Ancestral Lineage - Chapter 457
Chapter 457: Fear
People don’t gasp in unison when they witness horror.
They stutter.
They forget how to breathe.
Their minds abort halfway through a thought, as if the very act of understanding would snap something vital inside them.
That was the reaction that rippled through the worlds.
Not wonder.
Not awe.
A cold, instinctive, spine-twisting recoil.
The kind of mind-blown where the mind feels like it’s being peeled apart.
And for the first time in a long stretch of ages… the great beings watching Ethan felt something they had not tasted in centuries.
Fear.
Raw.
Potent.
Ancestral.
…
The Dragon Empire’s world-rift flared open like the slit of a monstrous eye. Fafnir the Tyrant Dragon, whose mere heartbeat shook continents, had been seated as usual, on his great throne, watching Ethan’s earlier battles with mild, almost bored curiosity.
His cold pupils constricted.
A dragon’s instincts are older than history. Their bodies remember the ancient predators that once hunted the universe.
And Fafnir felt that memory now.
The golden threads, the silver truth, the god-arts circling Ethan’s fingers, the reality-warping authority, the throne, the beings kneeling to him…
Fafnir’s scales bristled. Steam flared between his teeth.
“That… is no Saint,” he rumbled, voice like burning stone collapsing in slow motion. “That is something that hunted Saints.”
His talons dug into the throne so hard that the entire castle sank a few meters.
Not even during the Primordial Beast Wars had he felt this pressure.
“What have you become, boy…?”
He wasn’t asking Ethan.
He wasn’t expecting an answer.
He simply didn’t want to admit the truth:
A new apex predator had appeared… and it wasn’t a dragon.
…
Across the Elven Realms, an ancient throne made of roots and moonlight vibrated. The Elven King, Ael’tharian Solaris II, the Immortal Regent, leaned forward so fast his crown almost slipped.
Elves did not fear easily.
Their arrogance shielded them from most discomfort.
But the power Ethan wielded made him feel like a child standing in the shadow of a world-eater.
His long ears trembled.
His voice came out in a whisper, yet every spirit-tree in his domain shivered with him. “The Primord… awakens. And he chooses a mortal body? No. No, this is wrong. This is… heretical.”
The spirits around him, ancient beings of weather and season, hid behind their own leaves. The goddess-bound High Priestess beside him nearly fainted.
The Elven King pressed a shaking hand against his temple.
“We must… not provoke him.”
His voice cracked slightly at the end.
No ruler likes being reminded that they are not at the top of the ladder.
…
Far beyond Anbord… on worlds that never knew Ethan’s name… portals cracked open like blinking stars.
Spectators from other realms, cosmic merchants, void wanderers, and immortal cultivators of distant heavens had been watching the battle like a theatre performance.
They had expected entertainment.
They had not expected this.
One by one, their faces drained of color.
A six-armed titan wearing robes woven from stardust froze mid-sip of celestial wine, cup trembling so badly that the liquid spilled and dissolved planets below.
An insectoid Empress, whose mandibles could slice meteorites, folded her wings tightly and hissed in the old, old dialect of warning.
A cloaked deity sighed through clenched teeth. “A Singularity Ascendant… in the lower realms? Impossible.”
Then Ethan punished Leon.
Not with death.
With something infinitely crueler.
The realms flinched.
Not a single spectator dared to breathe Ethan’s name aloud.
None wanted his attention.
None wanted to imagine what a man who could rewrite the soul might do if pushed.
And then there was Lilith.
Lilith did not recoil.
Lilith did not fear.
Lilith inhaled sharply, but not out of terror. It was the kind of breath someone takes when they see a lover step through a doorway after months apart.
Her pupils dilated.
Her heartbeat quickened.
Her lips curled slowly into a grin that was equal parts hungry and relieved.
“So,” she whispered, leaning back into her floating obsidian throne, crossing her legs with a languid grace, “you finally remember who you are.”
She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, eyes glowing with anticipation.
“My dear Ethan… we are finally getting closer.”
No fear.
Only excitement.
And something dangerously close to longing.
While every other being across the realms felt the cold breath of doom…
Lilith felt destiny drawing nearer like a hand brushing her cheek.
The worlds stirred with dread.
But somewhere beyond them, Lilith smiled.
Because she, unlike everyone else, knew the truth:
This was only the beginning.
“I’m sure you are happy to meet him too… Kraken?” Lilith said with a smile at a beautiful woman seated beside her on a grey throne made of skulls and bones of animals and humanoid beings alike.
Her hair was short and aqua blue, with red eyes and fair skin with a pinkish hue. Eight tentacles swayed behind her, where she sat with a dark scowl on her face.
“I want to meet him, but not with all those ants beside him!” Kraken spoke, her eyes glowing dangerously.
“Sigh! Kraken… to be honest with you, I was the same. Just like you, but those you refer to as ants aren’t ants. You cannot feel it, but all eleven of them are beings who could destroy empires on their own.
And I don’t know if you are clouded by love and obsession, or you are just plain stupid, because there is a goddess among them, two Saint Realm beings, with one at the First Epiphany and the other at the Fifth Epiphany.
There’s a gorgon queen, Kitsune’s descendant, Adam’s descendant… there’s even Fenrir, who has already met him. And not to speak of his brothers and children!
No! Did you even feel that presence?! That was an ARBITER! Are you an idiot?” Lilith spoke, her expression breaking into annoyance.
“I don’t care. They will have to prove their worth by fighting me!” Kraken stated like it was divine law.
“Really? It reached this? You really are stupid…”
“…”
“Sigh… what do I do with you…”
Lilith sighed for the umpteenth time, recalling what had transpired between Kraken and her.
It seems Lilith, the strongest Saint Realm being in the world, didn’t have it easy facing the octopus.
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