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

There was no mistaking it—something alive was moving below them. The activity in the canyon wasn't natural at all. Micah and the others had heard Shatterstar's sensor reports, and their curiosity was already burning.

"Shatterstar, prepare to enter the gorge!" Ethan ordered.

The mech, which had been hovering at the canyon's edge, shifted forward and positioned itself directly over the chasm. Shhh… shhh… shhh… The abrasive hiss of sand striking against its hull reverberated through the cockpit. The currents in the gorge were so violent that grains of sand flew like bullets, their impact hammering the armor. Any unshielded body would have been torn to pieces in an instant. Ethan frowned, his unease growing—just as Shatterstar's warning alarms came alive.

"Beep… passage too narrow for descent."

The mech pushed downward until it disappeared from view. Ethan muttered a curse under his breath. "Great. Just my luck. "

Shatterstar steadied itself above the turbulence. For a moment, Ethan considered simply waiting until the eruption below burned itself out.

Julian broke the silence. "Maybe we should head to the Forgotten City instead?"

Ethan turned toward him. "Why?"

"The Rumination Gorge eruptions last at least a year. It wasn't active when we left, but now? We'll be stuck here forever if we wait it out."

"A year?" Ethan blinked, stunned. He knew the gorge went through periods of upheaval, but he hadn't imagined they could drag on that long. Waiting was out of the question. He had come here because of the fourth line of the prophecy—the One-Line. He had guessed it might be a place name. The people who lived in the Sea of Death had always called this canyon Rumination Gorge, so they never made the connection. But Ethan's Ethereal map labeled it differently: One-Line Sky. No one else seemed to know that name. Now, though, with the gorge raging, the prophecy would have to wait.

"Beep, beep, beep… hostile lock detected. Activating defensive shield."

Boom!

The mech jolted violently as the alarms screamed. The shield came online just in time to absorb the strike, and the crew inside Shatterstar were slammed against their restraints.

"What the hell was that?!" Ethan barked. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he'd glimpsed a flare of red light deep inside the canyon.

"High-tech energy signature detected. Origin unknown…" Shatterstar's monotone reply made Ethan stiffen.

"You're joking. How could there be advanced tech down here?" He muttered, wondering if the AI had glitched.

"Lock detected. Intensity: five times previous strike…"

Another incoming shot.

"Enough! Shatterstar, return fire. Narrow canyon or not, blast them out of there!" Ethan's frustration boiled over. He wanted to see what exactly was firing at them. Could it really be something more advanced than Shatterstar itself? The idea was absurd—and thrilling. The first shot had barely dented Shatterstar's defenses, using less than three percent of its reserves. Even five times that wouldn't breach the shield. With its stellar core reactor endlessly replenishing energy, Shatterstar was practically invincible.

"Main cannon charging… energy at five percent."

Another surge of red light erupted from below, colliding with the shield. The mech shook under the impact, waves of force shimmering across its protective barrier. To the naked eye it looked harmless, yet Ethan saw the energy readouts dip nearly twenty percent. His jaw tightened. So much for just five times stronger.

The readings climbed back up within seconds, stabilizing above ninety percent.

"Main cannon fully charged. Fire?"

"Do it. Level them!"

Bang!

Twin barrels glowed white-hot, unleashing two lances of energy that converged into one. In the blink of an eye, the beams fused into a blazing sphere, plummeting like a miniature star. The rock walls it passed through were instantly smoothed into a glasslike shaft, as if carved by a god-sized drill.

Boom!

The resulting detonation roared up from the depths, a column of fire racing upward and licking against Shatterstar's shield.

"Target destroyed."

"Pathetic," Ethan muttered. "Let's see what's hiding down there."

He dropped the mech through the tunnel their cannon had forged. Layer after layer of earth peeled away—first sand, then veins of gleaming gold, then vast strata of diamond. The structured geology was uncanny, almost artificial, and Ethan couldn't tear his eyes from the scanner feed.

"There! Someone's there!" Blackie shouted suddenly, pointing at the display.

Ethan's head snapped toward it, and he zoomed in. What he found wasn't the living figure he expected, but a body—lifeless, floating. The mech's floodlights caught the metallic outline behind it, and Ethan's heart skipped.

A spaceship.

Buries beneath a hundred kilometers of rock and mineral, a vessel rested in the dark.

For a moment he simply stared, speechless. His thoughts scrambled. A ship? Buried here?

"Shatterstar, scan it. What the hell are we looking at?"

The mech's readings confirmed his suspicion. The point they'd blasted open was clearly one of the ship's weapon ports. The attack had been an automated defense, designed to obliterate intruders. If they hadn't had Shatterstar, that shot would have vaporized them in an instant. Instead, Shatterstar had tanked it, and two cannon strikes had exposed the vessel itself.

The corpses scattered nearby must have belonged to explorers who came before them, cut down by the ship's defenses. Ethan leaned forward, studying their suits. The design was unmistakable, similar to KH3106.

"Could it be… this ship is from the First Universe?" he murmured. KH3106 had once said that among the nine universes, only the First had developed true high technology. The Second, where Ethan now was, relied almost entirely on raw energy. Which meant this vessel, impossibly, belonged to the First.

"Confirmed. Materials sourced from the First Universe. Estimated date: five hundred to six hundred thousand years old."

The data sent chills up Ethan's spine.

Before he could respond, Blackie piped up again, his voice rising with excitement. "People! This time I swear I see people!"

Ethan whipped the cameras toward the direction Blackie pointed. And this time, he didn't find corpses. Figures moved in the shadows. Not human—at least, not fully—but humanoid shapes.