Chapter 34 — The Bloodlines
Lin Xuan's underground lab was impossibly quiet—
not because the world above was peaceful,
but because nothing dared to disrupt the man seated at its center.
Spirit arrays hummed in soft geometric patterns, drifting like red-lit constellations above the black-tiled floor. The whole chamber felt more like a stabilized dimensional pocket than a room—polished metal, curved walls, floating interfaces, everything reinforced to withstand the aftermath of Lin Xuan's experiments.
To one side, Dion sat on a reinforced platform, jaw rigid as Yan'er worked over his severed arm.
A gentle golden radiance pulsed from her hands, knitting tissue, reconnecting nerve pathways, restoring structural integrity with flawless precision. Her expression stayed calm, focused; she worked like a surgeon and an angel mixed together.
And in the middle of the room—
comfortably, deliberately—
Anika sat in Lin Xuan's lap.
Facing him.
Her thighs rested across his, her arms loosely looped around his neck, her nose barely a breath away from brushing his. She tilted her hips just enough to close every inch of space she could steal from him. Anyone else would've melted under that proximity.
Lin Xuan did not.
His posture remained composed, one arm resting lightly around her waist only so she wouldn't slip off his lap as he reviewed holographic projections hovering beside him.
Anika narrowed her eyes.
She could feel how calm he was.
How unaffected.
So she leaned closer.
A deliberately slow tilt of her head.
Warm breath brushing his jaw.
A voice sweet enough to topple generals.
"Brother Lin~" she purred softly,
"Why didn't you kill that wolf before it came out of the cocoon?"
Her charm technique shimmered subtly over her skin like velvet heat—
the kind that would make any ordinary man's pulse trip.
Lin Xuan tapped her head once with a finger.
"Little girl, your charming arts don't work on me."
Anika froze, scandalized.
Then her cheeks puffed into the most offended pout imaginable.
Before she could protest, Dion spoke from the medical platform:
"Anika, please leave him. He's already exhausted."
Anika didn't even look back.
"I'll do whatever I want.
Don't forget—you're all injured, and I'm perfectly fine.
Hehe.~"
Her tone alone would've made lesser men combust.
Dion sighed. "…Yeah, because master saved us and took every hit for us."
Lin Xuan's gaze shifted.
"Dion.
You also stood beside me and took those attacks."
"It's my duty as your slave, mas—"
"Dion."
Lin Xuan's tone cut the word apart.
"You are not my slave.
And you will not call me that.
You're my family."
Yan'er's golden glow brightened gently, her smile softening at the edges.
Anika, however, was not about to let the moment drift away from her.
She tapped Lin Xuan's cheek lightly.
"Hey! HEY! Don't ignore my question just because Dion got emotional!"
Lin Xuan finally lifted his eyes to hers.
"About your question," he said evenly,
"I can't kill that wolf."
Anika blinked. Yan'er paused. Dion froze.
Lin Xuan continued:
"It carries my bloodline.
And the Unbound Wolf's bloodline.
That old monster really created… fascinating things."
Anika shifted on his lap, leaning in closer, eyes half-lidded in interest.
Lin Xuan's voice dropped slightly, thoughtful:
"Just imagine what it will become once it grows to our level.
And imagine the benefits we'll gain through it. And we'll get a new power ally."
Yan'er looked up from Dion's arm.
"Then… is it safe to let the children handle it?
Can they even defeat something like that?"
Lin Xuan folded his fingers together, watching the hologram of the cacoon.
"No.
They cannot defeat it."
Anika stilled.
Dion tensed.
Yan'er frowned.
Lin Xuan lifted his hand slightly—streams of data swirling in his palm.
"The Wolf is still learning to use its abilities.
Right now, the only thing it could do is disrupt other beasts' neural systems and internal energy flow—overloading them until their bodies explode.
Then it absorbs the released life force."
Yan'er's brows knitted.
"Just that alone is extremely dangerous."
Lin Xuan nodded.
"Which is exactly why I sent them."
Anika tilted her head, lips brushing the edge of his cheek as she leaned even closer.
"You sent them… knowing they can't win yet?"
Lin Xuan met her eyes without flinching.
"They won't win.
But they'll survive.
They'll adapt.
They'll learn how to face power far beyond their level."
He reached up and gently slid two fingers under Anika's chin, lifting her face a fraction when she tried to hide her reaction behind a smirk.
"I don't doubt them.
I don't doubt family."
Anika's breath hitched for the faintest moment.
Heat crept up her neck before she shoved it down, pouting again.
"You're dangerous when you talk like that."
"And you're heavy," Lin Xuan said calmly as he stood.
Anika's jaw dropped.
"EXCUSE ME?!"
Yan'er laughed softly behind her hand.
Dion looked away to avoid smiling.
Lin Xuan simply lifted Anika by the waist as if she weighed nothing, set her beside him on the bench, and walked toward the holographic projection.
The screen showed a crater.
Flaring violet cracks.
A cocoon splitting open like a living storm.
Lin Xuan's eyes sharpened.
"…It has awakened."
Yan'er stepped beside him.
Anika swung her legs, still glaring but unable to hide the tiny flush on her cheeks.
Dion bowed his head respectfully.
"What now?" Yan'er asked.
"Now," Lin Xuan said quietly,
"we wait."
"And if the children can't handle it?" Anika murmured, leaning forward slightly.
"Then," he said,
"I intervene."
Space itself seemed to bow around him.
Yan'er exhaled in relief.
Anika stared at Lin Xuan's back, flustered and impressed.
Calm.
Unshaken.
Watchful.
Lin Xuan stood there—
a silent storm
waiting to descend.
Meanwhile on Ignis Prime, the battlefield was collapsing into chaos.
Ash storms. Heat waves. Scorched earth trembling beneath every impact.
The trio faced the Revenant again—this time on open ground, where it had more room to move, more space to adapt.
They were barely holding on.
Every one of their beast spirits had shattered under the Revenant's evolving instinct.
The swords, the gauntlets, the plated armor spirits, the defensive forms—all gone, erased in a fight that had lasted far too long.
Vaibhav's breaths came harsh. Shin's right sleeve was torn, his arm grazed. Alicia had a streak of violet blood smeared across her armor—blood that wasn't hers.
The Revenant was still learning.
Still sharpening.
Still evolving.
But the trio wasn't finished.
Vaibhav planted his foot and summoned one of the only beast spirits he had left—a Mutated Transcendent armor-type spirit, plates expanding across his body in thicker, heavier patterns than before.
Shin followed by summoning a Mutated Transcendent boots-type beast spirit, blue streaks of light forming across his calves, tightening like compressed lightning.
Alicia exhaled and activated Modified Ethereal Divide—not as a barrier to block, but as a tool. The shimmering translucent plane expanded from her hands, angled precisely at forty-five degrees.
The Revenant paused across the battlefield, eyes narrowing.
It could feel something shifting.
Shin wiped his mouth, looked at Vaibhav, and smirked. "Alright. Time for the stupid idea."
Vaibhav answered, "The one that always works?"
Alicia corrected both of them. "The one that only worked once in the game."
Shin shrugged. "Good enough."
A flashback hit:
The memory came back to them instantly—
the three logged into Genesis Reign Online, not to grind levels or hunt, but to build something entirely new.
The Immortal-class discovery had changed everything.
They knew they needed a tactic capable of breaking through something far above Transcendent.
And as usual, they started with the dumbest idea possible.
Alicia stood in an open field in-game, her avatar raising both hands and forming a modified Ethereal Divide tilted at a perfect forty-five degrees—elastic enough to bounce force, solid enough to launch something heavy.
Shin cracked his knuckles beside her.
Vaibhav stood ahead in his full armor set.
Shin pointed at him. "We throw you."
Vaibhav sighed. "Of course."
That was Version 1—
Aerial Comet Assault (Starbreaker Fist Variant).
Alicia locked the barrier in place.
Shin summoned acceleration boots, sprinted forward, grabbed armored Vaibhav by the torso, and hurled him straight onto the angled barrier.
The impact snapped the barrier like a catapult.
Vaibhav shot upward.
Mid-air, he unsummoned his armor, summoned the gauntlet, tightened every muscle, and dropped with pure Starbreaker Fist power packed into one straight meteor punch.
He hit the Transcendent test beast like a falling boulder.
The ground exploded.
A huge crater formed.
The beast? It's skull crushed.
Alicia groaned, "That's not going to work on Immortal-class."
Shin muttered, "We basically slapped it from the sky."
Version 1 was dead.
A few days later they met again and launched Version 2—
Aerial Comet Assault (Celestial Maul Variant).
Same launch.
Same barrier.
Same throw.
This time, when Vaibhav was flung upward and shed the armor mid-air, he immediately activated Celestial Maul.
His gauntlet began spinning so fast it left white circles in the air.
He fell like a drill.
He pierced straight through the test beast's head—clean entry, clean exit.
But the damage was too neat.
Precise, not destructive.
Shin threw his headset.
Alicia dragged both hands down her avatar's face.
Vaibhav simply typed:
"Okay. Too sharp."
Version 2 failed.
A week later they came again.
Vaibhav had fused both concepts:
Startbreaker Maul.
A single technique:
explosive force + rotational force fused into one.
They reconstructed the tactic again.
Alicia formed the angled barrier with perfect elasticity.
Shin summoned speed, grabbed armored Vaibhav, ran full sprint, and launched him onto the barrier.
It slingshotted him upward.
Mid-air—he unsummoned the armor, summoned the gauntlet, and ignited the hybrid technique.
First the compression of Starbreaker Fist—every muscle tightened to maximum density.
Then the spiral of Celestial Maul—rotational force gathering in a perfect helix of white-hot light.
The gauntlet howled through the air.
He dropped like a true meteor this time—
not a bomb that scattered force everywhere,
not a drill that pierced too cleanly,
but a spiraling comet of raw destruction designed to shatter everything at the impact point.
The strike landed—
A shockwave tore across the field.
The Transcendent beast's skull collapsed inward as the rotational energy drilled deep while explosive force blasted outward.
It died instantly.
Shin jumped around his room yelling in celebration.
Vaibhav said nothing at first—
then quietly typed:
"Perfect."
That was the birth of their finished tactic.
Now, at the present, the trio was standing in Ignis Prime, facing a beast far above Immortal-level, the trio prepared the same formation again.
Alicia angled her shimmering barrier.
Shin in his boots.
Vaibhav steadied his breathing inside his remaining armor beast spirit.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
Shin grabbed Vaibhav's arm—
and the real-world Aerial Comet Assault began its setup.