Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat - Chapter 696

Chapter 696: Trap of Overconfidence

“By paper, man is barred; by mountains, spirits are marred; a thousand evils cannot pass, ten thousand fiends break not the glass… Seal!”

A figure materialized directly in the path of the fleeing Divine Sea Temple Steward. It was Ryan, encased in his combat mech. As he appeared, the mech’s fingers moved with surprising dexterity, weaving a complex series of hand signs in front of its chest.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A volley of yellow paper talismans, accompanied by several wooden slabs, shot forth from a launcher on the mech’s arm. In the blink of an eye, they formed a shimmering, golden, bowl-shaped array in the sky.

“A mere mystic?” the Steward’s Spirit Phantom sneered, though a flicker of surprise crossed its ethereal features. It quickly recovered its arrogance. “Though I’ve lost my physical form, my Spirit Phantom is far beyond any common wraith. You think this trash and paper can hold me?”

Even now, his confidence was unshakable.

“Is that so?” Ryan’s hands finished their sequence, and the array solidified with a final hum.

“Heh…” The Steward didn’t bother with a real reply. Instead, he unleashed a surge of pure soul power, intending to smash directly through Ryan’s barrier.

“Heh?” Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Go!” Suddenly, a blood-red runestone appeared in his mech’s hand. He flicked it forward, and it shot unerringly into the very center of the array—a spot that had been conspicuously empty.

Click.

The crimson runestone slotted into place.

HUM!

Space itself seemed to vibrate as a wave of spectral, chilling wind erupted from the array.

“What?!” The Steward’s look of utter contempt transformed into one of sheer panic as he realized his error at the last possible second. “You… you tricked me…!”

“Harvest!” Ryan’s response was a single, sharp command, his mech’s hand making a grasping motion. The kilometer-wide array of talismans trembled violently, then folded in on itself, wrapping the Spirit Phantom and shrinking down in an instant to the size of a pill. Ryan plucked the tiny, glowing sphere from the air, holding it between his mech’s metal fingertips.

“Of course I tricked you,” Ryan said flatly. “If you’d just changed direction, where would I have chased you?”

His initial display of yellow talismans had been a deliberate act of underestimation. While the wooden slabs added some strength, they were still insufficient to truly threaten a Spirit Phantom of the Steward’s caliber. The man’s overconfidence, combined with his desire to avoid any delay with Ethan in pursuit, led him to choose the most direct path: straight through. He never anticipated that Ryan had an ace up his sleeve—a single, powerful blood rune, crafted for him just yesterday by Micah, which instantly elevated the entire array’s power by an order of magnitude. Ryan had perfectly played the part of the weakling to ensnare the proud predator.

“Did you get him?” Ethan asked, arriving at Ryan’s side.

“Mission accomplished,” Ryan replied, the mechanized voice sounding satisfied. “Good thing Micah gave me that blood rune yesterday. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to pin this guy down.” He handed the crystalline sphere containing the trapped Steward Seventy-Nine to Ethan.

“Heh… perfect. You and Micah, a Rune Weaver and a mystic… you complement each other. A match made in heaven.” Ethan took the glass ball and held it up to the light. Inside, a minuscule figure could be seen raging, throwing itself against the confines of its prison in a futile attempt to break free.

“Alright, let’s head back. When we have time, we’ll perform a Soul Reading on this guy. We can learn a lot more about this Divine Sea Temple.” The thought of the Temple stirred a deep-seated hatred in Ethan, remembering the artifact from them that had wounded his father. The Merfolk King had called the Divine Sea Temple a “cancer” on Earth, though he couldn’t elaborate, only repeating the words passed down from his own predecessor, a king who had died millennia ago. Still, Ethan’s gut told him the Temple was bad news, and he had a growing suspicion their influence might be tangled with the larger enemies he was destined to face.

Ethan and Ryan descended to rejoin the group. Uncle Jed watched Ethan’s approach, giving a slow, thoughtful nod. He had practically watched the boy grow up, step by arduous step, since the Sea of Death. While Ethan’s fighting style in the recent skirmish seemed chaotic and utterly divergent from the disciplined combat he himself had taught—devoid of clear killing intent, almost playful—he couldn’t deny its effectiveness. More than that, he sensed that Ethan’s every movement, no matter how irreverent, seemed to resonate with a deeper, natural order, as if the very laws of the universe smiled upon his actions.

A treacherous doubt wormed its way into Jed’s mind. ‘Have I… been walking the wrong path all along?’

“Uncle Jed,” the voice of the Third Princess, Star, floated gently beside him, interrupting his spiraling thoughts. “Every person’s path is different. The path of Energy mastery… is one you walk yourself. It cannot be copied, and it should not be second-guessed.”

Jed shuddered as if struck. “Ennnn…” The sound was a low groan of profound realization.

Nearby, Regis also stiffened, his eyes widening before a cold sweat broke out on his brow.

“Commander Regis… you too,” Star said, turning her empathetic gaze upon him.

The two most powerful men in Ethan’s faction had, in the space of watching a single fight, nearly fallen into a devastating state of self-doubt, questioning the very foundations of their lifelong mastery and mentality. In that critical moment, Star’s innate mind-reading ability had been decisive. Her simple, wise words were a lifeline, pulling them both back from the brink of a crippling internal abyss.

What they didn’t realize was that this vulnerability was a side effect of their recent breakthroughs. They now stood at the threshold of unfamiliar new realms of power, where the greatest challenges were not physical, but tests of the heart and spirit. Their conviction was everything. To waver now was to risk having a lifetime of unraveling and dissipating into nothingness. This time, Star had been there to guide them. They might not be so lucky next time.

“What’s going on?” Ethan asked, immediately sensing the strange tension. He saw Regis drenched in sweat and Uncle Jed’s body trembling slightly. A jolt of alarm went through him. For Energy users of their level to show such physical distress was impossible. His eyes scanned the surroundings warily.

‘Is there another powerful enemy here?’