The sky was like a sea of boiling blood above the endless arena.
The smell of iron, ash, and burned bones filled the air, while even the atmosphere itself groaned under the weight of the thick, savage intent.
At the center of this hell stood Ashen alone, his body dripping with blood of unknown origin, his eyes glowing with a purple light like icy flames in a sea of embers.
Thirty days had passed since the rest period ended.
On the first day of the eighth year, space split open before him, releasing the first pack of new beasts — countless deformed creatures of various shapes and sizes, but sharing one thing in common:
pure brutality.
The first pack was made of skeletal wolves — bodies formed from clotted blood and exposed bones. Their howls tore through the mind itself.
Their roar alone could shatter the souls of ordinary trainees.
But Ashen didn't move. He simply opened his right hand.
> "Primary Shock."
In an instant, blood energy gathered at his fist — a small glowing sphere like a miniature meteor — and he released it calmly.
The sphere exploded in the middle of the pack, turning the area into a lake of melted flesh as shards of bone rained through the air.
But not all wolves died; the remaining pieces twisted into new forms — half-wolves crawling without legs, screaming and rushing at him again.
Ashen raised an eyebrow and whispered softly:
> "Good… let's make this the first stage."
Here, where savage intent had no limit, Ashen no longer feared running out of strength.
Thanks to the contained spirit embryo, he didn't need to worry about the toll on his mind or soul anymore.
Dozens of energy spheres began to form around him, each one pulsing like a separate heart.
Every pulse resonated with his blood, his spirit's hum, and the savage intent filling him.
The primary shock was no longer just an attack — it had become an extension of his consciousness.
This time, when he released it, they were not random meteors but living threads of energy that hunted their targets like sentient beings.
The result?
Absolute slaughter.
Blood rained from the sky, and the smell of iron seeped into his very soul.
Every fallen wolf turned into red ash that was absorbed directly into Ashen's body, making his crimson lines glow even brighter.
By the fifth day of battle, nothing was left but silence.
But silence never lasted long.
From the horizon, a new wave appeared…
Legions of giants with hollow eyes, carrying blackened bone swords on their shoulders and exhaling black smoke from their mouths.
Tens of thousands marched in unison, making the ground groan under their weight.
Ashen knelt down, placing both palms on the ground.
Bloody circles formed beneath him, spreading wildly to cover hundreds of meters.
> "Grand Shock."
Suddenly, all the blood on the ground trembled — then exploded.
A massive wave of energy burst in all directions, turning everything it touched into vaporized blood and bone.
The air split into shreds, and the sky itself trembled as if it wanted to scream.
But even through that destruction, some still remained — the giants were not just flesh but souls bound to the savage intent itself.
Every time a body shattered, another took its place.
With each wave, the land shifted between existence and nothingness, and the monsters regenerated endlessly.
Then Ashen realized the battle was no longer about flesh — it was a war of endurance, of the spirit's core.
He closed his eyes amid the chaos, breathing slowly, merging his grand shocks with the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Each pulse became a circle of power, each exhale a storm of blood.
As weeks passed, he became part of the storm — not fighting it, but leading it.
His body stood at the center while the world around him collapsed and rebirthed endlessly, as if time itself was spinning inside an eternal shock.
---
By the ninth year, the arena began to change.
The blood that once covered the ground turned into a still ocean, and from beneath its surface emerged creatures that were neither human nor beast — blood reptiles covered in scales made from the same energy as the world itself.
They were powerful — so strong that each strike could tear the fabric of space.
When one hit the ground, Ashen was thrown dozens of meters below the surface, every bone in his body screaming.
But this wasn't weakness — it was another test.
He stood slowly, wiping the blood from his mouth, and clenched his fists.
Energy gathered around them, swirling in small circles that grew larger, producing a sound like burning steel grinding together.
> "Shock of Quakes."
He struck the ground.
A wall of energy rose around him, striking everything in range.
The land itself split open, the creatures exploded into dust, and the red sea boiled until it evaporated.
But he didn't stop — he struck again, and again, and again.
Each blow purified him further from within.
Each roar crushed another layer of his old restraints.
Over time, his body became like a blazing source of continuous shocks, as if every particle in him was fighting and celebrating at once.
---
After three continuous years of battle, something changed inside Ashen.
He no longer distinguished between his pure savage intent and his blood energy — they had become one entity within him.
When he unleashed the grand shock, its waves carried both the purity of spirit and the madness of blood.
When he used the quake shock, he could feel the heartbeat of the creatures he destroyed, as if hearing their pain and feeding on it.
One night, under a red sky bleeding fiery comets, three massive creatures surrounded him —
a deformed giant with dozens of tendrils,
a blood serpent radiating overwhelming savagery,
and a winged beast of burning chaos whose body was made of endless wild flames.
Ashen looked at them coldly, showing no fear — only indifference.
He charged first at the deformed giant, using the quake shock.
His fist pierced the monster's chest and blew it into dust.
From that dust, the blood serpent appeared, wrapping around him tightly.
At the brink of being crushed, Ashen unleashed the grand shock, a massive wave cutting the serpent in half and stretching for hundreds of meters.
But from above, the winged beast descended like a black sun, its flames consuming everything in a wide radius.
Ashen's expression didn't change. He turned his right fist and gathered his maximum energy.
> "Primary Shock."
His fist turned into a crimson sun, and he fired it toward the sky.
The winged beast didn't even have time to scream before it vanished inside the light, the sky blooming like a bloody flower.
When everything ended, Ashen stood alone in the destruction, his body pulsing with unimaginable power.
But his eyes were different —
they no longer held joy of strength or victory,
only cold indifference, and a glimpse of sorrow, loneliness, and loss.
When the tenth year came, Ashen realized that this arena was nothing but a cage.
The suffering, the battles, the blood — all of it had been a single path leading to one moment of understanding.
He raised his head toward the sky, where the great hourglass still turned slowly, each grain of sand falling like a piece of life being spent — an endless test.
Something inside him ignited — not anger, but absolute rejection of being ruled by time.
> "I have tempered my soul with blood, and my soul has tempered the world…
It's time to crush the final shackle."
"Has the final confrontation finally come?"
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The hourglass roared wildly.
To Ashen's shock, the ground around him began to tremble and crack. The savage intent in the air started to boil, rising violently toward the sky.
The rivers of blood around him lifted upward, as if the world had turned upside down.
Then the savage intent and blood merged madly, forming a massive bloody finger twenty meters tall.
It fell at terrifying speed toward Ashen like a spear piercing the earth.
"Damn it, what's happening?"
Ashen activated Iron Skin and the Blood Crocodile Rune, flooding his body with savage intent. Then he absorbed all the available intent around him.
> "Grand Shock!"
A massive wave of savage energy erupted toward the giant bloody finger.
Boom!
The finger cracked and partially collapsed, but didn't disappear completely — and the rest struck Ashen directly.
BOOOOOOM!
Hundreds of meters around him vanished.
A huge crater like a volcano's mouth formed at the center of the explosion.
As for Ashen, he was buried deep in the ground, his body shattered like a broken porcelain doll, blood soaking the soil.
Whether he was alive or dead — no one knew.