Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 858: The Coffin Beneath the Crystal Dome

Following Leo down the chosen tunnel, Ethan felt a deep, lingering sense of absurdity settle over him. He was putting his faith in a superstitious trinket inside a video game, and not even a particularly reputable one at that. Still, they had no better leads. At worst, it would turn out to be a dead end and they would retrace their steps, bruised pride included.

This passage was immediately different from the others. It was brighter, almost painfully so, yet the oppressive force that had followed them through the tomb did not lessen. Instead, it grew heavier. Ethan’s perception, the in-game reflection of his real-world Soul Sense, shrank violently, compressed into a suffocating bubble barely a meter around his body. This place did not merely suppress perception. It throttled it, as if intent on crushing any awareness that dared intrude.

The increased visibility only made things worse. The walls, floor, and ceiling were formed from a chaotic mosaic of diamond-like crystals, every surface fractured into countless sharp facets. Light bounced wildly in all directions, turning the passage into a shattered, endless mirror. With each step, dozens of distorted reflections of Ethan and Leo slid and warped along the crystal surfaces, multiplying their movements and bending them at impossible angles. The effect was nauseating, a visual assault that gnawed at the mind as much as the senses.

After what felt like several kilometers of walking through that disorienting hell, Leo suddenly broke the silence. "We’re on the right path!"

"Huh?"

"The pressure," Leo said, pointing straight ahead. "It’s focused. No deviation at all."

Ethan nodded slowly. Now that Leo had said it, he could feel it too. A faint but unmistakable aura seeped through the crystal-lined passage ahead of them, ancient and desolate, like something that had been sealed away for far too long.

They pressed on, the aura growing heavier with every step, until they crossed an invisible threshold.

No traps detonated. No mechanisms roared to life. As their eyes adjusted, the space before them opened into a vast circular dome, its scale dwarfing anything they had seen so far.

"It’s the tomb chamber!" Leo exclaimed, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"How do you know?" Ethan asked quietly, already scanning the area.

"Circular dome above, square chamber below," Leo said, wiping sweat from his brow but grinning proudly. "’Heaven is round, Earth is square.’ Classic funerary symbolism. And look at the coffin in the center. This is definitely the main tomb."

"Let me guess," Ethan said flatly. "You read that in some pulp novel."

Leo froze for half a second. "Hey. How did you know?"

Ethan rubbed his face with one hand. Of course. In their previous life, Leo had been hopelessly obsessed with tomb-raiding adventure stories.

Ignoring Ethan’s reaction, Leo swept his gaze across the chamber. Directly ahead, more than two hundred players stood in a dense formation, clearly organized and on alert, all eyes fixed on the two of them. Around the outer perimeter, another hundred or so players were scattered in loose groups, overturning decorative fixtures and prying apart anything that looked remotely valuable. Broken ornamental artifacts littered the floor, stripped of whatever minor worth they once held.

"Ethan," Leo whispered urgently, "are these people idiots? The real treasure has to be in the coffin. They’re wasting time on trash."

Ethan did not answer. His attention had locked onto the main group, not the mass of elites as a whole, but one familiar face standing among them.

The man noticed Ethan at the same time and recognized him instantly. His expression did not change, but his eyes flicked in a subtle, deliberate pattern. A clear warning. ’Not here. Do not acknowledge me.’

"LongerThanLuffy," a woman’s voice cut in sharply. "You know him?" She had caught the silent exchange.

"Don’t know him," the man replied without hesitation. LongerThanLuffy, better known outside the game as Emery Shaw, kept his tone perfectly flat.

The woman frowned and shifted her sharp gaze to Ethan and Leo. "You’re the Druid God," she said. "How did you make it into Carnage territory?"

Ethan ignored the question. "I assume you pulled the rest of your ambush team back from the tunnel," he replied instead.

Her frown deepened. "I have no interest in making an enemy of you."

Ethan smiled, though there was nothing friendly about it. "Then you must be looking to cooperate. Which means you’re stuck."

A flicker of irritation flashed through her eyes. Ethan was deliberately steering the conversation, denying her any sense of control.

Across from her, Emery Shaw almost smiled, barely restraining it before smoothing his expression back into neutrality. He knew their Guild Leader well and her iron-handed leadership style. Watching her struggle like this was new, and quietly satisfying.

Several other players nearby also seemed entertained, though none of them spoke.

Ethan swept his gaze over the group. Strangely, there was no overt hostility in the air. Then Emery muttered something under his breath.

A tall man with a sharp, hawk-like nose suddenly stepped forward from the ranks. "The so-called Druid God?" he scoffed. "How rude, speaking to a lady in such a tone. I challenge you to a duel!"

Shhh-ting! His rapier flashed free of its sheath.

"Fine by me," Ethan said.

The word had barely left his lips before his body vanished.

He reappeared at the exact moment the man was struck. The man had been in the middle of an exaggerated flourish, blade twirling as if on a stage, his challenge still echoing in the air. He caught sight of Ethan’s form materializing and panicked, triggering his own Stealth a fraction of a second too late.

That fraction was enough.

Before the man could fully fade from view, Ethan’s claws were already tearing into him. A Rake from stealth slammed him into a stun. Five seconds were granted by the system. Ethan needed one.

A single Shred finished it.

The man collapsed, his body dissolving into light.

Clang.

The rapier hit the stone floor with a clean, ringing sound.

"Ooh, it dropped," Ethan said as he shifted back into Human Form and picked up the gleaming weapon. "This would be wasted on you. I’ll hang onto it and find it a proper owner." He slipped it into his bag without ceremony, doing so right in front of the stunned crowd.

"Haha! Savage as ever, Ethan!" Emery Shaw finally broke formation, laughing as he strode over and clapped Ethan on the shoulder.

"Thought you didn’t know me," Ethan said, returning the punch lightly.

"Had to keep up appearances," Emery replied, lowering his voice. "But seriously, how did you know we were staging that?"

"I didn’t at first," Ethan said. "But after my first comment, that guy got real heated. Nobody else reacted at all. Made it obvious he was acting on his own." His eyes flicked briefly toward the woman. "Probably trying to impress the boss."

Ethan turned his attention back to her.

She stepped forward, her expression composed, a cool smile settling into place. "Harbor City. Q-Squad liaison. Lily Silverwood."

The name gave Ethan pause. "Silverwood?" He frowned slightly. "That Silverwood family?"

Ethan knew the Silverwoods well. Through Lyla, he had been close enough to the family to understand the weight that name carried, even if he had deliberately avoided prying into their internal affairs.

"Lyla is my younger sister," Lily said. It was not an explanation so much as a statement of fact.

Lyla rarely spoke about her relatives in detail, and she had been especially careful to keep her family separate from her in-game identity, choosing the name Moonbeam precisely to avoid any connections. That was why hearing the name Silverwood now caught him off guard. It was not the family itself that surprised him, but the sudden realization that there was someone this close, whom Lyla had never once mentioned.

Ethan cleared his throat, suddenly feeling the situation shift in a way he had not anticipated at all.

’Well. This is my sister-in-law.’