Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1323 Corps Formations

Ryu stood stoically, his white hair fluttering wildly and his hands clasped behind his back. He looked forward toward the garbage units, not minding the Sky Gods to his back that were stuck in place, seemingly unable to make a choice.

It was impossible for Ryu to suddenly make these troops powerful. Maybe if he only had to deal with one at a time, and if he was given a few weeks at least, he could make something happen with his skill. But not only did he not have any time, there were over a million of these troops. The idea of doing anything that could fundamentally change their fates was ridiculous.

What Ryu needed to do was to establish a usable foundation that could be usable, and the best option he had in succeeding in this endeavor were formations.

Formations weren't unheard of on the battlefield. In fact, they were exceptionally common in the True Martial World. Whenever there were large scale wars, only those with these powerful formations that could pour the strength of large numbers of warriors into a single strike would be of any use.

With a troop like this, so long as the formation was decent enough to make use of at least 10% of everyone's strength, they could even battle a small group of Sky Gods, assuming these Sky Gods weren't stronger than the False Sky God Realm, that is.

However, while this 10% number seemed low, the number of individuals who had access to formations of this level were almost non-existent. The idea of being able to use 10% of the strength of over a million cultivators at once was mind numbing.

To put this matter into perspective, even a Fragmented Sky God couldn't say that they were a hundred thousand times more powerful than a World Sea Realm expert. This was an astronomical number impossible to put into perspective.

While a Fragmented Sky God could battle an army of a million cultivators with ease, and slaughter every single one of them. If this army had a formation to gather their strength into a single point, even such an expert would have no choice but to turn tail and run.

Of course, even if there was such a formation, it was impossible for them to stop a Sky God from running from them. As such, such a formation could be said to bring about a stalemate in this situation.

But once again... Such formations were far too rare, impossibly so. Even those that could manage to reach the 10% threshold were often limited in the number of people that could use it at once. They would most often be limited to squads of 10, and if one was lucky you might run into an inheritance that granted you with one that could be used with a battalion of 100.

Of course, there were some legends of formations that could make use of a 20% threshold, some even spoke of 30%. At that point, you might only need a troop of 100 000 World Sea Realm experts to battle it out against a Sky God.

But these were practically fairy tales to the people of the Fifth Heaven.

The strongest formation that the Dream Asura Race had access to was only able to reach a 5% standard, and that formation could only be used by 100 individuals at once.

Their best large scale formation could only reach a 3% threshold and only be used by up to a million at once.

Once could see by the disparity that just a 1% increase was highly sought after. Just a difference between 3% and 5% was enough for the number of individuals who could use it at once to fall by a factor of 10 000! This was the reality of such formations.

It could be said such formations were no less important to Sects and Clans than their Core Texts and they would all be tightly guarded...

But Ryu had many of them. Namely, he had three different branches of them that came from three different sources, and those were just the ones that he cared enough to list.

The Frost Clan was the first. He had access to their entire inheritance, and this of course included the formations they had used to stake their claim to the Sixth Heaven when they were at their peak. They had three core formations, a small scale, medium scale, and large scale one. The first could be used for a battalion of 100, the second for troops of up to 100 000 and the final for up to 100 000 000 troops at once.

The small scale formation reached a standard of 7%, the medium scale formation reached a standard of 5%, while the final reached a standard of 3%!

Taking out any one of these formations would cause a huge commotion in the Dream Asura Race, however they were the absolute weakest in Ryu's arsenal.

The Nine Pillar Flame Sect was the second. There was a lot to learn from their pillars and the runes that Ryu had memorized. In fact, Ryu believed that because he had only had time to comprehend a small portion of it, if he spent some more time, the core formations he could find in the end would actually be even more potent than this.

Even so, their best small scale formation could be used by up to 100 and had a standard of... 21% ! As though that wasn't enough, their medium scale and large scale formations could be used to a 15% and 11% standard respectively! The most shocking part was that their so-called medium scale formation could be used by up to a 1 000 000 people at once, and their large scale reached a standard of an entire billion.

Even with all of this being the case, these two were left far behind by the Unbalance Art Sect. Of the nine formations they had left behind, one of their unique formations was known as a Nest Doll Formation.

A Nest Doll Formation was a formation that had baked in complexities. This meant that it had both simplified and more complicated versions, and depending on the skill of the user, it could be modified.

In fact, all nine formations they had left behind were like this, showing just the kind of skill they had in this regard was simply unmatched by any forces that Ryu was familiar with. However, what was unique about this one was that it was a core formation, or most accurately, a corps formation.

Its small scale could be used by up to 1000 people and had a standard of... 81%!

Its medium scale formation could be used by up to 10 000 000 people and had a standard of... 63%!

Its large scale formation could be used by up to 10 000 000 000 people and had a standard of 49%!

They even had a super large scale formation that could be used by up to a trillion people and had a standard of 22%!

Unfortunately, there was a great weakness of the Unbalance Art Sect Corps Formations. In fact, there was quite a large weakness, one related to the Nine Pillar Flame Sect at once.

The problem with the first was obvious... the irregularity of the Unbalance Art Sect. Just practicing their methods could make a person go mad, so one could imagine what would be required of such powerful formations. Finding enough people who could withstand the Unbalance Mantra, especially after they had been destroyed, was absolutely impossible.

There was a work around for this, and that was for the central of the Corps Formation to withstand the weight of the calculations and such on their own. But in his wounded state, it was simply impossible for Ryu to do so. Even if he was in top condition, he would have to bring his soul to a Sky God standard first, or at the very least an equivalent standard.

He might be able to withstand the small scale formation, but the medium scale and beyond was too much.

As for the Nine Pillar Flame Sect Corps Formation, while it was less demanding on its mind, one could imagine that its demands of the body were on a completely other level. And, unlike this Unbalance Art Sect Corps Formations, this burden couldn't be handled by others for you.

It seemed, then, that Ryu's only choice was to use the Frost Clan's formations... but he had never had any intention of doing so. He had already decided, he would use the Nine Pillar Flame Sect Corps Formations. However, in their current state, if these garbage units tried to activate such a formation, after a few seconds their Vital Qi would burn up and they would turn to ash.

So, Ryu had to counter this.

'Little woman,' Ryu spoke to the Favoured Alchemy Sky God for the first time in a long while. 'Pay attention to me closely. I'm going to start concocting now, after this, I probably won't have time to do this again. It'll be up to you to continue producing them during the war.'

The Favoured Alchemy Sky God's lip twitched, what was this brat talking about. Since when did she have to observe others to concoct? There were probably many top tier Dao Lord alchemists who weren't a match for her in this regard. Also, was she someone who could just be casually commanded around like this?

Unless...

The Favor Alchemy Sky God's pretty eyes widened.

A untamed aura came from Ryu as pillars plumed of fire and water qi began to surge in from the surroundings.

A smirk spread across his lips, the thundering heavens above seemingly reacting before he had even begun.

That was right. He was going to forge a new pill.