Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat - Chapter 623

Chapter 623: The Pilgrimage’s Hidden Depths

The white-robed figures who had appeared so suddenly ascended the altar and sat cross-legged in silence.

“Look! The Pilgrimage is about to begin!” someone in the crowd shouted, voice brimming with excitement.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the roar came again. A surge of draconic energy rippled through the air, rolling off the altar like a living tide. Ethan felt it wash over him—dense, ancient, and overwhelming—as it poured into the bodies of the people gathered below.

“Hmm?” The sudden intensity of the energy made him stiffen. Something inside him stirred in response, something he hadn’t felt for a long time. The change came from the Ancestral Dragon’s Imperial Aura he had inherited from Aldric the First. That power had been dormant for so long, suppressed and nearly devoured by the Quintessence Bone and the Tree of Life that coexisted within him. Ethan had almost forgotten it existed at all.

Now it had awakened. Coiled deep within his Core, it pulsed with renewed strength, far larger and more vivid than before. Ethan frowned, uncertain how it could have grown without him noticing. The aura trembled, and suddenly it began to thrash like a furious dragon trapped in a cage, its presence radiating rage and hostility.

“What’s going on?” Ethan muttered under his breath. It had never reacted like this before. The only thing that had changed was the draconic energy from the altar—its surge must have triggered the outburst.

He tried to communicate with the aura, but it ignored him entirely. It felt ancient, primal, and devoid of thought—pure instinct and power, like a beast that refused to be tamed.

“Wow… do you guys feel that?” someone exclaimed nearby. “I’m full of energy all of a sudden!”

Ethan glanced around. The frail man he had noticed earlier now looked completely transformed—his sickly complexion gone, his spine no longer hunched.

“Yeah, I feel it too!” another person shouted.

“Haha! Maybe I don’t even need the Sacred Blood Ritual anymore. My illness feels cured—and more than that…”

A middle-aged woman gazed down at the vial in her hand, eyes gleaming with desperation and hope. Without hesitation, she tilted her head back and drank the Sacred Blood she had collected earlier.

“Ugh…” Fatso, standing nearby, grimaced and dry-heaved at the sight.

Ethan barely noticed. His eyes remained locked on the altar, mind racing. The draconic energy flowing through the air was extraordinarily pure—so pure it made even the energy radiating from Dragon Child seem pale in comparison. This level of power could invigorate ordinary people with nothing more than its overflow.

Could there truly be a powerful dragon sealed somewhere on this island? The thought unsettled him.

He lifted his gaze to the altar, studying the faint shimmer of a barrier surrounding it. It was clearly some kind of Magic Array, designed to gather and contain the draconic energy—like a massive Spirit Gathering Formation. But where was the energy actually coming from?

Ethan’s instincts told him it wasn’t from the figures on the altar. No, it was deeper—beneath the platform, or perhaps at the heart of the island itself. The Wyrms scattered around the place seemed to have grown by absorbing this energy, which explained the faint draconic aura that clung to their bodies.

He didn’t dare use his Soul Sense to confirm it; that would immediately draw attention. These Wyrms were far from weak—the lowest among them were Nether-rank experts. On Earth, that made them formidable. Even among the people Ethan had brought back from the Sea of Death, only a handful could stand against such power. Their strength had been suppressed by Earth’s laws, but even so, they were dangerous.

After watching quietly for a while, Ethan grew more certain of his conclusion. The energy’s true source had to lie beneath the altar—or deep underground, somewhere within the island’s sealed heart.

His gaze drifted toward the towering waterspout encircling the island. It rose endlessly into the clouds, a barrier of water and wind that trapped everything inside. Their teleportation point was right at the edge of the island, cut off from any escape.

Realizing this, Ethan quietly retreated toward the back of the crowd.

“Shatterstar,” he whispered.

The air rippled faintly as a humanoid combat mech materialized beside him, cloaked in invisibility. Seizing the moment while no one was looking, Ethan took a step back. A soft hum of machinery filled his ears as the mech’s energy field wrapped around him, and he vanished from sight.

The crowd’s eyes remained fixed on the altar, completely absorbed by the unfolding ceremony. No one noticed that Ethan had vanished.

Inside the mech, safely concealed, Ethan no longer worried about being spotted. He guided Shatterstar backward, landing near the island’s edge. From there, he could see that the enormous waterspout encircling the island didn’t form a perfect seal, though the surging waves beyond it were fierce and unpredictable.

Ethan didn’t hesitate. Controlling the mech with steady precision, he plunged into the sea, diving deep beneath the surface. The world above faded into silence as he descended into the cold, dark water.

But just moments after Ethan disappeared below, another white-robed figure appeared on the altar. He carried something small in his hand—too distant for the onlookers to see clearly. Without a word, he approached the leader seated at the forefront and presented the object to him.

If Ethan had been there, he would have recognized it instantly—a tiny snake, no more than three inches long.

The creature lifted its head as it rested in the leader’s palm, its tongue flicking rapidly.

“Hiss… hiss…”

The leader’s eyes narrowed. “Hmph. Find the missing one for me,” he said coldly.

He flicked his hand, and the other white-robed figures—who had been sitting cross-legged in the midst of the draconic baptism—rose at once. Without hesitation, they leapt down from the altar and began sweeping toward the gathered tourists.

As they left, all the draconic energy that had been diffused across the altar abruptly converged on the lone remaining figure—the leader himself. The air around him shimmered, thick with power. It was as though the Pilgrimage, once begun, could not be interrupted, and he refused to let even a trace of that sacred energy go to waste.

The crowd exchanged confused glances. Their excitement turned to unease.

“What’s happening? Why did they leave the altar?” someone whispered.

Fatso’s brow furrowed as a grim realization struck him. If anyone could have caused this sudden shift, it would be Ethan. But when he turned to look for him, Ethan was gone.

A cold knot formed in Fatso’s chest.

…

Far away, on Sacred Sea Island, the Dissenters were deep in their drunken revelry. The air stank of liquor and arrogance. Emery Shaw, seated among them, had already extracted more information than he expected.

At first, he learned something that nearly made his heart stop—he had narrowly escaped death himself. The news sobered him instantly, but he kept his composure, pretending to share in their careless laughter as he pressed for more details.

Piece by piece, the truth emerged. The Renegade Alliance members captured by the Dissenters during this recent campaign weren’t being held here at all. They had been sent elsewhere—to the same mysterious place where Ethan had gone.

Emery froze when he heard that. According to rumor, no one who entered that place ever came back alive. The only exceptions were those chosen to take part in the Pilgrimage Assembly, and even they rarely returned the same. Everyone else became sacrifices—fodder for the monsters that inhabited that forbidden site.

Which meant the Dissenters never intended to release their captives once their so-called deadline passed. They planned to wipe them all out.

Emery’s stomach tightened as he did the math. The number of captured Renegade Alliance members this time was staggering—over three thousand. This one operation had all but obliterated the Alliance’s core strength in the Northern Frontier Region.

Worse still, even innocent bystanders—people who had merely bragged about being part of the Alliance—had been caught up and taken.

The sudden disappearance of so many people couldn’t go unnoticed. The authorities had mobilized across the entire Great Northeast, scouring every lead, yet no trace of the missing could be found. Days had passed, and still there was nothing.

Finally, someone had sent an urgent report to the Ninth Division, warning that the disappearances were not isolated—they had all happened almost simultaneously. Whatever was behind it was beyond anything ordinary.

But the Ninth Division could do little. It was a hollow shell now. Director Vaughn himself had vanished without a trace.

And the last order he had given before disappearing… had been the command to carry out those arrests.