Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

The closer they got to the city, the less talkative Ryu was. His eyes kept flashing like lightning as he turned his head from side to side, seemingly observing his surroundings. But in reality, Selheira could sense a deep battle intent coming from him. It was as though he was hoping someone would pick a fight, and if they didn't, he would just pick one himself for next to no reason.

She smiled and didn't say much. In truth, this might have been a problem on the Real Plane, but here it was fine... so long as they didn't poke the wrong hornets nest.

The True Nether Plane was practically a free for all. One would think that there would be more structure on the Ninth Plane, but there was actually less of it. In fact, the most organized of the Planes was probably somewhere between the Fifth and Eighth Planes. Every form of structure collapsed up here.

While they were walking toward a "city" now, it was more like an unorganized mess of buildings surrounded by a wall. There was no city planning involved whatsoever. Some buildings were built from skeletons, some from obsidian-like rocks, others from what looked like quick-dried magma.

Demons of all sorts walked around. There were some necromantic beasts, some amorphous blobs of darkness, there was even what looked like a large, dark green skinned troll. The last was particularly eye-catching for no other reason than the fact he only wore a simple skirt that couldn't quite hide his dangling green penis. Every time he took a step, it would sway and a foul stench would waft into the region.

The scenery was more than chaotic. It was practically a circus bazaar.

There was no toll to enter the city, and there weren't even any guards. They walked right into the open gates, and as Selheira had said, other than a few glances, there was nothing else. If anything, to those that weren't from the Nine Demon King Clans, a Dragon was an existence that they shouldn't offend, especially since the stench of blood coming from Lu'card was particularly dense at the moment.

Ryu settled down his beating heart. Before they found a place to settle down, he had to first find a method of making money to earn a spot to live first.

"Let's go here," Ryu pointed out a particularly rowdy location. Every time his senses swept over it, he would be hit with a wave of blood and sweat.

Soon, they entered an underground betting arena and Ryu felt the blood he had just managed to settle down churning again.

"You guys wait here," Ryu said, shooting off before they could say anything. The two Dragons could only shake their heads.

They were beasts and still weren't this eager for battle. It almost felt like Ryu was looking for an excuse to do exactly this.

...

"What was that? A Dragon you say? They've entered the arena? Are they participating?"

A young woman with skin as pale as a tombstone looked up.

"No, young miss. The human is, though."

The young woman looked disappointed when she heard this. If a Dragon was participating, they could make a lot of money. But then again, without the time needed to advertise, it really would be a waste.

"Wait," the young woman suddenly sat up, her breasts almost spilling out of her black dress, "you said they were in a group together?"

"Yes," the voice replied. "He seemed to be in a particularly... blood lusted state."

"Good, good. This is a chance. Give him some easy opponents to start, inflate his head a bit. I will communicate with some channels. After the third battle, prolong the fourth and kill him in vicious fashion. We'll see if we can goad the Dragon into participating on his behalf to make up for his dead friend. By then, we should be able to circulate the word a bit.

"Our city's been on a downswing recently, we need something to liven it up."

"As you wish, young miss."

The voice vanished and the young woman leaned back.

The trouble began a few years back when a so-called Dream Asura Race returned. They were apparently the descendants of the Dream Wraiths, so no one really dared to touch them. Well, that and the fact their young mistress was the disciple of that woman...

The Ninth Plane is mostly a loose collection of sand as Selheira said, but there were still undercurrents of structure, and that was disrupted when a large number of people suddenly appeared and occupied a large territory for themselves.

A lot of cities ended up swallowed by the Dream Asuras, their structures and customers commandeered. Because the Dream Asuras had brought over the structure of the Sixth Heaven, many preferred to travel the extra distance and pay the extra bit for their services due to the added safety.

For cities like this young woman's family's which still did things the normal demon way, sticking to their traditions, it was hard to keep up.

This festered quite a bit of dissatisfaction, as one might expect.

If the Dream Asuras were powerful, that would be one thing. But they were relying on a proxy relationship to prop themselves up. The young woman would like to see nothing more than for them to collapse beneath their own weight.

...

Ryu didn't know of the orders that the woman had given, or else he wouldn't have been so completely disappointed.

When he stepped into the arena for the first time, feeling the sand moistened with blood beneath his feet, he felt excitement...

Only for his first opponent to collapse like clay. He was so disappointed that he would have directly walked out if it wasn't for the fact he reminded himself that he was actually doing this for the money and not the thrill.

A second opponent came in, and they fell just the same.

Ryu looked to the side and saw that his total ticked up and shook his head. His battle lust faded and he just wanted to get this over with already.

The third came and fell just the same.

Finally came the fourth.