Path of BlooDld

A heavy silence blanketed the grey forest. The drops of blood falling from Ashen's arm made no sound—they seemed to vanish into the air before touching the ground. Everything became still, distorted, as if time itself had shrunk around him.

His eyes, clouded with dizziness and questions, wandered across the horizon, but all he saw was one color: blood.

He wasn't alone. He had felt it the moment he awakened from the blood frenzy.

Something... was watching him.

Ashen stepped toward a narrow rocky crevice in the nearby mountain. It looked like the mouth of a massive seashell scorched by fire. Invisible forces pulled him inward, as if it wasn't his will that moved him, but his blood.

He entered the cave.

The air inside was heavier than outside—thick and sticky, as though it seeped through his pores instead of entering his lungs. Strange odors lingered, not the stench of rotting flesh, but of decaying time.

The walls were smooth, yet shadows shifted on them—unreadable shapes, like something had crawled here thousands of years ago.

In the deepest part of the cave, he found the tablet.

It was a massive stone slab, half-buried in the wall, inscribed with strange words in an ancient tongue. But part of it seemed to have been completed later—in the modern language of cultivation.

That final passage... was a signature.

"I, the Eye of the Unseen, of the Heavenly Eye Clan, was sealed here in the heart of the wilds. I have not yet died, but my blood bleeds secrets, and my consciousness is split across time and space."

"This wild land is not earth—it is a thing!!!!? Not alone... There are other wilds, its twins, screaming under other skies."

"He is coming. They are coming. Races from beyond the shadows, beings that shatter stars and lick their souls."

"The clans will fall, the towers will perish, and blood shall rise anew, bearing the banner of heaven and abyss."

"Who is born? Who is chosen? Who watches? Blood... is the eye."

A chill crawled up Ashen's spine, from his tailbone to the base of his skull.

Then came the whispers.

Not a single voice, but dozens—hundreds—as if dead souls were trapped in the cave walls, left behind to murmur through the stone.

"He watches... the blood watches..."

"Our hearts stopped, but his awareness does not sleep..."

"Don't run from your blood... your blood sees you."

Ashen screamed inwardly, but no sound escaped his throat—as if his mouth had been sewn shut with flesh.

His body trembled.

But amidst the terror, amidst the dread, something deep within him awakened.

The Beastly Blood Body Technique began to react.

The Sky Leopard Rune flared suddenly, his legs glowing as his pulse accelerated unnaturally.

Then came the Bloody Bear Fist, forming instinctively around his arms, and before he could understand what was happening... twisted blood cocoons burst from the walls.

They were ancient creatures—forgotten things—half human, half parasite.

He couldn't breathe. He didn't think. He just fought.

The shock of his punch exploded the first creature, but more followed. The Blood Crocodile Rune activated, covering his body with scale-like growths. With every blow, the scales tore and slowly regenerated.

He used the Blood Echo for the first time in perfect synchronization, raising a barrier of blood in front of him while opening a path of escape upward.

But he didn't run...

He turned and faced them.

In the heart of battle, the techniques fused unconsciously. The aura of the bear's fist surged through the leopard's legs, creating an attack that would later be named "Blood Shock Kick"—a single strike that flung three creatures away and halted the rest.

His body melted into a bloody fluid, shot through the opposite wall, and slipped through a narrow crack no human should've been able to pass through.

On the other side... he saw another wall.

But it wasn't solid.

It was alive.

It pulsed.

It was a living wall, beating and breathing, and at its center... a closed eye.

Ashen's heart skipped.

The blood was watching.

He fell to his knees, and before he could scream, he felt something slide down his forehead—a drop of blood.

But it wasn't his.

It had fallen from the top of the cave.

He looked up.

The ceiling was covered in faces—gray, pale faces, staring at him without eyes, as if they knew who he was, who he had been, and who he would become.

He didn't move.

He didn't breathe.

It felt like time itself had frozen to listen—to the eye, to the blood, to the message.

Then...

One final whisper—clear, direct:

"You won't escape the wilds. You won't escape your blood."

He crawled out, as if the cave walls were closing in on him.

Outside, the forest was still.

But something had changed.

He was no longer the same.

The blood... was no longer just blood.

At the end of that day, as he sat in the darkness beneath a scorched tree, he muttered:

"Who's watching...? Me? Or something inside me?"

There was no answer.

Only silence.

But in that silence, he knew...

What's coming... will not be any less dark.