Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 344: The Old Man and the Spear

With each passing moment of battle, the pile of Deathstalker Scorpion corpses beneath Ethan’s feet grew taller.

His arms trembled from the weight of the thousand-pound Twilight War Spear, and his gaze darkened with fatigue. He had been fighting for what felt like an eternity, yet the swarm showed no signs of thinning.

Even now, the tide of scorpions stretched endlessly toward the horizon, surging forward with relentless aggression. From his high vantage point atop the mound of corpses, Ethan spotted a group in the far distance—about a thousand yards away, near where the earlier crowds had fled. They were locked in battle with two scorpions. One giant scorpion already lay dead beside them, but human casualties were heavy. At least four or five had fallen.

Ethan’s limbs ached with every movement. His shoulders burned, his hands were numb. No matter how many he killed, there were simply too many.

Suddenly, the light dimmed.

He looked up, blinking against the glare. Of the nine suns in the sky, only eight remained, clustered together in what he assumed was the west. Though, without the Ethereal World’s map system functioning, he couldn’t be sure of the cardinal directions anymore.

Still, judging by the suns’ descent, west was the best guess. One sun had already disappeared below the horizon, explaining the fading light—though the searing heat remained unbearable. Ethan cursed under his breath.

’Damned suns.’

His throat was parched.

Just then, a piercing shriek echoed from deep within the sandstorm, somewhere beyond the dunes. It was distant, but chilling.

Then he saw it. A towering silhouette moving through the haze. Though it appeared no larger than a pea from his position, Ethan’s instincts screamed: it was massive—at least thirty or forty yards tall. He couldn’t make out the details, but the pressure it radiated sent a shiver through his spine.

Ethan, already on the verge of collapse, felt every nerve tighten.

But then—something unexpected happened. The scorpions halted.

And then, like a retreating tide, they turned. One after another, they abandoned Ethan, scurrying away toward the distant colossus.

He stood still, barely believing it. Slowly, his clenched muscles began to ease. The roar of the swarm faded into the distance. Eventually, both the scorpions and the towering figure vanished from sight.

Ethan slumped back, landing on the shell of a massive scorpion corpse.

With a thought, he summoned a bottle of mineral water from his inventory, twisted the cap off, and drained it in one go. Then, true to his habits, he made the bottle disappear again—he hated littering, even in a world like this.

"Hold it! Don’t let it get away!"

The sudden shout jolted him. Without the screeching of scorpions to drown it out, the voices carried clearly now.

Ethan turned his head.

In the direction of the previous battle, the group of ’natives’—as the system labeled them—was in pursuit of a lone scorpion. Two scorpion corpses already lay nearby, but their cost had been high. Seven or eight human bodies littered the ground. Many more were wounded.

Of those still standing, thirty or so men clung to ropes with every ounce of strength. Several large grappling hooks, seemingly made from stone, had been anchored into the creature’s carapace. Its massive claws were tangled in a crude but clever net of braided grass ropes.

The scorpion thrashed, trying to escape—clearly desperate to follow its kin and flee—but the men refused to let go. Despite being dragged more than five hundred yards, they held on.

As it neared, Ethan saw someone riding atop the scorpion’s back.

It was the same middle-aged man who had earlier shouted at Ethan to dodge and escape.

Back then, he had seemed slight, barely five and a half feet tall, and clothed in rags. Now, shirtless and bare-chested, his bronze skin shimmered with sweat.

He didn’t look like a bodybuilder, but there was something terrifyingly dense about his physique. No wasted bulk—just raw, controlled power. The kind of strength that didn’t show off, but destroyed when unleashed.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. This man wasn’t ordinary. Not at all.

He suspected the man’s strength rivaled his own when he activated Bear Form.

The man stood firm on the scorpion’s back, his feet rooted like iron nails. No matter how wildly the beast bucked and twisted, he didn’t budge.

In his hands, he held what was left of a crude spear—more like a stick with a sharp stone. It was broken now, only half its original length. Yet with that, he had helped kill two of the monsters. Not alone, no—but at the cost of many lives.

Now, he continued dodging the deadly strikes of the scorpion’s tail, aiming for a vulnerable gap between the armored plates along its abdomen. He struck again.

Crack!

His expression shifted instantly. The sharp stone tip had shattered. The edge was gone—his weapon was useless.

He bent his knees, preparing to leap off and retreat. His mouth opened to shout the command.

"Catch the spear..."

The voice reached him faintly, carried on the wind.

Whoosh—

Something sliced through the air.

Startled, the man turned just in time to snatch the Twilight War Spear as it spun toward him, backwards like a returning boomerang. His hands closed around the shaft. The instant he grasped it, his eyes sharpened.

Without hesitation, he tightened his grip with both hands, shifted his stance, and pivoted on the scorpion’s back.

The spear whirled in his hands.

Rip—

A sound like tearing leather rang out. The scorpion’s tail—thick as a barrel—snapped off cleanly.

His eyes lit up with grim satisfaction... then dimmed.

If only he’d had this weapon earlier, he could’ve saved those seven or eight lives. They wouldn’t have needed to chase this fleeing scorpion to begin with.

But now wasn’t the time for regrets.

The long spear moved like an extension of his will.

In his hands, the mighty Twilight War Spear bent under pressure, sweeping wide arcs through the air as it blurred into motion.

Thud—

The shaft crashed down like a falling mountain. It struck the scorpion’s back with a thunderous impact.

Screech!

The beast’s eight legs buckled. Its massive body slammed into the ground, its momentum cut off completely.

But inertia carried the man forward—he was launched into the air.

With one hand still gripping the spear, he flipped overhead, his body twisting mid-flight.

And then, with perfect control, he let the spear spin around his waist like a ribbon of steel before he thrust it downward—

Thwack—

The blade pierced cleanly between the scorpion’s two tiny eyes. The entire three-yard-long blade sank in to the hilt.

One strike. One kill.

Ethan, slumped back against a corpse in the distance, had watched it all unfold.

He hadn’t helped. Not because he didn’t want to—but because he couldn’t. Hurling the spear had been the last bit of strength he had.

Now, suddenly, he sat upright.

That technique... it wasn’t just brute strength. It was spearsmanship.

More than that—it was lance technique.

He recognized it instantly.

The downward overhead swing—that Splitting Strike. A classic move. Not just a chop, but a technique meant to disarm. A clever bait: when the enemy blocked, the vibration of the strike traveled through their weapon, jarring it loose.

He’d tried using the move himself earlier—but his blow had just shattered the scorpion’s back. Pure force.

This man, though... his strike contained the essence of the technique. The true mastery.

Only someone who had walked the path of the lance could do that. But the final blow... that was something else entirely.

Ethan’s eyes widened. That looked like the ’Rear-Guard Lance.’

A legendary move once practiced by ancient Earth knights.

As a lover of history, Ethan had read about it in several books, obsessing over stories of warriors who could take on armies with nothing but their spear.

He thought of tales from the ’Age of Iron and Flame’—of Sir Aldric of the Pale Fields, Bran the Breaker, Godwin Ashhand, and even the mythical Thorn Knight of Caledon—the warrior who had supposedly mastered every form of the spear before vanishing into legend.

In the past, he had trained in secret, mimicking lance forms even when people mocked him—called him useless. It hadn’t mattered then. No matter how much he practiced, he was powerless.

Even earlier, when he held the Twilight War Spear, he hadn’t considered using any of those techniques. The thing was too heavy to twirl. All he could manage were simple chops and thrusts.

But now, here in this world—whether a game or reality—it didn’t matter. He had just witnessed the Rear-Guard Lance. For real, or what looked like it.

As the dust settled, the old man—Uncle Jed, the others called him—pulled the spear free in one clean motion.

He turned to those around him, spoke a few words Ethan couldn’t hear.

Then, without ceremony, he slung the Twilight War Spear over his shoulder.

And walked steadily toward Ethan.

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