Time in the arena was no longer measured by days, but by spilled blood.
Every heartbeat of Ashen echoed with the sound of an endless battle.
With every breath he took, the savage intent invaded his body deeper, as if trying to melt away the last trace of his humanity.
But within that absolute darkness, there was a small silver light glowing in his chest — the light of the technique he took from the heavenly tablet:
the Heavenly Records of the Pure Soul.
Since he started practicing it, something inside him changed.
The savage intent no longer devoured him like before; instead, he began to absorb it gradually, turning it into fuel to temper his soul and make it stronger.
The process was painful to the point of madness — pain that cut both body and mind like the edge of a blade — but Ashen smiled.
Pain was no longer his enemy. It had become part of his daily ritual, like the air he breathed.
His body overflowed with a strange energy that blended purity and savagery, as if light and darkness had formed a pact inside his blood.
When he stood still, the ground beneath his feet boiled.
The aura surrounding him moved slowly, like a red serpent covered with silver light, cutting through the darkness around him.
Then, on a day that seemed like any other in hell, everything changed.
The sky began to ripple with black aura, thick fog forming on the horizon,
and a hoarse roar echoed from afar — the sound of death walking on two legs.
From among the corpses stuck to the ground, a giant monster appeared —
a decaying body ten meters tall, half flesh and half bone,
carrying on its shoulder a massive club made of jagged bones,
its eyes two pits of gray fire burning coldly.
It was the Giant Savage Zombie, ruler of this layer of the arena.
Behind it came an army of smaller zombies — hundreds of torn creatures dragging their dead bodies toward Ashen.
He stood amid the flood of moving corpses and muttered in a cold, distant voice filled with pure brutality:
"So these are the beasts of this year."
He raised his hand and released a wave of energy.
Three glowing symbols appeared around him:
the Blood Crocodile, the Sky Panther, and the Bloody Bear Fist.
But this time, their summoning was different.
The savage intent he had stored within himself for months fused with them at that moment —
and everything changed.
When he activated the Blood Crocodile Rune,
his body was covered with dark red scales.
But they weren't still as before —
they were alive, moving, growing, and sprouting long spikes like spears.
The zombies rushed at him from all sides,
falling on him like waves of rotten flesh.
But the moment they touched those spikes,
their bodies exploded one after another.
Their blood turned into warm mist rising to the sky as clouds of red fog.
Ashen stood at the center of the storm,
fighting with a calm that didn't fit the hell around him.
Every swing of his hand cut down ten enemies,
and every step left behind a circle of boiling blood.
Then he moved — and disappeared.
When he reappeared, he was behind the zombie ranks.
The Sky Panther Rune burned on his legs,
turning his body into a ghost of speed.
Each step shattered the air beneath his feet,
and every enemy he passed lost his head before realizing what happened.
Fusing the savage intent with his technique had pushed him beyond human limits —
he no longer moved fast only, but with the raw ferocity of beasts.
The sound of his movements was like hundreds of claws tearing through the air.
But the zombies didn't stop.
They had no minds, no fear.
They fell by the dozens, then by the hundreds,
but for every fallen line, another was born.
Ashen then let out a terrifying roar — the roar of a primal beast from the dawn of time.
Around his fists, the Bloody Bear Fist formed again,
but it wasn't the same as before.
His hands grew three times larger,
his veins thick as steel cables,
and over his iron-like skin, the savage intent flickered like black flame.
He raised his fist and struck the ground.
The single blow shattered the earth across dozens of meters.
Zombies exploded around him like bubbles of blood.
Even the air trembled from the force of the impact.
With every strike, the savage intent boiled inside him,
feeding on blood — and feeding him in return.
But the nightmare was not over.
The giant zombie finally moved.
Its voice thundered like a storm as its huge club fell toward Ashen with crushing force.
He raised his arm
and, at the last moment, activated the Blood Chains.
Three chains of blood burst from his back,
cutting through the air like serpents.
One wrapped around the giant club, stopping it.
The second pierced the chest of a nearby large zombie, lifting it into the air.
The third coiled around the giant's leg, anchoring it in place.
But the savage intent within them made them change completely —
they grew more jagged, twisting violently as if they had wills of their own.
Every spike radiated deadly energy that melted flesh and bone alike.
Every time they touched a target,
the enemy's blood boiled before being absorbed entirely.
The chains laughed, screamed, and roared — like echoes from hell itself.
Ashen felt them trying to resist his control.
The savage intent within them wanted to take over,
but he used the Heavenly Records of the Pure Soul to absorb the corruption bit by bit.
The battle became a deadly balance —
he controlled them, and they empowered him.
When the real fight between Ashen and the giant zombie began,
the ground was already covered in blood up to his knees.
The sky was dark, the air stank,
and time had lost all meaning.
The massive club crashed down.
Ashen dodged with the speed of the Sky Panther Rune,
then countered with a double Bloody Bear Fist to the giant's right knee.
The sound was like a mountain breaking.
The zombie staggered,
but rose again,
swinging its club so hard that Ashen was thrown dozens of meters before landing and steadying himself in the cracked ground.
Every move in this battle could have destroyed dozens of mountains in the normal world.
But in this arena, there was no normal world.
The fight went on for days, then weeks,
then turned into long months without pause.
Each time Ashen thought he had won,
the giant rose again, as if death itself refused him.
The blood on the ground became rivers.
The chains boiled and burned with savage intent.
The crocodile scales turned into a living shield of spikes.
The blood frenzy inside him raged like a volcano ready to erupt.
Then came the final day.
Ashen could barely stand,
but his eyes blazed like twin embers.
He opened his mouth and roared — a roar that shook the entire arena —
and activated the Five-Star Blood Frenzy.
A red aura burst around him like a storm of fire,
but this time it completely merged with the savage intent.
The result was horrifying —
a dark red aura filled with madness and chaos.
The intent pierced through his body,
turning him into a being of energy, savagery, and blood.
Every wound closed instantly.
Every cell burned with power.
He was no longer human — but a living embodiment of the chaos of body and soul.
He commanded one chain to strike the giant's leg.
It lunged like a hungry beast,
its spikes digging deep into the decaying flesh.
A fountain of black blood burst into the sky.
The giant staggered, kneeling.
At the same time, the other two chains wrapped around its arms,
piercing into its body and sucking its blood at incredible speed.
Each passing second weakened the monster
while Ashen's body glowed brighter with pure red light.
He raised his right arm,
activated the Bloody Bear Fist again,
and poured into it every last trace of savage intent left within him.
His arm expanded to an unbelievable size,
the air around it shrinking from the pressure.
Then, in one swift motion,
he brought it down on the giant's head.
The sound that followed wasn't sound — it was the end of sound.
The head exploded like a bloody volcano,
bone fragments raining in every direction.
The massive body trembled,
then slowly collapsed,
shaking the entire arena like an earthquake.
Ashen stood among the corpses,
covered in blood from head to toe,
his eyes shining with a mix of pride and madness.
But as the battle ended,
he began to feel a heavy weight in his head.
The aura around him faded,
and a strange voice whispered in his ear:
"Who do you think you are? You didn't tame the beast...
You just became one of them."
His body froze.
He looked at his reflection in a pool of blood —
but the reflection didn't move with him.
It smiled coldly,
then raised a phantom dagger and stabbed him in the chest.
Ashen screamed and fell to his knees,
breathing hard in the suffocating silence.
When he lifted his head, the sky was calm.
Above him, the blood-red hourglass slowly turned,
marking the end of another year in hell.
He whispered softly:
"To control the beast...
one must first accept being one of them."
Then he closed his eyes
and fell into darkness —
between purity and savagery,
between soul and blood.