The Truth of Truly Living

Heaven and earth wept blood, endless crimson light veiling the setting sun as it stood over the Human World.

Upon the shattered earth, the woman in black had been blasted into a charred corpse, barely holding together.

Her body still stood upright, but her abdomen and chest had vanished completely, connected only by a thin remnant of skin.

Her exposed organs had stopped beating as well, crumbling and drifting away like powder.

Red.

Endless red poured down from the heavens.

This was the final chapter heaven and earth had written for her.

The life force of an Ancient God Beast had vanished completely, but a final spark of life still lingered in her single eye.

She was dying.

She had lost.

In the final instant before her life force faded—perhaps in that instant, perhaps the one before—

The memories of the Human Race, long gone and vanished without a trace, surfaced in her mind.

It seemed that at the very beginning of her existence, she had been a member of the Human Race.

Back then, every moment of every day, she had worried that she would die.

She had been terrified.

She had watched her mother and father do nothing at all, only to be wounded by the Malice that filled the sky.

Malice had eaten into their flesh, branding it with streak after streak of black. It had also relentlessly devoured their memories.

"Why?"

As a child, she had cried through the night.

Why was any of this happening?

If Ancient God Beasts existed, why had the Human Race ever been born?

Because...

Of the food chain.

Ancient God Beasts needed to eat and grow, so the Human Race had been born.

The Human Race was food kept in captivity.

She would become an Ancient God Beast and stand