Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1140 Constellation Qi

Starlight sent forward a second attack. While it had felt that a lot of time had passed since the first, the reality was that it had only been the span of half a breath. Starlight didn't seem intent on letting up, having become bored of Ryu's display.

However, what he hadn't expected was for his next strike to miss entirely. Ryu simply vanished, appearing exactly one meter to the side.

''Space talent?'' Starlight's brows shot up, but Ryu had already begun his counterattack.

Ryu's body flickered with lightning as a surge of icy intent coursed through his body, a wild surge of vitality filling his body, meeting up with his Southern Heavenly wind and swallowing up the intent eating away at his collarbone as he sent a strike forward.

Starlight's gaze narrowed as he met the blow with his palm, exchanging three strikes in quick succession before his body flickered into the shadows. However, when he reappeared once again, Ryu's fist was already in front of his face. In fact, it seemed that Ryu had made it to the location before even he could.

Starlight's frown deepened and wisps of dark fog left his body, leaving a void around his body that made Ryu feel as though he was punching through a different dimension. And yet, too suddenly for Starlight to react, Ryu's fist shifted out of said dimension and hit him squarely in the face.

BANG!

Starlight's head was forced to complete a quarter turn, his neck muscles bulging as his gaze locked onto a position to his right as though he was looking for something. Although he didn't move a single step back, his eyes were opened wide with shock.

His face had been hit? No, more importantly, how had his void dimension been punched through? How could a low Heaven genius have such a high comprehension of space?

Starlight was so distracted by his shock that he couldn't react to the palm that landed flat on his chest a moment later, sparks of lightning shredding his outer clothing and leaving faint marks of char in its path.

Starlight stumbled three steps back, his head finally slowly turning toward Ryu.

''It really is him,'' Jenneless thought with wide open eyes. By now it was all too obvious. The man with a Perfect Blackbody soul who had attacked her back then was actually this ant she thought she could casually crush with a thought?!

Ryu didn't even spare Jenneless a glance as he punched out once again, his fists howling with golden wings, frightening ice and arcs of lightning. For the first time, he unleashed his ice affinity in the truest sense and the biting cold licked across Starlight's face and made him feel uncomfortable.

The moment this ice was release, Ryu's vitality skyrocketed, and his sapphire blue scales were all coated in a faint sheet of frozen water that more than doubled his defensive prowess.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

His punches were immaculate. Every single one perfectly concentrated all of his strength into a single point, the raging torrent of his fury, his frustration, his will being fused into a single point.

Starlight retreated again and again, finding it difficult to find a way to reclaim the momentum. The moment Ryu had abandoned his great swordstaffs, his battle sense had become seamless. In fact, it felt like his close combat skills were simply on a level all to their own.

However, to make matters worse, his spatial talent was absolutely suffocating. It didn't matter what domain Starlight released, it felt like he could waltz through it as though it was his own backyard.

ROAR!

Suddenly, Ryu's body erupted with flames. The change once again caught Starlight completely off guard, especially when his Tribulation Lightning and these flames fused into one. The explosive power shot up as the purple lightning flame tore a part through space, appearing at Starlight's chest.

BOOM!

Starlight was finally lifted off of his feet, shooting backward like a beaming star.

Ryu stood on the star path. All the elements in the world seemed to bow to his command. Ice, fire, lightning and wind were all corralled beneath his might, forced into submission and concentrated into his attack force.

However, Ryu didn't seem satisfied in the slightest. Dark gold runes began to float around him.

He would throw everything he had into this battle. Seventh Heaven genius? Dao Sovereign? The Martial Gods? None would block his path!

Ryu raised up two fingers on one hand and threw out a mighty punch with the other that soared after Starlight. Then, his body flickered and vanished. He stepped around the void as thought it was his home and appeared above Starlight, several dark gold cones of condensed soul attacks forming around him.

He sent them forward without the slightest hesitation. At the same moment, his earlier fist attack appeared, crashing down toward Starlight in a wreath of fire, ice, lightning and wind.

Facing a physical attack and a soul attack at once was enough to devastate most if not all opponents.

But just when Ryu's soul attacks descended, a chained necklace around Starlight's neck trembled and the dark gold spiraling cones shattered on contact. Reacting just as quickly, Starlight punched out, causing his backward momentum to accelerate just out of the range of Ryu as he collided with the latter's fist attack.

Starlight flipped through the air and landed on the ground. His smiling expression had vanished, but it hadn't been replaced by coldness or rage. Instead, it seemed to be a mix of indifference and stoicism. The void trembled around him slightly and the dense fog of darkness increased. Eventually, it felt like it was only possible to see the starry light of his bright eyes.

At that moment, Ryu picked up on the void trembling as a connection seemed to be established with some far off, distant existence or even.... plane?

Ryu's pupils constricted.

Starlight's palms came together before separating. Each of them began to follow a circular pattern, rotating in the opposite direction of one another before meeting again.

An oppressive power descended, and yet Ryu felt intimately familiar with it.

This was Starlight making use of his cultivation method's qi manipulation method, it was no different from the constellation techniques of the Radiant Star Sect. The fact this was happening at least meant that Starlight was becoming semi-serious, but this wasn't what shocked Ryu.

It really was no different from the constellation techniques because it was THE constellation technique...! Just....different... As though it was the opposite side of the same coin...

Constellation Qi fell and the flickering image of a six-armed buddha with skin as dark as night appeared to Starlight's back.

The oppressive aura he exuded alone seemed to shatter all of Ryu's momentum.