The fever receded, but the weakness did not.
Cael Ardyn lay still for three days after that night, drifting in and out of shallow sleep while two sets of memories warred quietly inside his mind. The body demanded rest—food, warmth, safety. The soul, however, was ancient, alert, and relentlessly calculating.
A thousand years.
That single fact eclipsed everything else.
When Cael finally opened his eyes again, fully conscious this time, sunlight filtered through the narrow window beside his bed. Dust motes floated lazily in the air. The room was poor, but clean. Too clean for someone powerful. Too small for someone who once ruled nations.
He stared at the ceiling, breathing slowly.
Mana circulates differently, he observed. The world's laws have shifted.
In his previous life, energy had been refined from heaven and earth—qi shaped by intent, blood acting as both medium and amplifier. Now, he could feel it clearly: mana existed as an omnipresent external force, pressing against his skin, invading his lungs with every breath. It was abundant. Crude. Inefficient.
Aura, on the other hand, pulsed faintly from his parents whenever they entered the room—thin, diluted traces passed down through generations. Weak bloodlines. No wonder they lived on the outskirts.
This body truly had nothing.
And yet…
Deep within his veins, something stirred in response to his awakening consciousness. Not power. Not strength.
Recognition.
Blood remembered him.
Cael's fingers twitched beneath the blanket. He focused inward, narrowing his awareness the way he once had during secluded cultivation—slow, disciplined, precise.
The response was pitiful.
A droplet's worth of blood essence trembled faintly, like a candle fighting a storm. The laws of this world crushed it down mercilessly, suppressing anything that did not conform to mana or aura.
Interesting, he thought.
This world did not merely forget blood cultivation.
It actively rejected it.
That was both a problem… and an opportunity.
The door creaked open softly.
His mother entered first, followed closely by his father. Their relief was immediate and unguarded when they saw his eyes open and clear.
"Cael," his mother whispered, rushing forward. She knelt beside the bed and cupped his face in her hands as if afraid he might vanish. "You scared us half to death."
"I'm… fine," Cael said carefully.
His voice still felt wrong—too young, too light—but it carried weight when he chose to let it. His parents noticed, though they couldn't explain why.
His father exhaled heavily. "The fever broke just in time. If it had lasted another night…" He shook his head. "The Awakening Ceremony is in two days. You need to rest."
Awakening Ceremony.
Cael searched Cael Ardyn's memories again, sorting through the boy's fragmented recollections. The ceremony occurred when children turned twelve—a world-mandated evaluation to determine whether one possessed mana sensitivity or aura lineage.
Those who awakened gained status.
Those who didn't… stayed ordinary.
Or worse.
So this body was meant to awaken now, the Blood Immortal realized. Fate has timing, at least.
"Will I awaken?" Cael asked quietly.
His mother stiffened.
His father hesitated.
That told him everything.
"There's no shame if you don't," his mother said quickly, forcing a smile. "We'll find work for you. You're clever. You always were."
Clever.
He almost smiled.
"I want to attend," Cael said.
His parents exchanged a glance.
"You just recovered," his father began.
"I'll go," Cael repeated. Calm. Firm. Unyielding.
Something in his tone brooked no argument.
Two days later, Cael stood among hundreds of children in the central square of the outer district. Stone platforms rose in a semicircle, each carved with glowing runes that pulsed with mana. Above them hovered a massive crystalline sphere—the Awakening Orb.
Instructors wearing academy insignias observed from elevated seats, their expressions bored, detached. For them, this was routine.
For the children, it was everything.
Names were called one by one.
Those who awakened mana caused the orb to glow softly—blue, green, or elemental hues. Murmurs followed each success. Those with aura lineage radiated visible pressure, earning impressed nods and immediate interest from officials.
Failures were dismissed silently.
Cael watched without expression.
Mana users. Aura heirs. Predictable. Crude. Limited.
Then his name echoed across the square.
"Cael Ardyn."
He stepped forward.
The moment his foot touched the platform, the Awakening Orb trembled.
A ripple passed through the crowd.
Cael felt it instantly—the world pushing inward, mana flooding his body aggressively, seeking to imprint itself upon his core.
He allowed it.
Just enough.
The mana surged, coiling clumsily around his heart like a foreign parasite. Pain flared—real, sharp, intrusive—but he endured it without flinching.
The orb flared… then stabilized into a dim, undefined glow.
Murmurs turned confused.
"No elemental alignment?" one instructor muttered.
"Mana sensitivity confirmed, but unstable," another said. "Low-grade potential."
Low-grade.
Cael nearly laughed.
They felt it then.
Not mana.
Not aura.
Something else.
For a fraction of a second—so brief even the instructors doubted it—the orb darkened. The runes flickered crimson, then snapped back to normal as if nothing had happened.
Only one man noticed.
An elderly examiner seated far above narrowed his eyes.
Cael felt the suppression slam down immediately. The world itself rejected the anomaly, crushing the stirring blood essence back into dormancy. His body shook violently, blood vessels screaming as if about to rupture.
He collapsed to one knee.
Gasps erupted.
"Overload!" someone shouted.
"Stabilize him!"
Hands grabbed his shoulders, forcing mana into his body to calm the reaction. Cael let them. He allowed himself to appear weak, overwhelmed, barely conscious.
Inside, however, his thoughts were razor-sharp.
So blood triggers suppression, he concluded. And the system mistakes it for mana instability.
Perfect.
He was declared awakened—but barely.
Assigned to the lowest talent tier.
No academy sponsorship.
No immediate value.
Exactly where he wanted to be.
As Cael was escorted away, he felt it.
A gaze.
Ancient. Curious. Hungry.
Far beyond the city, beyond the districts and the families and the academy walls, something stirred in the dark.
The Demon King had felt it.
Not clearly. Not yet.
But enough to notice that the world had… twitched.
That night, Cael sat alone in his room, staring at his trembling hands. His parents slept soundly, unaware that history had shifted beneath their roof.
He bit down on his thumb.
Blood welled.
A single drop slid down his skin.
The moment it detached, the world shuddered.
Cael caught it between two fingers, forcing his will inward, compressing, refining, commanding.
The drop resisted.
Then obeyed.
It flattened, sharpened, reshaped itself into a needle-thin shard no longer than his fingernail.
His breath caught.
The shard dissolved immediately, backlash tearing through his veins like fire. Cael hissed softly, blood seeping from his nose.
But he was smiling.
It still works.
Barely.
Dangerously.
But it worked.
"A thousand years…" he murmured. "And you still answer me."
Outside, thunder rolled across a cloudless sky.
Somewhere far away, in a throne room carved from bone and abyssal stone, a pair of eyes opened.
Crimson met darkness.
The game had begun.