Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 882: Devouring Vortex

Ethan stared down at the churning mountain range below, his eyes tracking the violent ripples racing along what they now knew was not stone at all, but the vast, living body of a single creature. It stretched beyond sight in both directions, coiling and uncoiling with a force that made the entire Forbidden Vale tremble. From this height, its length was almost abstract, too immense to grasp. He would not have been surprised if the thing could wrap itself around the entire Vale and still have flesh to spare.

Blackie continued to climb, instinctively seeking higher ground as they reached what must have been the creature’s midsection. The air thinned slightly as he pushed upward, wings beating harder, scales vibrating with tension.

Ethan slammed his palm against one of Blackie’s horns.

"Stop climbing. Any higher and we’re dead."

Blackie jerked mid-flight and hovered, understanding flashing across his face. The invisible restraint. The ceiling they had encountered before. If they rose too high and struck that unseen barrier while the serpent, or whatever it was, thrashed upward, they would be pinned between sky and monster like insects against glass.

"What do we do, Boss?" Panic crept into his voice despite his efforts to hide it.

"Go lateral. That way." Ethan pointed sharply to the left, against the direction of the creature’s clockwise coil.

"That way?" Blackie hesitated, eyes darting toward the shifting ridgeline. "That’s toward the head."

"Head means the tail is on the opposite side. The tail will be thinner. Lower. We stay near the ground and slip past."

"But what if—"

"Move."

Blackie started left, his wings cutting through the air for barely a second before he faltered again.

"Now what?" Ethan demanded, his temper fraying as the ground below bucked like a living sea.

"What if it’s so long the head loops back before the tail?" Blackie shot back, words tumbling over each other. "What if we run straight into its face?"

Ethan shot him a glare sharp enough to cut stone. "Will you stop jinxing us? What if it’s shorter than you think and there’s a gap?"

Blackie wavered, then surged left again, only to stall once more as another violent tremor rolled beneath them.

"Could we just... slice it in half?" he asked hopefully.

Ethan looked down at the colossal bulk. The creature’s visible body was at least two kilometers thick, and that was only what lay above ground. Vast sections of it still tunneled beneath the earth. By rough estimation, its full diameter might approach four kilometers.

Blackie wanted to cut that in half.

"Blackie," Ethan said slowly, "why are you this terrified of snakes?"

The question lingered between them. Time was bleeding away, but the Qilin refused to move decisively, and Ethan needed him steady.

Blackie’s jaw tightened. "It’s that old bastard. When I was young, he used illusions to torment me. Snakes were everywhere. Every night he’d drag me into dream realms, drop me into pits crawling with them." He shuddered beneath Ethan’s boots, the memory clearly not dulled by time.

Ethan almost laughed despite the situation. So this was childhood trauma.

"It’s not a snake."

The voice echoed inside Ethan’s mind, low and ancient, cutting cleanly through the chaos.

Both of them froze.

It was the Dragon of Consumption. It had been silent for so long that Ethan had almost forgotten its presence.

"Then what is it?" Ethan asked inwardly, his gaze still fixed on the writhing mass below.

"A dragon. But it’s Incomplete."

"Incomplete dragon is still basically a snake, isn’t it?"

A faint ripple of amusement brushed Ethan’s consciousness. "Who told you only snakes ascend to dragons?"

The creature’s tone shifted, losing its levity. "Enough. Release me. That being carries a trace of my bloodline. I will deal with it."

Ethan’s heart skipped. A trace of this ancient entity’s bloodline meant something extraordinary. Whatever lay below was no mere beast.

He reached inward and touched his Energy Core. A thread of black light seeped out, condensing before him into a tiny, catfish-like figure no larger than his palm.

The Dragon of Consumption.

"Interesting," it murmured, scanning the Vale. "The flow of time here is distorted."

"Move back," it added in a firm voice . "Far."

The instant it manifested fully, the mountain-sized creature convulsed. Its coils tightened and accelerated, thrashing with fresh agitation as if a predator had just entered its territory. The entire valley roared with the friction of its movement.

And all of it was in response to the small, floating figure before them.

"You sure you can handle that, little mudfish?" Blackie called out as he retreated, bravado creeping back now that something else had taken center stage. "Don’t get swallowed."

The Dragon’s whiskers twitched. "Mudfish? Your entire lineage are mudfish."

Blackie snorted and banked hard, carrying Ethan toward the distant edge of the chasm. They had barely touched down on stable ground when a thunderous roar split the air.

A massive shadow surged toward them from the right.

As it drew closer, Ethan finally saw it clearly. Broad, flat mouth. Long whiskers trailing like tendrils. Smooth, sloping head. Its body was immense and sinuous, yet not scaled like a serpent. Instead, its surface gleamed slick and dark, more river than desert.

It looked astonishingly similar to the Dragon of Consumption. A colossal, monstrous catfish.

Ethan felt the tension in Blackie’s body loosen all at once.

"Oh," Blackie breathed, relief flooding his voice. "It’s a catfish demon. That’s nothing. I could have handled that myself."

Ethan did not bother responding. The shift from terror to arrogance was almost impressive.

The tiny Dragon hovered before the titanic creature. The giant slowed, then stopped entirely, its enormous form looming like a living cliff. The two beings regarded one another in utter stillness.

One small enough to cradle in two hands. The other large enough to reshape mountains.

Ten long minutes passed in silence, then , slowly, the colossal catfish lowered its head, an unmistakable gesture of deference.

The Dragon of Consumption’s voice rang out across the valley.

"Devour Heaven and Earth."

Its small body compressed inward, collapsing into a single point of absolute black. In the next heartbeat, that point expanded violently, unfurling into a vast, swirling purple vortex that blotted out the sky. Space bent around it. Air screamed as it was dragged toward the spinning void.

"Here it comes," Blackie muttered, stepping forward, with his muscles coiling.

Ethan summoned the Twilight War Spear, its dark edge humming as he braced for impact.

But the impact never came.

As the vortex widened enough to swallow the heavens, the giant catfish did not resist. It lunged forward willingly, surging into the heart of the swirling void. Its massive body slid into the vortex, tail thrashing once, twice, before vanishing completely into the purple abyss.

The vortex contracted as swiftly as it had formed, shrinking until only the tiny Dragon remained, hovering in empty air as though nothing extraordinary had occurred.

Blackie blinked. "That’s it?"

"Apparently," Ethan replied, still gripping his spear.

The Dragon drifted toward them.

"Wait," Blackie said, frowning. "You ate him? Your own kind?"

"No," the Dragon answered calmly. "I do not consume my bloodkin. I am removing him from here. He was imprisoned, confined to a single coil of space. You could have simply walked across his back without harm."

The words hung awkwardly in the air.

Before either of them could respond, the Dragon turned into a streak of black light and plunged back into Ethan’s abdomen, disappearing into his Energy Core.

Ethan remained silent.

The Dragon’s voice had been controlled, but something beneath it had shifted. A disturbance, like a massive weight.