There was no light.
And no darkness.
Only a liquid void, shifting between the two as if it were breathing.
When Ashen opened his eyes after a century of torment in the Living Land, he found himself submerged in a shoreless river made of something that was neither water nor blood… but something in between.
It was a river of souls.
The current did not flow — it screamed.
Every wave was a cry, every whirlpool was a broken wail that never reached its end.
Countless voices — men, women, and children — screamed, begged, laughed madly, then wept, shattering like mirrors before reforming into circles of transparent skeletons around him.
It didn't take long before Ashen realized that the river was calling his name.
> "Ashen… Ashen… come down with us… die with us…"
The water — or whatever it was — began to slip beneath his skin, seeping through his pores like fear entering the heart.
At first, he felt cold, then heat, then suffocation… and then he began to hear his own breath screaming with him.
Every breath he exhaled came back as a scream, as if the river had devoured the air itself and turned it into spirits that tore apart anyone who dared to breathe within it.
He tried to resist.
But the current wasn't dragging only his body — it was pulling him into his own memories.
Every soul that touched him showed him his face as he died — not once, but thousands of times, in different ways:
In one, his head was torn off by a creature of shadow.
In another, he was buried alive beneath red sand that turned to blades.
In a third, he saw his own blood rebel against him, tearing him apart from within.
Every scene was so real that the pain itself was real.
These were not visions or illusions — they were repeated deaths.
---
The first years passed like flashes of chaos.
There was no thought or awareness, only a cycle of drowning and rebirth, drowning and rebirth, drowning and rebirth…
Each time he vanished, the river returned him more deformed.
Each time he screamed, the river swallowed the scream and planted it within him, until he began to hear it from inside rather than outside.
He could no longer tell the difference between the voices of the souls and his own.
He no longer knew where the screams came from.
Sometimes he thought the souls screamed for help.
Other times, he thought they were laughing at him for still resisting.
As time went on, he felt that the river was feeding on him.
Every time he felt fear, the river grew stronger.
Every tremor in his heart caused the current to rage harder,
until he finally understood that fear was the fuel keeping the river alive.
---
By the middle of the first century of the trial, there was nothing left in his body that could be called flesh.
The souls had devoured it, restored it, then devoured it again.
But he did not die.
Nor did he live.
He had become something in between — a body floating without death.
His mind was slowly shattering.
Each voice he heard stole a piece of his sanity,
until he began to hallucinate.
He saw himself walking on land among people, yet heard the screams everywhere — in their steps, in the wind, inside his own heart.
Then, in an instant, he would return to the river and realize he had never left it.
> "How long has it been?" "A century?" "No… only a moment."
Time here did not move forward.
It folded on itself, like a wound refusing to heal.
And Ashen was trapped inside it, breaking and reforming endlessly.
---
In one of those cycles, when he no longer had a voice to scream with, he heard the Savage Will from afar.
At first, its words were unclear — only waves of red vibrations seeping into his blood.
But slowly, they grew clearer, until it finally spoke:
> "Do you understand the meaning of annihilation now?"
"Do you feel your weakness?"
He tried to answer, but only bubbles of tiny screams came out, each one tearing the air before vanishing.
The Will continued, its tone sharp like a blade stabbing the soul:
> "If you do not learn silence… the river will consume you."
"Fear feeds it. You are its food."
"Be silent if you wish to live."
Its words felt like a curse.
And as the river went mad, Ashen realized there was only one thing he could do…
Be silent.
---
But silence in a river of screams was no ordinary thing.
He had to extinguish not only his voice, but his fear, his thoughts, and his very existence.
He had to smother himself as fire is smothered by water.
He began to try.
Every time he swallowed a scream inside himself, a wave of the river died.
Each time he closed his eyes without fear, the souls retreated a little.
But with every true moment of silence, he lost a part of himself —
a piece of his soul, his feelings, his memories.
Silence became a hollow — a black void in his chest that nothing could fill.
And with each step toward that silence, the Savage Will smiled within him.
---
And on the day when no sound in the river was louder than his heartbeat, Ashen stood at its center.
The souls had turned into red mist swirling around him like a fog of blood and longing.
The water became still.
Everything stopped.
Even time… bowed.
In that moment, Ashen opened his eyes and whispered quietly:
"What's the point?"
"Who am I?"
"What am I doing?"
"What's the meaning?"
Then a voice echoed from within him, born from the depths of his despair and regret:
"Revenge."
"Revenge."
"Revenge."
That single word remained — the only purpose, the eternal promise that threw him into the sea of ruin and pushed him forward.
Then the river split in two.
Beneath him appeared dry, barren land — a place that had never known life.
He stood upon it, blood dripping from him like black dew.
In his chest, a small circle of red light — a point of silence in the heart of chaos.
Above him, the voice of the Heavenly Dao returned, cold and mocking, as if announcing the start of another tragedy:
> "Another century of pain… passed."
"But the silence born within you, son of blood, will not remain pure for long."
Ashen raised his gaze upward, his eyes glowing with dark red light, and said in a hollow voice:
> "I do not seek purity… only survival."
Then he stepped forward.
And the third trial began.