Beyond the Bloodline

“Yeah. Typical ‘Antique’ behaviour.”

Jamie replied to Wanete as he swiped across the screen, switching to the map of the Spirit Race’s Continent that lay beside that of the Werewolves, only separated by a small Ocean.

“How’s the power scaling these days?”

“Um…you are already familiar with the existence realms, right?”

“Yeah: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Master, Grandmaster, Epic, Legendary, Sovereign, Transcendent and so on.

No matter how many tens of thousands of years pass, those guys aren’t gonna be changing anytime soon.”

The Hybrid spoke as placed his index and thumb fingers together on top of the screen then moved them apart from each other, tilting his head in confusion when he accidentally opened up a slide-up menu that showed the details about a particular city.

“Indeed, they would not.

Well, these days, the ‘Metal’ realms, are still considered weak and are only considered to have gained ‘power’ when they step into the Master Realm.

Most races usually have their younger ones born in any of those three realms, mostly the Silver and Gold Realms though.

A Few rare geniuses are born in the Master Realm but that’s not important now.”

The image of a certain Elf flashed through Wanete’s mind as she spoke, but she lightly shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts before carrying on with her explanation.

“Anyway, starting from the random civilians. The average level of the masses these days is the Master Realm. You can be waking on the street and randomly bump into a Superior Stage Master.”

“For a Silver Realm existence, randomly bumping into a being with enough destructive power to wipe out a town ain’t gonna be pretty.”

Jamie threw in that little quip as he finally figured out how to escape the new page he had unknowingly entered, with Wanete chuckling lightly while nodding in agreement.

“The younger generations of ‘World Powers’ are usually around the grandmaster realm by the ages of 14-18, which sets them apart from the rest who on average, need a few more years for that.

Moving on, the Epic Realm is the one that comes after, and it’s where the ‘Sufficiently Strong’ people are.

You still have a high chance of randomly bumping into one on the street though.”

“Hahaha…”

The man laughed lightly, moving his gaze from the tab to the diaphanous board that was floating in the air in front of him, displaying a single message.

[Computing Existential Information…]

‘This is gonna take a while…’

He dismissed the notification and turned his attention back to Wanete’s explanation.

“When things get to the level of the Legendries, the numbers drop a lot and the positions they hold in society are also pretty high.

This is also the divisor for the Top powers in every race or World Power, which is quite expected considering the gulf in power between the Epic and Legendary Realms brought about by the ability to use the powers of Laws.

The number of Legendries a World Power has is also one of the determiners for that status.

The same applies to the Sovereign Realm above it.

Surprisingly, the number of Sovereigns isn’t that much lesser than that of the Legendries than one might expect, and most ‘Elders’, ‘Higher Ups’, ‘Senior Members’, ‘High Rankers’ and their other equivalents are usually here.

Though, they may have titles like ‘Junior-High Ranker’ and stuff like that tacked on to their names, or they just go by their Epithets.

Then come the Transcendents, the top Powerhouses in each race, with numbers far and between.”

“I see. So, everything’s basically dropped by one realm, huh?”

“…that should be the case from your perspective.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you many details about the realms above Transcendence. All I know is that those are the realms of the top powerhouses of each race. The Peak Ranks and those who hold the titles of Racial ‘Lord’ and ‘King’.

Quite sad considering our parents might be in those realms.”

Wanete spoke with a wry smile, and in response, Jamie nodded his head with a nostalgic look in his eyes.

“Ah, Yeah. The realms above transcendence. Been there, done that.”

He nonchalantly replied while checking the notification floating in front of him and still seeing the same message.

“By the current standards, I’d be a ‘Junior-High Ranker’ then.”

The girl’s eyes widened slightly as she instantly inferred where Jamie’s previous realm was and what his current realm was from the words he had just spoken.

“You’re currently a L-”

“Stop the Vehicle.”

“Huh?”

“Tsk…Damn it.”

Jamie suddenly cut her off and ordered the Vehicle to stop, which the driver hurriedly obeyed. But upon realising that the other cars were still going forward, the Hybrid clicked his tongue audibly.

‘We’re already too close either way.’

Sighing softly, the man rose up his right hand and snapped his thumb and index fingers, his blue eyes glowing with a faint light as he activated an ability.

*THRUMM!!!

A torrent of energy erupted from Jamie’s body, asserting dominance over the ambient energies within a 250-metre radius of his position.

The Spatial Laws that were being scrambled by an external force were forcibly stabilized, before constricting around the cars and locking them in space.

Jamie then clenched his fist and pulled his right arm backwards, his actions causing all the cars to lift off the ground and then move backwards by close to 500 metres in an instant.

“Lord, Westley?!”

While the others were either panicking or trying to get into battle positions, Wanete who was with Jamie in the car and knew he was the cause of this phenomenon, called out to him, wanting to know the reason for his sudden actions.

But she didn’t have to wait even a second to know the reason why.

She sensed it with her whole being, as an intense feeling of dread suddenly washed over her. Her instincts screamed at her to run as far as possible and when she turned in the direction her brain told her to run from, she saw ‘it’ with her eyes.

The clouds in the sky parted, and a gigantic beam of vibrant crimson flames descended from the skies, shooting straight towards the centre of the forest—where they were heading to.

***KAAABOOOMMMM!!!!!

What followed was a devastating explosion of great magnitude.

The earth shook and the sky rumbled, with a giant cloud of smoke and fire rising into the clouds, quickly taking the shape of a giant mushroom surrounded by fire and lightning.

The shockwaves from the explosion swept through monsters and trees alike, destroying everything within the forest in its path with terrifying ease.

If it wasn’t for Jamie’s energy protecting the cars, they would have been blasted to bits and their bodies would have vaporized so fast, even their vampiric regeneration would not be able to do a thing!

Wanete’s heartbeat accelerated rapidly, reaching levels that would be bad for even Vampires as cold sweat poured down her trembling body.

Then again, she could not be blamed for reacting like this, in fact, it was good enough that she wasn’t screaming out loud in fear like some of the subordinate vampires were.

Those who wanted to jump out through the car doors when they noticed Jamie’s initial spatial lock thanked their stars that the Hybrid had blocked the doors too, for they knew they’d be dead if they were outside.

“Though they sent you kids since you were weak enough to slip under the radar, it turns out their radar was much lower than expected; given the fact that they still zeroed in on your approximate location and sent someone to deal with you all.”

Jamie casually spoke up, his voice snapping Wanete out of her daze.

Seeing the girl’s current state was far from ideal due to shock, Jamie sighed and held up his right hand beside her ear, placing his middle finger on his thumb and snapping them together.

“Serenitatem”

The instant she heard the sound of the snap, a wave of soothing energy washed over her, inducing a powerful feeling of tranquillity that calmed her instantly.

“Looks like our guest has decided to show themselves.”

Jamie spoke as he got down from the car, redirecting Wanete’s attention towards the being that descended from the hole in the clouds.

Though it was very far away, the Vampire possessed inhuman visual prowess, so she saw its full appearance as clear as day.

It was a being with a large body, about 5 metres in height and thrice that in length. Its upper body was covered in dark red scales, while its lower body was a lighter shade of the same colour.

Possessing yellow eyes and black slit pupils, along with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and two massive wings, this reptilian creature’s identity was pretty obvious to anyone at first glance.

“…damned dragons.”