“？”
Lin Hong froze on the spot, a question mark popping into his mind.
He stared at that tiny speck of blood light, like a miniature star, and his brow slowly furrowed.
‘Is this my blood? Prepared for what’s happening today?’
Did he himself know about this?
Lin Hong’s first reaction was to think back over a decade ago.
Back then, he had fallen into this world, utterly wrecked.
He had already fought a great war against the Evil Clan in his home universe, consuming much of his origin.
As soon as he crashed into the void outside the continent, before he could even understand what was happening, he was ambushed and besieged by the gods.
His origin was nearly dry, and he was facing more than a dozen beings of the same rank.
By the end, he had exhausted his origin completely, forced to dissolve his physical body and flee, preserving only a wisp of his soul.
That series of events followed.
To have left behind a drop of blood at that time—how was that possible?
Because the energy in this drop of blood was too abundant.
Its vitality was so vigorous it was like a vast ocean, as if a sun had been compressed within it.
To put it bluntly, if he had had this drop of blood over a decade ago, he could have taken down two or three gods while escaping.
The energy within it was immense.
But back then, he had been nearly drained.
He only lost after his origin was expended.
Leaving behind a drop of blood at that level was unthinkable; preserving even a wisp of his soul was already a testament to his tenacity.
Thoughts racing, Lin Hong spoke in a low voice, deeply puzzled.
“When did that happen? Why don’t I have any memory of it?”
On his shoulder, the panel manifested as a young boy, still sitting cross-legged with arms folded, bathed in a faint glow.
He really did look like a little mystic.
Hearing this, he was silent for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Lin Hong was speechless.
‘You don’t know, and you’re sitting there pretending to be some sort of sage?’
But the next moment, the panel boy continued, “I’ve forgotten a lot of things.”
His voice was still childish, but it carried a hint of sluggishness, as if he were sifting through fragments of memory.
“Every time I level up, I only remember a small part.”
“This time, I managed to manifest, and I did recall some things, but still not much.”
He paused, lowering his gaze to the brilliant blood light in his palm.
“All I know is that this drop of blood was personally entrusted to me by you.”
“A long time ago—very long, not just a decade ago, but earlier, much earlier.”
“I don’t remember the exact time, but I’m sure that when you gave it to me, you told me very clearly.”
The panel boy hesitated, then slowly lifted his eyes to meet Lin Hong’s.
“It was meant to be used for today.”
“…”
For once, Lin Hong was genuinely stunned.
‘A long time ago? Even older than a decade ago?’
‘When could that be?’
His mind raced, searching for clues, but he found none.
He was born on the border of his home universe, enlisted, grew up, guarded the frontier, slaughtered evil clans, and finally, at the end of a great battle, accidentally fell into this world.
The sum of his age in both worlds was less than a hundred years.
How could something be that ancient?
In the decades in his home universe, his life path was simple and brutal—a straight line to the end.
He was either on the battlefield or on his way to one.
He had no memory of ever meeting a mysterious panel, nor any existence similar to it, let alone entrusting a drop of his own blood to it for safekeeping.
Consider this: given the energy contained in this drop of blood, it was practically his lifeblood essence.
Losing one would cost him immensely.
How could he have casually given it away?
And the most absurd part was that the panel boy claimed he had given him his blood to prepare for what was happening today.
That was preposterous.
Wasn’t that just pure precognition?
Laying plans in advance.
At that thought, Lin Hong felt his scalp tingle.
‘This is way too damn weird.’
Yet, he couldn’t deny it.
Because his perception wasn’t wrong—that was definitely his blood, no falsehood mixed in.
It was a throbbing from the deepest origin of his being.
The life imprint within that tiny blood bead was completely identical to his own.
Lin Hong stared at the drop of blood for a few breaths.
Then he stopped agonizing over it.
If he couldn’t figure it out, he wouldn’t think about it for now.
He wasn’t someone who got stuck on questions.
Especially now—when he had thought he could only be a powerless bystander, he never expected such a pleasant surprise to arrive!
After all, this was his own blood.
Could he harm himself?
He would just treat it as a moment of inspiration from some past self, using a drop of blood to support his future!
With that thought, Lin Hong’s mindset smoothed out instantly.
He reached out, accepted the drop of blood with a decisive motion, and turned to find a quiet place to integrate it.
By now, the entire Panshi Town was in chaos.
The blood-red clouds loomed over the city, divine might pressing down.
No one cared about a young boy who had suddenly disappeared.
Meanwhile, in the sky above.
Fourteen empire elites had already charged into the deepest part of the blood clouds, encountering almost no substantial resistance along the way.
There were no overwhelming waves of evil god spawn, no complex or terrifying evil magic, not even any meaningful counterattack.
Only layer after layer of thick, viscous blood mist, like the inner walls of some giant creature, which they forcibly tore through and trudged across.
The deeper they went, the more terrifying the invisible pressure became.
Behind the eleven five-rank royal knights, their energy wings trembled slightly, nearly out of their control.
And the three six-rank experts, who walked on air, were finding their steps increasingly heavy.
They pushed straight inward.
Finally, the space ahead opened up, and they penetrated an invisible barrier, arriving at the core of the clouds.
Terrifying energy converged here, forming a void.
And in the center of that void, a figure was quietly sitting cross-legged.
The moment they saw him, the eyes of all fourteen empire elites contracted nearly simultaneously.
It was a man.
He wore a strange, dark-red robe, which did not match any imperial lineage’s standard, nor did it belong to the continent.
It was ancient and unfamiliar, as if it had come from an era buried deep in time.
He sat cross-legged in the void, completely still.
His hair was crimson red, cascading like a waterfall, matching the blood clouds around him but not looking sinister.
Instead, it possessed a breathtaking, startling beauty.
His features were so handsome they bordered on unreal, nearly perfect, approaching the essence of law itself, suffused with harmony, without a single flaw.
What was even more terrifying was that this man’s aura was immaculate.
There was none of the filth or chaos they had expected, nothing like the evil, fetid, and insane beings they had imagined.
On the contrary, the man’s aura was pure and ancient, like the source of a law, born to stand above all beings, transcendent over everything.
That one handsome man made fourteen empire elites, forged from blood and fire, tremble the moment they saw him.
This was humanity’s instinctive fear when facing a god—because he was too perfect, too exalted, too transcendent.
He merely sat there, not yet truly opening his eyes.
His form was still illusory, not fully solidified, clearly in the final stages of descent.
But even so, everyone felt as if an invisible hand had gripped their souls, giving birth to an impulse to kneel and worship.
This was life’s instinct!
All were terrified, staring fixedly at the seated figure, their throats bobbing.
“This is…”
The words died in their throats.
Because even the speaker himself didn’t know how to define the thing before him.
Who could have imagined it?
In their mere few hundred years of life, on this day, they would personally see the evil god itself!