Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Asce's gaze flickered, but he maintained his smile. "I see, I'll be more mindful in the future. Apologies, fairy."

Aika snorted and took Eska's arm, leaving Asce and the others. Clearly, her intention was to have Eska come with them once they had cleared the requirements of the Complete Heavenly Path.

She sighed inwardly. Although they now had Ryu, she was still slightly worried. The difficulty of the Complete Heavenly Path wasn't set to the Sixth Heaven. The rewards that appeared and the difficulty would all be scaled to the geniuses that entered. In fact, even those that could enter were adjusted depending on the situation.

Usually, the World Sea Realm was the highest state you could be in to enter a Heavenly Path, whether it was the Complete or Incomplete one. However, this time, it had actually allowed some who had some aspects within the Fragmented Sky God Realm in.

Luckily, the Seventh Heaven hadn't expected this change, so those that had entered had only been from the Sixth Heaven. But the gap was frightening indeed. While there would definitely be some checks and balances, it was impossible for things to be perfectly fair, and she wasn't entirely sure what would happen this time.

Her senses felt that there was something special about this opening, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She felt like if they failed this time, they would regret it for a lifetime. But she unfortunately couldn't take action herself. This was all she could do and it left her feeling frustrated, as though she had been born far too early.

'Good luck...'

...

Ryu appeared in a twisting miasma of Heavenly Favor once again. With his improved talent, he should have been able to move through it much more quickly, but he still felt somewhat sluggish. There was definitely a change here that he wasn't aware of. But this wasn't something that he could focus on at all, because the state of his body right now was terrible, and he had run out of Embryonic Qi to heal him.

He had originally used all of his Embryonic Qi on the White Phoenix and it had taken a while to recover, so he hadn't been able to give enough to Eska ahead of time, forcing him to hand it over at the last minute. It also didn't help that a portion had been used to enter in the first place.

The reason he had been able to do any of this relied on one particular thing. Well, one particular thing was the absolute most important, and that was Infinity Mist. He might have been fine if he had used the Infinity Mist on someone else, but because he had used it on himself, this was the obvious result.

His ruse was quite elaborate and it had taken quite a chunk of flesh out of him.

The first thing he did was maybe the most painful thing he had ever experienced, and that was splitting his soul in two. One couldn't possibly fool a Dao Sovereign, let alone a Half-Step Dao God, unless you were willing to go at least that far.

Usually, one would have to rely on a technique, and that might at least mitigate the pain somewhat, but Ryu didn't have such a technique so he could only rely on the nature of his soul itself.

He split his soul in two and then used his Cosmos Fog and Infinity Mist to wrap around it. Then, he did the same with his real body. In the instant he entered the void to cross the distance toward the portal, he released his fake body from the Golden Moon World and swapped places.

Infinity Mist was an existence that even Dao Gods feared in large enough quantities, it represented the absolute extreme of the extreme, a water and ice qi so concentrated that it transcended from solid right back into a gaseous state. It simply wasn't possible for others to permeate it with their senses, even if they were a Sky God.

Of course, the trouble with surrounding himself with Infinity Mist, even if it was under his control, was that his body entered an absolutely terrible state. And the fact his soul was split in two didn't help the situation at all either, his mind felt foggy and a constant migraine was tearing at him. After the other half of his soul dissipated beneath Primus' attack, and the fact it had been separated from him too long, the feeling only got worse.

Unfortunately, he couldn't begin healing his soul ahead of time or else the imbalance would have been a dead giveaway. Only when they were of equal strength could one confuse the other.

As for the state of his body, well... If even a Transcendent Sky God like Eska had ended up with a mangled finger, his state could be imagined. He was very much used to being able to control all the energies and qis in his possession with exceptional familiarity and ease, but Infinity Mist was so unruly and arrogant that he couldn't quite get a reign on it... causing him to end up in this state.

Ryu took a deep breath. It should be fine, in a few minutes he would finish forming his first drop of Embryonic Qi and his body would be back in tiptop shape. So long as his body was in an optimal state, he could protect him and then find an area to recultivate his soul to his previous level and get rid of his headache.

Unfortunately, the Golden Moon World was sealed now. It was obvious that the Heavenly Path had sensed the Favor Alchemy Sky God and taken action. Obviously, they wouldn't allow such an obvious loophole, or more accurately, a treasure of a former Sixth Heaven Clan wouldn't be able to fool this world.

Suddenly, Ryu fell through the last of the miasma, causing his expression to flicker. He contemplated that he would have enough time to at least heal his body, but it seemed that the illusion of him moving slowly was exactly that. His talent had, indeed, gained a great boost.

'Shit.'

Ryu vaguely sensed it even before it landed, but he couldn't do anything about it.

BANG!

His already badly mangled body was sent flying like a ragdoll.

Down below, a man with burning red gaze stood, seething. No... his eyes were actually a light shade of brown, it seemed that he was just so enraged that his eyes had taken on this color.

'Mental Realm Master..' Ryu contemplated as he flew out. 'A Sky God? What good luck...'

He already had a guess who this was. Who else if not the elusive First Disciple of Saint Rinushka. He had nearly overlooked that Aika had slain that man, but this individual certainly didn't forget.