Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 867: Knocking on a Hidden Gate

Ethan felt that faint, almost intangible pull again and instinctively turned his gaze toward it. The sensation tugged from a direction that formed a sharp angle away from Shatterstar’s current flight path, subtle yet persistent.

He hesitated, forcibly suppressing the urge to follow it.

Right now, his worry for Lyla, Amber, and Rainie burned far hotter than curiosity. As for Leo and the others, he was considerably less concerned. They had been guided here by Xenon and the wolf clan princess, after all. That alone made them, at least on paper, beneficiaries of the Moonfrost Direwolf clan. And whatever barrier or seal the clan had established in the polar region was clearly formidable. Even that ancient Divine Sea Temple Steward had searched exhaustively and found nothing.

The real question was whether Ethan himself could uncover it.

Shatterstar’s scans had detected no abnormalities whatsoever. It was as though Leo’s group hadn’t simply hidden themselves, but had stepped into a space detached from Earth itself.

His thoughts were cut short when Shatterstar came to an abrupt halt.

[Beep... Destination reached.]

"We’re going down," Ethan said calmly.

As he spoke, the ship’s hatch hissed open. Blackie leapt out without hesitation, bounding forward and shifting back into his true form mid-air. Ethan jumped onto his back, planting his feet between the massive beast’s shoulders as Blackie descended. They landed with a soft crunch, snow compacting beneath them. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

The cold hit instantly.

Even through his heavy coat, the polar chill slammed into him like a physical force, sharp enough to sting his skin. Ethan was about to circulate his energy to form a protective barrier when his Energy Core suddenly trembled.

The celestial orrery within him stirred.

Two rings of light rotated inside his core, one gold and one violet. At first, there had only been the gold. The violet had appeared later. Ethan knew what they were. One was the Sacred Body Essence he had received from Amber. The other was the Abyssal Void energy originating from Rainie. He had tried to command them in the past, but they followed their own rhythm, indifferent to his intent.

This time, the golden ring pulsed.

A soft, warm glow blossomed outward, enveloping him in an instant cocoon of golden radiance. The brutal cold vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by warmth and a faint, sunlit scent that instantly brought Amber to mind.

That warmth. That presence.

His chest tightened before he could stop it.

"Boss, there’s nothing here!" Blackie’s voice boomed across the frozen plain, deep and resonant in his true form.

The sound snapped Ethan out of his reverie.

He opened his mouth to tell Blackie to keep it down. This was the polar region. Sound carried disturbingly well, and the snowpack was unstable. A loud noise could easily trigger an avalanche or crack open a hidden crevasse.

But before he could speak, a deep, groaning rumble echoed through the air.

A kilometer ahead, a distant snow-covered peak shuddered violently. Then, with a thunderous roar, an immense mass of snow broke free and began cascading down its slope.

Watching the avalanche thunder its way downward, Ethan let out a slow breath. "Keep your voice down. That peak was far enough away, thankfully. Otherwise we’d be digging ourselves out right now."

With their abilities, being buried wouldn’t be fatal. But it would be unpleasant, time-consuming, and completely unnecessary.

Blackie snorted, a cloud of frost billowing from his nostrils. "Tch."

Ethan ignored him and jumped down from his back. He spread his Soul Sense outward, carefully sweeping the area. He was certain. This was the exact location from the footage where Leo and the others had vanished. This had to be the entrance to the Moonfrost Direwolf clan’s territory.

Yet no matter how finely he combed the area, he found nothing. No hidden door. No spatial distortion. Not even the faintest ripple.

Nothing at all.

"Blackie," Ethan said suddenly, stopping his search. "Make some noise."

Blackie stared at him, utterly confused. "Huh?"

Just moments ago, he’d been scolded for being too loud. Now he was being told to do the opposite. But the unwavering look in Ethan’s eyes told him this wasn’t a mistake.

"Ohhhh..." Blackie rumbled.

His body shimmered, his dark fur shifting into a volcanic crimson. Waves of intense heat rolled outward, instantly melting the surrounding snow into thick clouds of steam. He was drawing on his fire affinity.

A massive fireball condensed in his jaws.

Whoosh.

It streaked through the air toward a distant snow-covered peak.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Three more fireballs followed in rapid succession, each aimed at a different mountain.

BOOM... BOOM... BOOM... BOOM!

The fireballs expanded mid-flight, and each impact erupted into a towering pillar of flame and steam that surged a hundred meters into the sky. The thunderous blasts echoed across the frozen wasteland.

When the smoke cleared, the peaks of four mountains were simply gone. Vaporized.

Scalding torrents of meltwater rushed down the slopes, hissing violently, only to flash-freeze moments later into jagged formations of black ice.

Ethan stood at the presumed entrance point, arms at his sides, frowning slightly. He waited.

One second passed.

Then another.

A full minute went by.

"...Not working?" he muttered.

If this truly was the entrance to the Moonfrost Direwolf clan’s hidden territory, there was no way they would tolerate such blatant destruction at their doorstep. It was basic instinct. If someone started tearing apart your front yard, you’d come out swinging a broom at the very least.

"Blackie," Ethan said, his lips curling into a sharp, determined grin. "Were all those roasted chickens for nothing? Evaporate the entire snowfield. I want to see bedrock."

He refused to believe it. He had seen them enter here with his own eyes. If he couldn’t get in, then he’d force someone to come out.

The method was extreme. Essentially threatening to demolish their front gate was a surefire way to make enemies. But right now, Ethan wasn’t thinking that far ahead.

He’d gone to see that damned monkey for what felt like minutes, only to return and find more than a year gone, the world utterly transformed, and the three most important women in his life missing.

Even if Leo’s group was inside, he was still worried. Being labeled "benefactors" meant nothing if the clan was fickle or honorless. Xenon was likely low-ranking at best, and the little princess was a runaway who had probably been grounded the moment she returned. Their words might carry no weight at all.

When Blackie heard the phrase "roasted chickens for nothing," something visibly snapped.

It was like poking a dragon’s pride.

"RRAAAGH!"

BOOM!

His body expanded explosively, swelling to a staggering height of nearly a kilometer. His form shifted again, blazing into a brilliant sapphire blue. Arcs of lightning coiled around him like enraged serpents, snapping and crackling through the air.

Electricity was his true domain.

At this scale, the heat generated by the lightning far surpassed even his fire form, amplified by his colossal size.

"OCEAN OF THUNDER!" Blackie roared, his voice shaking the sky as power gathered for a cataclysmic release.

At that exact moment, Ethan’s Soul Sense twitched sharply.

"CEASE."

An unfamiliar voice, stern and commanding, cut cleanly through the air.

"Hah!" Blackie snarled, his glowing eyes swiveling toward the source. A white-haired old man had appeared silently before Ethan. "You tell me to cease and I’m supposed to listen? You think my boss’s words are just hot air?"

Ethan had been about to stop Blackie the instant the stranger appeared.

But the old man had spoken first.

And then Blackie, the magnificent idiot, had gone and opened his mouth.

Ethan, who had already begun to raise his hand to signal a halt, slowly lowered it again.

He couldn’t back down now.

If he called Blackie off after that retort, it would quite literally mean his own command was hot air. The irony was painfully clear, and supremely irritating.

He had no desire to make an enemy of the Moonfrost Direwolf clan.

But Blackie’s bluster had backed him into a corner.

Now it was a choice between avoiding conflict, or admitting his own authority meant nothing.

Internally, Ethan cursed Blackie thoroughly, in every direction imaginable.