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

Chapter 975: The Last Four Seals

Ethan had no idea what was happening inside his Mindscape, but the moment it began, a crushing weight clamped around his heart so hard it felt like some invisible hand was trying to tear it apart from the inside.

Then everything exploded.

A terrifying surge of Soul Power erupted through his Mindscape, so vast it nearly shattered his concentration on the spot. The instant it appeared, he instinctively dragged it into his Energy Core.

His entire spirit trembled violently.

"What just happened...?"

At last, he managed to spare a sliver of consciousness to look inside.

The final seed had stopped regressing. It was no longer collapsing, but it wasn’t moving forward either, suspended in place as though trapped between destruction and rebirth.

He didn’t have time to focus on it. Deep down, he already knew what Beastie had done.

"Still not enough," Ethan muttered hoarsely. "Then it’s my turn."

BOOM.

Another wave of Soul Power crashed into the seed.

Oblivion. The spirit artifact tied to the Forgotten City seal had joined in.

The seed shook violently. Its gradual collapse finally stopped, and inch by inch, painfully slowly, it began reforming into a star once more.

"No..."

Ethan finally understood what they were doing, and the realization tore straight through him.

"My turn," Gale said quietly.

Another flood of Soul Power surged forward to fill the gap.

"Waaah..."

Aqua’s crying echoed through the Mindscape.

"Beastie... Oblivion... Gale... Aqua’s scared..."

Her voice broke between sobs, small and trembling.

As Gale’s Soul Power poured in, the star began reforming faster than before, but Ethan knew it still wasn’t enough. Even now, the process was incomplete.

His chest felt like it was being ripped open, but he couldn’t stop. At this point, if he interrupted the process, everything Beastie, Oblivion, and Gale had sacrificed would become meaningless.

When the second surge of Soul Power erupted, Ethan finally saw what was happening inside the Mindscape.

Beastie was gone. Oblivion was gone too. Their presence and their connection to him, had vanished completely.

Then he watched Gale’s body break apart before his eyes, dissolving into pure Soul Power that rushed toward the forming star.

Only Aqua remained behind, floating there alone while tears streamed down her face.

After a few moments, though, she slowly stopped crying. Her tiny lips pressed together stubbornly as she looked toward the south, then west, then north, toward the locations of the other three city seals.

A moment later, her body burst apart as well. Two tears slid silently down Ethan’s dry, shriveled face.

Aqua became Soul Power. And at last, the final seed transformed into a star.

But Ethan felt no joy. There wasn’t even time to grieve.

The instant the star completed itself, his Energy Core convulsed violently.

The roots of the Tree of Life suddenly erupted with blinding green light, illuminating the chaos inside his Core like a rising sun breaking through darkness.

Every single star inside his Core, thousands upon thousands of them, all glowing green, suddenly pulled their light inward at the same time.

Then the entire Core shuddered.

BOOM.

The shockwave blasted Ethan’s consciousness out of his Energy Core and slammed it back into his physical body.

He blinked. Everything was dark.

For a second, he thought he’d gone blind, but when he tried to move, he realized his eyelids were stuck shut. He forced one arm upward, the movement so heavy it felt like lifting an entire mountain.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The sound wasn’t coming from his bones, It was his skin. And then the smell hit him.

It slammed into him like a physical wall.

"What the hell died in here...?"

At least, that was what he meant to say. What actually came out sounded more like rusty metal grinding together.

His throat was unbearably dry, as if he hadn’t tasted water in ten thousand years, and every vibration from his vocal cords sent pain shooting through him.

He rubbed at his face.

Turns out his eyes hadn’t been sealed shut naturally. They were covered in some thick black layer of hardened filth. As he scraped it away, the crust crumbled apart in his fingers.

A faint light finally filtered into view. Then Ethan looked down at himself.

"What the..."

The smell was coming from him. He nearly vomited on the spot.

Black filth covered his entire body in a hardened crust. He started tearing it off piece by piece, stripping away most of it, but even after that he still felt filthy down to the bone.

He was just about to stand and look for water when his Energy Core suddenly swelled.

WOOM.

A strange force burst from his Core and flooded through every blood vessel in his body before surging directly into his heart.

"Ngh...!"

The pressure instantly crushed the air from his lungs and his vision blurred.

His heart spasmed violently, swelling to nearly three times its normal size in a single instant.

Cold sweat exploded from his skin.

If it had been anyone else, their heart would have detonated on the spot.

But the branches of the Tree of Life wrapped around his heart began glowing with brilliant green light, wave after wave of life force forcing the organ to continue beating despite the strain.

The swelling lasted nearly thirty seconds. By the end of it, Ethan’s face had turned purple.

THUMP.

Just as he reached his limit, his heart suddenly contracted with terrifying force.

Shwoop.

Every drop of blood inside compressed violently before blasting through his arteries like a tidal wave.

His veins couldn’t withstand the pressure. Cracks spread through them instantly.

PSSSSSSHT.

Blood erupted from every pore in his body. He looked like a broken fountain spraying crimson mist into the void.

The agony was indescribable. Ethan could only grit his teeth and endure it.

Then the compressed blood surged upward toward his brain, and for a brief moment his entire body went numb.

But something immediately caught his attention.

The blood pumping from his heart wasn’t red anymore; iIt was pale gold.

The crimson blood spraying from his pores was being forced out by the new golden blood, like impurities being expelled from his body.

Ethan had no idea where it came from. All he could feel was the strange energy pouring endlessly from his Core, transforming his heart and forcing it to produce this new blood.

Heartblood.

As more golden blood circulated through him, the amount of ordinary blood left inside his body rapidly decreased.

Something fundamental was changing.

An overwhelming aura erupted uncontrollably from his body, growing stronger and heavier with every passing second.

Ethan’s eyes widened. This was rank advancement.

He had always been a mortal, yet now entire realms shattered beneath him one after another so quickly he could barely process it.

Foundation, Evolution, Transformation, Breakthrough. All crossed in an instant. And that was only the beginning.

Limbo, Transcendent, War God, Voidbreaker.

Each realm collapsed beneath him within seconds. Even Apex State broke apart shortly afterward.

As for the realms beyond that, Ethan didn’t even know their names. He had never received formal training in the first place.

Finally, after nearly half an hour, the Divine Shard embedded within his chest flickered and began to transform. Its color shifted into pale gold, tiny green stars scattered throughout its surface like fragments of a living galaxy.

At last, the pressure stopped rising.

The corpse-like body Ethan had awakened in earlier had completely recovered. His skin now looked unnaturally smooth, almost jade-like, soft and flawless like a newborn child’s.

His eyes had changed too. Within his black pupils floated five tiny green stars that slowly revolved in orbit.

The stars in his left eye rotated clockwise, while the stars in his right eye rotated counterclockwise.

Those eyes alone were enough to make anyone freeze. Back on Earth, one glance from them would have driven countless women insane.

The transformed Divine Shard released a cool stream of energy that flowed from his brain all the way down to his toes.

Every trace of exhaustion disappeared instantly.

Ethan felt reborn. Power surged through him endlessly, vast enough to make him feel invincible.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

He threw his head back and roared.

BOOM.

The aura erupting from him shattered everything nearby.

Yaya’s sphere of vines exploded first.

Then the massive layers of stone she had piled around it detonated outward in every direction, drifting apart weightlessly through the void.

He was still inside that empty universe, though no longer in the same place as before. Ethan extended his senses outward and immediately located the Avatar’s signal.

Then he found Yaya,far away. Too far away. Her aura flickered weakly like a dying flame.

The moment he locked onto her presence, his expression darkened.

Through Soul Sense, he saw her fleeing desperately through the void while green blood spilled continuously from her mouth.

Something enormous was chasing her, and she was badly injured.

"Hmph."

Ethan’s eyes turned ice-cold.

The grief from Beastie, Oblivion, Gale, and Aqua sacrificing themselves still weighed heavily on his chest, and now Yaya was being hunted while trying to protect him.

She had hidden him away and deliberately lured that creature elsewhere because she sensed how terrifyingly powerful it was.

She’d done it to keep him safe. Ethan’s chest tightened painfully. Every one of those little idiots had always put him before themselves.

And in the end, not a single one of them even got the chance to say goodbye.