Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

[ thanks to Jackson :) (1/3)]

They said that the eyes were the window to the soul. But now, Ryu's soul was unlike any other to ever exist. It had become an amalgamation of all he was, both a kernel of life, a kernel of flesh and a kernel of his will all in one.

In that case, what did it mean for his eyes now? What were they window into? Were they a window at all? Did they even still have the same connection to his soul?

Ryu thought about this as his paintbrush continued to rush forward with a tempest of strokes, destroying the world before him bit by bit.

There was something else to consider.

After his Rebirth, Ryu had lost 999 years of time, a true Perfect Extreme. However, while it had made his path to reforging his foundation easier, was that truly all that had happened?

The truth of the matter was that the real reason Ryu saw so little change and progress after his Rebirth, despite having the qi of the Shrines to support him at the time, was primarily because all of the Rebirth potential had been focused on his eyes.

After swallowing so many Black Veined Spirit Seeking Lilies, Ryu's eyes entered a crossroads. On the one hand, there was a forever dormancy, and on the other, there was an evolution into something it had never been before.

It took reaching the Sky God Realm in near heroic fashion for it to rekindle itself and finally allow him to see through the eyes of the once number ranked Heavenly Pupils.

Many things had changed as a result.

His eyes went from using a function of time with Heaven and Earth Gate, to strict Realm changes instead. He had also gone from being stuck in long dormancy stages afterward, to being able to use either one again so long as his Karmic Qi replenished.

This was the largest change to his eyes, and the others were more subtle. But to have such large changes to what were arguably the two most powerful abilities of his eyes...

How could such a result be argued again?

Now, Ryu was slowly beginning to realize that this could only be as a result of his Rebirth, but at the same time...

It felt lackluster.

Was this all he had to give?

And then his mind landed on his Inner World.

Right now, he could no longer even sense the original treasure that he had fused with. It had well and truly become a world, as though the treasure was now him and he was the treasure.

It had to be remembered that the usual Inner Worlds granted to all Heavenly Pupils wielders were bland, just a box of grey with nothing special about it.

Of course, it could be changed and evolved, but doing so wasn't an easy task.

In Sacrum, Ryu's parents had managed to con Mistress Holy Wing out of what he had called an "Origin Grade" treasure at the time, an Incubator capable of allowing him to absorb treasures with ease so long as they were planted within.

For a mortal like him, this treasure was invaluable and his parents and grandparents had been trying to get it from the Holy Wings for centuries as it was the only thing that could allow him to easily absorb volatile treasures far too powerful for his body to handle.

On the night of his death, in a twist of irony, he finally managed to get his hands on it.

However... as great as that treasure sounded to those of Sacrum, if Ryu was correct, by the True Martial World standards, it was a mere Fragmented Grade Treasure. Thanks to his rewards from the Incomplete Heavenly Path, he had many Omniscient Grade treasures, let alone Fragmented Grade.

However, what he hadn't realized after his eyes had unsealed was that...

This so-called Fragmented Grade Treasure couldn't even be considered that any longer. In fact, it wasn't a treasure anymore at all.

After what could only be trillions upon trillions of years, it had become a part of him, evolving along with his eyes and becoming something entirely different.

It was well and truly a world, one within him that had a completely different environment to anything he had ever seen. It was akin to a small world with different laws compared to others... and it was completely under his control...

And it was this world that had become the window to his body.

His body was it and it was his body. The connection between the two was entirely inseparable, and when it was repainted in Ryu's image...

It breathed with life in an unfathomable way.

Soon, the lands became seas of fire and the skies became lakes of blue lightning.

Under the strokes of Ryu's will, those flames and bolts converged.

On the ground, sparks of embers became the delicate petals of flowers and the boundless blades of grass.

In the skies the slithering snakes and dragons of lightning became as delicate as clouds and as willowy as the wind.

In the center of it all, flames of red-gold, black and ice blue danced. They formed spirals in the air that quickly became familiar patterns.

The jagged, straight lines of the Ice Phoenix.

The swirling pinwheels of the Dark Phoenix.

The delicate feather patterns of the Emperor Phoenix and Fire Phoenix.

They layered atop of one another, forming a tapestry of colors, an enigma of the mind and a construct so unfathomably beautiful that it didn't feel real...

As though it was something that could only be brought to life in a painting.

Ryu lost himself in his strokes, the unfathomable changes of his body becoming rooted in this world as Cosmos Fog began to billow forth.

One would never know of the earth shattering and heaven sundering events that were ongoing...

Because it was all in the palm of his hands.

The laws of the world no longer mattered to him anymore.

Because only his will was important.