Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat - Chapter 683

Chapter 683: Angering the Heavens

Regis stared at the swirling black clouds gathering above. “We need to go! Now! Ethan is fine! If we stay, we won’t be!”

Directly over their heads, a vortex had formed, churning with nascent lightning.

“But—” Lyla began, her voice tight with panic.

“The tribulation clouds haven’t dispersed,” the Dragon Child interjected, pulling Lyla firmly along as she flew toward the distant Shatterstar mech. “That means Ethan is still alive. If he had died, the clouds would have vanished instantly.”

Her words landed with clarifying force. Seeing the Shatterstar mech suddenly power up and fly off on its own moments earlier had been a sign. It had to be under Ethan’s remote control.

The sky around them had turned the deep black of an artificial midnight, a localized apocalypse. The central vortex hung like the maw of some cosmic leviathan, gathering its dreadful strength.

…

In the chaotic void between worlds, the two figures—one tall and aged, one short and youthful—stood frozen, their expressions blank with shock.

“What in the blazes is happening? We just opened it, and the kid triggers a tribulation?!” Morzan’s voice was stripped of its usual lazy humor.

“I… I don’t know!” the shorter youth—the Order Keeper of the Desolate Domain—stammered, his eyes flickering with unreadable emotions.

“You don’t know? You don’t know?” Morzan repeated the question with rising intensity, jabbing a finger toward a specific point in the fabric of reality. “The Annihilation Tribulation… that’s the Annihilation Tribulation! And you stand there telling me you don’t know?!”

Morzan’s face was ashen. The direction he pointed was precisely where Ethan was.

Under Morzan’s furious gaze, the youthful Order Keeper glanced guiltily over his shoulder toward a particular location. There lay a vast, sealed pool of crackling lightning—a fundamental component of the path of Ethereal’s operation, a force only meant to be unleashed during a Mythic Age.

It was a power brimming with destruction, yet also cradling the seed of life. In the Mythic Age, it was both the most feared and most coveted trial for all energy users. Surviving its baptism was the only way to gain the path of Ethereal recognition for that stage of power, allowing one to advance further. The rewards for success were unimaginable. The price of failure, however, was dire: at best, a complete loss of power and the physical body; at worst, utter annihilation of soul and spirit, with no chance of reincarnation.

And the Annihilation Tribulation that Morzan had named—the one Ethan now faced—was a freakish aberration among tribulations. It was the “ten-thousand-deaths-with-no-life” heavenly punishment. A normal tribulation was like a slap in the face followed by a sweet date. The Annihilation Tribulation was a stab wound, and if you didn’t die from that, it fired two more shots into you for good measure. Its sole purpose was the utter eradication of its target, refusing to cease until its target was reduced to dust. Ethan’s earlier paralysis was a classic symptom of its terrible lock-on.

Morzan watched the scene unfold, a storm of regret and fury warring within him. Why had he listened to this idiot Order Keeper? They had used an item previously touched by Ethan as a conduit to open the lightning pool. Was the pool so enraged by the “impurity” of the object that it had unleashed this?

After the Mythic Age, the lightning pools were sealed precisely to protect ordinary humanity. Because these tribulations didn’t just target energy users. They also targeted those who showed profound disrespect to the path of Ethereal itself. And the Annihilation Tribulation Ethan had triggered was exactly that kind—the Annihilating Lightning meant not for ordinary people, but for the foul-mouthed, the irreverent, the slanderers.

In modern terms: the ignorant, vile keyboard warriors. The people who cursed heaven, earth, and everything in between, thinking themselves gods. In today’s society, such people were a plague. If not for the sealing of the lightning pools after the Mythic Age, clear skies would constantly be split by thunderbolts, striking down evildoers and online trolls alike, reducing them to ash, forever denied an afterlife.

…

Inside the sealed Sumeru Array, Ethan remained paralyzed. With the barrier closed, the sky and surroundings were enveloped in a dense mist. The light had taken on a dim, twilight hue, as if sunset had arrived hours early.

Ethan knew it was no sunset. It was high noon. He squinted, watching two figures frantically fleeing in the distance. All across Ascension Isle, birds and beasts roared and screeched in terror. The once-serene sanctuary now resembled a corner of hell.

Just moments ago, when the Annihilation Tribulation locked onto him, and Regis’s group escaped the array, the stone-faced avatar had clearly sensed the change in Ethan. It had lunged for the kill, hoping to stop the tribulation by eliminating its trigger.

Ethan’s heart had sunk. Even if he could move, he doubted he could withstand that strike.

At the critical moment, his body was violently yanked several meters sideways, narrowly avoiding the blow. It was then Ethan remembered—Ormund hadn’t left. The armor, with a burst of effort from its manifested wings, had saved him.

BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…

The stone-faced avatar paused, startled. Then, even through the isolation of the Sumeru Array, the rolling thunder from the clouds above became deafeningly clear. As the thunderheads condensed, the world plunged into darkness. Endless lightning churned within impossibly thick clouds, the terrifying pressure threatening to shatter space itself.

The profound, triggering aura around Ethan now burned like a visible flame, rising from him in waves. Despite the insulating Sumeru Array, it passed through unimpeded, drifting upward to be sucked into the heart of the thunderous vortex.

The avatar’s form flickered, a second killing intent gathering. But seeing the aura, its face contorted in horror. They were only meters apart, and Ethan’s tribulation-essence was close enough to almost brush against it. The energy seemed alive, actively reaching out, trying to ensnare both it and its original master.

Terrified, the avatar flashed backward, putting distance between them. That mystical aura was the tribulation’s bait. To be touched by it was to be instantly marked by the heavenly punishment. As an avatar without a true corporeal body, a tribulation was its ultimate nemesis. The slightest contact meant certain doom.

After a moment’s hesitation, it grabbed its stunned original, Alaric, and fled. After a few more spatial flickers, the two figures vanished into the mist. Clearly, it had chosen to take its creator and flee the island altogether. Their only option now was to get beyond the coverage of the tribulation clouds.

Out over the open ocean, far beyond the reach of the storm, Regis and the others hovered, staring back in stunned silence.