Raqin's eyes snapped open.
For a moment, all he saw was greenish light.
Then he realized he was floating.
A transparent liquid surrounded him, cold and thick, filling his lungs with every breath. Panic surged through him as he tried to move, but his limbs felt heavy, sluggish.
His gaze darted around.
Glass.
He was inside a large cylindrical tube, suspended in a chamber of polished metal walls and faint blue lights.
Before he could process anything further—
CRACK!
The glass tube suddenly shattered.
Liquid burst outward like a broken dam and Raqin was thrown onto the ground with a heavy thud.
"—Khh…!"
He coughed violently, fingers clawing at his throat as he yanked the breathing tube out of his mouth. His stomach lurched and he retched onto the cold, smooth floor.
Air.
Real air.
He sucked it in greedily while trying to steady himself.
"Where… am I…?"
His voice echoed faintly across the silent chamber.
Fragments of memory rushed through his mind.
Raqin.
A corporate slave in a world ruled by mega corporations and wealthy elites.
The ancient technology.
The rebellion.
He had stolen it.
Used it to spark a revolution against the corporations that controlled humanity like livestock. For a time, the world burned with hope.
But hope had not been enough.
One by one, his comrades had fallen.
The rebellion was crushed.
In the end… only he remained.
Cornered and surrounded, Raqin had made a final decision.
If he was going to die, he would take everything with him.
He fused himself with the ancient technology and prepared to detonate it the moment he surrendered.
The day he initiated the fusion…
The sky changed.
Across the entire world, the heavens turned an eerie green, speckled with strange crimson stars.
For a single second, time itself seemed to pause.
And in that frozen moment—
A massive comet descended from the sky, hurtling straight toward the location where he stood.
Raqin had closed his eyes, accepting the end.
Yet now…
He was here.
Alive.
"I should be dead…" he muttered.
His feet touched the cold stone floor as he slowly stood up.
Just as he took a step forward—
A holographic projection flickered into existence.
A man appeared before him.
He looked thin and pale, wearing strange transparent glasses. His eyes were sunken, yet they radiated a terrifying pressure.
Even though it was only a projection, Raqin felt as if a mountain had been placed on his shoulders.
The man observed him silently for a moment.
Then he sighed.
"It seems my final attempt at a breakthrough… has failed."
His gaze sharpened.
"You are quite lucky, young one. My real self could not possess your body in the end."
Raqin's face drained of color.
He subconsciously stepped back twice.
"Possess… my body?"
The holographic man watched him calmly.
"If I wished to kill you," he said indifferently, "even with my real body long gone, you would already be ashes."
Raqin forced a painful smile.
He decided it would be wiser to listen.
The man folded his hands behind his back.
"Allow me to introduce myself."
"My name is Ivan Tresh."
"Though most people know me by another name…"
He paused slightly.
"Dr. Blood."
Raqin swallowed hard.
"I will explain how you came to be here," Ivan continued. "But first, you must understand the world you now stand in."
"I was born in the year 567 AE…"
And so the man began his story.
Ivan spoke of a brutal past.
He was born out of wedlock, the unwanted child of the Crown Prince of the Christicus Kingdom, a prodigy of the Fire Tiger Beastmen race.
His mother had been a captured mermaid, a rare sea beast.
Out of pity—or perhaps shame—the imperial family allowed them to live in the palace as servants.
When Ivan came of age, he would be forced to sign away any claim to the royal bloodline.
But fate had other plans.
Ivan was a cultivation genius.
He possessed dual affinities: fire and water.
Yet his talent bred jealousy.
Before he could rise, his royal siblings crippled his cultivation.
A hundred years later, he was banished.
His mother was tortured to death.
That was the day Ivan Tresh stopped being a victim.
Raqin listened in stunned silence as the man spoke of cultivation, bloodlines, and impossible treasures.
A world where people could defy physics.
Where strength determined everything.
Eventually, Ivan spoke of the trial hidden within an ancient tree.
A forbidden technique.
A choice to destroy his own beast bloodline and become something new.
A pure human with a powerful bloodline.
From that moment forward, Ivan rose like a storm.
He led rebellions.
Toppled empires.
Converted countless beastmen into humans with bloodlines.
For a brief moment—
He ruled.
But powerful forces from distant continents coveted his secret technique.
They destroyed everything he had built.
And so Ivan disappeared again.
His story continued across continents ruled by terrifying races:
The Blood Race
The Moon Race
The Corpse Race
Together they dominated the Undying Continent.
Ivan rose once more.
But even that continent had masters.
When he finally discovered the truth, it was already too late.
He was betrayed again.
Wounded and hunted, he fled into a forbidden land.
That was where he discovered Raqin's body.
Ivan looked directly at him.
"You possessed something I had never seen before."
"A one hundred percent pure human bloodline."
"I studied you for two hundred years."
Raqin's eyes widened.
"Two… hundred… years?"
"My injuries eventually caught up with me," Ivan said calmly.
"My final plan was to possess your body."
"But it seems fate had other ideas."
He looked at Raqin carefully.
"You will inherit everything I leave behind."
Raqin blinked.
"Why me?"
Ivan smiled faintly.
"Because I cannot see your past."
"Nor your future."
"For someone like me… that is impossible."
He pointed toward a table in the corner of the chamber.
"There is a ring and a book."
"After you take your first step into cultivation, drip your blood onto the ring."
"Then my inheritance will be yours."
Raqin took a slow breath.
"…Alright."
Ivan's form began to flicker.
"My time is running out."
"Before I leave, remember this…"
His eyes grew serious.
"Save what remains of humanity."
"The world is no longer what it once was."
The hologram started dissolving into particles of light.
"Never be complacent."
"Keep a steady mind."
Then he vanished.
Silence returned to the chamber.
Raqin stood there for a long moment before turning toward the table.
He picked up the book.
The moment his fingers touched it—
A mechanical voice echoed inside his mind.
/ Host has met minimum requirements to activate… /