Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

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Ryu spoke lightly as though everything was beneath his notice. In fact, he cared so little about the answer and those before him that the moment he spoke, he had already attacked.

The great swordstaff of fluttering snow in his hands reached out.

Darkness… it was an odd element, indeed. It had no form and could strictly be called the absence of light. It made it amorphous, difficult to grasp, and without substance.

What Ryu had cto realize was that Ice and Darkness were quite similar in that respect.

The pursuit of Absolute Zero was like a chase to non-heat. The defense of Ice was so powerful because it was likewise a state of absence, stripping away everything of its energy and forcing it to fall into a state of dormancy.

Something from nothing… these three words could represent the culmination of Ryu's understanding in these two elements.

Right now, it truly seemed as though he wasn't holding anything in his hand. In fact, even the fluttering snowflakes around the great swordstaff in his hand were only products of the snow moving around to avoid what looked like nothingness.

And yet, when he swung it down, the world seemed to be divided in two.

He had always said that space was the sharpest element. However, he realized now that what made it so sharp was that it split things apart, precisely doing exactly what those three words described.

Nothingness.

In his hand, Ice and Darkness could be no less sharp. In fact, they embodied that meaning so much that when a scythe of black ice formed, slicing through the air, nothing at all could stop it.

The army of Fiends below was reaped like weeds, sliced apart without the slightest chance to fight back.

Lichen stood, his three subordinates having hurriedly stepped out of the way after they sensed danger, only for their expressions to turn ugly when they saw the result.

With a violent movement, Lichen's scythe appeared in his hand and he, too, swung out. An unprecedented state of seriousness filled his gaze. He had simply never seen Darkness used like this.

So sharp, so fast. Formless, and yet so powerful in that very sformlessness.

This was an unprecedented path of Darkness, one that he had never seen, and one that made his heart skip several beats.

BANG!

His wrists trembled and he sensed his scythe almost give way. His eyes narrowed and his arms flexed, eventually shattering Ryu's blow.

However, it was only then that the real carnage began. It was clear in an instant that Lichen had miscalculated.

Ryu's strike shattered like fragmented glass, but it quickly splintered into countless snowflakes of black ice. Each one was as sharp as a rip in space, spreading out and slicing apart everything in their path.

Formless…

Darkness was exactly that. It flowed as smoothly as water, had no weight, and could change its form with the wind. Even dancing leaves in the wind could cast an array of changing shadows, and in Ryu's hand, it was no less chaotic than his [Heavenly Dao Tree].

In that instant, over 20% of the Fiend army had been wiped out.

Ryu had only appeared for a small moment, and he had only attacked once, but the situation seemed to have entirely changed in an instant.

Lichen looked around, somewhat at a loss. He wasn't injured, but he still felt like he had suffered a terrible loss. Plus, it had only been a casual strike on Ryu's part. He wasn't even using a real weapon.

However, in the moment he was distracted, Ryu had somehow already grabbed the neck of a God Qi expert. He looked down on him indifferently, his gaze seemingly carrying the depths of life and death.

Lichen was shocked again. Dark Fiends were known for their ability to escape and protect themselves, their attacking and defensive methods among the most mysterious and hard to grasp. Even if they were far weaker, how was it possible for them to be caught so quickly?

When Lichen saw the situation, he understood, and he was even more shaken.

It was the sexact principle… Nothingness. And yet, Ryu had casually shifted it from a sharp form of attack into a form of restraint. It moved so naturally from one to the other that it made one's head spin.

If Lichen knew that Ryu had made so much progress with just a focused effort of a few days, it would be hard to fathom just how he would react.

Ryu was standing just in one place, and he only seemed to be holding the neck of just a single God Qi youth, and yet, all three of them were frozen in place, their heads stretched to the skies and their feet dangling and swinging helplessly.

"It seems that the Fiend Race isn't actually all that strong. The Luminara Clan is just too useless," Ryu spoke lightly and clenched his fist.

"STOP—!"

CRACK.

Their deaths were instant. Whatever methods of escape and life-saving they had seemed to not have activated… or maybe, from the very beginning, they were entirely useless.

Before Ryu, they didn't have the right to decide even their deaths, let alone their lives.

With a flick of Ryu's wrist, they fell from the skies, their bodies plummeting like meteors.

Ryu took a breath and the world seemed to resonate with him. He felt ten times more powerful than when he stepped into this world, not because his raw strength had increased so much, but because his comprehension of Ice and Darkness had increased to the point that he could finally truly take advantage of it.

Standing in the skies, though, he didn't feel satisfied.

He looked down, his white hair fluttering and his silver gaze glowing with a faint light.

He grabbed at the air again, this twith two hands at once. Two great swordstaffs of fluttering black ice snowflakes took shape once more.

"You seem decent," Ryu said blandly, looking at Lichen. "Are you going to fight? Or are you just going to keep standing there?"