Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 879: The Guardian Beneath the Chasm

A translucent blade of wind sliced cleanly through the air.

"I didn’t say you could go," Blackie said lightly. "The boss said it. I didn’t."

The cyborg had just managed to push himself upright and turn away when he froze mid-step. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then half of his helmet slid slowly off his head and dropped to the sand. The exposed eye beneath was wide with disbelief, still trying to process what had already happened.

His body remained standing for a moment longer, rigid and stubborn, before it began to tilt.

"Heh." Blackie grinned as Ethan turned to stare at him. "That’s what you meant, right, Boss?"

Ethan rolled his eyes and exhaled through his nose, long and tired. His gaze drifted to the headless figure still swaying upright in the desert wind. ’Sorry, pal. Tough break. You got taken out by an idiot. Nothing I could do about it.’

The truth was, he had meant to let the man walk away. He had been clear. Or at least, he thought he had. Apparently, clarity and Blackie had never been close acquaintances.

"Let’s move," Ethan said at last. "More flies are coming. We push forward."

He refocused on the pull.

It had been there ever since he stepped onto the desert, a faint tug somewhere deep in his chest. With every mile they crossed, it grew stronger, more insistent, like a thread winding tighter around his thoughts. If not for the detour to harvest the energy crystals, he would never have stopped moving. The call was no longer subtle. It pressed against his mind, urgent and unyielding, and suppressing it was starting to feel like holding back a rising tide.

They ran.

Sand kicked up behind them as the wasteland stretched on without mercy, flat and endless.

After a while, Blackie’s voice drifted up from below. "Boss, we’re crawling. Why aren’t we flying?"

Ethan glanced at the sky and then down at him. "Flight restriction. Remember?"

"I know." Blackie’s tone turned thoughtful instead of petulant. "But I don’t think it’s absolute. Feels like it only triggers above a certain height."

"You can sense that?"

"Yeah. After absorbing those crystals, my other elements are nearly balanced with lightning now. My perception’s sharper. Way sharper." He sounded almost pleased with himself. "I tested it while you were asleep. We should be fine if we stay under a kilometer."

Ethan considered that.

The last time they had tried to fly, they had gone much higher, soaring clean over the giant mosquito’s territory. That was when the invisible pressure had crushed down on them, a binding force that felt like the sky itself rejecting their existence.

He bent his knees and leaped.

In midair, Blackie shifted into his true form, keeping his body compact and streamlined rather than expanding to full size. Ethan landed smoothly atop his head just as Blackie’s hooves left the ground.

Sapphire lightning erupted across Blackie’s body.

He shot forward in a blinding flash, a streak of blue tearing across the desert. The acceleration slammed into Ethan like a physical force, wind clawing at his clothes as the ground blurred into abstraction beneath them. Running had been a slow grind, every dune another reminder of how far they still had to go. Now distance unraveled in seconds, collapsing behind them as if it had never mattered.

Less than five minutes later, a jagged line split the horizon.

The chasm.

It carved through the desert like a wound in the earth, its edges uneven and raw, as though something colossal had torn it open and never bothered to close it again.

"Boss?" Blackie slowed, lightning dimming to a steady crackle. "What’s the plan?"

Ethan studied the abyss.

This was where the Cloudfang elder’s journey had ended three centuries ago. Where Nightclaw had been struck down and forced back into his primal form. The story had never left him, not the image of Nightclaw taking the blow meant for another, sacrificing his cultivation and dignity just to send the elder to safety. Three hundred years later, Nightclaw had only recently regained his human shape, and even now the feline ears remained, a permanent reminder carved into flesh.

"Try to cross," Ethan said.

Blackie didn’t hesitate.

Lightning flared brighter than before, wind compressing tightly around his body as he surged toward the gap. The chasm looked no more than a kilometer across, nothing at their current speed. They would clear it in seconds.

Then the world cracked.

A thunderous CRAAAACK split the air as something massive tore upward from the abyss.

A hand.

Colossal, stone-gray, and impossibly fast for its size, it erupted from the depths and shot directly into their path. It moved without hesitation, without warning, as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.

Blackie couldn’t stop.

To that hand, he was nothing more than a passing insect.

"Wind Shield!"

A massive barrier of compressed air snapped into existence in front of them, layered and dense.

The giant palm slammed into it.

The shield shattered instantly, fracturing like glass under a hammer. But the brief resistance bought a fraction of a second, and that was all Blackie needed. He twisted violently midair, lightning screaming as he veered off course.

Before he could stabilize, another hand burst from the far side of the chasm, intercepting his new trajectory with the same terrifying precision.

"What the hell is this thing?!" Blackie’s voice lost its edge of confidence.

He accelerated to his limit, lightning and wind entwined as he zigzagged through the air. Left, right, sharp dives and sudden climbs, every movement executed with razor precision. But the hand was always there, not chasing, not flailing blindly, simply repositioning to block the far shore.

It was not hunting. It was guarding.

Ethan’s mind flicked back to the Cloudfang elder’s account. The first strike had come without warning back then too. Nightclaw had thrown himself into its path, taking the full force of it. The blow had shattered him, crushed him back into his beast form, and sent both of them tumbling away from the abyss.

If Blackie’s shield had not reacted when it did, they would already be plummeting.

Ethan leaned forward and peered into the darkness below. Only two hands had emerged so far, but the aura radiating from the chasm was vast and ancient, heavy with hostility. It felt less like a creature and more like a boundary. A line drawn in blood and stone.

"We can’t get past, Boss! What do we do?" Blackie’s movements were still precise, but the space to maneuver was shrinking. The hands adjusted with relentless accuracy, denying every escape vector.

Ethan brought the Twilight War Spear forward.

Bear Form. Panther Form. Both surged through him at once, muscles tightening as raw power coiled in his limbs. He began compressing skills into the weapon, stacking them one after another, weaving them together with ruthless efficiency. One. Two. Five. Ten. The spear trembled in his grip, humming as if alive, struggling to contain the force packed within its length.

"Serpent’s Coil Strike."

He hurled it.

The spear spun as it flew, twisting into a corkscrew of condensed divine energy that bored a vortex through the air itself. It slammed into the giant palm dead center.

The explosion thundered across the chasm.

A grinding, shrill screech followed as the spear’s tip bit into stone, carving against resistance that refused to yield. Shockwaves rippled outward, kicking up sand from both sides of the abyss.

The hand faltered.

"Now, Blackie!"

Blackie folded his body tight and shot forward, lightning compressing to a razor-thin arc as he aimed for the opening. One hundred meters.

Fifty.

The abyss answered with another crack.

A second hand erupted from below, rising directly into their path.

The Twilight War Spear tore itself free and spun back through the air, slapping into Ethan’s waiting palm. He spared a glance at the first hand.

Where the spear had struck, there was only a shallow white mark. A dent. Not even a proper wound.

Cold realization seeped into his veins.

Nothing had ever resisted the Twilight War Spear like that. Not once.

Now two hands blocked their path, one ahead and one behind, sealing the airspace with brutal efficiency. Blackie’s evasions grew tighter, more desperate. Lightning flared brighter as he drew on every shred of control he possessed.

"Boss, think of something!" Blackie’s voice strained under the pressure. "It won’t even let us retreat!"

The hands were each only a hundred meters across. If Blackie expanded to full size, they might be able to contest the space directly. But the oppressive energy pouring from the abyss pressed down on him, thick and suffocating. Expanding would cost him speed. And speed was the only reason they were still alive.

The far shore loomed just ahead.

So close that Ethan could see the jagged ridges in the rock.

And yet it might as well have been a different world.

"Just hold on," Ethan said quietly, even as his thoughts raced for an answer.

Blackie’s movements were still flawless, still impossibly sharp.

But the sky around them was shrinking, and there was nowhere left to run.