RE: LORD OF TIME

Inside the deepest part of the bandit hideout, William stood inside a small room, staring at the entrance of the Astral Rift before him.

”I will be back in a few minutes...”

William said to Simon, who was standing guard outside the room before stepping inside the Astral Rift.

Passing through the rift, he experienced the same sensation of slight dizziness and the feeling of falling without any fixed point.

But compared to before, William noticed that his resistance to dizziness was far greater, possibly because of his newly awakened bloodline.

When his Chaos Bloodline awakened and assimilated the Origin Grade Vampire Bloodline, it wasn’t just his physical body that had changed.

His soul had also benefited greatly from it.

His mental strength had increased significantly compared to before, and most importantly, just like his physical body, his soul had also been reshaped.

He had not noticed this before because, unlike the reconstruction of his physical body, the changes to his soul had happened silently without causing any noticeable commotion.

In fact, it was only after he entered his Sea of Consciousness that he noticed the change in his soul.

His previously clean Sea of Consciousness was now filled with slowly moving silver-brown mist, with a faint hint of dark red mixed within it.

William wasn’t certain what this strange mist was, but he guessed that it was something related to his Chaos Bloodline and the assimilated Vampire Bloodline.

The changes in his Sea of Consciousness indicated that his soul had also gone through some kind of transformation.

It was just that because he hadn’t reached the Star King level and hadn’t fully condensed his soul inside the Sea of Consciousness, he couldn’t tell what kind of changes had occurred.

Moreover, because of this transformation, the cooldown time of his Soul Spring Trait had also been reset.

It was because of this that he had been able to use the Soul Burst effect of his Soul Spring Trait earlier despite having used it not long ago.

Not only that, after this change, the cooldown time of Soul Burst had been reduced from the original seven days to four days.

Normally speaking, this cooldown existed to protect his soul.

After all, suddenly gaining ten times his soul power in an instant would definitely place a great burden on his soul.

But after the transformation in his Sea of Consciousness, it was clear that his soul had become more adaptable and could handle such sudden bursts of power more frequently, reducing the cooldown from seven days to four.

’I just don’t know what kind of soul I will condense after reaching the Star King level...’

William thought as the view before him gradually cleared, and he finally entered the rift.

As soon as he successfully entered, a strong smell of blood assaulted William’s nostrils, making him frown.

He looked around and saw that he was standing in a barren area covered with fences.

Within the fences, dead bodies of humans and monsters were littered everywhere, creating an extremely gruesome scene.

What was strange was that all the corpses were shriveled, as if their flesh and blood had been completely sucked out of their bodies.

A strange magic circle covered the entire fenced area, glowing slightly with an eerie light.

”So that’s what Simon meant by collecting the resentment of the dead and then using this huge amount of resentment to trigger the resentment inside the Tear of God and summon that God’s body here...”

William muttered in a low voice, frowning slightly as he looked at the hundreds of dead bodies scattered everywhere.

There were not only humans but also different kinds of monsters.

As his gaze swept through the corpses, he noticed a young child who appeared to be only six or seven years old and a complicated look flashed in William’s eyes.

Although he was used to seeing piles of dead bodies because of the wars he had fought in, it was still the first time he had witnessed such a scene after coming back to the past.

Taking a deep breath to calm his emotions, William took out Blood Moon and used its ability, Energy Pool, recovering all of his Aether Energy in an instant.

Looking at the piles of dead bodies around him, a sharp look flashed in his eyes and he stomped his foot heavily against the ground.

Rumble!

Earth Elemental Energy flowed out from beneath his feet, and the entire ground within the fenced area sank slightly, destroying the magic circle carved into the ground along with it.

Once the circle was destroyed, dark-red flames ignited around William’s body.

William waved his hand, covering all the dead bodies with Vermilion Flames.

The magic circle had been used to gather the resentment generated by their deaths, while Vermilion Flame was extremely effective against negative energy and other negative aspects.

Burning their bodies with Vermilion Flame would destroy their resentment as well, allowing them to finally be freed.

William silently watched the bodies burn before lowering his head and falling into thought.

Simon had been told to conduct this strange ritual inside this rift by the Cult Master of the Blood God Cult.

Because he was already a Star Lord and couldn’t enter a Rank One Rift, Simon had brought those bandits here to do the work for him.

’In the original timeline, those students who came to take care of the bandits killed all of them before they could complete the ritual. Simon wasn’t present here at that time, and by the time he received the news, this Astral Rift had already been taken away by the academy, so he couldn’t do anything.’

From what he had learned from Simon, even Simon didn’t know the true purpose of this ritual.

Other than knowing that it was related to summoning someone, he didn’t know many other details.

William looked at the details of the Tear of God again and frowned.

---) Tear Of God: A tear shed by ??? during the final moments of their life. Contains a large amount of resentment and a trace of divinity within it.

”From the details of this tear, it can be confirmed that whoever this tear belonged to is already dead. Is it even possible to summon someone who is already dead just by using their tear?”

William thought for a moment before asking Eva.

”That tear contains a part of that fallen God’s divinity. Through that divinity, it’s possible to summon a projection of that God, though it will only be a projection, not the real one, since they are already dead.”

The frown on William’s face deepened at Eva’s words.

’What do they want to do by summoning the projection of this God? And why did they specifically choose this Astral Rift?’

Remembering Eva’s words about this tear belonging to an Abyssal Being, William’s eyes narrowed.

’Could it be related to the future invasion of the Abyss Realm?’

William thought for a long time, but there were not enough clues for him to reach an absolute conclusion.

’I can only let Simon go back to Blood God Cult and gather more information.’

He looked at the Tear of God in his hand and wondered what he should do with it.

Just as he was thinking, William sensed something and looked ahead.

Beyond the fences was a patch of forest, and a lion-like monster had just walked out from within it.

The monster was only an unranked beast and hadn’t even reached the Star Warrior Realm.

William merely glanced at it casually before turning around to leave the rift.

The main reason he had entered the rift was to deal with the magic circle.

Now that it was destroyed, he needed to settle his other matters.

But just as he turned around to leave, the lion-like monster roared and jumped over the fence, rushing toward him with a furious expression.

William’s mouth twitched when he saw this ignorant creature.

He casually waved Blood Moon, sending out a sword light that instantly killed the monster.

William was about to pass through the rift entrance and leave when suddenly, the monster’s body glowed slightly.

William paused in surprise when he saw this and immediately looked back.

”I didn’t expect it to drop something...” He muttered under his breath and walked over to the dead monster.

And when he came closer to it, the surprise on his face intensified as he saw a skill book lying beside the monster’s corpse.