"Is... is it you?"
As a Holy Spirit, the Dragon Horse had inherited memories. He knew such a thing had happened, yet with the man himself standing before him, it somehow felt unreal.
"Heh, who else could it be? So behave yourself, kid. Through the ages, countless beings have wanted to serve me as slaves, and countless Holy Spirits have wanted to be my mounts. I turned them all down.
"You might be able to bear the Cause and Effect of a Great Emperor, but you couldn't bear mine even if you became an Immortal.
"From now on, you can call yourself a successor of the Dragon Nest or a successor of Tian Xing when you travel the world.
"I won't give you any cultivation methods or divine abilities. I'll give you a drop of my blood essence instead.
"Don't make me come out of seclusion one day only to collect your corpse!"
As he spoke, a drop of golden blood essence appeared. Its pressure spanned the ages, collapsing the surrounding void and throwing spacetime into disarray. To the Dragon Horse, it looked like an endless sea of blood, brimming with boundless energy.
"Oh, and with the insights I've gained, I could be called an emperor even among Immortals.
"So if even a trace of this blood essence touched you now, it would be enough to scatter your soul.
"I'll seal it deep within your Sea of Reincarnation.
"Cultivate steadily. As your cultivation rises, try drawing on it little by little until you can adapt to it and refine it, one sliver at a time.
"Refining even one sliver will let you live another fifty or sixty thousand years."
The Dragon Horse was aghast. The man before him was... a monster?
An emperor among Immortals? And a sliver of his