Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat - Chapter 680

Chapter 680: Last Avatar

Ethan glanced back. Uncle Jed was holding a figure charred black beyond recognition. It was that same Alaric Avatar he and Blackie had fought earlier, the one that had later merged with another double and become terrifyingly strong—strong enough that Ethan had wisely disengaged to rescue Amber instead.

Now, the thing was half-dead, thoroughly captured and bound by what looked like countless layers of energy seals, undoubtedly Regis’s handiwork.

“You…” The Alaric who had just leaped from the high platform froze at the sight of Regis and the others. His eyes widened further as all eight of the combat mechs closed in. He flinched, taking two hurried steps back, panic washing over his features.

“The true body?” Ethan blinked.

“The true body is this weak?” he continued, his voice laced with disbelief as he scrutinized the man before him. He’d already sensed this one’s power level, and it was pathetically low compared to the empowered Avatar they’d faced before.

Regis looked equally puzzled, shaking his head. It made no sense for the Avatar to be so powerful and the original to be so feeble.

“Ah, screw it! Who cares if he’s the original or a copy? Let’s just take him down!” Markham’s voice boomed from within his mech. Brandishing twin energy blades, he surged forward.

“Right! Let’s do this!”

Before Ethan could stop Markham, deciding he’d rather handle this himself, Leo’s voice chimed in. In the next moment, all nine mechs shot forward in a chaotic, metallic rush.

“Rapidfire Barrage!”

Fwip-fwip-fwip!

Before the mechs even reached Alaric, Lyla acted first. Her bowstring thrummed repeatedly, and nine arrows of pure energy streaked ahead, faster than the eye could follow.

Ch-chk!

The distinct sound of a sniper rifle’s bolt being worked echoed right after Lyla called her shot.

BOOM! BOOM!

Victor opened up with his massive, cannon-like Barrett M82A1, firing round after round.

Ethan watched the onslaught and simply facepalmed. These guys were a little too trigger-happy.

“You… you bullies! This is too much!” Alaric shrieked, his face pale. However, a sliver of relief showed when he saw the few figures behind Ethan, whose power levels he couldn’t discern, remained motionless.

“You think these scrap heaps from the Divine Sea Temple can challenge me?” he spat, his voice a mix of panic and bravado. Despite his fear, his movements were precise. His feet shifted in a bizarre, gliding pattern, allowing him to miraculously dodge both Lyla’s energy arrows and Victor’s high-caliber rounds.

“Huh?” Ethan’s brow furrowed. He focused intently on the other man’s footwork.

“What’s up, boss?” Micah asked, having sat out this initial skirmish. He landed beside Ethan with a cheerful grin. Blackie, now in human form, also wandered over to see.

“Nothing…” Ethan replied absently, but his frown deepened, his gaze locked on Alaric’s movements.

The footwork was profoundly unnatural. Leo, Markham, and the other close-combat specialists harried him from all sides, yet he managed to slip through their attacks by a hair’s breadth each time, even finding moments to nock and loose arrows in retaliation.

But Alaric had severely underestimated the “scrap heaps.” An arrow he fired with all his might, striking Markham square in the forehead, only managed to make the mech’s head snap back slightly.

POW!

The arrow itself shattered into splinters. On the mech’s forehead, not even a pinprick of a mark was left.

“What…?!” Alaric’s pupils contracted in shock. His rhythm broken for a split second, Leo capitalized, slamming his shield into the man and sending him flying.

“Dammit, Leo! You idiot! We finally had him cornered, and you knock him away!” Williams snarled, his massive sword cleaving through empty air. He’d been poised to execute his signature move from Ethereal, the “Executioner’s Cleave.” Leo had robbed him of the chance.

“Erm…” Leo’s embarrassed grunt came through the comms. He didn’t offer an excuse, simply engaging his mech’s thrusters to pursue the tumbling form.

Alaric scrambled to his feet, his expression one of utter humiliation. Seeing Leo’s shield-bearing mech closing in again, he abruptly changed direction, fleeing toward a different part of the island.

“Damn you! If you don’t show yourself now, I’m a dead man! If I die, you die too!” he screamed into the air as he fled.

The group tensed. Was there another person here?

“Got you.”

Ethan’s Soul Sense flared, scanning the area. It locked onto a small wooden hut nestled in a distant grove. The hut appeared empty, but at that moment, he saw a section of the floorboard flip upward, pushed from below.

Ethan’s heart skipped a beat. This person…

The figure that emerged was covered head to toe in a thick layer of dust. Probing through the open hatch with his senses, Ethan found a stone chamber below. It was small, featuring only a single mat. Every surface except that mat was buried under what looked like three or four centimeters of dust. Clearly, no one had been down there, or this person hadn’t emerged, in a very, very long time.

When Ethan’s senses finally made out the man’s face, his shock was palpable.

It was another Alaric.

Ethan looked at the figure being chased by Victor and the others. If that was the true body… then the one just emerging from the hut… was another Avatar?

The dust-caked figure stepped out of the hut. He took a single step and was suddenly there, standing before Ethan and his group.

“Ethan… this Avatar…” Regis’s voice was tight, his usual calm completely gone, replaced by a stark grimness. “I cannot match it. This is… problematic.” He moved instantly, placing himself squarely between Ethan and the new threat.

“Tch.” The dust-covered Alaric let out a sigh of disgust. He brushed indifferently at his hair and shook the grime from his robes. “What disgrace. To think I share a form with such a worthless original. Wallowing in decadence, lately obsessed with that virtual reality nonsense. Two hundred years, and not only has your strength not advanced, it has regressed so far…”

His face was like a slab of stone, his facial muscles utterly immobile as he spoke.

The fleeing Alaric—the original—now reappeared, bow in hand, and took up a position behind his dust-covered double. All trace of his earlier panic was gone.

“Enough talk! Kill them all! But that one…” he pointed at Ethan, “I want him alive!”

He was the picture of a coward hiding behind his muscle.

The stone-faced Avatar slowly turned its head to look at its original. “If your death didn’t mean my own dissolution, I would crush your skull myself.”

The scene left Ethan’s group exchanging stunned looks. This Avatar had its own independent consciousness, and it had just openly threatened its own creator. The audacity was staggering.

While everyone else was reeling, only Ethan kept his cool, his eyes narrowed as he stared intently at the original Alaric. No one knew what he was thinking, but seeing the grave expressions on Regis and the Dragon Child’s faces, they all knew this new opponent was serious business. They waited for Ethan’s decision: fight or retreat?

“You…” Ethan’s voice cut through the tension, his words deliberate and sharp. “Are you… the ‘God of Arrows’… Feather… from the Southeastern Theater?”