The Immortal Heir; The Absolute Cheat

Chapter 14

The volcanic cavern screamed as the ceiling continued to buckle. A rain of jagged obsidian and white-hot ash hissed violently into the magma rivers below.

Through the gaping fissure, the red-stained sky hung like an open wound. The three Grand Elders of the Iron-Blood Sect hovered in mid-air, their robes billowing in the updrafts. They didn't need swords. Their collective Tier 8 pressure was so dense it physically flattened the heat waves rising from the canyon, turning the air into a heavy, suffocating vice.

"Kai!" Meiling cried out, the sheer atmospheric weight forcing her to her knees. Her breath came in shallow, panicked gasps as she clutched her chest.

"Get behind me," Kai growled, his voice vibrating with a low, draconic resonance.

With a sharp flick of his wrist, he grabbed the glowing blueprint scroll from the pedestal and tossed it toward High Priestess Ilya. "Keep that safe. If we lose the legacy, this whole trip was pointless."

Ilya caught the scroll, her starlight eyes reflecting the fiery chaos above. "They brought the Heaven-Searching Mirror. It's a low-grade immortal tool. Even my spatial magic can't slip past its gaze while it's active."

"Then I'll just have to break the mirror," Kai said, a cold, feral grin cutting through his features.

High above, the lead Grand Elder—a skeletal man named Elder Wu, whose skin looked like dried parchment—stared down into the volcanic depths. His gaze locked onto Kai, and his eyes flared with an ugly, burning hatred.

"Sect degenerate!" Elder Wu’s voice boomed, rattling the stone walls like thunder. "You murdered our disciples, stole our deacon's core, and associate with the heretical elven race! By the decree of the High Patriarch, your bloodline will be extinguished, and your soul will burn in our ancestral furnaces for a thousand years!"

Beside him, another elder stepped forward, holding a shimmering, circular brass mirror that projected a blinding cone of white light directly onto Kai, pinning his shadow to the obsidian floor.

[Ding! System Notice: Host is targeted by 'Heaven-Searching Mirror' (Conceptual Lock-on).]

[Your 'Shadow Veil' is temporarily disabled. Active traits are locked at 80% efficiency.]

[Recommended action: Destroy the focal caster of the mirror within 5 minutes or face spiritual core suppression.]

Kai spat a mouthful of hot, sulfur-tainted saliva onto the stone. "They talk too much for old men with one foot in the grave."

He reached out, his hand wrapping around the floating pool of Sovereign Primordial Mercury. The moment his skin touched the iridescent, gravity-defying liquid, the system roared back to life, bypassing the mirror's suppression with a violent, blue glitch.

[Ding! Detecting raw Sovereign material.]

[Integrating 'Sovereign Primordial Mercury' into your 'Sovereign Dragon Hide'...]

[Warning: High-pain threshold required. Initiating cold-forge fusion...]

An agonizing, freezing sensation shot up Kai’s arm, clashing violently with the volcanic heat. The liquid metal seeped directly into his pores, coating his muscles, bones, and veins in a hyper-dense, fluid armor. His skin rippled as shimmering, platinum-edged golden scales materialized across his neck, shoulders, and forearms.

His physical stats surged, his muscles packing with explosive, metallic density.

"Elder Wu!" the second elder shouted, his hand trembling as he held the mirror. "His energy signature is mutating again! He's devouring the ancient treasure of the forge!"

"Miserable thief! Die!" Elder Wu roared.

He raised his staff, channeling a massive, swirling tempest of white-hot fire mana. The flames condensed into a roaring, three-headed fire dragon that plunged down the volcanic shaft, vaporizing the falling debris in its path. The heat was so intense it began to melt the obsidian balcony beneath Kai's boots.

"Kai, move!" Ilya warned, her emerald-and-silver robes flaring as she prepared a defensive barrier.

"No," Kai hissed. "I'm done running from these old bastards."

Kai drew his stolen steel saber, but he didn't coat it in lightning or fire. Instead, he channeled the raw, heavy density of his newly integrated Sovereign Primordial Mercury. The blade turned a deep, liquid platinum-silver, humming with a weight that cracked the ground beneath his feet.

He didn't retreat. He leaped straight off the obsidian balcony, plunging directly toward the descending fire dragon.

ROOOAAAR!

The three-headed fire dragon opened its jaws, swallowing Kai whole in a sphere of blinding, white-hot destruction.

"Kai!" Meiling screamed, her voice cracking with pure despair.

Elder Wu sneered, lowering his staff. "Arrogant brat. To face my Tier 8 Earth-Core Flame with a mere Tier 5 body is nothing short of suicide."

"Are you sure about that, old man?"

A cold, mocking voice cut through the roaring flames.

Inside the sphere of fire, a sudden, violent vacuum formed. Kai’s platinum-scaled arm ripped through the white-hot plasma, entirely unscathed. His Runic Iron Body combined with the Sovereign Dragon Hide had turned him into an indestructible anvil. The fire didn't burn him; it only made his scales glow with a terrifying, radiant heat.

With a brutal, horizontal slash, Kai unleashed a wave of compressed, heavy mercury-force.

SLASH!

The three-headed fire dragon was violently cleaved in half, exploding into harmless, fading sparks. Kai used the explosive shockwave of the blast as a springboard, activating his Lightning Root Aptitude to turn himself into a blinding streak of platinum-blue lightning.

He closed the hundred-meter distance to the war-carriages in the blink of an eye.

The elder holding the brass mirror barely had time to widen his eyes before Kai appeared directly in front of him, his vertical slit pupils burning with an absolute, predatory dominance.

"The mirror," Kai whispered, his voice dripping with icy bloodlust, "is mine."

He drove his left hand forward, his fingers reinforced by platinum dragon scales. He punched straight through the elder's defensive qi barrier, his hand wrapping around the brass rim of the Heaven-Searching Mirror. With a savage twist of his wrist, he shattered the elder’s grip—and his fingers—into splinters.

"Argh! My hand!" the elder screamed, staggering back as blood sprayed across the deck of the carriage.

Kai didn't waste a millisecond. He brought his heavy, silver-gilded saber down in a brutal, vertical arc.

CRACK!

The Heaven-Searching Mirror was cleaved directly down the center. A massive, concussive wave of suppressed spiritual energy exploded outward from the broken relic, shattering the war-carriage beneath their feet and sending the remaining elders scrambling backward into the sky.

The blinding light pinning Kai’s shadow instantly dissolved. His system interface flashed a brilliant, triumphant neon-blue.

[Ding! Target 'Heaven-Searching Mirror' destroyed!]

[System suppression removed. All traits restored to 100% efficiency.]

[Direct physical contact established with injured Tier 7 Elder. Initiating Devourer Extraction...]

"Get away from him!" Elder Wu screamed, throwing a barrage of fiery spears toward Kai.

But it was already too late. Kai’s hand was locked onto the bleeding elder’s throat, his Heavenly Devourer Roots drilling directly into the man’s meridians.

"Your cultivation," Kai smiled, his eyes flashing a dangerous, brilliant blue amidst the smoke, "is mine."