Lin Ye stood before it.
[Lord of Embers.] The Blueprint's voice rang out in the emptiness. [Do you know why I didn't stop you?]
"Because you couldn't."
[Wrong. Because I wanted you to come.]
[You collected lingering obsessions and awakened civilizations along your journey-all of it was within my calculations. Even the return of three hundred and seventy million civilizations was within my calculations.]
Lin Ye fell silent for three seconds. "Why?"
The Blueprint did not answer.
An image appeared in the emptiness-
At the very beginning, before the first civilization was born, there was only a mass of light in the Void.
That was the Blueprint.
It hovered silently, waiting for something.
After an unknown stretch of time, the first ripple appeared in the Void-the instant the first civilization was born.
As the Blueprint watched that ripple, emotion stirred within it for the first time:
[At last...]
The image cut off abruptly.
Lin Ye looked at it.
[Do you know why I erase civilizations?]
Lin Ye did not answer.
[Not because they threaten me. Not because they defy order.]
[But because-their existence will make me disappear.]
For the first time, the Blueprint's light trembled:
[I was the first existence. Before there were civilizations, I was the only "something." But once civilizations were born, "something" was no longer unique. Every civilization born diluted my existence. The more there were, the weaker I became; the stronger they grew, the more I faded. Until one day-they would replace me entirely, and I would become "nothing." I will not allow that.]
Lin Ye fell silent.
It was not some ultimate order, nor some purification of civilizations.
It was only fear.
The most ancient existence's fear of oblivion.
After a long while, he laughed.
"So you erased them, suppressed them, and set traps with