Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!-Chapter 886: Seven Days Beneath the White Hoof

While Ethan was bound within his trial, chaos erupted back at the chasm.

More than a hundred experts unleashed their strongest attacks at once, techniques flashing in every conceivable color as they hurled everything they had toward the colossal hand blocking the crossing. The moment their combined assault struck, the impact boomed across the canyon like a collapsing mountain, shockwaves tearing through the air and rattling the cliff faces.

What stunned them was not the noise, It was the result. The giant palm remained completely unharmed.

No cracks, no fractures. Not even a tremor in its surface. It did, however, freeze for a fraction of a second.

That single instant was all the opening the Feathers needed.

Nine streaks of light shot out from behind the main force, slicing through the air toward the opposite cliff with ruthless precision. The eight members of the Feathers moved as one, their wind-elemental companion amplifying their speed, carrying them forward in a compressed current of air.

"Son of a... GO NOW!" someone roared.

Anyone who still failed to realize they had just been used as bait deserved to die here. The realization hit almost everyone at once, and the remaining experts surged forward in desperation, burning through reserves, activating movement techniques they would normally hesitate to use.

Too late.

The Feathers had already crossed most of the distance. The wind-elemental was seconds from landing on the far side. The rest were still scrambling through the midpoint of the chasm.

The giant hand had paused for three seconds and they had already wasted two. They were dead center over the abyss when the palm resumed its motion.

The first victim was an energy user drifting too close to its reach. The hand descended with casual indifference. One slap.

In an instant, the man’s body shrank, bones and flesh collapsing inward, reduced to a wailing infant midair. There was no time to process what had happened, not even a chance to scream.

Bad luck dictated the trajectory.

Instead of being swatted back toward the starting cliff, he was batted downward, vanishing into the darkness below.

A heartbeat later, the sky over the chasm erupted into chaos.

By the time the survivors stumbled onto the far side, barely thirty of the original hundred-plus had made it across. They turned back with pale faces and heaving chest.

The hand hovered once more above the abyss, silent and patient.

It was a nightmare.

One sweep erased entire groups. Strenght level meant nothing. Mutant or energy user, veteran or prodigy, if the palm so much as brushed against you, your life reset to zero. The lucky ones were sent back to the starting cliff, reborn and stripped of everything. The unlucky ones fell into the pit.

And even the lucky were doomed.

What chance did a newborn infant have in a place like this?

---

Thud.

For what felt like the hundredth time, Ethan was launched off the frozen surface of the lake.

He hit the pale earth hard enough to send dust curling around him, and this time he stayed down longer than before, staring blankly at the washed-out sky while his body trembled from the aftershock.

Just as he forced himself onto an elbow, the Dragon of Consumption materialized beside him, its dark form coiling out of nothingness.

"Company’s coming," it said calmly. "I’ll handle it."

Without waiting for a reply, it twisted into a streak of black and shot back the way they had entered.

Moments later, as Ethan was dragging himself upright, the light shifted as a vast shadow swallowed the ground.

He turned around.

Behind him, an enormous mountain range seemed to materialize from thin air, rising and curling in a continuous arc around the entire Nine-Color Lake region. It took him a second to understand what he was seeing.

It was the giant catfish the dragon had once devoured. Its body coiled endlessly, thick as a fortress wall, it’s scales glinting faintly as it completed a perfect ring, head meeting tail in a seamless barricade. The land trembled as it settled into place, sealing off every approach.

Outside the forming perimeter, the approaching hunters skidded to a halt.

Among them were the Feathers.

They stared in disbelief as a purple vortex spat out the gargantuan creature before their eyes. The eight Feathers, gliding low and fast at the front, veered sharply, searching for a gap to slip through, but there was none. In mere seconds the beast had encircled the entire area, its massive eye swiveling toward them with cold, predatory awareness.

For the first time since entering this place, the Feathers’ expressions shifted from calm superiority to genuine shock.

The creature radiated age. Not just power, but time. Its sheer size defied reason, dwarfing everything in sight. Fighting it was one matter, getting past it was another.

But they couldn’t just give up at this point.

Attacks rained down upon the colossal body, streaks of energy colliding with its flesh. Yet every strike seemed to sink into it and vanish, swallowed without ripple or recoil. It was like punching into packed cotton, force dissipating uselessly within.

A stalemate formed.

They could not fly over it. They could not break through. The catfish endured, like a silent and immovable fortress.

Seven days passed in this manner. Not even the legendary Feathers found a solution.

Still, the creature was not invincible. The endless barrage left marks. Faint ruptures appeared along its hide, and its movements grew slightly slower with time. The talent it had inherited from the Dragon of Consumption bloodline allowed it to absorb vast amounts of force, but it was not without limits.

Even a mountain could be eroded by a constant tide.

---

Inside the barricade, Ethan’s world had shrunk to a single, brutal rhythm. Charge, get kicked off the lake, stand up, repeat.

On the neighboring black lake, Blackie’s battle was a spectacle. Explosions of elemental light bloomed like fireworks against the dark surface, arcs of lightning and torrents of flame colliding in dazzling bursts. Compared to that, Ethan’s fight was almost primitive.

The White Qilin needed only one move, and Ethan kept getting up.

Day one had been humiliating. He had tried to outmaneuver the White Qilin, weaving and feinting, searching for angles. Day one taught him a simple truth carved into ancient history.

Overwhelming force crushes cleverness.

Day two brought progress, if it could be called that. In bear form, layering Force Resonance beneath his defenses, he had managed to partially block a single kick. The impact had still driven him to his knees, and the follow-up sent him skidding off the lake once more, but for a fleeting moment he had held his ground.

Day three, something changed.

It began subtly. The Force Resonance technique he had honed in the Sea of Death, perfected under Uncle Jed’s brutal instruction, had long ago reached what he believed to be its limit. The star-like points of light embedded within his body had stabilized at a fixed number.

Now they were multiplying.

One by one, more luminous points flared into existence along his muscles and membranes, doubling in count over the course of a single day. Ethan sensed it clearly and nearly lost focus from sheer disbelief.

Jed’s secret art had not been a dead end.

Even stranger, the star-points were shifting in hue, gradually taking on a faint milky-white tint.

Was this how the White Qilin circulated its power? He had no proof, only instinct, but the possibility ignited something fierce within him.

By the evening of the third day, after swallowing food mechanically and washing down blood with water, Ethan stepped back onto the frozen lake.

The White Qilin lowered its head, then it charged.

"Force Resonance."

This time he layered no external defenses. No Iron Hide, no supplementary skills. Only the secret art.

Every muscle in his body began to vibrate at a precise frequency. The star-points flared to life in sequence, light cascading upward from his feet through his legs and spine, racing along his arms before converging at his clenched fist.

He met the descending hoof head-on, the collision detonated like a thunderclap.

Where fist met hoof, space itself twisted. A black rift spiraled outward from the impact point, thin fractures spreading across the frozen lake beneath them. The ice groaned as if under unbearable strain.

Ethan staggered back three steps, his boots grinding across the surface.

The White Qilin did not budge.

The spatial tear expanded to the size of a basketball before the world mended itself, the black distortion shrinking and vanishing as though it had never existed.

For the first time, the Qilin did not immediately follow up.

Ethan’s arms were flushed deep red, steam curling from his skin. His fist throbbed with such intensity that it felt moments away from shattering.

Two seconds, that was all the breathing room he got. The Qilin moved again, and so did he.

Bear form surged over him in a ripple of muscle and fur. He compressed two skills together in an instant, Crushing Blow and Heavy Strike, forcing them to overlap despite the strain. There was no room for anything more complicated. The White Qilin was simply too fast.

They collided again.

Another thunderous explosion ripped across the frozen lake.