Death was supposed to be loud.
The Blood Immortal had always imagined it that way—heaven splitting apart, rivers of crimson boiling the skies, the screams of a million enemies echoing as his heart finally stilled. For someone who had drowned continents in blood, a silent end felt almost insulting.
Instead, there was only cold.
No pain. No rage. No hatred.
Just the sensation of something precious leaking away.
The Blood Immortal stood atop the Crimson Spire, his long robe torn and soaked in blood—his blood, not that it mattered. Blood had never belonged to him. He had belonged to blood. From the moment he first grasped its will, the scarlet tide had obeyed him more faithfully than any disciple, any lover, any oath sworn beneath the heavens.
Below him lay a ruined empire.
Cities reduced to bone-white rubble. Mountains carved open like butchered beasts. Rivers rerouted into veins feeding the land with iron-rich soil. This was the world he had forged—through slaughter, conquest, and absolute dominance.
And standing behind him…
Was the only person he had trusted.
"Aurelian."
The name escaped his lips like a dying breath.
Aurelian Kross—his first disciple. His greatest creation. The one he had raised from a starving mortal child into a blood-soaked sovereign who commanded armies with a single gesture. The one he had entrusted with secrets that even heaven had feared.
The blade protruding from the Blood Immortal's chest pulsed faintly, drinking greedily.
A blood-forged dagger.
His own creation.
"How disappointing," the Blood Immortal murmured, glancing down at the wound. His voice was calm. Almost amused. "You chose this moment."
Aurelian did not respond immediately.
He stood there, trembling—not with fear, but with something far uglier. His eyes burned with ambition, terror, and a desperate hunger that mirrored what the Blood Immortal himself had once seen in his reflection.
"You were going to surpass everything," Aurelian finally said. His voice cracked. "Heaven. Fate. Even blood itself."
"And that frightened you," the Blood Immortal replied softly.
"Yes." Aurelian did not deny it. "Because if you continued… there would be no place left for anyone else."
The Blood Immortal laughed.
It was a quiet sound. Dry. Ancient.
"So you kill your master," he said. "To claim a place beneath the sky."
Aurelian's grip tightened on the dagger. "I did what was necessary."
The Blood Immortal closed his eyes.
For the first time in centuries, he felt tired.
He could have stopped the bleeding. He could have reversed the blood flow, crushed Aurelian's heart, erased his existence down to the marrow. The technique formed instinctively in his mind—simple, effortless.
But he didn't.
Because something inside him whispered a truth he could no longer deny.
This path ended only one way.
If not by betrayal… then by emptiness.
"Remember this feeling," the Blood Immortal said, opening his eyes one last time. They glowed brighter than the dagger embedded in his chest. "Power gained through blood will always demand blood in return."
The Crimson Spire shook violently.
Aurelian staggered back as rivers of blood rose into the air, freezing in place like scarlet stars. For one terrifying instant, he thought his master was about to ascend—about to transcend death itself.
Then—
Silence.
The blood fell.
The Blood Immortal's body collapsed, dissolving into crimson mist that scattered across the wind.
And just like that…
The Blood Immortal vanished from history.
A thousand years passed.
Empires rose and fell. Cultivation systems evolved. Mana replaced ancient qi. Aura bloodlines ruled the battlefield. Monsters emerged. Demon Kings whispered from the dark.
And the Blood Immortal became nothing more than a forbidden footnote—his name erased, his techniques sealed, his existence denied.
Until—
Pain.
Sharp. Sudden. Overwhelming.
A scream tore from a child's throat.
The Blood Immortal gasped—and inhaled air for the first time in a millennium.
His eyes snapped open.
A cracked wooden ceiling greeted him. Smoke-stained beams. The smell of old cloth and cheap medicine. A flickering oil lamp cast trembling shadows across a cramped room.
He was… small.
Weak.
His limbs felt wrong—short, fragile, trembling uncontrollably. His chest rose and fell too quickly, lungs burning with every breath.
"What… is this…?"
His voice came out high-pitched. Broken.
Panic surged.
He reached instinctively for blood—
And found nothing.
No sea of crimson waiting for his command. No endless reserve of power humming beneath his skin. Only a thin trickle of weak, mortal blood barely responding to his will.
His heart slammed violently.
Impossible.
Before he could process the shock, the door burst open.
A woman rushed in, her face pale with worry. "Cael! Cael, stay awake!"
Her hands grabbed his shoulders. Warm. Calloused. Real.
Another presence followed—a man, tall and worn, his clothes patched and stained from labor. "The fever hasn't broken," he muttered. "If the awakening doesn't happen soon—"
Awakening?
The word struck something deep within the Blood Immortal's fractured consciousness.
Memories collided.
Not his own.
A boy named Cael Ardyn.
Age twelve.
Born to an ordinary family in the outer districts.
No mana talent.
No aura lineage.
A nobody.
The Blood Immortal nearly laughed.
Reborn…?
The realization slammed into him with terrifying clarity.
He had not ascended.
He had not survived.
He had been reborn.
A thousand years into the future.
The woman—his mother—pressed a damp cloth to his forehead. Tears welled in her eyes. "Please," she whispered. "Please don't take my son."
Son.
The word felt foreign.
Dangerous.
And yet…
Something twisted painfully in his chest.
The Blood Immortal closed his eyes.
Inside, far deeper than flesh, something ancient stirred.
Blood answered blood.
A faint pulse rippled through his veins—so weak it was laughable, yet undeniably familiar. Not power. Not yet.
But recognition.
So this is the world now, he thought calmly. Mana. Aura. Awakening rituals.
A world that believed blood was obsolete.
A world that had forgotten him.
The boy's fever suddenly broke.
Cael Ardyn's body shuddered, then relaxed.
The parents gasped in relief.
Neither noticed the brief moment when the child's eyes opened—no longer confused, no longer afraid, but cold and ancient beyond measure.
Aurelian, the Blood Immortal thought.
You lived your life thinking you won.
A faint smile curved the boy's lips.
I wonder…
How much blood will this new world bleed before it remembers my name?