Dawn City, Ice Crystal Prison.
Feng Qi's hands and feet were shackled in thick ice crystal cuffs, his entire body wrapped in chains made of the same freezing material.
Listening to the narrator's laughter ringing in his mind, he couldn't help but feel a little helpless.
He had thought that after revealing his name, the people of the future would warmly welcome him into the city. Instead, it had made the city guards hostile toward him.
Now he had every reason to suspect that something had gone wrong within the human ranks.
Otherwise, why would the name "Feng Qi" be treated with such animosity?
Before figuring out the situation, he hadn't fought back and had let the guards restrain and capture him. When it came to humans, he could never treat them as ruthlessly as he did domain creatures.
After all, if he killed humans, just like killing domain creatures, their traces in history would be wiped out entirely.
So until he understood the circumstances, he decided not to act rashly.
Besides, those guards hadn't tried to kill him. They'd merely imprisoned him, clearly intending to deal with him in some other way.
Returning to the present, Feng Qi began inspecting his surroundings.
This prison cell was entirely built from solid ice layers, taking up about one hundred square meters. Other than the biting cold, it was completely empty.
Through the nearly transparent ice walls, he could see into the neighboring cells.
To his left, there was a skeleton—clearly someone who'd been imprisoned for countless years, long dead.
To his right, there was another figure, also tightly bound in ice crystal chains.
That figure was filthy—hair so long it reached the waist, face completely hidden under matted, tangled strands. The whole cell reeked with signs of long-term human waste. Even though the stench couldn't get through the thick ice, Feng Qi still frowned instinctively.
[Disgusted? Back when you were a reeking undead freak, I felt the same way!]
"Shut up!"
Confirming that the guards had already left, Feng Qi got to his feet and walked over to the ice wall on the right, reaching out to knock on it, trying to get the prisoner's attention.
But the prisoner didn't respond—just stayed curled up in the corner, head down, not even moving. It wasn't clear if he was alive or dead.
Feng Qi didn't give up. He kept knocking on the ice wall.
Eventually, after his persistence, the figure in the neighboring cell slowly raised his head, revealing an old and withered face.
It was immediately obvious—this prisoner wasn't human.
His eyes were vertical pupils like a serpent's, faintly glowing red. There was also a twisted rune mark etched into the left side of his face.
"Wanna talk for a bit?"
Since he didn't yet understand what was going on in this new human city, Feng Qi decided to try getting information from this prisoner first.
But the prisoner soon lowered his head again, clearly unwilling to speak.
Feng Qi wasn't the type to get angry when people refused him.
In an instant, his body dissolved into blood mist, converging toward his forehead, where it condensed into a dark golden brand.
With a surge of power, psychic force exploded outward, shattering the ice crystal chains on his body, then surged toward the ice wall.
What surprised Feng Qi was that the ice wall was insanely tough. Even under the pressure of his psychic force, there wasn't a single crack.
[Relax, it's 1500 years later, after all. The fact that humans can still maintain a surface city now, even if they're at the bottom of the food chain, means their overall combat capability—and tech level—is way stronger than Star City fifteen hundred years ago.]
Hearing that, Feng Qi began to increase the intensity of his psychic power.
The hand pressed against the ice wall slowly clenched into a fist—and finally, cracks started spreading across the formerly unbreakable wall. Chunks of ice began falling away.
The commotion caught the attention of the prisoner in the next cell. He looked up again, visibly startled by what he was witnessing.
Eventually, the ice wall couldn't hold anymore. It shattered with a loud crack.
Before the sound could echo, the shattered pieces were caught and suspended mid-air by psychic force.
With a wave of Feng Qi's hand, the floating ice fragments neatly stacked themselves into a pile in the corner of the room.
Then he stepped through the space that had once been sealed by the wall and entered the neighboring cell.
"Now… can we talk?"
Looking at Feng Qi's calm smile, the dirty prisoner instinctively shrank back. But then something seemed to click in his mind. With a hint of fear, he asked:
"Can you… take me out of here?"
"If I've got the power to break out, I'll take you with me. But in return, you're going to answer my questions honestly."
He wasn't new to making empty promises to domain creatures. But his tone was sincere.
Hearing that, the prisoner nodded immediately.
"Ask me anything. If I know it, I'll tell you."
"How much do you know about this city?"
"You… you mean you don't know where you are?" The domain creature looked stunned, clearly finding it hard to believe.
"I'm asking the questions. You answer." Feng Qi's tone turned cold.
The domain creature quickly nodded and answered:
"This place is called Dawn City. It belongs to the human race."
"Who's in charge now?"
"The current human leader should be someone named Xie Yu."
"Xie Yu?" The unfamiliar name made Feng Qi frown slightly.
Wei Wei had once thoroughly examined the little one's body and concluded that even without help, the little guy's natural lifespan should easily exceed one thousand years. Plus, with ongoing cultivation to refine and nourish the body, living until this fifteen hundred years later shouldn't have been an issue.
So… something must've gone wrong along the way?
Thinking back to how hostile the city guards were when they heard the name "Feng Qi," a sense of unease settled in his heart.
He looked back at the domain creature curled in the corner and asked:
"Why are you locked up here?"
"I… I tried to sneak into the city pretending to be Feng Qi. But they saw through it."
Feng Qi froze.
"You pretended to be Feng Qi? Why would you do that?"
"You mean… you're not?"
Feng Qi: …
"Wait, are there a lot of people pretending to be Feng Qi?"
Hearing the question, the prisoner let out a helpless sigh, face full of sorrow.
"It's just… to survive. The humans are one of the strongest forces around here. If we can't find a way to live, the only outcome is death. So why not take the risk?"
"Tell me everything."
The domain creature then began recounting how he ended up imprisoned in the ice crystal cell.
As the story unfolded, Feng Qi gradually pieced things together.
It turned out that the nearby domain clans were all aware of the legend of Dawn City. According to the tale, the great human leader Feng Qi had the power to travel through time and would one day return, fifteen hundred years later.
Most of the surrounding races didn't believe such a thing.
But what surprised them was that the humans believed it wholeheartedly. They even held an annual "Feng Qi Festival" to call upon this ancient sage to return.
Over the years, the surrounding domain forces had withered one after another. Many races were driven to the brink of extinction.
Under such circumstances, allying with humanity became a desperate desire for many.
Some even willingly offered to become vassal races to the humans.
But every one of these offers was coldly rejected by the upper echelons of the human race.
The reason was simple: the humans didn't have enough resources to support these neighboring races.
Resources in this region were becoming scarcer and scarcer. The humans had even launched several aggressive raids, toppling nearby domain powers and looting their remaining supplies.
Left with no way out, these domain races had run out of options.
Fighting the humans would be suicide.
So some of the races that possessed mimicry abilities began trying a new method of survival. They collected every bit of lore and rumor related to Feng Qi and attempted to impersonate him to sneak into Dawn City.
It was risky, of course. But if they succeeded, they could tie their fate to the humans. As long as the humans survived, they could enjoy the protection and resources that came with it.
Taking advantage of the humans' blind faith in Feng Qi, more and more domain races began trying this seemingly absurd plan to become a part of humanity.
And some… actually succeeded.
The first successful impostor was a domain creature with a rare and powerful mimicry ability.
He imitated Feng Qi's appearance, even replicated some of his known abilities.
When he encountered the city guards, they welcomed him with open arms. That day, all of Dawn City was lit up in celebration, and cheers of joy filled the skies.
That fake Feng Qi used the name to secure countless benefits for his dwindling race. He even got them a place to live inside Dawn City.
But disguises could never hold forever.
Eventually, a human ancestor who had been in deep slumber awakened.
The moment he laid eyes on the impostor, he saw through the disguise.
With a single wave of his hand, he broke the mimicry spell and ordered the city guards to lock the impostor in the ice prison, condemned to die in cold and isolation.
From that moment onward, impersonators still showed up—but the humans of Dawn City had grown far more cautious and skeptical.
Even knowing how risky it was, many desperate domain creatures continued to try impersonating Feng Qi.
But unlike the first success, most of them ended up miserably.
Every cell in this ice prison was filled with those failed impersonators.
Even the skeleton in the cell to Feng Qi's left was once one of them.
After hearing all this, Feng Qi finally understood why the guards had been so hostile to him.
The situation wasn't as complicated as he thought.
At first, he'd suspected that something had gone wrong within Dawn City. Maybe, like the previous timeline, internal ideological splits had formed and led humanity down a fractured path.
After all, being a leader from fifteen hundred years ago didn't mean the future generations would still believe in him.
The prophecy of Feng Qi's return in the year 3528 might have become nothing more than an uncertain myth over time. It made sense that some in the future would doubt it altogether.
Just like in the previous future dream world—even those who had been staunch followers of the Dawn Rebellion had begun to question whether Feng Qi would truly return.
Now it all made sense.
There were simply too many impersonators, and the human guards had grown tired of being fooled.
At that moment, the narrator's voice echoed in his mind:
[Looks like they're about to put you through some identity verification. What I'm curious about is—who is this "ancestor" the prisoner mentioned? If I had to guess… it might just be the little guy.]
Hearing this, Feng Qi's mind stirred.
Waiting here for an unknown amount of time until the identity check arrived clearly wasn't a smart plan.
What if the verification process was scheduled for several days later, and before that could happen… Little Black arrived first?
"You got what you wanted, now… will you take me out of here?"
The domain creature curled up in the corner looked at Feng Qi with hopeful eyes.
"I'll send you on your way."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Feng Qi waved his hand, and in an instant, psychic force locked around the creature's neck.
A sharp squeeze—and his neck snapped cleanly.
A blood-qi mist rose from the dead domain creature's body and flowed into Feng Qi.
[Tsk, cold-blooded bastard. Use them, then dump them.]
Ignoring the narrator, Feng Qi turned toward the thick wall ahead. His psychic force erupted.
Crackling noises rang out.
The thick wall of ice only held for a few seconds before it collapsed with a loud crash.
Feng Qi's body floated out of the prison cell, suspended by his psychic power. His gaze swept forward.
Ahead was a corridor lined with other cells, each one holding prisoners.
He flew onward, reaching the end of the corridor, and with another burst of power, he flung open the heavy metal wall at the exit.
The noise instantly alerted the guards.
But Feng Qi didn't attack them. With a casual motion, the charging guards froze in midair, immobilized.
With another wave, their bodies were flung backward as he continued flying straight toward the exit.
There were three levels in the ice prison, and Feng Qi burst through each one using brute force alone.
By the time he emerged from the prison, hundreds of fully armed human warriors were already waiting outside for him.
Without acknowledging them, Feng Qi's body rose into the air.
At the same time, those hundreds of battle-ready soldiers launched their assault.
The frost mist spread rapidly. Wherever it passed, the air condensed into shimmering blue ice crystals, closing in on him fast.
With a thought, Feng Qi unleashed his psychic power, halting the encroaching frost mist in its tracks.
But the attacks from the Dawn warriors didn't stop there. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of soldiers shifted positions. Beneath their feet, a massive blue formation lit up.
Countless ice walls surged from the ground, transforming mid-air into enormous claws of ice, swiping down toward him.
Wrapped in psychic energy, Feng Qi's figure darted swiftly between the giant icy hands. Yet the ice continued to expand at incredible speed, sealing off all escape routes once more.
Without hesitation, Feng Qi exploded with his full psychic power.
In an instant, the ice walls that had locked his path began to collapse in large chunks. But below him, more ice walls were forming rapidly, and a towering iceberg had already taken shape in mid-air.
Facing such relentless offense, Feng Qi actually felt a bit of comfort inside.
Even if Mo Yue had ultimately triumphed in the end, the human cultivation system hadn't completely collapsed. Evidently, there was still strength left to fight.
Now the real problem was—how to prove his identity?
Based on what the domain creature had said earlier in the ice prison, there was an "ancestor" in Dawn City. Feng Qi suspected that figure might be the little guy.
That theory was further supported by the ice-elemental abilities these Dawn warriors possessed.
He decided it was time to go all out and force the little guy to appear.
Otherwise, in a city full of strangers, proving his identity was basically impossible.
The dark-gold branded crystal on his forehead shattered at that moment, turning into surging blood-qi that wrapped around his entire body.
As his heart began to race, the dominant Blood Source Form emerged in full.
With power boiling through his veins, Feng Qi clenched his fist. His figure twisted mid-air, and then—he slammed his fist downward.
BOOM!
A tidal wave of blood-qi surged forward, crashing into the towering ice mountain. In a thunderous explosion, massive sections of the ice mountain crumbled. The bloody fist projection kept charging ahead, only dispersing when it was nearly upon the rows of warriors below.
Dozens of warriors stared at him in shock and disbelief as Feng Qi landed on the ground.
Standing more than eight meters tall, his whole body was muscular and solid, and every breath he exhaled carried a mist of blood. Their expressions tensed with fear.
At that moment, alarms rang out across the city. From all directions, figures rushed toward his position.
Soon, tens of thousands of warriors had arrived, forming a massive encirclement. And more were still on their way.
Realizing the battle was unavoidable, Feng Qi sighed inwardly.
It seemed the people of the future didn't fully understand all of his abilities—including his Blood Source Form.
[Might as well stir things up. If the little guy's really here, he'll definitely show up.]
Taking a deep breath, Feng Qi launched his counterattack.
His body turned into a blaze of blood-colored flames as he suddenly closed the gap with one nearby warrior. His massive arm slammed down onto the warrior's shield, sending both the man and the shield flying. The shield shattered mid-air, bursting into fragments.
Next, his form flickered nonstop. Warrior after warrior was knocked flying under his terrifying brute force.
But despite this, more and more Dawn warriors were pouring into the fray.
Their attacks didn't deal much actual damage to Feng Qi. None of them could even pierce his physical defenses. As long as his Blood Source Form remained active, he was basically invincible.
Under his overwhelming assault, countless warriors were sent flying, and those who hit the ground lost their ability to keep fighting.
He looked like some ancient beast awakened from slumber, rampaging through Dawn City's defenders with unmatched brutality.
During the fight, Feng Qi tried to speak and explain his identity.
But the warriors clearly weren't interested in talking. They only wanted to subdue him first—then verify his identity afterward.
Feng Qi wasn't going all out in the fight either.
He knew exactly how terrifying his strength was.
If he used too much force, it would be all too easy to kill these people—and wipe them off the timeline forever.
So he went with the simplest, most direct method—brute force breakout, repeated again and again.
With each furious charge, he tore through the defenders' encirclement.
Finally, a clear voice echoed from the distance:
"Team Two, go get the Ancestor!"
A unit within the encirclement quickly retreated.
Realizing that the human Ancestor was about to appear, Feng Qi immediately toned down his attacks and shifted entirely to defense.
After another ten minutes, the number of Dawn warriors encircling him had swelled to over a hundred thousand.
Even Feng Qi was beginning to feel the pressure.
These warriors had strange attack methods. The ice spikes striking his body didn't hurt much, nor did they break through his defenses, but he could clearly sense a bone-chilling cold seeping into him.
As more and more cold energy crept inside, he began to feel his movements stiffening. This was clearly some kind of stacking debuff. If the battle dragged on any longer, he might actually die here.
Worse, his blood-qi reserves were nearly depleted.
Time kept ticking.
Just as he was about to activate his Divine Form, a figure rose from the distant skyline—like a blue sun bursting into the sky, radiating a brilliant azure glow.
In a few blinks, the blazing blue flame had traveled across the horizon and arrived before him.
As the blue fire faded, a white-haired man in a long white robe appeared, standing proudly in the air with one hand behind his back.
Upon seeing him, the surrounding Dawn warriors all lit up with joy, bowing their heads with deep respect:
"Ancestor!"
"Ancestor, we're under attack by a powerful domain foe!"
The lead Dawn warrior stepped forward and reported with a bow.
But the white-haired figure didn't respond. His gaze was locked on Feng Qi, pupils trembling violently.
In that moment, Feng Qi saw countless emotions flash in those eyes.
"Little guy… long time no see."
Feng Qi dismissed his blood-qi body, reverting to human form. Smiling wide, he looked at the white-haired figure.
"Qi… Qi-shu."