Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1752 Sudden Break

Knowing that he wasn't crazy, Ryu calmed down immediately. The effect of the hidden cancer in his mind wasn't nearly strong enough yet to suppress his true temperament just yet. Now that he had confirmed that it was there, it was even easier to suppress the restless feelings in his heart.

'This is a bit tricky…'

The cancer was subtle, so it didn't affect him too obviously. But the tradeoff for that was that it was buried deep. It was hard to tell where it started and where it ended, and because of that, it was difficult to grasp just where his own soul started and finished.

However, Ryu's lip curled a moment later.

In that case, he just wouldn't guess at all.

A sharp aura flashed in Ryu's soul and a tearing pain erupted.

The sound of something ripping apart echoed in his ears and even the surroundings.

Ryu paled instantly. No matter how flexible his soul was, ripping away a part of it was still a blow he couldn't easily shrug off.

Because he was worried about how deep the cancer might go, he took the extra cautious route of ripping away more than he thought he needed.

In that single motion, he had stripped away over 20% of his soul.

Ryu pressed a palm against his forehead and pulled.

Under the shocked gazes of everyone, a large piece of soul was stripped away. What was more shocking than anything was that it was a dense black.

Right then, there wasn't a single soul who didn't recognize the Perfect Blackbody Soul. Each one of them shuddered, realizing what must have happened.

All the while, the Dream Wraiths had been sneering.

At first, they were surprised that Ryu was standing there at all. His movements were odd, and the fact he wasn't rushing away at the first opportunity wasn't in line with what they had seen from his character.

But then he noticed that his body seemed to be giving up on him and the subterfuge in their gazes condensed. They had almost forgotten how weak Ryu's cultivation was. Of course, this would be the outcome of stepping into the seventh layer.

But as he sat there, long swaths of time passing by, the situation became odder and odder. Ryu didn't seem to make any progress at all.

They laughed, feeling that he had finally reached his limits. There had to be a limit to someone's comprehension. If continuous breakthroughs could be made so easily, then everyone would be able to become a Dao God, regardless of anything else.

However, when Ryu suddenly ripped his own soul out, their hearts leapt into their throats.

Who didn't know the pain of a soul injury, let alone what Ryu had just done? Ryu had just done the equivalent of ripping his own heart out of his chest. It was the kind of thing that could make even Dao Lords fear a person.

The Dream Wraiths, of course, had the fiercest reaction.

While others might not have sensed what Vense had done, how could they not? They hadn't considered the fact that Ryu was actually looking for the imprint in his soul until this very moment.

…

Standing amidst the Dream Wraiths, an older, middle-aged woman who still had beauty that could topple nations stood. Her pupils had constricted to the max, her gaze so fixed on Ryu that she couldn't quite sense the trembling in her heart.

None of what Ryu had done to this point made much sense, but even then, she had hardly reacted at all. There was only the slightest flicker of emotion after Vense died.

However, this…

"Send a report back."

"Fairy Gelida is that—."

"Send a report back." She repeated.

The Dream Wraiths no longer dared to hesitate. She was the only Dao Sovereign among them. It simply wasn't their place to say anything more.

After the Dao Lord left, Gelida turned her attention back to Ryu, her gaze unreadable.

…

Ryu didn't care what the outside world was thinking at this point. His entire focus was on the blob in his hands. He had compressed it to an extreme, but he didn't destroy it just yet.

He circulated his self-created Soul cultivation method, using his Internal Matrix as a conduit to quickly replenish his Spiritual Qi. Rather than taking it from the surroundings, an endeavor that would have been useless, he pulled it directly from his Meridians.

The Chaos Plane seemed to be the only thing this world couldn't suppress inside of him. Well… as long as it remained inside of him, that is. The moment his qi left his body, it lost its usual bravado.

'I don't have time. I've wasted too much of it.'

The worry on his mind hadn't vanished yet, but now he was facing another dilemma. He still didn't quite understand the technique that had been used against him. If he ended up in another battle with a Dream Wraith, wouldn't it just be a repeat of what happened the first time?

At that point, if he was forced to rip away a piece of his soul mid battle, it would be devastating.

But no matter how he observed and twisted the remnant soul in his hand, he couldn't find any clues. It definitely didn't help that his eyes weren't working as they usually would.

This shouldn't have been a surprise. He couldn't understand it even when it had been a part of himself. How could he understand it now that it was a separate piece?

The only explanation was that it was a method of Spiritual Quintessence application that was beyond him. Maybe even a form that was influenced by Nether Qi in some way, shape or form.

Soul Quintessence or Spiritual Qi was ultimately refined down from normal qi. What would happen if instead of using Real Qi, you used Nether Qi to complete this process instead? What if you used Ethereal Qi?

Ryu had never thought about these things before because he had only ever spent a significant amount of time in worlds ruled by Real Qi.

The thought suddenly struck Ryu like a bolt of lightning.

Was that really the case? Was he looking at it wrong to begin with?

Ryu hesitated.

Should he try it? Had he been too cautious until now?

His gaze sharpened.

He was no longer being influenced by this cancer, so why should he hesitate now that he had the thought?

Ryu changed his tactics and rather than absorbing qi from the Chaos Plane and then using it to condense Spiritual Quintessence, he tried to pull it in from the surroundings instead.

The Rotten Sea was a bit murky, not only in its looks but also its energy composition. It was mostly made of Vital Qi, which was why Bloodline Resonance worked so well.

That said, the Demons were a special race. As he had thought many times before, they were somewhere in the middle of Beasts and Humans. Beasts could only use their blood and their entire cultivation system was built on their Spiritual Roots. Humans could use all three systems freely.

Being somewhere in the middle, Demons could do a combination. And that meant that usually, no single realm, whether Body, Mental or Qi, was completely separate from the other.

So there was qi here. It was just that it was scarce, muddled, and hard to control.

But when it came to qi control, Ryu had always felt that he was second to none.

Even while being unfamiliar with Nether Qi, he still managed to pull it out and slowly began to observe it.

First, he paid attention to the changes this might cause to his body, but as expected, there was little to nothing. His main pair of Meridians were constructed from the third most durable material in all of Existence, even if there was trouble to be found, the Nether Qi certainly wouldn't cause it there.

However, when he pulled the Nether Qi into his mind, his thoughts seemed to go blank for a moment.

BOOM!

Ryu's soul broke into the True Quintessence Realm, completely out of his control.

He was shocked by what happened, but he understood a moment later.

Logically, this seemed to make sense. After all, didn't those Dao Lords and Sovereigns who had been stuck at the pinnacle of their worlds managed to see a path to breakthrough after coming into contact with Ethereal Qi?

But this didn't feel like the same situation.

For one, Ryu's soul was special. His cultivation Realm didn't denote his strength because he could expand it beyond those limits. His soul might have been in the False Quintessence Realm, but it was easily stronger than most True Sky Gods, whether of the Ninth Heaven and Plane or not.

He was constantly pressing to push it past its limits so that he could have more room for growth, and it should still have some space. It didn't make sense to break through like that.

Second, Nether Qi wasn't Ethereal Qi. It wasn't the mirror of Real Qi; it was more like a very specific antithesis that strode toward the same goal with entirely different means.

So why had his soul just broken through when he didn't want it to?