Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Hope had never expected to hear such words, and the moment she did, she began to tear up.

Suddenly, it didn't matter if Ryu's action felt patronizing to her or not. The reason being treated like a child would hurt in the first place if there was some sinister intention or underlying disdain. But for Ryu to say such words, how could she not be moved?

Ailsa was his Life Partner, the only woman that had broken his stubborn streak, the woman he was designed to love the most whether it be by nature or the Heavens themselves.

And yet, he had said such a thing.

When Ryu first met Ailsa, he was completely opposed to her entire existence. It could be said that in his whole life, Ailsa was the one person that had ever applied external pressure to change any of Ryu's internal thoughts.

In his life, or lives, Ryu had changed, altered, and grown as a person in various ways… but not a single one of those instances was because of something someone else told him. At least not when it came to large things, and certainly not in regard to things that he had decided to be stubborn about.

Ryu had never put it in so many words… but maybe the catalyst for his largest change in self was Ailsa.

If not for Ailsa, he would have never even thought to look at a woman other than Elena. If not for Ailsa, he wouldn't have come to accept the Heavens for what they were instead of always thinking of them as his number one enemy. If not for Ailsa, the foundation of cultivation he relied upon to this day wouldn't even exist.

It had been trillions of years for Ailsa, but to Ryu, it had barely been a blink of an eye, and the things he had learned with his wife by his side were very much there.

It could even be said that if any other wife had done what Ailsa had done, maybe instead of threatening divorce, Ryu would have directly done it.

And maybe it was precisely because such a thought was his reality that Ryu realized that it might truly be impossible to love so many women equally… and that was when an unexpected feeling appeared.

Guilt.

Even a small bit of regret.

Ryu had heard his father's words, and had taken heed of them. However, he hadn't truly changed from the bottom of his heart. He had only planned to follow what his father wanted because he respected him… but it wasn't because he felt to the depths of his soul that this was something he should do.

But now, he could feel it… truly feel it.

Before, it had been Isemeine to a small extent.

He wasn't a fool. He knew that Isemeine was more than a little dissatisfied with their relationship. If he had the time to fuck her brains out at least a few times a month, she would be content with that. But he didn't even have the time on hand to do that much.

Of his women, she would certainly be the one to most easily turn his back on him. And… he couldn't say that he would care very much at all. He had no feelings for her whatsoever, and outside of their playful and somewhat enjoyable banter, he had hardly any impression of the type of woman she was at all.

So when his father spoke, and mostly used her as an example, Ryu listened… but he didn't truly listen.

Hope, on the other hand, was someone he did care for. He would definitely care if she left him, and it wasn't just because she had risked her life to save his own.

Ryu always had a soft spot for women willing to risk so much for him, and a lot of that was why Ailsa had been able to break down his ice-cold walls.

But Hope resonated with him on a deeper level than that. She wasn't just the woman who would be likely to carry his first child either… he saw too much of himself in her.

If Ailsa was his idealized reflection, the cultivator he could have become had his life never been tampered with… Elena was the one who picked up the pieces… Yaana was the silent support by his side… and Hope was the one lying in pieces on the ground with him.

She too had had her life ruined at the hands of others, her Fate toyed with, and her destiny ripped from her hands.

Her Fate was now tied to his own and he remembered distinctly the sort of despair she had felt when she thought that she had calculated wrongly and hitched herself to the wrong person.

The last time such a woman had broken down before him like that Ryu had directly abandoned any thought of ever being with her. Of course, Sarriel hadn't truly broken down into tears, but in Ryu's eyes, it might as well have been no different at all.

That sort of resignation to Fate was something he hated to see, and even more so in women since his most liked women were the exact opposite.

Even so, he remembered almost… ignoring Hope back then.

At first glance, it seemed that he was just as disdainful of her as all the others. But the more he thought back to that moment, the more he self-reflected, the more he understood his real emotions back then.

He had seen a potential reflection of himself… a reflection of what he might become if he never broke free of the Martial Gods… of how he might fail if he took a single wrong step… of how he might crumble if the walls crashed unexpectedly.

And even that was being too charitable.

Because the reality was that she wasn't what he could become… she was what he had been.

A failure who gave up… a failure who just needed one chance to reverse their Fate.

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