Level 1 to Infinity: My Bloodline Is the Ultimate Cheat!

About three days passed.

Ethan and Yaya stood in the vast emptiness of the void, watching two figures; one enormous and one small, gradually drift away until the darkness swallowed them completely. Ethan’s gaze carried a quiet unease, while Yaya’s expression was still stuck somewhere between disbelief and confusion.

"Big brother... was it telling the truth?"

Ethan did not answer immediately. After a moment, he withdrew his senses from the lingering presence in the void and gave a slow nod.

That single motion was enough to turn Yaya’s disbelief into something closer to fear.

Half a day earlier, the Star Beast whose child Ethan had helped deliver finally recovered enough to move again. The moment it regained its strength and returned to its natural state, it did something neither of them expected; it spoke in human language. The first thing it did was express gratitude, thanking Ethan sincerely for saving both it and its offspring.

But gratitude had not been the end of it. Soon after, it began asking questions.

It wanted to know where Ethan came from.

According to the Star Beast, this starfield was supposed to be a barren region it had scouted long ago, chosen precisely because beings of true power were not meant to exist here. A godless domain, as it called it. So how could someone like Ethan exist in such a place?

Ethan had simply answered, "Earth."

The beast had gone silent for a long time, clearly searching its inherited memory, but it eventually admitted it had no idea where that was.

Then Yaya spoke.

"My brother and I come from the Holy Domain."

The moment those words left her mouth, the Star Beast froze.

"The Holy Domain... which layer?" it asked cautiously.

Ethan added after a pause, "I think they call our place the Barren..."

He did not get to finish. The Star Beast suddenly let out a sharp, startled cry.

"The Great Barren Plane? The ancestral home of humanity? You’re from there? But that place is sealed off; "

Ethan’s thoughts began to race. It was clear there was far more about the universe he did not understand than he had ever imagined.

He pressed the beast for answers, and this time, it spoke more freely.

The universe Earth belonged to was called the Holy Domain. The Holy Domain was divided into ten stacked planes, and Earth sat at the very center.

Everything Ethan had once believed about the universe was wrong.

From what he had learned through First Universe technology, the structure of reality had been described as α1, with universes numbered from one to nine forming a shrinking, pyramid-like hierarchy. Earth had been labeled as the Barren Universe, excluded entirely from that system, as though it sat outside proper existence.

But the Star Beast told him the Holy Domain was not a pyramid at all.

It was a sphere. A perfect, complete circle.

That contradiction alone made Ethan realize how incomplete human records truly were. According to the beast, hundreds of billions of years ago, the Holy Domain had been divided into four equal regions. Three of those regions had disappeared without warning, vanishing silently into nothingness.

What remained was only a fractured remnant.

And those vanished regions had not simply been lost. They had transformed into an absolute barrier surrounding the Holy Domain, something even Star Beasts could not cross. A death zone resembling a black hole, where anything that entered was erased. Even innate abilities like Rift Step were useless there.

That was when Ethan finally understood the implication of the beast’s earlier question.

It had asked where he came from, not just in a regional sense, but in a cosmic one.

Was he already outside the First Universe? Outside the Holy Domain entirely?

The Star Beast confirmed it. They were currently within a region known as the Dragon God Domain. A place that had already been destroyed a thousand years ago.

A thousand years, according to Earth’s calendar system. That alone was shocking enough, but the explanation that followed was even more unsettling.

The Star Beast explained that the Holy Domain had once ruled over everything. Earth, positioned at its center, was regarded as the ancestral home of humanity. Because of that, every universe and starfield still used the same ancient calendar system.

Ethan fell silent for a long time. So Earth held that kind of significance.

No wonder the Star Beast’s attitude had shifted after learning his origin. At first, it had only been grateful. Then respectful. But afterward, every answer it gave came without hesitation, as though it instinctively understood his status had changed.

A dying camel was still larger than a horse.

For a brief moment, Ethan wondered what would happen if the rest of the universe learned how weakened Earth truly was. Would they descend upon it like predators sensing a dying prey?

That thought lingered, until the Star Beast spoke again and shattered his assumptions.

"I heard the Holy Domain is sealed off. The Divine Realm is attacking it. How did you get out?"

It paused, then continued, its tone turning more uncertain.

"That doesn’t make sense. How could anyone reach the Divine rank inside the Holy Domain? Once someone ascends there, they should be pulled directly into the Divine Realm. And those hypocrites would recruit them immediately, turning them into one of their own."

The beast sounded increasingly agitated as it spoke.

"Or... did you ascend somewhere else? No, that’s not right. Every major universe has something like the Divine Realm. A place that feeds on newly ascended beings. They call themselves gods, but behave like monsters."

It finally exhaled, as though dismissing its own confusion.

"Either way, a Divine-rank human has emerged from the Holy Domain. If other universes find out, they will send reinforcements. Because the Holy Domain is humanity’s ancestral home."

Then it added something that made its tone shift.

"And beings like me were once under its rule. Many of us still retain loyalty."

"If that power were ever united, the Divine Realm would not be so untouchable."

The Star Beast continued speaking for a long time, but Ethan only listened in silence, absorbing everything with a growing sense of disbelief.

Then it offered something unexpected. It would spread the news as repayment for Ethan saving its life and its child.

Ethan did not refuse.

But just as it prepared to leave, it added one final warning.

"You should return quickly. From what I have heard, half of the Holy Domain has already fallen to the Divine Realm. The battles are brutal. Even the Lord of the Underworld has deployed her endless black-armored legions to resist them, but even endless armies can suffer losses."

"Some say the Underworld is nearly empty now."

"The Divine Realm is too powerful. Over hundreds of millions of years, they have destroyed countless starfields. This Dragon God Domain was one of them, devoured completely a thousand years ago."

It paused briefly before continuing.

"The Divine Realm uses the weight of a greater universe to suppress everything. The Lord of the Underworld cannot win on foreign ground. If the war reached her domain, things might be different. But here, she is constantly forced to teleport troops using her laws, and the losses keep piling up."

Then its tone softened, almost reluctant.

"Benefactor... perhaps you should not return. You are strong, but the Divine Realm has many Divine-rank beings. One person cannot change everything. Even the Lord of the Underworld is said to be heavily injured. If you ask me... "

Ethan cut it off immediately.

"What did you say? The Lord of the Underworld is injured?"

His voice sharpened in a way that made the surrounding void feel heavier.

She was his mother.

They had barely met, but that connection was real. It was the one thing he had never been able to ignore.

If she was injured, then he had to go to her.

But the Star Beast, unaware of the shift in Ethan’s emotions, continued speaking.

"That is only one version. Another says no one knows whether she is alive or dead. All that is known is that her legions have withdrawn. If they had not, the Divine Realm would have advanced even faster."

It hesitated, then added awkwardly, still oblivious to the pressure building in Ethan’s silence.

"Why don’t you come with me instead? Travel the universe. It is vast beyond imagination. Why bind yourself to a single place? The destruction of the Holy Domain is not even unusual. My inherited memories say it has been destroyed countless times. It always rebuilds, produces powerful humans, conquers the universe, then declines again. The cycle repeats."

"We are likely witnessing its final decline. The last stage. I cannot believe I am alive to see such an era."

Ethan wasn’t listening anymore. His mind only repeated a single thought. Was his mother still alive?

The Star Beast continued rambling like an endless broken transmission until Yaya finally noticed Ethan’s expression and sharply told it to stop talking.

Even then, the beast still asked several more times if Ethan wanted to travel with it. Ethan gave only one final answer.

"Leave."

The beast froze, confused by the shift in his mood, but it did not argue further. It quietly departed with its child, still intending to spread what it had learned as promised, though even it admitted it did not know who would dare respond.

Ethan no longer cared. His thoughts were already elsewhere. He needed to go to the Underworld.

But first, he had to return to Earth. He had no idea how to reach the Underworld from here.

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

"We’re going home."

The Star Beast was already gone. Only the emptiness remained. Ethan stood in the void for a long time before repeating those words again, quieter this time, as if sealing a decision that could not be reversed.

Yaya nodded.

Her mind was still unsettled by everything she had heard about the Divine Realm’s invasion. Her inherited memories had not fully awakened yet, leaving her unable to connect the fragments she had once known from another life. She did not remember that before becoming a seed, she had once been the Tree of Life of the Elven Realm.

That realm had been destroyed by the Divine Realm a million years ago.

When Morzan first received her seed, it had come from the last Elven King, who had been dying at the time and chose to entrust everything he had left to him. Before his death, he extracted his own bloodline, becoming the final vessel of his people, hoping Morzan would spread it and restore the elves one day.

He had turned himself into an ark for his race.

Morzan had not failed him. That bloodline had eventually been passed into Ethan. A weapon against the Divine Realm.

A pawn.

Yes, when Morzan first chose Ethan, that was exactly what he had been.

Only later, when Ethan stirred the governing laws of the Holy Domain; laws that had been silent for ten billion years; did Morzan begin to change. He abandoned control, shifting from master to servant.

Ethan knew nothing of this.

He only took Yaya’s hand and stepped toward the weakest point he had previously discovered, the thinnest fracture in the spatial barrier.

He pressed two fingers forward. A sharp sound followed and then space itself tore open.