Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Iroh's pupils constricted. He could feel something stirring deep within him. His better judgment told him not to fight Ryu, it wasn't worth offending the Ancestor that stood to his back. But the moment he heard those provocative words, his large belly thrummed with a bronze light, his gaze turning into slits and the earth beneath him rumbling.

He reached out with his twin pair of hammers, his gaze as fiery as that of a dragon's... but that only fueled Ryu's fighting intent all the more.

The other four reacted in the same way, suddenly surging forward. But even as they did, motes of starlight descended from the surroundings. The forest floor became like a gorgeous floral arrangement of twinkling light. It felt like countless seeds, holding the breath of life itself, floated in the surroundings. And in that very moment, Ryu that had already vanished, but was still firmly within their senses to grasp, slipped from their senses entirely.

[Absolute Domain] flourished, spreading out far further now than it ever had in the past. Its beauty was captivating, but the danger it posed was even more So.

Ryu hadn't felt that such a marvelous movement technique was the best way to maximize his strength against Pierthorn. But against these rumbling dragons?

The difference was clear.

Five pairs of hammers swung toward Ryu. As expected of dragons, when they saw something they didn't understand, rather than being shocked into silence, their first instinct was to blast right through it.

Ryu slipped through like a fish in water. His agility with his large and heavy great swordstaffs almost painted the illusion that he was instead wielding a pair of thin short swords, his movements akin to an assassin in the night and flickering shadows beneath the moonlight.

He struck out, knocking Iroh off balance slightly. His Sword God Aura flared.

He gripped it and manipulated it, dulling the forceful and blunt Hammer Qi that Iroh used further.

Before he could follow up, four more pairs of hammers came swinging down toward him. He wanted to flicker and vanished, but they stomped along the ground, disrupting his movement technique.

Ryu's grin spread wider and wider as the pressure increased. His advantage had only lasted for a brief instant before it was unceremoniously crushed, the overwhelming power of his enemies coming forth like a tsunami onto loose sand.

Even so, his smile only seemed to grow brighter, the excitement thrumming through his veins unlike anything he had experienced in a very long time.

How long had it been since he battled to his heart's content? How long had it been since his battle wasn't just about life or death, but rather about his own desire, his own will, his own forged determination to reach the peak of all there was?

His body glowed and the call of a Phoenix echoed. Ryu used it as a proxy to activate the Unbalanced Mantra. What once was a soul type technique was being wielded by his Qi Realm with the ease of breathing. As his comprehension of the Three Souls and Seven Spirits deepened, his control only increased.

'Strengthen.'

He didn't have the time to swing out his blades, their bulky length becoming troublesome as they bore down on him and constrained his lanes of movement. However, he didn't panic. Still holding onto his polearm tightly, he struck out with a fist.

The Art aspect of the Unbalance Mantra echoed, increasing his strength in an explosive arc. His Kunan Martial Form circulated and the fast twitch of his muscles suddenly expanded and pulsed midway through the blow, increasing its speed further.

BANG!

The face of a Twin Earth Dragon Sect geniuses collapsed, half of his skull being crumpled like a mix between paper mache and aluminum foil.

Ryu's white scaled fist glistened with a dancing rune and his gaze flickered with a rolling pair of eight trigram diagrams.

His body instantly rolled to the side, seemingly falling along with the genius screaming in pain. However, Ryu's reason was much different from that latter, using his self-created opening to rush out of the encirclement and vanish into his [Absolute Domain] again. When he had appeared once more, he was already to the back of another one of the geniuses.

But at that moment, a roar echoed.

"TWIN DRAGON'S RAGE."

The four, or rather three, excluding Iroh, roared in unison, an expansive domain forming around them that twisted space. A power gravity type Domain descended and their veins began to pop across their skin and muscles, pulsing with a bronze light.

Ryu's blades slowed and his [Absolute Domain] threatened to blink out of existence. Danger signs roared in his mind, but Iroh had already appeared before him, unaffected by the Domain and swinging his twin pair of hammers toward his chest.

It was too late to dodge. Ryu crossed his swords before him just as a rumbling force shot into his body. He could immediately sense that it carried a powerful vibrational energy, as well as a heavy qi that pressed down on his weapons, almost making him drop them to the side.

Even after he had skid back a long distance, the qi continued to latch onto his weapons and he found that he couldn't dispel it quickly, at least not quickly enough to deal with the next attack Iroh was already leveling toward him.

Blood leaked out from his lips and his bones creaked as several tendons and ligaments around them were partially fractures.

'Powerful.

Iroh had only landed one strike on him, but it was so devastating. It was like he truly had a slumbering dragon deep within his body, one that Ryu was stirring awake with every action he took.

Ryu let his great swordstaffs sink into the ground around him. It was simply impossible to use them. He was confident in using his Chaos Qi to disperse them quite quickly, it was just that even a split second in a battle of this magnitude could decide life and death.

He glided backward, using the momentum of Iroh's strike to shoot himself just outside the range of the latter's follow up strike. But to his back the three had already begun to circulate, and even the fourth, which he had heavily injured, collapsing half his face, was actually standing to his feet. If there was one thing dragons were known for, it was their durability. Even if he had shattered every bone in his body, he would have still tried to stand one more.

Ryu's gaze grew sharp and, finally, his Dao, which had been like a smoldering fire, needing just a single spark to erupt once again, roared to life.

The suffocating presence of a Founding Dao nearly pressed the five to their knees. They shook it off quickly, fear flickering in their eyes, soon replaced by determination, but... a split second was all too important.

Ryu punched out once, his body moving even faster as he stepped into the void. When he exited his fist pressed down on the plated chest of another genius.

BANG!

His chest crumbled just like his fellow disciples face, being crushed under the weight of Ryu's fist, targeting a weakness in his crafted armor, and also being powered by the [Art Mantra].

Ryu darted to the side, dodging out of the way of another hammer. It just barely grazed his shoulder as the flat of his hand slammed down on its body. The hammer, already swinging downward, swung down even faster, its speed becoming too great for the second Twin Earth Dragon Sect genius to stop. He was thrown off balance and found his nose colliding with Ryu's knee.

Ryu drove his knee upward with a great amount of force. All of his energies seemed to be in perfect alignment.

His Soul Nature reached out, neutralizing the domain around him. What was gravity if not a function of space?

His Chaos Qi circulated through his physique like a roaring wave, fueling his every assault with a power that had no business being in the hands of a World Sea Realm expert. It matched the tsunami that was his Vital Qi, the two qis moving through his body in perfect unison and fueling his strikes.

His Spiritual Sense, matched with his [Absolute Domain] seemed to pick up on every and anything, from the slight twitches of his enemies' muscles, to even the slight beads of sweat that pooled along their pores as they began to strain them.

His Martial Forms activated on their own from time to time, exploding his efficiency to another level and his Focus Qi was like a steady stream, flowing slowly, and efficiently.

He darted in a Meditation State without even realizing and four of the Twin Earth Dragon Sect members fell beneath his fists, knees and kicks one after another, leaving none but Iroh standing, heaving deep breaths.

PAH!

Ryu's great swordstaffs flew into his palms once again, the qi that had been weighing them down finally having been dispersed.

"Come."

He pointed out his blade.