The night still cast its heavy shadows over the earth, while the flames of the campfire slowly faded, leaving behind only warm embers murmuring memories of their burn.
Far from their eyes, deep within the dark forest, Ray Yu sat in somber silence, his back resting against a large rock that seemed to carry the weight of his entire life. His eyes stared into nothingness, yet inside him… fires long unquenched continued to burn.
In his heart, he returned to that night.
The night that changed him forever.
The sky had rained down meteors of black flame, tearing through the atmosphere like the wrath of a dead god, crashing into mountains, cities, and temples alike. While all others fled in terror, Ray Yu alone did not move.
His wife was screaming, his little daughter crying, people collapsing in the streets… but he did not run.
He walked toward the fire.
As if something inside him was calling... whispering... seducing him.
He reached out his hand and touched one of the still-burning meteors—and in that moment, everything changed.
The light vanished. The earth disappeared. The sky ceased to exist.
And he opened his eyes… in a world with no name.
That world was nothing but a sea of corpses. No water. No life. Only rotting flesh, endless remains, and faint voices screaming without end, as if the souls beneath had been crushed by nightmares themselves.
And then... he saw it.
It emerged from liquid shadows, formed from pure blood and the screams of children. It slithered, rose, shifted. It had no single face—but hundreds of heads. Some crying. Some laughing. Some chanting names no one had ever heard.
And it had countless hands, waving, pointing, striking, caressing, choking.
The heads spoke in unison, with a voice powerful enough to make Ray Yu's heart falter:
"Welcome, Ray Yu… the one who touched the fire."
He wanted to scream. To question. To flee.
But he couldn't.
Other cries echoed from the entity, yet now it spoke in a tongue deeper than words:
"You… couldn't save them.
You watched them burn… and did nothing.
Your wife, your daughter…
Do you mourn them, coward?"
Ray Yu fell to his knees, screaming without sound, hands pressed against his ears, but the echo did not fade.
Then one of the heads, with a single weeping eye, said:
"And yet… I like you."
"I admire your ability to walk into death."
"And I… love those who do not fear endings."
The ground split open before him, revealing something alive—a pulsating mass of flesh, thudding slowly like a grotesque heart. And it laughed.
It was a Living Flesh Dao. No symbols. No harmony. No enlightenment. Just raw, deformed, undeniable substance.
The creature laughed—a sound enough to kill a tree—then said:
"Be my dragon, Ray Yu.
Be my weapon. Bear my fury."
"And I will give you the power to take vengeance… on those who betrayed you and those who abandoned you."
Then Ray Yu was plunged into the flesh… and he felt fire pour into his veins. His bones reshaped, his soul cracked open, his gates were ripped away. He was no longer human. No longer weak.
He became something else.
When the sun opened its eyes once more above the dew-soaked trees, Ray Yu emerged from the shadows of the forest.
For a brief moment, his eyes were red… before turning black again, as if remembering how to weep.
There was no trace of the monster.
He returned to the small camp where Lin Xian sat quietly, caressing his sword as if asking steel for meaning, and Yue Mi watched the forest as if waiting for an answer.
Ray Yu stepped out from the trees, his face marked by something like fatigue—and something deeper, like resolution.
He spoke calmly, his voice carrying a shadow that could not be ignored:
"Get ready."
"The second gate… is about to fall."