Ancestral Lineage - Chapter 466

Chapter 466: Father and Son Talk
The dining hall of the Kael’Dri household looked normal, long table, stacked plates, breakfast aromas drifting like a peace treaty, but the atmosphere was anything but normal. After a night like that, nobody at the table was emotionally stable.

Regnare sat hunched over his plate like a survivor of a natural disaster. His fork was trembling. His soul was trembling. His dark circles were so pronounced that he looked like he’d been personally beaten by insomnia.

Somewhere down the table, Trevor shifted in his seat, his two-toned hair drooping pitifully as if ashamed on his behalf. “Why are you staring at me like I stole your girlfriend?” he muttered.

“Annoying old man…” Regnare grumbled, then immediately snapped his gaze toward his father, Ethan, who was casually feeding Harley small bites of breakfast like he wasn’t a walking source of last night’s trauma.

Ethan felt the glare hit him like a divine smite. The spoon shook. His entire soul shook. Goosebumps blossomed so violently that he nearly activated his avatar on instinct.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Ethan yelped, clutching the spoon like a holy relic.

Regnare leaned forward, scowl deep enough to qualify as seismic activity. “You should have kept your battle down!”

Ethan blinked. “Wait… don’t tell me you’re still a virgin.”

“I am, so what?!” Regnare snapped. “I could barely focus on my nightly meditation!”

Ethan stared at him like Regnare had just confessed to eating rocks for breakfast. “What are you and Onyx doing then?”

Onyx, who had perfected the art of eating silently, stiffened. Her face turned the soft shade of a dying pillow. “…We… are yet to cross that… Master.”

“You’re taking too long!” Maverick chimed in from three seats down, arms crossed with the dignity of a man revealing life wisdom. “I would’ve crossed that on the first day. Hmph!”

Every eye at the table swung toward him.

Silence.

Maverick, realizing he’d just outed himself as a menace, glared down at his omelette. “…I’m not wrong.”

Ethan cleared his throat, utterly unrepentant. “I’m not sorry, by the way.”

Regnare hissed like a feral cat.

Before Ethan could continue stirring the pot of chaos, Lamair leaned back in his seat with the smug composure of someone fanning the flames for fun. “You two are taking too long. Apole and Qirantha already crossed that hurdle… and they just started dating two weeks ago.”

The table froze.

Apole choked so hard he made a sound that wasn’t entirely human.

Qirantha, mid-sip of her morning juice, did what any respectable warrior woman would do in that moment: she spat the entire mouthful onto Apole’s face with the force of a hydro cannon.

“You! Qira!!” Apole sputtered, dripping juice, dignity visibly dying.

Qirantha slapped a napkin over his face in panic. “I—I didn’t mean to! Why did you have to bring that up, Master?!”

Lamair sipped his coffee like the embodiment of peace. “It was relevant information.”

Trevor leaned over and whispered to Ethan, “This family is going to implode.”

Harley giggled into Ethan’s shoulder. Clara covered her face so no one saw her laughing. Pisces muttered something about idiocy being hereditary. Seraphis murmured, “Breakfast entertainment.”

Regnare stabbed his omelette like it had personally wronged him.

Onyx sighed.

Ethan raised his spoon in a solemn toast. “To the Kael’Dri household, may our walls never recover.”

And the room descended into the kind of chaos only a powerful family, a sleepless virgin, one traumatized couple, and an obnoxiously smug patriarch could produce.

The morning had only begun, and the universe already looked tired.

…

The breakfast fiasco had ended with Regnare dramatically declaring war on Ethan, complete with pointing, shouting, and a vow of vengeance, while Delphina marched beside him in total solidarity. She didn’t know why she was supporting him, but she did so with righteous fury anyway, little fists balled like a tiny general.

In truth, Delphina was the only soul in the entire mansion who had slept peacefully through the Great Night of Parental Thunderclaps.

Her grandfather had quietly peeled her whole bedroom out of reality and tucked it into an isolated pocket dimension like a fragile teacup. A merciful act, because if a twenty-year-old like Regnare came out pale enough to rival Onyx, imagine what a six-year-old would’ve become. Probably a ghost. Maybe a myth.

They couldn’t risk a trauma like that.

Far from the battlefield known as breakfast, Ethan and Zark walked down the quiet corridor. The air was calm, sunlight filtering lazily through tall windows. Zark had called for a discussion, and Ethan, still humming from last night’s triumphs, waited with a spring in his step.

Zark stopped abruptly.

“Ethan… how are you feeling?” His voice was gentle, but the weight behind it was unmistakable.

“I’m feeling great!” Ethan beamed. He looked like someone who would happily challenge the universe to a race.

Zark narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Sure. Why?”

A sigh slid out of Zark like a tired prophecy. “Do you understand the depth of the power you currently wield?”

“That… is something I’m yet to find out,” Ethan admitted, scratching his cheek.

“I expected that. Fortunately, it’s not… alarming.”

“Your tone says otherwise.”

Zark’s face tightened. “Alarming isn’t the word. Catastrophic comes closer. You awakened your full path before even reaching the Demigod Realm. Do you grasp how absurd that is?”

“I’m that awesome,” Ethan said proudly.

Zark stared at him. “I feel like punching you.”

He massaged the bridge of his nose before continuing. “The reason the Paths are tied to god-arts is because you’re supposed to be a demigod to withstand even a fraction of them. Back then, in ancient times, awakening was simple. Natural. Bloodlines were pure, and ambient energy was abundant. People breathed power like air.”

He gestured vaguely, as if brushing away dust centuries old.

“This era is a different creature. Bloodlines diluted, awakening reliant on catalysts, souls fragile. Most never even reach the Emperor Realm. Those who do are considered miracles. Demigods? Prodigies. Gods? Legends.”

Ethan blinked. “I understand… a bit.”

“Your path isn’t normal,” Zark continued. “It’s primordial, which means it’s older than most creation stories. There’s more, but I can’t tell you yet. All you need to know is: your enemies have multiplied dramatically.”

“How many?”

Zark raised one finger.

“About a hundred thousand.”

Ethan choked. “What the fuck! Don’t tell me they’re gods?!”

“That’s for you to find out,” Zark smirked.

“Come on, old man…”

“No.”

Ethan leapt onto Zark’s back like a stubborn koala. Zark didn’t even stagger. He simply twisted, caught Ethan by the collar with one hand, and dragged him down the hallway like a misbehaving dog being escorted out of a library.

They approached the imperial garden. Flowers shimmered in impossible colors; the air tasted faintly of mana and sunlight. And there, in the center…

Every woman in the household surrounded Harley like adoring priestesses at a fertility shrine. Harley giggled as they adjusted her dress and fluffed cushions around her huge baby bump. Behind her stood a beautiful painted backdrop: two chubby celestial babies, halos and all, peeking out of clouds.

Zark’s voice softened. “When are you performing the racial ritual? It’s long overdue.”

Ethan’s eyes settled on Harley’s belly, massive, glowing softly, practically vibrating with divine mischief.

Carrying twins. And not normal twins. Not even celestial twins. These were children whose souls flickered in ways that only the absolute monsters of their bloodline could sense.

Ethan swallowed, awe blooming in his chest.

“Soon,” he murmured.

Harley spotted him and waved, radiant. “Ethan! Come here. You need to help Clara stop Asteria from planning nursery war decorations!”

Asteria, caught red-handed with a sketch labeled CELESTIAL THRONE FOR BABY #1, pretended innocence with the grace of a guilty goddess.

Zark chuckled. “Your responsibilities grow daily… Father.”

And the garden, alive with laughter, magic, and chaos, felt like the calm before whatever storm Ethan’s existence would summon next.

…

Somewhere far beyond the boundaries of Ethan’s world, there existed a place where geometry had long given up, and language simply failed. A place where directions didn’t exist until something noticed them. A place where time behaved like a curious child, poking and prodding at events with no sense of order.

This region had no stars, yet it glowed. No space, yet it stretched. No ground, yet it supported something.

That something… was asleep.

And then…

A fracture split the un-space.

A ripple tore through the sea of un-time.

The nothingness blazed white.

The being stirred.

At first, it was only a breath… if flame could breathe. A soft exhale that set the entire region crackling with newborn constellations that blinked into existence, lived glorious lives of fusion and radiance, and died in the same heartbeat.

Then came a sound. A low hum, vibrating with so much density that the surrounding void crystallized like glass, and shattered again.

A hand formed. Not a human one, but a divine one, its surface rippling with molten sigils that floated like living runes. Each rune was a law, gravity, decay, causality, motion, etched into a burning palm.

Another hand followed.

Then a torso.

Then a head, crowned with a mane of solar flares that lashed like cosmic serpents.

The being rose.

The void trembled as its eyes opened, two swirling furnaces of plasma so dense they formed tiny collapsed stars at their centers. From those pupils emanated beams of color that didn’t exist anywhere else; colors that hurt even the concept of sight.

Its body wasn’t flesh. It wasn’t energy in the mortal sense. It was the first fire, the blaze that once carved pathways through the newborn cosmos. Flames coiled around its form, spiraling upward, shedding waves of power that scorched metaphysical laws into curling smoke.

It inhaled. Nebulae swelled around it like breath-mist.

It exhaled. Supernovas bloomed and vanished.

And then, it spoke.

Not with a voice, but with resonance. A statement woven directly into existence.

“…The lock has shifted.”

It stepped forward, and the fabric of the universe warped as if trying to avoid contact. The being didn’t walk so much as impose movement upon the environment.

Chains of light, cosmic, ancient, half-broken, clung to its ankles like the remnants of something once mighty enough to bind it.

One by one, the chains disintegrated into shimmering dust.

The being tilted its head toward the distant membrane separating worlds. Its gaze pierced countless layers of reality, material, spiritual, etheric, and conceptual, until it settled on a single point far, far away.

A single world.

A small world.

A world glowing faintly with an impossible, rising force.

“…Someone touched the First Flame.”

Its voice was neither pleased nor displeased. It simply was. A verdict expressed by existence itself.

Flames intensified, igniting the void. Spirals of fire coiled around its legs, lifting it as if preparing it for a journey, though no trajectory existed in this spaceless place.

It raised one burning hand to the invisible horizon.

A fissure opened, thin as a thread, brilliant as a star being born.

Through it, countless mortal worlds lay scattered in the darkness, each with its own histories, pantheons, guardians, tyrants, and mysteries.

But the being’s attention fell upon one.

The same world where a young man named Ethan Voryn Aetherforge Kael’Dri had just awakened something impossible.

“…A spark,” the being murmured.

“…No. A beacon.”