Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 864: A Year Lost

The verdant, out-of-season growth surrounding the house sent a cold prickle down Ethan’s spine. He dug into his pocket, fingers closing around his phone, and tapped the screen, but nothing happened.

It was Dead. Completely off.

That alone told him more than he wanted to know. He had not been gone for a few days, or even weeks.

He raised his wrist and summoned the terminal interface of Shatterstar, his breath unconsciously held as the display flickered to life. The date stared back at him, and his heart skipped hard enough that it physically hurt.

He had returned from Ascension Isle in April of 2025. Ethereal itself had only launched in October 2024. Even accounting for time distortion, that should have placed him mere months ahead at most.

The terminal read: August 6, 2026.

Over a year and three months had passed.

A full year of his life had simply vanished.

The weight of that realization had not yet settled when a worse thought followed immediately on its heels. If more than a year had gone by, then where was everyone? The house answered that question before his mind could fully form it. Dust lay thick across every surface, undisturbed, as if no one had set foot inside for months.

They had left.

Or been taken.

"Shatterstar, call Lyla," he said quietly.

With his phone useless, the ship’s internal communications system handled the call.

[Beep... Call successful. No response.]

His jaw tightened. "Call Leo."

[Beep... Target device powered off.]

A chill settled deeper into his chest. "Call Victor."

[Beep...]

He did not stop there. One name after another, every contact he trusted, every familiar lifeline. The result never changed. Offline. Unreachable. Gone.

Ethan lowered his arm slowly, his expression darkening as the implications began to pile up. Whatever had happened during the year he was missing, it had swept up everyone he cared about.

Whoosh... Whoosh... Whoosh!

Three figures burst into the range of his Soul Sense, moving with startling speed. They were on him almost instantly, their presence snapping from distant signatures to immediate threats in the span of a heartbeat.

"Who are you?" the lead figure demanded coldly, speaking before Ethan could open his mouth.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he took them in. The long robes, the archaic cut, the plaques hanging at their waists. One side engraved with a number, the other depicting a massive temple floating above a storm-wracked sea.

"Divine Sea Temple?" he said flatly.

The leader’s gaze sharpened. "So you recognize us. This area is a restricted zone. How dare you trespass. Seize him."

At the command, Ethan’s instincts surged, power coiling and ready to explode outward in lethal force. Then the word "seize" registered fully, and he paused.

A restricted zone. Openly enforced on land. Had the Temple taken Lyla and the others? Had something shifted while he was gone? The Divine Sea Temple had always worked through proxies, shadows, and intermediaries. Since when did they act so boldly in the open world?

If they intended to drag him back to their stronghold, then perhaps that was exactly where he needed to go.

Ethan let his power settle.

The two enforcers moved in, gripping his arms and twisting them behind his back. To their eyes, he must have looked either terrified or pathetically weak, offering no resistance as they locked him in place.

The leader stepped forward, expression unreadable, and produced a metallic collar from his robes.

[Beep... Danger detected. Energy Suppression Collar.]

Shatterstar’s warning rang sharply in his ear, the first time the AI had ever interrupted him without prompting. At the same time, his Soul Sense recoiled as if burned. To his spiritual perception, the collar was a void, an absence, a blind spot that swallowed awareness itself. Only his physical eyes could perceive its shape.

That changed everything.

There was no circumstance in which that collar was touching his neck.

[Bear Form]... [Savage Swipe]!

Ethan roared, his body surging with explosive force. His muscles swelled as he twisted violently, wrenching both enforcers off balance and swinging them together like living weapons.

THUD!

The impact echoed heavily. The Temple guards were far from ordinary Energy Users. A strike that would have reduced a normal human to pulp only left them crumpled and dazed, their bodies collapsing with no obvious external injuries.

The leader froze for the briefest instant, shock flickering across his face before rage twisted his features. "You attack Temple guards? You’re dead!"

The collar vanished back into his robes. One hand clenched into a fist while the other reshaped into a claw, slicing forward. The air itself tore apart with a shrill RIIIP! as the attack surged toward Ethan.

"You’re the dead one," Ethan snarled back.

Crunch-crunch-crunch...

Shimmering, bone-like material erupted around Ethan’s right forearm and hand, forming a massive gauntlet that extended past his elbow, four brutal claws gleaming with pale light.

Ursar’s Claws, the manifested form of the Twilight War Spear.

His clawed hand shot forward, meeting the leader’s strike head-on.

SNAP!

"AAAGH!"

As expected. Flesh and bone, no matter how refined, could not withstand a Legendary grade artifact. The leader’s hand shattered instantly, the sound a wet mess.

Ethan did not hesitate. His other claw descended toward the man’s skull, a killing blow meant to end the fight then and there.

Trapped and maimed, the Temple agent made a desperate choice. With horrifying decisiveness, his remaining hand chopped down, not at Ethan, but at his own ruined arm. The limb severed cleanly, and the man blasted backward in a streak of black energy, rocketing skyward to escape.

"HA! You Temple rats! Your Black Grandpa’s here!"

The booming voice rolled down from above just as the fleeing figure tried to gain altitude. The sky darkened unnaturally, as if ink had been poured across it, and a roiling black cloud formed directly overhead.

"Huh? A wounded one?" the voice continued, amused. "Heh... Lightning Barrage!"

The Temple agent looked up, panic finally breaking through his cultivated composure as he tried to veer away.

Too late.

Within the cloud stood Blackie, the black Qilin, grinning as he raised a single finger.

KRAKOOM!

A bolt of lightning as thick as a tree trunk lanced downward, moving at the speed of light. It struck the fleeing man head-on, engulfing him completely.

Ethan halted mid-step, his pursuit was cut short before it truly began. There was nothing left to chase. Where the Temple agent had been moments before, only drifting ash and fading motes of energy remained.

Blackie’s arrival had been timely, decisive, and violently excessive. Ethan had lost his chance to interrogate a prisoner.

Still, as he looked up at the familiar silhouette in the darkened sky, a tight knot in his chest loosened just a little.

At least someone he knew was still here.