After a long silence that felt like eternity itself, when Ashen felt that death was an inevitable fate with no escape, he agreed... yes, he agreed to let all his memories, hopes, pains, and ambitions become the fuel for his survival.
That tiny spark of human emotion he still had—those few memories reminding him of a time when he used to dream and hope, everything about his existence before the brutal court and the execution—seemed ready to fade into nothingness.
Ashen clenched his teeth. His memories, his ambitions, his clan, his family, his mother, and the one he loved and respected the most—his father—all of them would be devoured. What would remain of him would be nothing but an empty shell, stripped of meaning or purpose, burdened with memories of a thousand years of agony.
"Even if I forget everything…"
"Even if my memories vanish into nothingness…"
"Even if I become a hollow shell…"
"My revenge…"
"My revenge will be carved onto my soul."
With madness and savagery, Ashen carved a single word on the forehead of his spiritual embryo. Just one word, yet it overflowed with rage, regret, sorrow, tyranny, and hatred.
"Revenge."
It was engraved not on his body or soul, but on his very existence.
As soon as Ashen gave the order, the giant eyes of his spiritual embryo—those eyes that saw both flesh and soul and overflowed with absolute ferocity—flashed with insanity. Then everything disappeared.
Emptiness. No sky, no earth, no color. Everything was white, silent, eternal, as if existence itself had stopped breathing.
Ashen stood in the middle of that whiteness, without a shadow or a sound, only a lost consciousness floating in nothing. Time did not move, and there were no boundaries. All that remained of him was a cracked spiritual body and a fading soul.
Then, a small child appeared before him.
Innocent features, wide eyes shining with hope, and a small smile carrying the warmth of pure innocence. He wore the same simple clothes Ashen used to wear before the massacre, his hair messy, and when he spoke—it was his own voice. His old voice.
Ashen stood face-to-face with his past self.
The child, with silver hair and eyes full of light, smiled nervously as if facing a stranger identical to him. But Ashen's hair was now red like blood, his eyes hollow like the abyss itself, and a scent of death surrounded him.
The child smiled gently and said, "Is that me?"
Ashen didn't answer. His gaze was cold and still, like a frozen lake without life.
The child lifted his head, a trembling smile on his face. "I dreamed that we would become strong, that we would protect those we love, that we would build our world with our blood, not theirs... Did you forget our dreams?"
A faint laugh escaped Ashen's mouth, but it wasn't laughter—it was pain splitting his chest.
"Dreams? I buried them with them. What's left of me isn't a dream… it's a curse."
The child took a step forward, eyes filling with tears. "But you used to believe! You always said we'd survive, that the sun would shine on us no matter how dark it got!"
Ashen moved closer, his shadow swallowing the child.
"And it did shine. But it burned me before I could see it. That sun didn't light my path—it lit their graves."
The child stepped back, his breathing shaky.
"But revenge… won't bring them back."
Ashen's voice turned cold, like metal struck on dying fire.
"Revenge isn't to bring them back. It's to remind this world that our blood wasn't spilled for nothing."
The child blinked slowly, as if trying to see through fog.
"Is this what you've become? A shadow walking on the ashes of your heart?"
Ashen looked at him for a long time, then reached out his hand and ran it through the child's hair, as if saying goodbye.
"I'm no longer me... and neither are you."
The child smiled, a tear rolling down his cheek.
"I thought we'd grow to live... not to die."
Ashen whispered, "Life never let me live in the first place."
Silence filled the void. The child looked at him with pain and pity, while Ashen stood motionless, like a wall that had lost its light. Then the child said softly, his voice trembling, "Maybe... a part of me still lives in you."
Ashen reached for his chest, clutching at the air as if pulling something from deep within.
"Maybe... but you won't see it again."
"What you'll see... what we'll see... is pain—nothing but pain."
"But pain means you're still alive!" the child cried, tears in his eyes. "If you forget me, if you devour me, then nothing of Ashen will remain!"
"Exactly."
"Nothing of Ashen will remain... only what deserves to survive."
Ashen stretched out his hand. The void trembled. From his fingertips came threads of glowing blood that wrapped around the child. The whiteness around them turned into red ash, as if the space itself was mourning.
"Wait!" shouted the child, struggling, eyes filled with desperation. "Remember our mother's laughter!"
"Remember Father lifting you before the clan, saying: This is my son, my pride!"
"Remember the nights we dreamed together!"
"Don't forget me, Ashen... please, don't forget me!"
Ashen closed his eyes for a moment.
With one movement of his hand—the child's voice vanished.
Only a faint echo remained in the nothingness:
"You only wanted to live..."
Ashen swallowed the child within him. Memories flowed like rivers of light, then went out one by one. Laughter, screams, faces, voices—all evaporated like smoke. Each memory lost made the cold spread deeper into his heart.
When the child vanished, only the echo of broken breaths remained. Ashen stood alone, his body trembling as if the void itself was devouring him. Before the last trace of his memory faded, an image began to form before him—a familiar one.
Light condensed slowly, shaping the figure of a majestic man cloaked in the shadows of longing. His eyes carried centuries of loss, and his voice, when it spoke, seemed to come from the heart of a tomb.
"My son..."
Ashen's heart trembled—not from fear, but because something inside him still remembered the warmth of that voice. He lifted his eyes and said coldly, "Oh... you too? You came to tell me to stop?"
The father smiled—not with anger or reproach, but with fading love.
"I came to see you, not to stop you. I came because our blood still flows in you, hurting every time you bleed."
Ashen let out a bitter short laugh.
"Your blood? You made it a chain in my veins. Every beat is a reminder of what I lost."
The father walked closer, each step echoing like it crossed over cracked memories.
"We didn't save you to live as a prisoner of the past. We saved you to continue, not to destroy yourself. We knew the pain would consume you, but we believed you were stronger than hatred."
Ashen lowered his head, his eyes shining faintly red.
"Stronger? Pain swallowed me until I couldn't tell where it ended and I began. My strength didn't save anyone—it made me witness the death of everything."
The father raised his hand, not to touch him, but to hold it near his face, like light unable to pierce darkness.
"My son... we saw you grow, we saw you suffer, we saw you become a beast fighting your own heart. But we never left you. We were in your blood, in every drop you shed, trying to remind you that you're still alive."
Ashen's eyes froze, torn between denial and buried yearning.
"The living don't dwell in ashes, Father. I didn't survive... I just didn't die yet."
The father paused, then spoke like a prayer:
"Let go of the past, Ashen. We've watched you for over a thousand years, your pain turning into pure torment. Enough, my son... let us rest within you."
Ashen slowly shook his head.
"How can I live when everything I loved turned to ash? How can I forget when your blood lives in me as a curse?"
The father stepped closer, his light fading.
"Forgetting isn't betrayal, my son. It's the only way to survive. Live for yourself... not for our ghosts."
Ashen raised his eyes, filled with a deadly gleam—a mix of loss and rage.
"My survival was a sin. Revenge... is my atonement."
The father froze, then gave a small, sorrowful smile.
He lifted his hand for the last time, brushing the air between them as if caressing a child he could no longer touch.
"If I had the choice, my son... I would've chosen your death over this. But fate wanted you to live—to learn. I wish you'd remember us in peace, not in blood."
The father's image began to fade. A single tear fell from his right eye, evaporating before touching the ground.
Ashen remained alone in the void. His eyes reflected everything that was—pain, blood, and unbroken promises. He whispered softly, as if answering his father's ghost:
"Blood cannot be erased... nor forgiven."
"Goodbye, Father," he said, his voice empty, emotionless.
When all faces, all voices, and all tears vanished, the whiteness around him exploded into a storm of blood and light. Memories fell like burning leaves, turning to dust, dissolving into nothing.
The last thing he saw was the faint smiles of his clan fading into oblivion.
Then—darkness. Absolute darkness.
Between one heartbeat and the next...
Ashen opened his eyes.
He was lying in the blood-soaked arena. Everything around him was destruction: cracked ground, a bleeding sky, the remnants of the monstrous hand turning into red dust.
He sat up slowly. His breathing was heavy, his hand trembling—but he was alive.
He touched his face; his fingers met tears. But those tears weren't water—they were blood.
He felt nothing. No sorrow, no peace, no anger. Only emptiness.
He lifted his head toward the bloody sky. In his eyes remained only silence—the kind that belongs to those who've lost everything, even themselves.
"Who am I?"
His words vanished into the wind.
And at that moment, something new was born—not Ashen the child, nor Ashen the young master, but a being completely devoid of humanity.
A soul without a past... and blood without a heart, carrying the memories of centuries of torment—nothing but pain.
Then the voice of the Heavenly Dao echoed, like an eternal decree:
"When a man devours his past to live, he does not survive... he is reborn as something else."