The drums thundered like the dying screams of a world. Each beat was a hammer striking the earth's core, and the very air turned thick with the stench of blood and ash. The arena had become a swamp of shattered bones and flowing crimson, its ground reflecting the hanging coffins above—eyes of death watching a merciless stage.
Ashen and the twisted copy clashed in a battle beyond human measure. It was no longer a duel but a mutual massacre: flesh torn apart, limbs flying, beastly roars shaking the void. Attacker and defender had lost meaning; each was both blade and wound.
The copy struck first. Its claws gleamed blood-red as they sank into Ashen's shoulder, ripping out a chunk of flesh. A crimson arc sprayed the air, yet Ashen did not falter. With a growl, he unleashed the Three Blood Chains. Like maddened serpents they whipped forward, sinking their pointed tips deep into the copy's chest, draining its blood until its body writhed like a corpse dragged into hell.
But punishment was immediate—the wounds mirrored back. Ashen's own innards shook, his chest splitting open with identical slashes. He fell to his knees, yet his eyes burned hotter than ever.
"Every wound for him… is a wound for you…" The whispers gnawed inside his skull as the twisted copy rose again, bleeding endlessly but refusing to fall.
Ashen roared and ignited the Rune of the Sky Panther. His legs flared with bloody light, shaping into claws. In a sudden burst of speed he shot forward like a comet, body dissolving into a stream of blood that slipped through the enemy's claws before reforming behind it. His fist, cloaked in the Rune of the Blood Bear, crashed down with force that shattered ribs and cracked a nearby stone coffin. Yet the backlash snapped through his own arms, bones splintering under the strain.
The copy's lips twisted in a grotesque grin, half-flesh peeling, half-bone exposed. It answered with its own crude Blood Bear Fist—not refined, but brimming with raw savagery. The strike caved one of Ashen's ribs, hurling him back into a pool of blood. His body trembled, but he did not collapse.
This was no longer combat—it was mutual suicide. Every strike carried the cost of fresh wounds. And still, neither stopped. Their purpose was not victory, but pure annihilation.
Ashen howled, unleashing his Five-Star Blood Frenzy. His entire form ignited in a terrifying bloody aura. Muscles swelled, speed doubled, his regeneration turned monstrous—wounds closed as soon as they opened, as if he were a primordial beast torn out of myth.
The copy answered in kind. Its melting flesh hardened into a warped armor, a distorted "Blood Crocodile Rune." Jagged scales jutted like blades, bones cracking with each move as its body reshaped into a grotesque fortress of flesh and gore.
They collided—one a storm of blood, the other a poisoned wall of flesh. Each impact tore the earth apart; graves split, coffins swayed above, the entire arena drowned in a fresh sea of blood.
Every second was hell. Arms ripped, ribs shattered, skulls slammed against stone. The copy's claws ripped Ashen's throat open in a spray of blood, even as his chains pierced its abdomen, both gushing crimson like rabid fountains.
The ground itself seemed to writhe under the carnage. It was no battlefield anymore—it was a slaughter pit, littered with fragments of shared flesh. Yet both remained standing, something greater than pain driving them forward—pure savagery, the will to destroy even if the price was themselves.
Then—stillness. After another storm of blows, both froze.
They stood waist-deep in blood, bodies mangled, bones jutting through torn skin. Their breaths came in broken gasps, their eyes blazing with unchained madness.
A sudden silence drowned the arena. The drums ceased, as though the world itself held its breath.
There was no victor. There was no defeated. Only one promise lingered—this was not the end. The true explosion had yet to come.
The scene froze here: two monsters, half-man, half-blood, facing each other, poised for the round that would shatter what remained.