Path of BlooDld

The night was unnaturally still. The wind didn't blow, the trees didn't sway, even the beasts that roamed the wilderness had vanished, as if the wilderness itself was holding its breath, watching.

Ashen, pale-faced and cold-eyed, worked in silence. His body was covered in dry blood threads, and in his eyes gleamed a light that no longer resembled that of a human. In front of him were small vials, each containing a liquid of different color and smell.

He pulled out a bottle filled with a thick green substance. One of the deadliest poisons he had ever created...

A poison that made blood boil, drove beasts insane, shattered their nerves from within.

He scattered it over a group of trees, then sprayed another type on the ground, between the grass. He knew the paths beasts took. The water spots, the shaded places they slept in, the trees they scratched.

Camouflaged traps, hidden pits, bloody wires connected to the power of "Blood Rebound."

Tonight would be a bloodbath.

He withdrew to a nearby hilltop, sat in the shadows, and watched.

Minutes passed...

The first scream.

A sand wolf sprinted madly, its fur peeling, biting at the air. Behind it came hyenas, then apes, then reptiles.

Each attacked the other for no clear reason, as if madness had spread.

Blood, screams, a shattering echo filled the space.

Ashen didn't blink.

He watched them... like fire watches a fuse about to ignite.

In just minutes, the small forest turned into a slaughterhouse.

The strongest survived. But didn't live. Because they were stabbed from behind.

Terror spread like wildfire.

And when it was all over...

Only corpses remained. Dozens of them.

Some still twitched. But Ashen gave them no mercy.

"Blood is not given. Blood is taken."

He whispered, before extending his hand and unleashing the Blood Rebound. He began absorbing the blood one body after another, moving from corpse to corpse.

Each drop of blood carried a feral intent.

And the struggle began...

The goal of all this was to refine the full first stage of the Primordial Body.

Auras exploded around his body.

All the savage intents aimed to tear at his consciousness.

But this time... it wasn't just refinement.

The wild blood resisted. Fiercely.

Visions appeared before him.

Heads of the beasts he had slain stared at him.

A howling wolf, a scratching ape, a crocodile opening its jaws as if to devour his soul—every intent fought back, screaming:

"You're just a vessel… we are not your servants, we are the poison inside you."

He collapsed to the ground, his body tearing from within.

Each beast inside him tried to impose its nature.

His mind became a battlefield.

Ashen screamed.

Not a scream of pain, but of existence. As if everything in him exploded at once.

Curses, burning, rage, tearing organs... all just points in an ocean of agony. But he felt something else... emergence.

A new intent was rising from within him. One unlike any before. An intent not born of his will or his body.

But from something deeper.

A faint red specter appeared behind him, a translucent being forming—partly his features, partly something ancient… ancient beyond imagination.

A seal! A seal on his chest, etched with the clan's runes... was crumbling slowly.

The runes cracked, and the bloody red light turned into a wave of tremors that flooded his body.

Every cell shook, exploded, then was reborn... stronger, fiercer, darker.

But amid the chaos, another intent exploded. One not from the wild.

But from within.

The sealed blood of his clan.

It wasn't just intent... it was an old scar in his heart reopening.

He saw blurred images: men from his clan being dragged from their homes, crucified in the squares, buried alive. Women screaming, whipped, their voices silenced by fire.

His mother... she wasn't crying, just looking at the sky with disdain.

His little sister... holding a burned doll, whispering, "Ashen… why didn't you come for us?"

The clan elder roaring, flames devouring his beard: "We burn because we believed this world was just!"

All those screams, all of them, echoed inside him, tearing at his heart without mercy.

"Our blood was cursed because we carried the truth…"

Then a single scream, like thunder:

"Ashen… they didn't just kill us, they erased us from time itself!"

As if time stopped. As if his clan's entire existence had been deliberately erased.

Ashen screamed without sound. Tried to move, but his body was bound, his soul suspended between massacres and blood.

And amid that psychological hysteria, he felt something moving beneath his skin.

His blood was changing. No... rebelling.

Runes appeared on their own, and every inch of his body became a mirror showing faces from the past.

Each face screamed:

"You are our blood... either avenge us... or kill us again!"

He fell to his knees.

Tried to scream, but his voice was gone.

Everything inside him was suffocating... except one thing:

A raw, black, burning desire... to slaughter.

The wilderness around him turned to hell.

He saw his face in a pool of blood... but it wasn't his face.

It was a face with long crimson hair, and eyes that burned like embers.

Then the two faces merged.

A voice from within whispered:

"You are us, and we are you. The clan is not a memory, but a curse in your blood… and it is time to awaken."

Ashen let out a quake-inducing scream.

The ground beneath him collapsed.

All the auras, savage intents, and clan blood merged into one body.

An indescribable power surged, shattering all previous limits.

The "Blood Fury" ability leapt from two stars to five in one strike.

His body swelled. His hair turned glowing crimson, his eyes burning like flame.

He no longer looked like himself.

He no longer looked human.

He stood amid the destruction, amid the corpses, his feet soaked in bloo

d.

He looked at the sky...

And for the first time, the sky felt fear.

Ashen was reborn.

But this rebirth was not pure.

It was hatred… vengeance… and bloody wrath.