Additionally, thank you all for your support. Last week we ranked first in weekly clicks and fourth in weekly recommendations — truly excellent results!
The book goes on sale in just two days. I hope you'll all continue showing your support this week.
………………
Clinging to his last shred of consciousness, Lucian was already prepared to accept the power of death and cooperate with it in transforming his body. After all, this was far better than remaining locked in struggle, unable to awaken his bloodline.
Of course, his subsequent plans would need to be adjusted accordingly — switching from a direct approach to an indirect one.
At that very moment, without any warning, a foot wearing a deep black leather shoe stepped out of the darkness outside Lucian's cottage.
With that step, the silver moon in the night sky seemed to suddenly brighten, causing the moonlight that chanced to fall through the cracks of Lucian's cottage to coalesce, growing more radiant, more limpid, as though a thin layer of silver frost had been spread across the ground.
Lucian, hovering on the brink of unconsciousness, suddenly felt that within his surrounding Meditation starry sky, a beautiful silver moon had appeared like an illusion. Its radiant, dreamlike moonlight fell directly upon his body, growing brighter and brighter.
Under the moon's illumination, a bloodline power that had been feeble within Lucian's body surged with sudden and explosive strength. In just a few seconds, seizing the critical moment when the power of death was suppressing the power of the stars, it vanquished both of them at once!
Moreover, it swiftly gained absolute dominance, thoroughly suppressing every other bloodline power!
The change was so sudden and so unfathomable that before Lucian could even form a single thought, this bloodline power — somehow connected to the silver moon — had already completed its awakening.
Blood suffused with a faint, limpid silver moonlight glow began flowing in steady waves with each of Lucian's resolute, powerful heartbeats, rushing to every corner of his body, transforming his flesh, internal organs, and nerves. The searing pain began giving way to an itchy, tingling sensation.
"Why did this change occur? Can the environment even influence which bloodline awakens?"
The full-body tingling was far more bearable than the earlier agony, and Lucian gradually emerged from his half-conscious state, recalling the strange events that had just transpired.
Having never read any literature or texts describing the process of bloodline awakening, Lucian could think of no explanation. He could only accept it for the time being and begin cooperating with the bloodline's transformation of his body.
Outside Lucian's cottage, another foot in a deep black leather shoe emerged from the darkness, taking one step forward. Then both feet vanished into the darkness simultaneously, disappearing without a trace. The radiant, silvery moonlight streaming through the crack rapidly faded, becoming indistinguishable from the moonlight surrounding the rest of the cottage.
…………
The bloodline transformation gradually completed, and Lucian rose to his feet from the ground, examining his hands, which appeared to have changed very little.
Yet without any need for testing, Lucian could feel the immense power contained within his hands — he could crush a person's throat with ease, fiercer than any strongman who had yet to awaken a bloodline power. And compared to the increase in strength, during the bloodline's earlier transformation of his body, Lucian had already sensed intuitively that speed, agility, and coordination were the true advantages of this bloodline.
Pushing off with his feet, Lucian began sprinting through the laboratory, so fast he nearly left afterimages in his wake. Yet in the cramped laboratory, the high-speed Lucian didn't touch a single object.
After acclimatizing for a while, his speed even increased further, though his shoes seemed unable to hold up.
"My speed and agility — even compared to that Second-level Knight with the 'Shadow' bloodline, they're not far off at all. And this is still with an incomplete bloodline awakened through a potion, not as a true knight. If a knight had fully awakened this bloodline power, even at just the first level, their speed and agility would rival those of a Second-level Knight whose advantages lie elsewhere. Truly an impressive bloodline." Lucian stopped, assessing his own strength. "But my strength and constitution are much worse — far behind an ordinary First-level Knight."
Lucian calmed his mind and carefully attuned himself to his bloodline power for a while, then attempted to utilize and assess its various capabilities.
"I have darkvision — at night I can see roughly two hundred meters." A streak of silver light appeared within Lucian's dark pupils.
"The body can become partially ethereal into moonlight to reduce damage." Lucian's hands began to fade into a silvery-white glow, though with his current bloodline ability, he couldn't achieve full solidity-through-light — that was something only a Seventh-level Heaven Knight could accomplish. Nor could it withstand as much damage as the Dragon Scale Armor ability.
However, even with this initial stage of moonlight etherealization, Lucian was immune to injury from ordinary weapons, could reduce damage from magical weapons, Divine Arts weapons, and force-field shockwaves to some degree, could weaken elemental damage from fire and acid, and could resist the encroachment of death energy. "All things considered, while this level of moonlight etherealization still can't compare to that Night Watchman's 'Red Dragon' bloodline dragon-scale defense, it's still a rather decent ability — and for stealth at night, it's actually superior to his."
Then, Lucian took the pure-silver dagger and drew a thin cut across the back of his hand. He watched as a small amount of blood welled out before the wound quickly knitted itself back together, all the while recording his observations: "There's also a certain self-healing ability."
"Unfortunately, there are no supernatural offensive abilities like Shadow Flames, Dragon Fear, or Red Dragon Breath."
Lucian felt a twinge of regret. Though this bloodline power was formidable, it also carried significant shortcomings. "According to the records on bloodline types, this should be a 'Moonlight' bloodline — it doesn't belong to the dark nature."
Although the materials currently accessible to Lucian contained no knowledge of how to awaken bloodlines or how to train and enhance bloodline abilities, the Church had already compiled the properties of common bloodline powers into reference books. These were designed to help knights who had awakened their bloodlines to master their abilities more quickly, and also to assist in identifying and capturing Dark Knights.