The red door trembled with a deep breath, as if the world itself was breathing through it. The sound was not just a vibration, but like the breath of an ancient mountain released after an eternal slumber.
Ashen reached out his hand to touch its surface… and at that moment, a bloody light exploded, blinding the eyes. The radiance was not light but blood made solid, a sticky wave surging like a flood, from which countless bloody eyes condensed.
They were not ordinary eyes. Each one carried a world inside it:
An eye wide as the sky, overflowing with a sea of blood.
An eye narrow like a wound across the horizon.
An eye blazing like a volcano, and another still as a grave.
Some stared in rage, some with cold indifference, but all of them focused on one target: Ashen.
He felt stripped bare. No body, no thoughts, no memories remained safe.
The eyes did not just look at him—they devoured him from the inside; tearing his past as a weak, rejected child, exposing his wounded present, and hinting at a future drowned in destruction.
Every breath became heavy, every heartbeat felt like a stab.
But what terrified him most was not the eyes alone… it was the familiar feeling they revived. A feeling he once experienced, when he lifted his head from the ground and saw the planet from the sky. The same primal aura, the same cosmic weight, the same sense that the world was too vast to endure.
Whispers began to echo in his head. They were not human voices, but existential tremors:
"This… is not an illusion… it is the world itself."
His body trembled, the blood in his veins began to boil. The bloodline of the Primordial Blood seemed to respond to the eyes, surging inside him with a force he had never felt, as if recognizing its origin—or something beyond it.
Little by little, the scattered eyes were no longer separate.
Like a river converging into one stream, they all rushed, twisted, and fused, until one giant eye formed before him.
A bloody eye… ancient in its aura, but within it shone both holiness and savagery, majesty and annihilation, as if it contained contradictions together.
When it looked at him, he felt as if a mountain without a peak had been placed upon him. His soul shook, his knees almost gave in. The feeling was not just fear, but an existential dread that made him believe, even for a moment, that he stood before a force that was never meant to be defeated.
Then came the voice.
It was not heard with ears… but erupted in the depth of his soul, like thunder booming in the bones.
"I… am the Heavenly Dao of this planet."
His mind shook, his sense of time and place cut off. The words were not just an introduction, but a law that imposed itself, a truth that could not be denied.
The voice continued, slow and solemn, as if declaring an unchanging heavenly judgment:
"This door… is not an ordinary entrance. It is one of the ancient decrees… a forgotten legacy, planted in the heart of the world since its cradle. It exists to test, to temper, to judge. Whoever opens it, his soul will be drawn into realms between life and death. There… he will face what he lacks, or be erased, leaving only another grave in the stream of blood."
Ashen froze. The door itself… an ancient decree? The world's legacy? The words shook his depths more than any wound or blade.
The bloody glow of the eye pierced his chest, digging into his blood as if searching for a hidden truth. In that moment, he felt his bloodline being torn and examined.
Then came the question, like a knife of strange light:
"But… you… are foreign. Why… have you been erased from the records of heaven?"
Silence followed the words.
Even the smaller eyes surrounding him became still. His heart raced, his chest tightened, as if the heavens themselves awaited his answer.
Ashen did not understand. But he realized one thing: if the Heavenly Dao itself did not know his matter… it meant there was a secret beyond his comprehension, something deeper than he could grasp now.
The voice echoed again, this time decisive, like an eternal decree:
"You will cross this door. You will face what cannot be endured. Inside, you will find savagery. The intent that cannot be tamed will devour its wielder. That dagger you drove into your heart was nothing but the key… it is what tied you to this door. And now… either rise… or perish."
The ground shook under his feet, as if the world itself declared the start of his trial.
The giant heavenly eye drew closer, until his entire existence felt shrunk, like a grain on the edge of an abyss.
"Remember, chosen one: this is not only a trial… it is the world's judgment upon you."
Suddenly… the eye vanished. All the eyes disappeared as they had appeared, leaving behind a vast emptiness.
The red door still stood, but now it pulsed with a deeper bloody light, as if it was the very heart of the planet beating.
Ashen swallowed hard. Cold sweat ran down his back, his knees still trembling. His entire being screamed: "Run!" "Retreat!" But deep inside, another flame had ignited—one the eyes could not extinguish.
Rage. Vengeance. Determination.
He slowly raised his head, his burning eyes reflecting that bloody majesty.
"Even if the world itself is against me…" he whispered in a trembling voice, then shouted inside:
"I will not stop."
He reached out again, his once-shaking hand now firm as steel, and placed it on the door.