void like tight ropes about to snap.
He felt his body becoming nothing but torn threads, pulled from every direction.
The pain? It was no longer human pain.
It went beyond the body, destroying his mind itself.
Every second in this rift was a complete eternity. Every moment of torment longer than an entire life.
His consciousness began to break apart.
His memories fell away like shattered glass.
He saw the faces of his clan melting into nothing. His mother's smile cracking before disappearing. The screams of his siblings fading away.
Only black voids remained inside him… bottomless pits trying to devour the last thread of his humanity.
The darkness whispered, its voice not a sound, but a vibration deep within his soul:
"You are nothing… you are a forgotten fracture… just a mistake in the fabric of existence. Accept your end."
At that moment, Ashen felt himself collapse.
Is this my end? Will I vanish like ashes? Was I only a passerby without a trace?
But… in the deepest part of him, something ignited.
It was not light, but a small spark, bloody, filled with hatred and defiance.
No… I will not end here. I will not be erased like them. The void will not devour me before I take revenge… before I make the whole world bleed.
The darkness trembled.
As if the universe itself rejected the defiance of that spark.
Then suddenly… another rift opened beneath his body.
It was not a normal opening, but a collapse in existence itself.
His body was pushed downward, a cosmic fall.
He felt his bones colliding with the void itself. His blood burst from his pores, scattering red drops in the eternal black.
A strange air tore into his chest, ripping his lungs as if reviving him and killing him at the same time.
And suddenly… light struck his eyes.
He opened them to find himself falling between endless mountain chains.
Massive mountains, sharp as blades, rising toward the sky like the fangs of a primordial beast wanting to devour the stars.
The sound of his fall echoed against the stone, as if the mountains themselves laughed mockingly at his weakness.
His body slammed against a rocky wall.
His flesh tore like ripped fabric, his bones cracked with each impact.
He rolled down a slope covered with red metallic shards, sharp and gleaming like frozen blood.
His blood spilled heavily, scattering with each fall, painting red lines across the rocks.
It was as if the mountains themselves drank his blood, sipping it slowly like ancient offerings.
Every rock he hit, every new fracture in his bones, was a declaration:
he was no longer in the human world.
He had fallen into a place designed to tear apart those who entered.
At last… he stopped.
His body torn, his breath ragged, his eyes half-closed.
But a cold feeling made him lift his head with difficulty.
Before his eyes, the mountain chains stretched without end.
Linked to the sky like massive shackles, keeping something from escaping.
Something forgotten… or imprisoned since eternity.
The air here was not normal.
It was heavy, metallic in taste, filled with the scent of rusty blood.
And stranger still… he felt eyes watching him.
He saw no one, but a deep instinct, one that only those who lived at the edge of death could recognize, told him this place was alive.
He raised his trembling hand, looked at his blood-soaked fingers, and saw how the scattered drops on the rocks began to gather slowly… drawing a strange symbol. He did not know its meaning, but he felt it was an ancient seal awakening from its slumber.
A terrible cold ran through his spine.
Inside, Ashen realized the truth:
He had not only fallen from the sky…
He had fallen from one world to another.
From existence into a new hell…
A hell that welcomed only blood.