Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!

Long Chapter

—-

When Matriarch Whitmore finally spoke, she did not simply add her opinion to the discussion. Her words crushed the entire hall into silence.

Every whisper died instantly.

Those elderly council members who had been shouting just moments earlier now trembled where they stood.

Being Silverwood elders meant they knew exactly what the Caelum family was. They had not merely heard the name in passing either. They remembered what the Caelums had once been.

And the accusation Matriarch Whitmore had just spoken, disruptors of morale, was a charge that could justify killing them ten times over.

The old men who had been clinging to a faint thread of hope collapsed where they stood, their bodies shaking uncontrollably.

Ethan watched them quietly.

A faint psychic pressure leaked from him, subtle enough that it could almost be mistaken for imagination, yet heavy enough to suffocate the room.

Everyone present felt it. Even the powerful cult masters shifted uncomfortably.

Ethan rubbed his chin slowly as if considering the matter.

"Well... in that case..."

He deliberately dragged out the words and glanced sideways toward Lyla.

’Say something,’ his look clearly said. ’You really want me to kill these fossils?’

Lyla had already started to step forward when Matriarch Whitmore dropped her declaration earlier. She had frozen halfway through that step.

Now, catching Ethan’s glance, she understood immediately. She hurried forward.

"Matriarch Whitmore, that would be too severe," Lyla said quickly. "The elders were only trying to think about the broader situation. Please do me a favor and spare them this once."

Matriarch Whitmore did not move an inch. Her expression remained completely neutral.

"I await the decision of the Matriarch," she replied calmly.

Ethan’s face twitched slightly.

This woman really should have been on stage somewhere. That cold, unmoving expression was worthy of an award.

He cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Well... since Lyla is asking on your behalf, you geezers can consider yourselves lucky."

He waved his hand impatiently.

"Get the hell out."

Ethan delivered the line with enough authority that he actually looked every bit the supreme leader seated on a throne.

The dozen swollen faced elders visibly relaxed. At this point they did not care whether he said leave or get the hell out.

They scrambled to their feet and rushed toward the exit as fast as their swollen faces allowed.

"Stop."

Just as the first elder reached the doorway and lifted his foot to step outside, Ethan spoke again.

Every one of them froze.

They slowly turned back with stiff movements. Their hearts were pounding in terror.

’Please don’t change your mind.’

Ethan leaned slightly back in the throne and looked at them thoughtfully.

"Actually... letting you off that easily feels a bit too generous."

The casual tone in his voice made their hearts nearly stop.

Too generous?

They had already been slapped in front of nearly the entire supernatural world. Their dignity was shattered beyond repair.

Even if they survived today, none of them would ever show their faces again.

"Lyla spoke up for you," Ethan continued calmly. "So your death sentence is off the table. But you still tried to sabotage morale in the middle of a crisis. That kind of thing deserves punishment."

He pointed lazily toward them.

"Go back home and take down that ’Council of Elders’ plaque. Replace it with ’Nursing Home.’ From today onward, the Silverwood nursing home has absolutely no authority over any political decisions."

The verdict landed heavily in the hall.

The elders’ expressions shifted through several complicated emotions, but none of them dared say a word.

What could they possibly do?

Before Ethan appeared, they had been the representatives of the Silverwood family, one of the Eight Great Families that dominated the region.

Their Council of Elders still carried weight. Every once in a while they would step forward to remind everyone that they still existed.

But now Ethan had arrived, the Caelum family had returned. And the man sitting on the throne was so overwhelmingly powerful that resistance was laughable.

Everyone in the hall seemed to acknowledge him instinctively.

Earlier, when the elders had shouted for the guards to throw Ethan out, not a single Silverwood guard had even twitched.

That alone revealed everything; their council had become meaningless. And Ethan’s punishment was nothing less than public humiliation.

In front of every major cult leader in the supernatural world, he had just declared that the Silverwood Council of Elders was now officially a nursing home.

There was nothing left to argue.

Ethan stood up from the throne, with a casual wave of his hand, Lyla’s enormous chair from earlier disappeared into his spatial storage.

Another flick of his wrist followed.

"Ah!"

Three surprised cries sounded at once.

Lyla, Rainie, and Amber were suddenly lifted off the ground as if pulled by an invisible force.

They flew toward Ethan and landed behind him directly on the massive stone throne.

The sudden movement left them wide-eyed and startled.

"Anyway," Ethan said lightly, "you guys keep holding your meeting. My team and I are heading out."

Before anyone could react to that announcement, he turned as if preparing to leave.

"Babe... you..."

Lyla stood up abruptly, staring at him in shock.

She had expected Ethan to stay and discuss strategy. This war would determine the fate of everyone present.

And he was just... leaving?

Ethan stopped mid-step.

"Oh, right. Keep the communication lines open."

He looked back over his shoulder. "My people and I will take care of the main targets. You guys deal with the rest."

"Your job is to clean up the small fry."

His expression grew colder.

"Those who sided with the Divine Sea Temple to save their own skins, investigate them first. If they haven’t committed serious crimes, use your judgment."

He paused briefly.

"But the ones who truly believe in the Temple..."

Ethan’s eyes narrowed.

A terrifying killing intent radiated from him.

"Execute them without mercy."

The three words dropped like ice into the room and a chill spread through everyone present.

His killing intent was so intense it almost seemed visible, faintly crimson as it saturated the air. The powerful figures gathered here exchanged uneasy glances.

Killing intent usually came from two sources; one was a natural affinity, something a rare few were born with.

Victor, for example.

The other source was far more straightforward; Bloodshed.

A lot of it.

Ethan clearly belonged to the second category. How many lives had he taken to build such overwhelming killing intent?

Ethan’s lips curved faintly, the message had been delivered. He winked briefly at Lyla and the other two women.

Then he disappeared.

---

When Ethan reappeared, he was already standing outside the entrance of the Silverwood territory.

On a barren mountain peak nearby, everyone who had entered with him earlier was already waiting.

Regis, Uncle Jed, Hank, and the Dragon Child had also returned.

The next step was obvious; a decapitation strike.

Their targets were every single Energy Sphere location within the United States.

From everything Ethan had gathered so far, those spheres served as strongholds for the Divine Sea Temple.

Temple operatives could move freely wherever energy concentration exceeded a certain threshold. In those places, they operated as easily as fish swimming through the ocean.

"Boss, I compiled everything we have on the US," Markham said as he spread a map across the ground. "There are seven confirmed energy leak points so far. They’re calling them ’Energy Spheres.’ These are the locations."

Several red marks were visible on the map. Everyone gathered around to take a closer look.

’Seven points in total.’ Ethan studied the map quietly.

The closest one was only a few hundred miles away, located in the Ironvale Mountains deep inside a stretch of untouched forest.

He had passed through Central Magnolia before. The entire city there had been evacuated long ago.

Ordinary civilians had vanished without a trace, and nobody seemed to know where they had been relocated.

Ethan’s biggest concern had always been that the Temple might establish these spheres in densely populated cities. Seeing that most of them were located in remote regions allowed him to relax slightly.

Still, something bothered him, were these spheres appearing randomly? Or did they follow some hidden pattern?

Seven scattered points on a map were not enough to reveal the answer.

"Hey... is this a full map of the United States?" Uncle Jed suddenly crouched down beside the map with a surprised expression.

"Yeah. The latest complete version," Markham confirmed.

"See something?" Ethan asked.

"This is interesting," Jed muttered. "No wonder you call this place the US."

"What do you mean?"

Everyone leaned closer.

"Look here."

Jed placed a finger near the eastern edge of the map and slowly traced a long path.

The line ran through the mountain ranges between the western highlands and the southern plateau before stretching into the northern uplands, covering roughly fifteen hundred miles.

"That’s clearly a dragon," he said. "Though technically it’s a headless one."

"What?" Hank tilted his flask skeptically. "Jed, are you making this up? Since when do you know anything about this stuff?"

Uncle Jed ignored him and continued studying the map.

Regis chuckled softly.

"If you underestimate him, you’re the fool," Regis said. "You know him as the Prodigy War God, but he also has another title."

"Another title?" Hank frowned.

"Unofficial," Regis continued with a grin. "But still very famous."

"Unofficial and famous?" Hank narrowed his eyes.

"Ever heard of the Burrowing Rat?"

Regis nodded toward Jed.

Jed rolled his eyes but did not deny it.

"Wait... this guy is the Burrowing Rat? The grave robber from the Sea of Death?"

Even Hank, who normally cared about nothing except alcohol, had heard that name before.

"Yeah," Regis said with a shrug. "That’s him. Though the grave-robbing reputation isn’t exactly accurate."

Now everyone was curious.

How had a legendary war prodigy ended up digging holes in the Sea of Death?

"I was searching for dragon veins," Jed said plainly without looking up. "Legends say several of them run beneath the Sea of Death. I spent years digging and never found them."

He tapped the map again.

"Didn’t expect to see three and a half laid out here in plain sight."

Most of the group stared blankly, even Ethan had no idea what he meant.

Jed sighed and pointed again at the mountain range he had described earlier.

"This range here..."

"The Korun Mountains," Markham supplied.

"Right, the Koruns. That should have been a powerful dragon vein. But the head’s been severed. Real shame."

Jed traced three additional lines branching from that point.

"But from the break, three smaller dragons split off."

His finger moved across the map again.

The Umbra Mountains.

The Corin Mountains.

The Torun Mountains.

Mountain ranges and river systems that had seemed completely unrelated on paper suddenly connected into three clear lines under Jed’s finger.

All of them extended from the tail of the Korun range.

"No telling whether the severed dragon is actually dead," Jed said thoughtfully. "If it isn’t... that would be something extraordinary. A progenitor dragon. I’d love to see it."

He stood up slowly. The map seemed completely different now. And Markham’s seven marked points sat perfectly along those three dragon veins.

"I’m guessing these Energy Spheres aren’t releasing energy at all," Jed continued. "They’re absorbing it. Absorbing dragon energy."

He folded his arms.

"I tried absorbing some of that ’released’ energy earlier. It’s impure. Contaminated with something I can’t quite describe."

His conclusion made everyone frown, a chill crept up their spines.

If Jed was right, then the Divine Sea Temple’s goal might be far more complicated than anyone had assumed.

Up until now, Ethan and the others had believed the Temple simply wanted freedom. They had been trapped in the oceans for centuries, and now they wanted to rise, overthrow humanity’s strongest factions, and reshape the world.

Humans who submitted might survive as servants.

Those who resisted would be eliminated.

"Could still be a coincidence," Victor said after a long silence. "They didn’t place these spheres only in the United States."

A few people nodded.

"You think dragon veins only exist here?" Jed said. "Look again. The dragon’s head extends toward... is that the Sablon Republic?"

He pointed toward the edge of the map where neighboring regions were visible.

"Dragon veins aren’t literal dragons," he continued. "They’re the circulatory system of a planet. Like blood vessels."

"But instead of blood, they carry the planet’s energy and fortune."

"So why call them dragon veins?" Hank asked.

Jed shrugged slightly.

"Because mountains move, rise, collapse, twist, and coil like dragons. Dragons represent change. They can be massive or tiny, coiled or stretched, hidden or revealed, soaring or diving. Mountains behave the same way."

He gestured toward the map.

"Even flat plains have dragon veins. They show up through subtle shifts in terrain and water flow."

"Understand now?"

His voice carried the quiet authority of someone who truly understood the subject.

Silence answered him.

Finally he added, "If you want proof of my theory, gather intel from other Energy Sphere locations around the world. See whether they also sit on dragon veins."

That suggestion made everyone exchange glances.

Except Ethan.

Jed never made guesses lightly. If he said something, he believed it.

"Alright," Ethan said finally. "Markham, try to gather whatever additional intel you can. Everyone else moves with me. We hit the closest sphere together."

He had no intention of splitting their forces, If they encountered serious resistance, they would need their full strength.

Markham immediately made a face.

"Come on, Boss. I want to fight too! Besides, satellite communications are completely gone now. Getting intel from other countries is basically impossible."

He looked miserable.

Ethan blinked.

"Huh?"

He genuinely hadn’t known that. A year earlier, when the Divine Sea Temple first emerged, international information had still been available.

But as countries began falling one by one, communication lines had started going dark. Entire regions vanished from global networks. Blind spots spread across the world.

Even the Ethereal system had been affected, something inside the game had broken.

Private messages no longer worked, players could only communicate within their own war zones.

No cross-region messages, no global chat.

Ethan had no idea. He hadn’t logged into Ethereal since returning, and Morzan, that old drunk, had disappeared without leaving any explanation.

Markham finished explaining the situation, Ethan frowned deeply. Ethereal was supposed to be impossible to shut down.

Morzan had once told him that the system was built using technology from the First Universe. Its signals transmitted through every headset and capsule connected to the network.

There was no central server, no single mainframe.

As long as even one Ethereal device still existed somewhere on Earth, the system would continue operating.

That fluid architecture made it effectively untouchable. No hacker could ever find a target to attack.

So how had private messaging suddenly stopped working? It should have been impossible, and yet it had happened.

Why?