Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

City Lord Horace dabbed away at his forehead, trying to cobble together a procession to welcome Ryu. But Ryu himself seemed oblivious to all of this. He made a direct beeline to the teleportation platform before he realized that he was a little bit too eager.

He could feel Elena now, but that didn't mean he could just hop into a teleportation platform and make it right to her.

That wasn't because he was worried about what was on the other side. Quite frankly, he couldn't be bothered to give a damn right now. It had been a while since he was able to flaunt his younger master status, but it was a role he was confident in sliding right back into. Soon, the Ninth Heaven would be filled with as many Mistress Holy Wings as he could find.

But, no. The main problem he was facing was that he had no idea how to translate his sensory information about where Elena was to the teleportation itself. He could point in a general direction, but he had no idea how that direction related to the teleportation destinations themselves.

In the worst case, he'd have to randomly pick locations until he got close enough.

He could just wait here as he was pretty sure that Elena could feel him by now too. But that would defeat the purpose. He had come to visit his wife, if he had to wait for her to come to him because he was lost, wouldn't that be too embarrassing? Plus, the purpose was to make her happy, how could he make her do all the leg work?

Ryu's brow furrowed.

Would he have to just continue traveling with Little Silk's help? But it had taken him months to get here, almost an entire half year. If he kept traveling that way, it would probably be years before he made it.

He was lucky enough in that he had been on the edge of Dragon territory to begin with, and relatively close to the Martial God territory. But if he had to make it toward a region he assumed had to be the core of Martial God territory...

'A map would fix this, but can I even get one?'

Getting a map in the lower Heavens was already impossible, let alone on the Ninth Heaven. He would probably die just for asking for one if not for his master.

As Ryu was lost in thought, a man billowing with fat rolls trotted over, dotting his forehead with a damp handkerchief.

"Young Master Ryu, apologies, apologies, I am late. My humble city welcomes you."

Ryu looked over and raised an eyebrow.

He had somewhat expected this, but... it really had been a long time since he didn't need to be annoyed by the disdain of others.

This City Lord Horace was clearly a Dao Lord, but he was actually bowing and scraping.

However, this just painted the true picture of this world. Even on the Eighth Heaven, a Dao Lord was a great being. And here, they were a bowing City Lord?

At the same time, though, the sheer power of the Martial Gods was on full display. Even in a fringe city, they had such powerhouses.

Seeing this scene, though, Ryu seemed to realize that this might be simpler than he thought.

"Do you have a map of the cities connected to this teleportation station?"

"This..." Horace froze, his sweat falling even faster. This was a treasonous question, this boy was really trying to get him killed. He should have known, he should have known.

If Horace realized that Ryu hadn't actually expected him to appear at all, he'd probably be kicking himself even worse.

Ryu's frown returned and he shook his head. He had known that this was likely going to be the outcome regardless, but it was still disappointing.

But then he chose to compromise.

"Send me to the furthest city you can in that direction," Ryu pointed.

"Yes, yes," Horace nodded. He couldn't help but come off as more eager than he probably should have. He even went as far as to set up and activate the formation himself, not exhaling until Ryu was gone.

He wiped his forehead again, finally relaxing. Just as he was about to bark out some orders and re-establish some prestige, an aura descended that made him want to faint.

"What God did he anger to deserve this? He couldn't even relax for a single moment."

High in the skies, a young man descended on a silver flying disk. He touched down with a BOOM and the streets fissured and cracked.

With a thought, Horace plopped down to his knees, not even willing to look up. Ultimately, Ryu's name was fresh and new, but there were many more deeply ingrained fears than a young man with the backing of two Dao Gods.

"There was a particularly strong surge of Faith here moments ago. Who descended?" The young man asked coldly.

Horace quickly explained to the best of his abilities. He gave enough details that the young man would be unlikely to ask anymore questions, but not enough that it would be seen as a sign of betrayal of Ryu were to ever learn of it. Plus, it wasn't like Ryu had hidden his actions.

"Ryu? I've heard a lot about this name in recent days... his master sure is arrogant," the young man sneered. "Send me to the same city."

"Yes... Yes..."

Horace released a string of curses in his heart. He had put all that effort into not offending either party, only for this to happen.

If Ryu wanted to take offense, he was finished. He could only hope that this young man didn't say anything about how he ended up in the city. If he was lucky, maybe they would just start fighting immediately, or whatever rage Ryu had would be aimed toward the young man.

That Ryu was only a False Sky God, but this young man was already a Perfect Sky God and seemed to be a few years younger than Ryu on top of that. He really didn't understand why a Dao God had taken such a disciple-

Horace furiously shook his head. Such thoughts were how people ended up dead.

He dabbed at his forehead, sending the young man off with a smile.

The instant the young man disappeared, Horace threw off his top layer of robes despite the fact he was in the middle of the populated streets. He tossed his City Lord Badge to his second in command and roared into the skies.

"Fuck this! If anyone asks for me, tell them that I've gone out into the wilds to die."

Horace brought out a flying treasure and shot into the skies, not caring about anything else. He was a Dao Lord, even those two arrogant brats weren't guaranteed to reach his level. Was he really consigned to a life of bowing and scraping for them?

On the Ninth Heaven, there were two streams of cultivators. The first stream were the normal cultivators, ones like Horace. The second stream however...

To reach Sky God by 18, True God by 21, Perfect God by 24, Transcendent God by 30 and Omniscient God by 40.

Those were the benchmarks, benchmarks denoting who were the true geniuses and who were not.

Obviously, Ryu had long since fallen off of this chart. While the young man was far ahead of these benchmarks.

However, what was important to Horace weren't the benchmarks themselves, but rather the fact that there were no such time limits for the Dao Lord Realm and beyond. It could be said that the moment one stepped into this Realm, nothing else mattered. There were even many geniuses who managed to maintain this pace to the Omniscient Sky God Realm, and yet never took the next step.

It was true. The more talented you were, the more difficult taking that step was. It was the paradox that had haunted many a genius.

He had wanted a life of leisure, but life wasn't kind to him. He wanted nothing to do with this any longer.

Ryu didn't know what happened after he left, nor did he care. In fact, the first thing he did was sense for Elena, and when he realized he still had a ways to go, he commandeered another teleportation array, pointed in the direction he wanted, then vanished again.

He realized quickly as he did this for a third and then fourth time that the cities weren't all interconnected. Instead, it seemed that the periphery cities were only connected to some higher-level cities, but none too far above it.

This was likely a protection. You wouldn't want a person being able to send an army to the core of your territory after conquering just one city... but even so, it left Ryu curious.

He was told before that the Martial Gods were extraordinarily cautious given their strength... and now there was this.

What were they so wary of, exactly?