Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

The Ice Queen, Luna

She wasn't just an astounding beauty, but she was known as a great talent as well. Although she wasn't as good as those Heart of a Hero characters, she wasn't far behind them either. If there were three tiers of geniuses, that being geniuses, heroes, and then monsters, she would be firmly within the genius tier.

It could be said that the 16-year-old of the Beast Mimicry Sect that Ryu fought in the Martial God Clan was firmly in the Hero category. However... he had undergone a great change after his exchange with Ryu. It was hard to say if the next time they met, he would still be a Hero or... if he would graduate to the ranks of Monsters.

The Fire Giant, Ferouge. He was much like Luna, a great talent shy of the Hero Tier of geniuses.

It was hard to say that these were rankings that everyone used, and it was simply a casual tier system that Ryu himself had created after some exchanges.

He had deduced that the Martial Gods and the True Martial World most definitely had far more to offer, and as such he added a Monster tier above the Hero tier. But whether he was correct or not... only time would tell.

What was certain was that no matter what tier these geniuses fell into, in their opinions, they were always far better. The fact that the 16-year-old youth could potentially raise himself to the Monster tier after a single battle went to show that there was a thin piece of paper between every level. If you were determined enough... it wasn't all that difficult to poke a hole through it and transcend your limits.

This was all to say that at this level, what separated geniuses wasn't their baseline of talent. Rather, it was their luck, their comprehension, and their hearts.

In terms of the gifts they were all given at birth, it could be said that other than a few at the very top echelon of the Monster tier, it was hard to differentiate them at all.

This painted the picture well of the kind of character that Ferouge and Luna were.

And now, their attentions were all pulled toward Ryu who stood there confidently and without a care in the world.

The arena ground rumbled, loose sand jumping up for a moment before plopping down. The quake was quite substantial, or else even this wouldn't be possible. With how much blood had been poured into the arena, the sand was no longer so easy to move. There was a dense moistness that reminded you of its presence with every step. The stench was enough to make even the bravest of warriors vomit, and the clumps of once brown said had long turned a grotesque rusted color.

Her skin was purple and her hair was a mask of flickering blue flames. Standing at over five meters tall, she leaned a heavy ax over her shoulder, one with a pole arm that surpassed even herself in height.

Her lower body was covered by nothing more than a beast skin cloth, but every time she walked and the wind blew a bit too fiercely, it became obvious that there was nothing underneath. In fact, in place of her pubes was another fiery bed of blue flames.

This flaming giant of a woman obviously didn't care about this, because along with her lack of underwear, her chest was covered by nothing at all, bluish nipples standing out in contrast to her violet skin.

The raucous cheers of the crowd reached another level. It was clear that she was a crowd favorite, and it wasn't too surprising at all. Despite her size, and her chiseled set of abs and arms, she was quite a beauty. Although she wasn't to the level of a world ending type of woman, her facial features were delicate and pleasing to the eye.

There was no doubt that even if she was five meters tall, there were quite a few in the crowd willing to climb that tree.

Ryu himself chuckled at the sight. He was never shy about admiring beautiful women, but he preferred his women to be his own.

That said, it didn't seem that this giant woman was doing this for the sex appeal, she truly seemed to not care. Judging by the look in her eye, she was here for battle and nothing else. Clearly, she had been raised in a vastly different culture to Ryu's own.

What was more interesting to Ryu, though, was that he sensed a familiar aura coming from her...

"Fire Giant? She should have a small strand of their bloodline... interesting..."

Ryu's gaze flickered before he shook his head.

In recent days, he was making great progress toward consolidating his path. His eyes, his Dao, and now even his talents were slowly becoming one. It would be hard to convince him to switch gears now. He was slowly starting to see the benefit of fusing his talents toward one singular goal.

Just now, he had thought of how interesting it would be to take this giant woman as a corpse puppet.

It had been a very long time since he refined a puppet, and it was somewhat of a lost art to him, though one he felt that he could have great success with.

Attacking a Fire Giant and turning them into a puppet would only enrage them further. But, if he took a puppet without a strong Fire Giant bloodline, and then turned them into a powerful Fire Giant after the fact...

He shook his head again, the wind pressure of the giant flaming woman's ax swinging down toward his head.

Ryu's brows jumped.

It had nothing to do with the strength of the attack, though it was quite strong. The main issue was the skill.

He could sense that flame had erupted in the void, making him feel as though he had been suppressed in the void.

"Fascinating... a True Sky God shouldn't be able to play around with the void so easily... unless?"

Ryu's eyes flashed. This should be related to Nether Qi.

He had never really thought about what sort of speciality Nether Qi might have because he had never used it.

Ethereal Qi and Nether Qi were probably two sides of the same coin... but thinking about it like this was probably wrong considering Real Qi was right in the middle of the two.

Unfortunately, Ryu didn't have access to any of this. He had control over the Chaos Plane, which was separate from the Real Plane and its branching Ethereal and Nether Planes.

"No, it can't just be Nether Qi, though it likely is in part. This woman is a genius. Why is she here?"

Ryu's gaze flickered as the ax continued to descend.

His brain roared into action, but to his surprise, he couldn't find a quick solution. For the first time, rather than using skill, he was forced into a situation where he could only use brute force.

He punched out with a great amount of speed, meeting the momentum of the ax head-on as though he wasn't worried about his arm being sliced off at all.

There was a shocked gasp that went through the crowd before the clash resounded.

BANG!

To the surprise of the spectators, the sand around them formed a wild vortex as they were both forced a single step back.

But everyone knew that that meant that in this exchange, Ryu had actually one. The giant woman had the leverage of attacking from above, and yet they were evenly matched. This could only mean that Ryu was actually stronger than her.

At that moment, the void shattered with dancing, illusory flames that flickered like candles.

The giant flaming woman looked surprised, the first flicker of emotion appearing in her eyes. She thought that she would crush Ryu in a single blow and call it a day, she didn't think that this would happen.

What was even more shocking to her, though, was the fact that Ryu looked even more surprised than she was. He looked down at his fist as though he couldn't understand how it was so weak.

When he looked up, he chuckled.

"Hey, lady, I don't know your story, but how about a wager?"

The giant flaming woman's eyes narrowed. She had heard many such things before, men challenging her for the chance to spend a night with her. She was entirely uninterested in such things, and even if she was, it wouldn't be with a man less than half as tall as her. How would she feel like a woman, exactly?

"It's not what you're thinking, I'm not interested in women who expose themselves like this. It's something else."

As for the matter of size, he had Idol Control, if he really wanted this woman he could easily make himself her size. But like he said, he wasn't interested.

The giant woman didn't seem offended by Ryu's words. Once again, she simply didn't care.

"What kind of wager?"

Her voice was impossibly delicate for her size. Although it was definitely on the deeper side for a woman, it had a mellow sweetness to it nonetheless.

"It's simple," Ryu grinned. "I lose, I'll become your slave. You lose, you become mine. How about it?"

The dangerous glint in Ryu's eyes seemed to tremble the void, the world roaring in response. It looked as though he was ready to face off against the world.