Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu glided forward. This thickened water was actually a good opportunity. While his movements had slowed significantly, it gave him a chance to focus on his Blood Resonance on a much smaller scale.

The last time he used Blood Resonance, it had left him drained. If not for his Embryonic Qi replenishing his Vital Qi, he would have been down and out for a long while. At least an hour or two.

He couldn't accept that sort of result. If he was in battle and he could only attack three or four times, what would be the use?

Plus, these shackles on his body were getting annoying. Not being able to use his Spacetime Soul Nature, his eyes being suppressed, his Spiritual Sense, all of it. It felt like he was hopping around on one leg with both hands tied behind his body.

This was unacceptable to him, though to the outside world, he already had a ridiculous advantage, and that was only getting larger.

The Rotten Sea was a unique realm and entering it was very expensive, even for the nine Demon King Clans. The only reason they didn't care about who entered this time around was because the price wasn't dependent on how many entered, but rather set at a flat rate depending on a few factors.

As such, there were only two reasons they would choose to bear this cost.

The first was an event like this one where everyone bore the cost evenly, and the second was to allow a top of the line genius in.

The problem with the second approach was that you could either only let one or an infinite number in. If you were only sending in one supreme genius, then the cost was lower as well.

As a result, none of these secondary or tertiary geniuses had ever stepped foot into the Rotten Sea before.

That was all to say that if they wanted to learn Blood Resonance, it would usually have to take place near the bottom layers.

Any time before that, it would not only be far too difficult, but they would be suppressed, much like Ryu was.

Of course, Ryu had his reasons to be concerned.

Many of the things that were suppressed in him now were the reasons for his outrageous combat strength. Without his Spacetime Soul Nature, he couldn't use [Absolute Domain] to its full potential, so his maneuverability would be lacking compared to these geniuses who were several cultivation Realms above him.

His Dao was suppressed as well, along with his Inner World being inaccessible, so this meant that his Internal Matrix had gone back to giving him just a plus one Dao level boost from a plus three, and the worst part was that it was boosting a limited Dao on top of that.

Then there were his eyes. [Third Perspective] practically had an infinite range right now. The only reason that Ryu didn't use it like that was because there was only so much information his Focus Qi and soul could withstand taking in.

But there was a large gap between nigh "infinite", and the few dozen meters he was locked to now.

It was like they had systematically targeted his greatest strengths and kneecapped them all. It was far more devastating to him than it was these Perfect and Transcendent Sky Gods.

So, every time Ryu moved, he found himself recalling memories of when he had been in that large room of white, where vertigo would threaten to make him vomit every time he took a step that wasn't in line with the Heavens.

But it was far more difficult.

The blood had too many changes, too many variables. Even if his palm was resonating right in one area, his elbow might not be. If he took a step forward, at the initial location, his foot might be fine, but the instant it rose or pushed forward, it might be touching onto something completely antithetical and send him right back to step one.

The issue seemed unsolvable.

Well, that wasn't particularly true. Ryu had many solutions, the best of which was using his Inner World to steal this rotten blood of its Faith and make it more malleable to his whims, but with it sealed, how would he do that?

'I wonder how many other things in the world are capable of sealing me like this? Isn't this a unique application of Bloodmancy? The seals should have been instantly placed within my Bloodlines the moment I entered this place, I wonder...'

The Rotten Sea didn't seem to be owned by any one Clan, so the question was... who created it?

When you were on the lower planes, it was easy to hand wave away amazing phenomenon because there were always more powerful existences to pass the buck to.

But when you were on the Ninth Plane or the Ninth Heaven... these were the Gods, they were the deities that everyone worshipped, the Dream Wraiths were quite literally in charge of cleansing souls and sending them into reincarnation.

In this sort of situation, who did you pass the buck to?

Ryu looked up, realizing he had come across his first enemy in the fourth layer. They were 300 or so meters away. If not for his newly minted sense, courtesy of Bloodline Resonance, he wouldn't be able to sense them from so far away.

Now, though, he was in a situation where both his Spiritual Sense and [Third Perspective] abilities were next to useless.

'Not on the kill list.'

Ryu turned away and ignored the person, continuing downward.

'Wait... why have no beasts attacked me?'

Ryu's eyes lit up as he came to understand something. It seemed that using this resonance method made him almost impossible to detect. The Demon he spotted didn't even react to his presence because he didn't sense Ryu at all.

Ryu grinned. 'Now, this could be interesting.'

He wasn't interested in sneaking up on people. That wasn't his style. But if he could avoid beasts...