The Truth of the Blueprint

Lin Ye stood before it.

[Lord of Ashes.] Blueprint's voice echoed through the emptiness. [Do you know why I never tried to stop you?]

"Because you couldn't."

[Wrong. Because I wanted you to come.]

[Your journey, collecting obsessions and awakening civilizations—every bit of it was within my calculations. Even the return of three hundred and seventy million civilizations was within my calculations.]

Lin Ye was silent for three seconds. "Why?"

Blueprint did not answer.

An image emerged from the emptiness—

At the very beginning, before the first civilization was born, there had been only a ball of light in the Void.

That was Blueprint.

It hovered quietly, waiting for something.

No one knew how long passed before the first ripple appeared in the Void—the moment the first civilization was born.

Blueprint watched that ripple, and for the first time, an emotional fluctuation appeared:

[At last...]

The image abruptly ended.

Lin Ye looked at it.

[Do you know why I erased civilizations?]

Lin Ye did not answer.

[Not because they threatened me. Not because they defied order.]

[But because—their existence would make me disappear.]

For the first time, Blueprint's light trembled:

[I am the first existence. Before there were civilizations, I was the only "something." But once civilization was born, "something" was no longer unique. Every civilization's birth diluted my existence. The more of them there were, the weaker I became; the stronger they became, the fainter I grew. Until one day—they would completely replace me, and I would become "nothing." I will not allow it.]

Lin Ye fell silent.

It was not some ultimate order, nor was it some purification of civilization.

It was merely fear.

The fear of extinction felt by the oldest existence.

After a long while, he laughed.

"So you erased them, suppressed them, and set up