Path of BlooDld

The bloody mist that filled the cosmic cave did not fade. Instead, it thickened, as if the wilderness itself was breathing its last. Ashen, hiding behind a rock worn by time and blood, watched the horrifying scene in silence, laced with dread.

The giant heart hanging beneath the red tree kept beating with heavy slowness, as if each throb shook time itself. The beasts fell like broken puppets, drained completely, then thrown into the terrifying mouth of the heart. Yet despite the entity's domination over everything in the cave, Ashen remained standing, conscious, beyond its control.

The heart sensed something unfamiliar.

A deep, internal voice rose from within, speaking in a language incomprehensible, yet pulsing with clarity:

"Why... is this being not cloaked in the shadow of my will? Why does he not yield? Why doesn't he bleed? Why doesn't he explode like the others?"

Dark crimson runes erupted from the heart's surface, glowing and pulsing, as if being carved into Ashen's flesh from a distance, though he had not moved nor felt a thing.

But before the runes could activate, something inexplicable occurred.

Eyes formed.

In the depths above the tree, in an unseen layer of existence, two eyes opened.

They were bottomless abysses, within which forgotten galaxies swirled, and colors unseen by nature shimmered.

They gazed upon the world with disdain.

No one saw them. Not the heart, not the beasts, not even Ashen. As if their presence did not belong to this reality.

Without sound, without trace, in a movement beyond comprehension, the runes vanished from Ashen's body. As if they had never been. As if they dissolved into nothingness.

The heart stopped.

The beasts stopped.

Time stopped.

The colossal heart was stunned. Everything had veered from the written script.

A single pulse erupted from it, echoing through the place like a planet collapsing. Then...

An eye opened at the center of the heart.

A red eye, cracked like a cursed stone, stared directly at Ashen.

Threads of dark light shot out, trying to pierce Ashen's chest, to read his being, extract his history. But...

Nothing.

The shock felt by the entire wilderness manifested in the heart's muttering:

"No... no time? No record? No trace? Where are you from?

Who hides you?

Is it the sky? Or a being greater than the sky?

A distorted past, a chaotic present, a veiled future... as if you were torn from the river of time, severed from the fabric of fate itself…"

Silence fell.

The heartbeat grew erratic, as if the entity itself was starting to doubt its own existence.

Everything had strayed from its path, even its own future had changed, and the fate of this planet became unstable, unpredictable.

Why... the heart murmured to itself.

Everything was going according to the script, to fate, to what had been written. But why?

Who are you... Everything was in order until I saw you.

Rage filled the great eye. It had thought itself the writer, the controller, the manipulator, but it turned out to be just another part of a play it didn't even know existed... It wanted to destroy everything.

But just as the laws of this place began to collapse, the air split.

A bloody gate formed of living flesh opened slowly, drenched in the whispers of thousands of souls.

From it emerged a human-shaped shadow, walking slowly, head raised as if he knew the place well.

His face was unseen, but an indescribable presence leaked into the cave, and it felt as if the cave welcomed him...

Then, everything stopped.