The old man’s calm demeanor vanished.
Killing intent erupted from his body without warning.
The barren land trembled beneath him.
The air itself seemed to freeze as an invisible pressure spread in every direction. Even the three enormous formations before him flickered under his oppressive aura.
Just the thought of the Blackblood Clan rising again was enough to ignite the hatred buried deep within his heart.
Blackblood.
The name alone stirred memories he had spent centuries trying to bury.
Rage.
Hatred.
Vengeance.
And beneath all those emotions was something he would never willingly admit.
Fear.
The old man’s fingers slowly tightened into fists.
He had believed the Blackblood Clan was finished.
Not merely defeated, but completely eradicated.
The main branch of the infamous clan had already been wiped out. He had personally played a major role in slaughtering its strongest members, and the enmity between him and the Blackblood Clan had existed long before that final confrontation.
He had made certain that none of them would survive.
And he hadn’t stopped with the main branch.
The side branches scattered throughout the Eternal Sea had also become targets.
One after another, they had been hunted down.
Their clan-controlled regions were destroyed.
Their bloodlines extinguished.
Their descendants erased.
He had spent an enormous amount of effort making certain that the Blackblood Clan could never rise again.
He had paid a heavy price, too.
There should have been no survivors.
Not a single one.
The old man had been confident of this.
If even one member of the Blackblood Clan had remained somewhere within the Eternal Sea, he should have been able to sense their presence through the special means he had arranged in advance.
His cultivation and the methods available to him made it nearly impossible for a surviving branch to remain hidden indefinitely within the Eternal Sea.
And if one had somehow escaped his detection, he would have dealt with it the moment he discovered it.
He had always believed in eliminating problems at their roots, never allowing them the opportunity to grow.
Never allowing a single unknown factor to become a future threat.
That was precisely why the sudden change in the second formation disturbed him so deeply.
The old man stared at the extinguished formation.
His breathing gradually became heavier as he began to realize the potential ramifications of allowing a single Blackblood Clan member to rise again.
For the first time in countless years, the possibility that he had overlooked something began to take root in his mind.
The old man hadn’t been acting alone back then.
The organization he belonged to had invested enormous resources into eradicating the Blackblood Clan as well. Their actions had not been driven merely by personal hatred. They had also robbed the clan of everything it possessed, acquiring its glorious possessions from the bygone era.
The Blackblood Clan had possessed something that the organization considered too dangerous to leave unchecked.
Something that could not be allowed to resurface and become known throughout the Eternal Sea.
If the second formation had truly detected the awakening of a Blackblood bloodline, then the consequences could extend far beyond a single surviving cultivator.
That was because a single member with an awakened bloodline would be able to claim all of the clan’s belongings.
The old man’s eyes became cold.
"No..."
He slowly clenched his fists.
"If someone from that cursed clan dares to come here..."
His killing intent surged once more.
"I’ll kill them and everyone they are connected to. I’ll drench myself in their cursed blood and slaughter their friends and family right in their cradles if I have to. But I will never let a Blackblood claim what is already mine."
Yet despite those words, the unease in his heart refused to disappear.
And he had good reason to feel that way.
He was the kind of person who would pounce on a rabbit with all his strength even if he were a lion. Leaving loose ends behind simply wasn’t his style.
Even after killing the entire main branch and all the side branches present within the Eternal Sea, the old man had not remained idle.
He recognized that there could still be distant relatives of the Blackblood Clan who carried trace amounts of Blackblood bloodline in their veins. If the bloodline was thin enough in certain carriers, he might not be able to detect and hunt them down.
This was why the old man had placed bloodline shackles on everyone who was even remotely connected to the ancient Blackblood Clan.
These bloodline shackles ensured that the power of the Blackblood bloodline would remain dormant in such carriers, effectively turning the once-powerful bloodline into recessive genes, no matter where those carriers were in the world.
And yet, what the old man had deemed impossible had happened.
He made up his mind and called out to someone in his mind.
In the next moment, a shadow appeared before the old man.
The old man gave the shadow an order without wasting any time.
"Rudnik, something important has come up. Send your minions outside the Eternal Sea in all directions. See if there are any Blackblood Clan members still surviving in some distant corner of this world."
The shadow named Rudnik bowed before responding.
"At your command, Supreme Yaan."
He hesitated briefly before asking, "What should I do if we find them?"
The old man, Yaan Whiteflame, replied instantly, his voice turning cold.
"Hmph! Kill them first. Report afterward. Make sure you thoroughly destroy the stems and shoot along with the root. Cause a mass slaughter if you have to, but get it done."
Rudnik bowed once again and disappeared from his spot.
His response echoed faintly through the barren land, sounding distant yet clearly audible to Yaan.
"At your command, Supreme."
After Rudnik was gone, Supreme Yaan decided to investigate the root cause behind the sudden awakening of a Blackblood Clan member.
He didn’t possess the fortune-telling abilities of Vaelira Ignis. However, his cultivation was profound enough that he could occasionally glimpse certain truths by observing the intricate fabric of cause and effect.
Of course, possessing such an ability did not mean that using it was easy—or safe.
Yaan understood that if he wanted to glimpse something hidden from all but the almighty heavens themselves, he would have to pay a heavy price.
He simply didn’t care.
His expression hardened as he sat down cross-legged before the three enormous formations.
He slowly closed his eyes.
Then, his hands began moving.
One Mudra.
Then another.
Then another.
His fingers moved faster and faster as profound fluctuations of power spread through the barren land. The surrounding spiritual energy began to churn, while faint ripples appeared in the invisible fabric of cause and effect around him.
The lightning in the sky started to cackle in a threatening gesture.
Yet Yaan remained completely still.
His consciousness sank deeper.
He attempted to trace the cause behind the sudden awakening of the Blackblood bloodline.
Every step was like walking along a thread suspended over an endless abyss.
One wrong move could cause the backlash to reach him directly.
Yet Yaan continued.
He had already made up his mind.
He wanted to know.
He wanted to see what had caused the impossible to happen.
Time slowly passed.
Suddenly—
The lightning in the sky made a loud noise like that of a savage beast. The Celestial Wrath then descended down the mortal realm and struck him. A trickle of blood escaped from the corner of Yaan’s lips.
His body trembled.
He immediately stopped forming Mudras.
"Cough!"
Yaan coughed violently.
A trace of blood stained his lips.
His eyes snapped open.
Shock filled them.
For several moments, he simply stared into the distance as though he had seen something that completely contradicted everything he knew about the current world.
"A Druid?"
His voice was barely a whisper.
"In Dadangar World?"
Yaan’s expression changed repeatedly.
"How... How can it be?"
His breathing became heavier.
"This... this is even more unlikely than a fully awakened Blackblood Clan member."
He stared at the three formations before him as if expecting them to provide him with an explanation.
Nothing happened.
Yaan slowly shook his head.
"There must be something wrong with my technique..."
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
"Or my calculations."
His brows furrowed deeply.
"This is impossible."
After a long silence, Yaan finally sighed.
He didn’t pursue the matter any further.
Whatever he had glimpsed through the fabric of cause and effect was simply too absurd to accept.
Rather than wasting more of his strength trying to confirm something that shouldn’t exist in the first place, he decided to focus on his cultivation and the other tasks that still demanded his attention.
The strange revelation was temporarily pushed to the back of his mind.
Aksai didn’t know that he had made a powerful enemy for himself, as well as for Humeyin, by releasing her from the bloodline shackles.
Even if he had known, he wouldn’t have had enough time to care.
This was because the eventuality he had anticipated would strike his island a week or two later had arrived ahead of schedule.