Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

After Ryu's voice fell, he suddenly took a step forward and punched out.

The light in the waters vanished as he stored the blood crystal away. At the same time, he sent out a pulse of Bloodline Resonance.

It all happened in an instant.

The waters were agitated beyond recognition. Their senses seemed to tell them that Ryu was everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time, all while they had lost the light source that they had been relying upon before.

The blood crystals seemed to be the only things that could light up these rotten waters. Even those with light or fire abilities found themselves out of luck in this regard. So the moment Ryu put the blood crystal away, it was like they had once more been thrust into the jaws of hell.

Ryu's pulse of Bloodline Resonance covered two bases for him at once. First, it obscured him from their senses, and second, it allowed him a perfect lay of how they were reacting.

Wunikai had retreated into the encirclement of sycophants, while the others looked around warily, trying to find exactly where Ryu was. Wunikai herself seemed to be particularly calm. She stood there without a word, her gaze shifting from side to side at times until it suddenly landed in Ryu's exact position.

Ryu was likewise calm when this happened. 'She's pretending. She never lost track of me in the first place.'

He was too good at reading people for these little tricks to work. Wunikai had methods of seeing through these waters that others did not, and more shocking than that was retrospectively, it seemed that even her "shock" at seeing him should have been an act as well.

She had likely spotted him from an exceptionally long distance away.

All things considered, Wunikai wasn't actually on his kill list. The "her" he had referred to back then was an Ice Queen who seemed a little too fond of his wife.

Wunikai and he didn't even really have a grudge between them, and after this slight against her, she hadn't said another word. Her worst sin was just trying to mediate a situation she shouldn't have stepped into.

In the past, Ryu might have marked her for death just because of this. But he had mellowed out a lot over the years. He couldn't be bothered to expend the energy just for this.

But the question was if Wunikai was willing to let it go. A fiendish grin spread across Ryu's face. It seemed that that answer was no. And most surprisingly, it didn't seem that this was because she wanted revenge against him, per se.

His Dao might be heavily suppressed in this region for reasons he had yet to fully unlock, but he could still use it. With Dividing Chaos could see that the root of Wunikai's unhappiness wasn't quite Ryu, but it was more like he was associated with something she didn't like.

It was either he reminded her of someone she wasn't fond of, or...

Ryu chuckled. 'Wife, oh wife. It seems you're getting your husband into trouble.'

Obviously, this Wunikai felt a certain distaste for Mae. Her hatred for Ryu had increased tenfold after learning of his identity.

It seemed that escaping would be a problem if she could so casually lock onto his location. If she was committed to hiding her true abilities, it might be possible. But Ryu had a feeling that her hatred would override whatever trepidations she had, especially since she would be able to guess that most of the real geniuses had already gone off ahead.

'Alright, let's do this, then.'

Ryu's gaze turned cold, and the amused light in his eyes vanished. Wunikai seemed to realize that he was indifferent, looking right at her, and for some unknown reason, her heart actually skipped a beat.

At that moment, Embryonic Qi began to thrum through Ryu's body like an ocean. He rarely used his second set of meridians so actively. Usually, it just sat within his body, passively circulating. Only when he needed to direct a droplet somewhere would he pull at it with his will.

But right now, he was practically saturating his body with Embryonic Qi, so much so that his skin glowed with a gorgeous, milky luster one couldn't help but want to reach out and touch.

'I'm using up at least 1% of my Embryonic Qi a minute at this rate. Let's end this fast.'

BANG!

Ryu shot forward. Wunikai might have eyes on him, but the rest of the group didn't. Depending on how she was communicating with them, there would almost certainly be a lag.

It was difficult to use the Qi Line technique in these waters due to its very nature. It was only worse that they had to protect themselves with qi skins, so penetrating that needed another layer of control as well.

That meant the best communication method was actually just talking normally, but how much time would that waste?

Wunikai sent out orders immediately about where Ryu was coming from, but by the time they realized, he had already shifted.

Ryu pierced down with a finger, the aura of a spear radiating out from him as he thrust right through the forehead of another Blacksteel Giant. Before his Bloodline Resonance and close combat abilities, they might as well have not been there at all.

By the time they reacted, Ryu had already killed three of their group of nearly 40.

He sent out another Bloodline Resonance pulse and then vanished again.

It had been a while since he slaughtered to his heart's content. He remembered his battle in Sacrum, facing off against a sky full of Gods with the arrogance of an Immortal Ring Realm expert.

His blood boiled, and he grinned wildly.

He had almost forgotten just how much he loved to fight.

In his first life, he was suppressed so greatly, only being able to use his tongue to lash out in the most vicious ways he could muster.

But now he preferred not to talk at all.

They stood in his way so they would die.

Simple as that.