The white-haired elf

The milky-white spirit marrow was spiritual energy that had already solidified, and spiritual energy was what powered the ritual array.

The more spiritual energy the ritual consumed, the farther the person undergoing it had traveled along the path of tracing their bloodline-and the farther they traveled, the closer they came to its source.

At that moment, another white-haired elder spoke with tears brimming in his eyes and his lips trembling:

"He's already consumed over a hundred times as much spiritual energy as I did back then. A mythical bloodline indeed! Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!"

Meanwhile, Eros stared blankly at the world of gray mist before him. He had already run a long way, yet he still hadn't seen the path his father had mentioned.

Where was his path? Where was it?

Wasn't a path supposed to appear? Had he run into a bug? What was he supposed to do now? Keep going?

Whatever. Hadn't his father told him to go as far as he could? Even if he couldn't see the path, he might as well keep going.

And so he picked a random direction and kept running through the gray mist. Whenever he grew tired, he stopped to rest, then resumed running.

Time passed little by little. He had no idea how long he had been running or how far he had gone. After all, this damned place didn't have a single landmark.

Everything looked identical in every direction. He couldn't even tell whether he was running in a straight line.

Just then, however, he noticed a tiny point of light up ahead. His spirits lifted. At last, something other than gray mist!

Excited, he immediately hurried toward the light.

Only when he drew closer did he realize it was a pale green orb floating in midair, surrounded by a soft glow. It was only the size of a fist.

To his surprise, the moment the pale green orb's glow enveloped him, a sense of comfort spread through his entire body. All the exhaustion from running vanished at once.

"Could this be the bloodline imprint Dad mentioned?" Eros extended his index finger, intending to poke the pale green orb.

But the instant his finger touched it, his vision blurred.

When he could see clearly again, he found himself in midair, plummeting toward the sea below. He couldn't help crying out in alarm.

In the next instant, a vine appeared out of nowhere, wrapped around his waist, and pulled him away in another direction.

By the time he recovered his senses, a woman wearing a flower wreath and an elegant pale green dress stood before him.

Eros stared at her in a daze, his heart pounding wildly. God! This woman was exactly his type!

In that instant, a line he had read in his previous life sprang to mind: "Lovely as peach blossoms in spring, pure and graceful as chrysanthemums in autumn."

Wasn't that a perfect description of her? And she even had silky white hair. White hair! That alone deserved all the praise in the world!

The beautiful goddess looked at the child before her, a trace of bewilderment on her face. She didn't understand how he had suddenly appeared.

Nor did she understand why a mere mortal could look directly at her without suffering any ill effects.

She studied the child closely, and a glimmer of understanding immediately dawned within her. So that was it?

Eros, who was still staring in a daze, was jolted back to his senses by a series of eerie laughs.

He immediately glanced toward the source of the laughter and recoiled in fright, blurting out on reflex, "Holy shit!"

The thing before him was simply too horrifying. An enormous mass of flesh, impossible to describe, bore a single gigantic eye, surrounded by densely packed, constantly writhing tentacles.

The thing seemed to have noticed him. Its enormous pupil stared straight at him, and then it seemed to discover something amusing.

Eyes began appearing one after another across its exposed flesh and tentacles.

Eventually, its entire body was covered in eyes, all staring straight at him as it kept letting out eerie laughs: "Hee-hee, hee-hee, hee-hee."

Eros's scalp prickled. The densely packed eyes made him feel physically sick.

If someone with trypophobia saw this, wouldn't they just drop dead on the spot?

He immediately turned away, refusing to look at the thing any longer. It was simply too nauseating. He had no idea how he had ended up here.

But it looked as though these two had been facing off, only for him to appear out of nowhere and intrude.

Thank goodness he had appeared closer to this beautiful lady. Otherwise, wouldn't he have been done for?

Suddenly, something occurred to him. Wasn't he undergoing the bloodline baptism ritual?

According to his father, a bloodline baptism involved tracing one's bloodline back to its source. Along the way, one would encounter many imprints left within the bloodline by their ancestors.

His task was to choose the strongest ancestor he could and awaken their bloodline.

Which raised a question: the woman before him was his ancestor???

He'd finally fallen for someone, only to be dealt such a crushing defeat?

Now that Cecilia understood where this child had come from and why he was here, she had no desire to waste any more time on the grotesque, twisted thing opposite her.

After a brief glance at it, she vanished from where she stood. Eros, who was being supported by a vine beside her, disappeared along with her.

Only the grotesque, twisted entity remained above the empty stretch of sea.

After Eros disappeared, it turned its gaze toward the spot where he had first appeared.

It made no visible movement, yet densely packed tentacles sprouted out of thin air in that patch of space.

Eyeballs kept squeezing out through gaps in the flesh of the tentacles. Endless eyes filled that space completely, then vanished just as abruptly.

Accompanied by a series of eerie chuckles, it slowly sank beneath the sea's surface and disappeared.

Meanwhile!

Eros felt his vision blur again, and then he found himself somewhere unfamiliar.

Ugh! Another abrupt scene change, and another, and another. He was almost getting used to them.

Suddenly, a soft, melodious laugh interrupted his thoughts:

"I never expected you to choose to awaken the bloodline of my Elf Race! Since you have, I shall personally perform your baptism. Get ready, little Alicia."

Eros was a little dazed. Only then did he notice the unusual ears hidden beneath the gentle, white-haired lady's flower wreath.

Unlike ordinary human ears, hers were slightly pointed, long, and slender.

She was an elf?

Eros suddenly remembered what his father had told him that day in the Library: one of their ancestors had married an elf.

In other words, the woman before him really was an imprint left in his bloodline by an ancestor?

Then what about that tentacle monster? Could it have been one too?

But was this really what bloodline imprints were like? And who was Alicia? Why had she called him Alicia?

Sure, he was handsome in this life, but surely not so pretty that people couldn't tell he was a boy.