It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

At the same time, Lin Ye's fingertips continued to slide down.

The outer thigh is smooth and flat—without the twisted scars left by a bullet spinning and tearing through muscle and getting stuck in bone.

That was the gunshot he took while covering his "comrades'" retreat.

In that cold, damp basement, Lin Ye gripped the dagger tightly, trembling, and spent three hours painstakingly digging the deformed bullet out from beside his femur.

During those three hours, he nearly broke two of his teeth.

Then Lin Ye placed his index finger on the center of his chest, three inches above his heart.

There should have been a piece of blackish-gray material, neither gold nor stone, that was kept close to the body.

But now only a steady heartbeat, firm and strong, can be heard through my skin and flesh.

"Fragments..."

The moment Lin Ye's thoughts were triggered, a kind of "coldness" existing on an unknown level rose from the deepest abyss of his consciousness.

It wasn't the coldness of temperature, but the texture of "emptiness" itself—the absolute silence of chaos before the birth of the universe, the eternal nothingness before time was created.

Lin Ye's vision collapsed inward, sinking into boundless darkness. This was his spatial ability, which had not only returned but had also been reconstructed in the depths of his consciousness in a form far more complete and magnificent than in his previous life.

In the center of that void, a dark gray fragment floats silently.

It is about the size of a palm, irregularly shaped, and has sharp edges like a knife.

Its surface flowed with a dull luster, pulsating slowly like the breath of a living creature—

With each expansion, the dim light spread outwards like ripples; with each contraction, the light receded inwards, as if digesting energy from the depths of the void.

The rhythm of his pulse was ancient and profound, gradually synchronizing with the frequency of his heartbeat, and eventually becoming one with it.

The aura it exudes—if it can be called an "aura"—is beyond the realm of human understanding.

The fluctuations contained the brilliance of stars being born, and the despair of black holes swallowing everything; there was the deathly silence at the end of time, and the clamor of the beginning of creation.

It reminded Lin Ye of those blood-red nights of the apocalypse, when he looked up at the sky obscured by red clouds and felt the indifferent gaze from the depths of the starry sea—the universe's utter indifference to this tiny tragedy on Earth.

He could clearly sense that the dormant power within the fragments was far more magnificent and far more... hungry than any fragments he had encountered in his previous life.

It was as if an ancient behemoth, imprisoned at the end of time and feeding on eras, was casting its first glance through this small crack at this era, which was as fleeting as morning dew to it.

"You came back too."

Lin Ye's voice was low and hoarse, a mixture of the ecstasy of rebirth and a deep-seated hatred.

The sound echoed softly in the silent room, like a duet of an ancient ritual—him present and his past self chanting the same incantation together.

"So, in this life—"

Lin Ye raised his head, his gaze piercing through the dusty glass window, and looking at the city skyline that was awakening in the distance.

The morning light bathed the glass-walled skyscrapers in gold, making them resemble staircases leading to heaven.

But that's not what Lin Ye saw.

He saw the crimson rain that would devour everything six months later; he saw the new elites who would rise from the ruins after the blood rain, feeding on blood; he saw the greedy smiles on the faces of the traitors, and their faces twisted in fear.

"Those traitors, those bandits who stole the era, those so-called masters who used all living beings as pawns... we have debts to settle one by one."

Lin Ye staggered to his feet and lunged at the desk whose legs were propped up with old magazines and which wobbled at the slightest movement.

He grabbed the smartphone with its damaged charging cable that exposed the colorful wires inside and pressed the side button hard with his thumb.

The screen lights up.

The cold white light illuminated a face—

Even when overwhelmed by intense emotions, even with cold sweat still clinging to his temples, even with his lips slightly chapped from dehydration—the perfection of his face remained undiminished.

On the contrary, under the impact of extreme conditions, it bursts forth with an almost violent, breathtaking beauty.

The brow bone, like a steep mountain ridge, cuts out a deep realm of shadow in the morning light.

The precise curves are like a masterpiece sculpted by a god with the finest chisel on plaster over millennia—establishing a sacred tone for the entire face while subtly lifting at the tail of the eyebrow, revealing a dangerous, untamed sharpness.

The bridge of the nose rises from between the eyebrows, with clean lines like the ridge of a snow-capped peak.

Without a single extra arc, without the slightest hesitation or pause, it cascades down in one smooth motion, ending perfectly at the tip of the nose.

The very existence of that nose bridge is a declaration—a declaration about order, about perfection, about a certain unquestionable, transcendent "existence" itself.

The jawline is clean, cold, and sharp. It is a masterpiece carved out of ancient ice by a master craftsman, and every slight movement seems to redefine the surrounding order of light and shadow.

When he clenched his teeth, the lines were like the blade of a drawn sword, carrying a murderous aura; when he relaxed, the lines softened, revealing a weary, heartbreaking vulnerability.

However, the perfect ending and the core of all is those eyes.

At this moment, their eyes widened slightly in shock, as if the gates of a mysterious palace had quietly opened.

Under the light, the dark brown iris revealed a clear and rare concentric amber pattern.

It wasn't just a simple color; it was more like solidified molten gold sealed in the core of polar ice, or the entire sunset's glow crushed and settled at the bottom.

That amber ring slowly rotated deep within the iris, possessing its own life force as if it were a living thing.

Sometimes it converges into a blazing halo, locking onto the viewer's gaze—

At that time, his gaze was as sharp as a hawk's, as if it could pierce through all pretense and see the most essential truth of things.

At times, it would burst into countless tiny golden stardust fragments, silently shimmering and vanishing between the celestial dome formed by his thick eyelashes—

At that moment, his gaze was distant and unfocused, as if he were staring at a distant shore that mortals could not reach, a dimension that belonged to memories and the future that only he could see.

All the turbulent emotions boiled and clashed within it—hatred like magma, ecstasy like fire, grief like an abyss, and resolve like cold iron.

Yet, its perfect structure tempers it into a dazzling, fragile splendor, like witnessing the birth of a star in absolute silence.

That was no longer the appearance one should have in the human world.

Rather, it is an almost divine, awe-inspiring, ultimate perfection—

It is the ultimate form of "beauty" itself that the Creator dreamt of when He was finally exhausted and fell asleep after creating billions of ordinary faces.

This face, in the apocalypse, once brought Lin Ye endless covetousness and malice.

In a world where order has collapsed, an exceptionally beautiful appearance is often not a blessing, but a death sentence.

It will attract greedy covetousness—those plunderers who yearn to possess all that is beautiful; perverse possessiveness—those twisted souls who take pleasure in destroying beauty; or pure malice born of jealousy—those dark beings who cannot tolerate others possessing what they lack.

This face is the most conspicuous mark of prey in the dog-eat-dog world of the apocalypse.

But at this moment, this young, intact, and untouched face is the most direct and irrefutable evidence of Lin Ye's "rebirth".