Silence swallowed the ruin… then it pulsed.
One pulse… heavy… like the heartbeat of a dying city.
Above the black rubble, the blood sphere rose.
A massive, glowing mass that turned slowly over the dead ground like a hellish moon crushing the world.
Inside that mass,
Ashen floated in a red silence, like a fetus in a demon's womb.
The blood around him moved, boiled, and wrapped around him in thick strands, while his body…
Split open and closed… then split again.
Deep cracks tore through his skin, widening until broken white bone appeared…
Then the flesh came back together, trembling, shaking, burning… before exploding again in an endless cycle.
His body erased itself and rebuilt itself every moment.
It was as if pain was the air he breathed.
His face had no expression,
still… cold…
as if everything inside him had died a thousand years ago, leaving only raw revenge breathing out from the cracks like poison.
Above the blood sphere,
the giant monster knelt beside it.
Its huge frame trembled in silence while its vertical eye — the massive slit — stared into the blood as if searching for a lost soul.
Its aura was like a mountain of bleeding bones.
Suddenly…
its spirit shook from the inside.
A whisper was heard… then dozens… then hundreds…
Layered, tangled, shaking voices, as if many souls fought to share a single tongue:
"Eat him… eat him… devour him… rare blood… strange flesh… lost soul… devour him…"
The monster trembled.
It grabbed its head with all four hands and squeezed so hard its hard skull cracked.
Its teeth scraped together like knives.
But it resisted…
breathed…
then forced the whispers out with a muffled, deep roar like buried thunder.
It lowered its head,
focused its hands on the blood sphere,
and blood spells began forming in the air around it:
interlocking circles, red marks burning with a cold flame, and chains of energy weaving themselves from the red mist.
All of this…
just to keep Ashen alive.
Then—
A pulse.
The blood sphere shook violently.
The light expanded.
The cracks accelerated.
The veins ignited.
And suddenly—
Ashen woke up.
He opened his eyes.
They were not human.
Not even animal.
They were crimson voids, without pupils, without borders, without mercy.
They looked at the world as if everything in it was nothing but material to be killed.
When he moved, the blood moved with him.
When he breathed, the entire sphere trembled.
He lifted his head slightly,
and the wild mist covering him stretched around his body, faint and fragile, yet still carrying a weight that made the air refuse to touch him.
Outside the sphere,
the monster froze in place.
Its vertical eye widened… then shrank… then widened again as if a huge chest breathed fear.
Finally…
It spoke.
With a voice made from several throats… several souls… several layers:
"Boy… boy… you… awakened."
Ashen did not answer.
His eyes stayed fixed.
His face remained empty,
as if he was looking through the monster, not at it.
The monster swallowed its saliva… or whatever resembled it.
Then it spoke again, with a shaky, chaotic tone:
"Why… did you save me?
When I was about to die…
when you could have left me…
why did you catch me instead of killing me?"
Ashen blinked slowly.
Once.
Then the cold returned to his eyes.
His mouth moved slightly,
and the words came out not as a choice, but as an instinct.
"I do not remember… who I am…
and I do not remember… why…
but…
the anger… never left me.
They… wanted to kill you.
And I… hated… anyone who thought he could kill someone…
weaker."
He paused,
then added in a quiet, dead voice, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with him:
"I did not save… and I did not show mercy…
I only…
was angry."
The monster's spirit trembled.
It trembled because these words carried a meaning it had not understood since it was created.
It tried moving closer.
"Are… you angry at me as well?
Do you want… to eat me?
My soul… screamed… it wanted to devour you…
but I… tried… not to listen…"
Ashen slowly raised his head,
and his eyes looked into the vertical eye without fear… without interest.
"If you try to eat me…
I will kill you.
Not out of hatred…
and not out of anger…
but because…
that is what… everything… in this world… did."
It was as if the law of the jungle spoke through a child without memory.
The monster stared.
The whispers returned…
but something in those words…
something in that coldness…
made its voice return to its raw clarity.
"…I understand."
It lowered its head,
as if the being made of blood and chaos
had learned something.
Then it said:
"I will rebuild your flesh…
You… were not ready to die yet."
Ashen's body tensed.
The cracks widened.
And the cycle of pain began again.
But this time…
a small light — not mercy, but light — shone from inside his skull:
"I will not die…
until I remember…
who… I must… take revenge on."
The blood sphere shook.
The ground shook.
And the buried souls inside the monster's chest shook as well.
And so…
the second stage of the brutal healing began.