Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 852: Five Seconds Is an Eternity

Sure enough.

The instant Leo stumbled to a halt, a prickling sense of dread crawled up his spine. He felt it before he understood it, a predator’s pressure locking onto him from behind. Unfortunately, he was still reeling from the recoil of his failed skill, muscles refusing to respond, body frozen in that awful half-second where intention meant nothing. He could not turn. He could not raise his guard.

Even so, his reaction speed was still frighteningly fast. "Celestial Brew! Fortifying Brew...!" he barked, fingers flying. One glowing bottle tore free from his belt and spun through the air, light streaking behind it. The second name barely left his lips.

A crimson-clawed paw, shimmering with murderous intent, smashed into the small of his back.

Riiiiip!

Flesh split open in a savage line along Leo’s spine. Blood sprayed outward as the force of the blow drove the air from his lungs. Pain flared, then vanished as the trauma overwhelmed him, his consciousness snuffed out before he even hit the ground.

It was Ethan’s Rake.

Under normal circumstances, the skill merely applied a bleeding effect, a steady drain meant to pressure rather than finish. From stealth, however, Rake became something else entirely. It carried a brutal stun, a feral opener that functioned much like a Rogue’s Ambush, though without sacrificing the bleed. Rogues had to choose: Ambush for control, Garrote for damage over time. In the wild, most chose control.

A Feral Druid did not have to compromise. A stealth Rake delivered solid upfront damage, applied a bleed, and stunned the target all at once. The stun was shorter than a Rogue’s, five seconds instead of six, but for someone like Ethan, who had dumped every last attribute point into Agility, five seconds might as well have been an afternoon nap.

More than enough.

If he could not end someone inside five seconds, he might as well uninstall. Decades of virtual life as a Rogue in another world had honed his burst windows into muscle memory, each sequence sharpened until there was no wasted motion left.

Yet as his claws tore in, something immediately felt wrong.

The damage numbers were... bad.

Against the Brewmaster earlier, a single Shred had crit for over three thousand. Against Leo, the numbers barely crept past one thousand.

Damage absorption. Fifty percent.

Even so, three separate numbers popped above Leo’s body. One belonged to the Rake bleed ticking away. Another marked the raw damage from Shred itself. The third, glowing yellow, bounced oddly from a small icon beside Leo’s health bar, a frothing mug that sloshed as if half-full.

His Stagger pool.

All three numbers were underwhelming, but at least they were numbers. A thousand damage, though, against a tank with forty thousand health was a mosquito bite at best.

Ethan clicked his tongue, irritation flashing through him. So you shove damage into a booze meter. Fine. Let’s see how much your liver can take.

The panther reared up onto its hind legs, mirroring the posture Ethan had used against the Brewmaster earlier. Its rear paws braced against Leo’s kidneys for leverage, claws digging in, while the front limbs became a blur of motion.

Shred! Shred!

Two more savage swipes ripped forward, angling for the throat. Plate-armored warriors wore reinforced gorgets and layered steel around the neck. A leather-clad Monk did not enjoy that luxury. The claws found purchase, opening twin arterial lines as blood sprayed across the ground.

Ethan’s eyes flicked to the numbers as they appeared, only to be greeted by a line of text he had already come to despise: (Celestial Brew Shield Absorbed!) 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

’He’s not even losing health yet.’

Every ounce of damage was being siphoned into the Stagger pool, but the yellow number bouncing from the mug icon was climbing rapidly now, swelling with every strike. Leo’s defenses were not negating the damage so much as delaying the bill.

A Rake, three Shreds, then a five-point Savage Bite to cap it off.

At last, the Stagger ticks broke into four digits, cracking past a thousand per tick.

Three seconds had already passed.

Inside the stun, Leo was fully aware. He watched his Stagger pool balloon out of control, cold sweat forming as calculations raced through his mind. Right then, his Celestial Brew shield shattered with an audible pop, the protective sheen vanishing as his health bar finally began to slide downward.

Two seconds left.

He had a plan. Purifying Brew the instant the stun ended, cleansing fifty percent of the stored Stagger damage. He could hold two charges. Two fast gulps would wipe out seventy-five percent of it. He could survive the burst if he executed cleanly.

Ethan had no intention of letting him execute anything.

With two seconds of stun remaining, Ethan triggered Enrage, a skill unavailable on the live servers. Energy surged back into his body, instantly restoring eighty percent of his reserves while supercharging regeneration. His attack speed and damage both spiked by twenty percent.

At the same time, another icon flared to life: Tiger’s Fury.

A short-duration burst cooldown, eight seconds long with a twenty-second recovery, Tiger’s Fury was usually woven casually into rotations. Ethan had deliberately held it. When activated, it restored twenty percent Energy and increased the potency of his abilities by another twenty percent.

The effect was immediate and violent. Combined with Enrage, Ethan’s nearly empty Energy bar snapped to full in a heartbeat.

The real burst began.

His claws became a storm of Shreds, each one slamming home faster and harder than the last. Under the dual buffs, damage numbers leapt upward, scratches becoming tearing gashes that ripped for over fifteen hundred apiece.

Leo’s panic deepened into something close to terror. Every point of direct damage Ethan inflicted was mirrored into his Stagger pool. He had assumed his absorption was seventy percent, only to realize far too late that PvP rules cut it down to fifty. He had meant to chain Celestial Brew into Fortifying Brew to push that number higher, but Ethan had never given him the breathing room.

In the final sliver of the stun, Ethan’s combo points capped out at five once more.

Leo’s body finally unlocked. "Purifying Br—"

"Purify this," Ethan growled.

Leo’s hand was halfway to his mouth, fingers tight around the purifying brew, when a system prompt exploded across his vision.

Ding! You have been affected by Maim. Duration: 6 seconds.

You have got to be kidding me, Leo screamed internally as his body locked up again.

Ethan caught the duration and smiled. So Tiger’s Fury boosts crowd control too. Normally, Maim stunned for five seconds at maximum combo points. Six seconds was a gift.

Six seconds was an eternity.

Enrage still had time left. Leo had become a practice dummy.

When the six seconds finally burned away, Leo forced his arm to move again, desperation overriding everything else. He had to drink. The Stagger ticks were now slamming for over twenty-five hundred each, and his health had already dropped to half.

Another Maim slammed into him.

Because the skills were chained so closely, this one lasted only two and a half seconds. It hardly mattered.

Leo knew, with absolute clarity, that it was over.

As the short stun ended, Ethan suddenly shifted forms. Bone and muscle warped as he became a Bear, the transformation generating just enough Rage to fuel a single, devastating attack. A massive, open-pawed Swipe crashed into Leo’s temple.

CRUNCH.

Bash effect applied: Stunned for 3 seconds.

’I’m done’, Leo thought, watching his health bar tremble at the fifty percent mark.

Three seconds was all it took. Even if Ethan stopped attacking entirely, the Stagger damage alone, now ticking for over three thousand every half-second, would finish the job.

There was one cruel quirk to the Stagger mechanic. When his health reached one, it would stop falling. Without fresh direct damage, he technically would not die.

Ethan took a single, deliberate step back.

He stopped attacking.

Leo’s health plummeted as the delayed damage paid its due. Ten percent. Five. One.

And then it held.

Ethan blinked. He’s still standing?

The stun wore off. Leo swayed on his feet, alive by a single point of health. Relief flooded him as he looked up. "Thanks, boss, for spar—"

He never finished the sentence.

Ethan had not spared him out of mercy. He had simply misjudged the mechanic.

The moment Leo spoke, Ethan shifted again, feathers puffing out as he took on Owl Form. The round, pudgy creature lifted two absurdly short wings and pointed them straight at Leo.

"Typhoon."

A violent gust of wind exploded outward. The damage was negligible, normally harmless.

Against a target with exactly one Health, it was lethal.

Leo’s body was hurled backward, limbs going slack as his character died mid-air, a lifeless ragdoll tumbling before it even hit the ground.

A true flying corpse.