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

Ethan had no idea what was happening above him. After he was pulled into the bottomless pit, Beastfall City—once floating high and swaying gently—slowly descended. With a grinding weight, it sank back into the chasm and sealed the abyss once more.

"Ethan…"

"Boss!"

Micah and Julian, locked in midair combat, cried out at the same time. Neither of them had known about the hidden chasm beneath Beastfall City, and for a terrifying moment they thought Ethan had been crushed underneath. The thought made their blood run cold. Beastfall City was vast beyond imagination; its sheer mass alone was enough to pulverize any living being. If Ethan had been caught beneath it, he would be broken—if not outright dead.

"Julian!"

From high above, Blackie's roar cut through the chaos. Julian's eyes burned red as his teeth clenched. He understood why Blackie was calling to him, but his heart was caught in two directions. Ethan was his brother. Yet the men they fought against—the Central Dominion Guards—were also his brothers.

Blackie was at his limit, ready to release his most powerful strike, but he needed Julian's consent before unleashing it.

"I'll handle it!" Micah shouted before Julian could answer. He braced himself, and in the next instant, talismans poured from his sleeves like a flood. Ordinary paper talismans mixed with blood-red jade charms, whirling through the air until they gathered together into the shape of a colossal dragon. The dragon's roar echoed across the sky, thunderous and alive, as the thousand-meter-long beast coiled above Beastfall City.

"Micah…" Julian started to call out, wanting to stop him, but the words caught in his throat.

"Dragon's Restraint Array!" Micah bellowed.

At his command, the towering talismanic dragon burst apart, scattering into countless smaller dragons. Guided by the red jade charms, the talismans spread and wove themselves into a colossal net, turning the heavens above Beastfall City into a shimmering, inescapable cage.

Micah's face turned crimson. His body shook violently, and sweat streamed down his cheeks in rivers. Yet even as his strength faltered, his mouth curled in a crooked grin. "Damn you, Blackie… put away your tricks already! I'm about to collapse here!"

To Julian's astonishment, Blackie actually listened. The thunderclouds he had been summoning for so long suddenly broke apart and vanished. His beastly form dissolved into that of a man once more, and in the blink of an eye he appeared at Micah's back. With a flick of his hand, four blood-red jade tokens spun into the air, hovering in a ring behind Micah.

Julian froze. Blackie could use talismans too?

The tokens whirled, aligning themselves. Then Blackie's body erupted with his chaotic attributes all at once. The clash of elements exploded outward, violent and raw—until each stream of energy struck its corresponding jade token. In an instant, the chaos transformed. The unruly powers—so wild that even Blackie's water carried a destructive edge—were refined into something pristine, the purest essence of Heaven and Earth. The cycle flowed seamlessly between the four tokens, then funneled straight into Micah's body.

Micah coughed blood, his face twisting. "Pfft… Blackie, you bastard! You did that on purpose, didn't you?!"

"Shut up and focus on the enemy," Blackie shot back, though a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. He had done it on purpose.

With Blackie's support, Micah's movements grew impossibly fast. His ten fingers flicked and snapped in a blur, too quick for the eye to follow. The thousands of talisman-dragons shifted, their chains of light tightening and weaving together, compressing the space around Beastfall City. The Illusionary Qilins and the Central Dominion Guards astride them roared in defiance, their resistance fierce and unrelenting.

Julian watched the battle from a distance. The Central Dominion Guards had been reduced to less than a third of their former strength, and without a leader to command them, their formation was crumbling.

"Bongo… Father… Uncle Jed… where have you gone?" His thoughts spiraled in turmoil. His family had vanished without a trace. Even Ethan's fate was uncertain. And the Guards before him—men he had personally trained—now stood as his enemies.

He turned his gaze toward Micah's array. The Dragon's Restraint was already taking shape, sealing the skies. With no more danger here, Julian's attention shifted back to the gaping fissure. His heart pounded as he flew downward. If there was even the smallest gap beneath Beastfall City, then maybe Ethan had survived. But as he reached the lowest point, despair struck him. The foundations of the city pressed flush against the earth, leaving no space at all. His last hope crumbled.

…

Ethan, of course, knew nothing of what was unfolding above. He was still plummeting through the darkness. Downward he fell, slowing… then dropping again… then slowing once more.

"Ouch… looks like I'm finally hitting bottom. So this isn't a bottomless pit after all."

After an endless descent, his tightly compressed Soul Sense finally brushed against something solid. Far below—at least a hundred miles down—there was ground. Expanding his sense further, Ethan caught more details. The subterranean space was vast, larger than he expected. But what froze him in place wasn't the sheer scale of it. It was the familiar auras pulsing faintly below. Regis. Hank. Quinn. Bongo. Even the Dragon Child. She was no longer an egg; she had hatched.

The air rushed against him as the cavern walls streaked past. By his calculation, he'd hit the ground in less than five minutes. At ten kilometers from the exit, he extended his claws, gouging deep into the stone to bleed off speed. Sparks sprayed from the walls as his talons scraped, but a new pressure rolled up from below, forcing him to grit his teeth. An unfamiliar aura pressed against him, heavy and suffocating. The temperature plummeted, dropping past a threshold until it stabbed like knives of ice.

"Get out of the way! Move, now!" Ethan roared.

The sound of his approach had already drawn attention. Regis and the others—weak, their auras barely holding—were edging closer to the opening to investigate. Ethan's blood ran cold. At this velocity, he'd crush them flat without even trying. He dug his claws deeper, carving a burning trail into the stone, but ten kilometers wasn't nearly enough space to stop completely. Worse, the cavern below was enormous and steep, leaving him with nothing to grab hold of, and the no-fly zone stripped him of any chance to stabilize.

The impact would be brutal.

Thankfully, his shout startled Regis and the others into scattering. Relief flickered through Ethan's panic as he burst from the cave mouth, the force of his descent shaking the cavern. Down below, he glimpsed their faces—tired, battered, but lit with sudden excitement as they recognized his voice.

Ethan groaned inwardly. 'What are you so happy about? I was dragged down here too!' He assumed Regis and the rest had fallen in by accident just as he had, and now thought he had come to save them. If only they knew—Ethan was struggling just to save himself.