Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1815 New Mountain

Ryu moved leisurely as though he wasn't afraid of being caught up with at all. However, he had already seen through a great many things as he moved.

The Holy World was one with a cap at the True Sky God Realm, and because of that, there was a curious suppression on much of its laws as well, making them easier to read as though a highly complex subject was being dumbed down for a child.

The more of this Ryu saw, the more he felt that maybe being sent to this world wasn't so bad after all. Once his eyes recovered, he would probably be able to see through it all in a glance and maybe even control sof this world and its secrets.

Ryu had never been able to think of such a thing before because all the worlds he had ever been in were far too powerful. Even for him, he could only see through bits and pieces of their mysteries at any given time.

But now, it was like he was taking a peek into the building blocks of a world.

'With this sort of foundation, I can reform the foundation of my Inner World. If before I was acting blindly and mostly relying on the treasure forged by the Martial Gods to sustain and power it… now I could truly make it my own.'

Ryu's gaze flashed and he felt that this was truly viable.

It had to be remembered that Ryu's Inner World was formed by a combination of exactly two things.

The first was the innate ability of all those with Heavenly Pupils, and the second was a treasure he had won from the hands of Mistress Holy Wing, Elena's grandmother.

The foundation of the world was built on a combination of the two, but there were a great many weaknesses. The main problems, of course, cfrom the treasure of Mistress Holy Wing.

The Incubator.

Considering how low Mistress Holy Wing's status in the Martial Gods was, any treasure that she had couldn't possibly be all that great. And even if it had been a God Grade treasure, which it certainly was not, what Ryu wanted to do was surpass the God Grade and build a world in himself even stronger than the True Martial World or even this world.

In that case, no matter what, he would have to reform and fix the weaknesses of that treasure.

If not for the mutation in his eyes carrying much of the load, there was simply no way that his Inner World would be as strong as it was even now, let alone allowing it to have the chance to compete with the True Martial World in the future.

He didn't expect that he would get such an unexpected opportunity here of all places.

He couldn't help but wonder how those figures in the shadows would react to know that they were essentially just helping him out.

Ryu's lip curled as he crossed into Fiend territory.

This time, there was no rainbow screen. This world was built on the template of the Real Plane. The fact that the Luminara hadn't confirmed victory despite having such an advantage was more pathetic than anything else.

Ryu soon found the first city.

It was just a casually built encampment, here for no other reason than to detect enemies in advance and send information back. The Fiends camped here weren't much different from the vanguard on the front lines.

There were scouts spread out everywhere.

Ryu thought about just moving by them. If he didn't want to be detected, the likes of the True Sky God Realm couldn't possibly find him.

However, he changed his mind, appearing high in the skies over the encampment.

He would take a straightforward approach, crushing all of these strongholds one by one, then checking the kind of reaction they would have.

The reason for this was quite obvious. If he tried to just attack the core city by sneaking in, the others would be able to return for reinforcements. At that point, he'd be pincered from the front and the back.

In that case, he might as well wipe them out one by one.

The issue with this, of course, was that once the Fiends felt that the situation was bad, they would almost certainly call for reinforcements from the outside world.

However, Ryu had his own thoughts on this.

If he failed, that was fine. But he also wouldn't necessarily fail this taround either.

That was because if he killed them all in a single sweep, the odds that they could get clear information out were slim to none.

Ryu took a deep breath.

'Still, this will cwith its own trouble. My best offensive means are suppressed in this world. All yang might be lucky to bring out 20% of their strength at this point. I can only rely on my Ice Qi affinity… No, my Dark Flcould work as well. But in all these years, I've only treated it as a fland haven't truly tapped into the mysteries of death and yin that it represents.

'Hm… could be a good experiment.'

With this thought, Ryu's aura flared and he looked up into the skies. His vision was still a bit blurry, but he could feel that his Heavenly Pupils were slowly returning to him.

After sthought, he waved a hand.

The snowflakes in the skies all gathered together, forming an enormous palm. It was amorphous and not very clear, but with every second that passed, it grew more and more firm.

'I am indeed inferior in this sort of control…' Ryu sighed.

He hadn't really noticed it before, but it was clear that he was partial to certain aspects of his talent. He almost never used his Dark Flames, and used his Ice Flames even less.

By comparison, he used his flames the most, and his lightning was a close second.

It was because the two were far more in line with his personality than the others were.

Now that he thought about it, he also didn't use his Living Spiritual Foundation much. Part of that was because of the Phoenix Sky God, but that sort of casual ignorance of his own talent wasn't a solution either.

If he had a ticking tbomb in his body, and he didn't even fully understand it first, then when it erupted finally, wouldn't he be finished?

"Death," Ryu said softly.

BOOM!

The palm suddenly solidified in a blaze of black flames. Ice Phoenix Heavenly Patterns forced it into being and it smashed down.

In an instant, the entire encampment was wiped out. The cultivators below could only look up in horror in their last moments. But in the end, the few hundred of them could do absolutely nothing.

Ryu looked down, but he seemed unsatisfied.

'Does Temperament also reflect in this way as well? I am far more like fire and lightning than I am like ice or death, or darkness for that matter. I can't seem to see through the secrets of these elements nearly as easily.'

Ryu's most powerful self-created technique was built on the back of lightning. Maybe that wasn't as much of a coincidence as he thought.

As for Spacetime… it was his Soul Nature. It cmore naturally to him than anything else by virtue of that.

Ryu didn't like this.

After learning how much of his Temperament was decided by the circumstances of his life, how could he be satisfied? It was like yet another thing was being stripped from his control.

'You are my talents. You will be under my control.'

Ryu's gaze flashed with a cold light and he took a step forward.

Like this, Ryu began to unleash a massacre.

Every time, he would wipe out the entire encampment, acting before they could even react.

But soon, he cto a region that was no longer just a mere encampment, but rather a city.

Standing high above it, he realized that it would be tougher to wipe them all out before they could send news elsewhere.

'It seems… I won't be able to continue like this anymore. But regardless, if I don't enter a real battle, I'll never be able to truly hone it. It seems that I can't just sit back and expect enlightenment to ctothis taround. I'll have to grasp it in my own hands…'

Ryu took a step forward and then slowly pressed down a foot.

At that moment, the formation that protected the city shattered as though fragile glass.

In one hand, an Ice Flame, shimmering with a gorgeous blue, took shape. In the other, a Dark Flame, absorbing all light in its dense blackness, rippled wildly.

It felt foreign and yet familiar to him. However, soon, those feelings were replaced by excitement.

He had a lot of things he hated, but if there was something he loved the most aside from his family and wives…

It was improving.

Seeing this new mountain to climb, his heart roared and he unleashed a torrential rain on the city below.