Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu felt all of the technique fuse into one being. The Devas changed the laws, Zercius reinforced it with his chains, solidifying them, and then Primus came in from the distance, etching them into reality with a stroke of his brush.

BANG!

The space beneath Ryu’s feet shattered, and in a single instant, it was as though he didn’t have an unaffected part of his body.

The world almost fell into silence around him, a hollow ringing booming in his ears that drowned out everything else.

“Heh…”

Ryu chuckled, blood pooling out from his lips. But there was a sneering, cold indifference in the depths of his soul.

“Weak.”

This time, he wasn’t speaking about himself at all.

Sure, his body was weak compared to these people. If they caught him in techniques that he couldn’t immediately find the flaw of and counter, he was more than susceptible to ending up a bloody mess just like this.

However, if they couldn’t kill him in a single strike… what good was it?

All they would do was give him time to read and react, to find the flaw he had missed the first time.

And better yet, they had layered all of them like this, making it so convenient.

Who asked them to present their necks like this?

Ryu looked up, his body bloodied, but his countenance frighteningly calm.

“[Earth].”

All of a sudden, the color Primus was drawing across the skies shattered to pieces and the ground shook.

A mighty tempest of clashing wills filled the skies. The control that the Devas had on one hand pushed and pulled against it all.

Ryu took a breath as his technique was suppressed from all sides. Expanding his diaphragm felt like he was near the bottom of the ocean right now, a pressure of millions upon millions of tons weighing down on him and compressing his ribcage to the extremes.

And yet, he still took that deep breath in, his cadence calm as he slowly pushed against it, feeling out its peaks and crevices.

BANG!

[Earth] collapsed and Ryu coughed up another mouthful of blood. But, there was a smile on his face nonetheless.

“Interesting. [Earth].”

There was a flash in Ryu’s eyes and suddenly, variations of all sorts began to appear in his technique.

A sea of colors filled the earth, sweeping across like bleeding waves of browns, and greens, and blues.

It was a gorgeous sight, the sort that many had never gotten the chance to see in their lifetimes.

And it was more than enough for Ryu.

A roar left his lips.

BOOM!

Chains shattered, the hymns of the Devas were abruptly cut off, and Primus’ brush-like blade cracked in his palms.

Ryu was suddenly free as he shot into the skies, a sweep of his great swordstaff cutting an arc of sword qi right toward Zercius.

Zercius hurried to dodge, but Ryu didn’t even pursue him, landing in the same location in the depths of the skies that the man had just been standing on and pointing his blade toward the ground.

“[Heaven].”

Ryu’s voice rumbled akin to the call of an abyss. Deep and all-pervading, it swept through in a violent tirade that swarmed all those around him.

And then the sea of colors that painted the Earth gained a friend in the skies.

The two rotated and ground against one another.

The screams of the Devas filled in the once-empty silence, only to be suffocated by the pressure and culled into obedience.

BANG!

They were ground to bone and dust, their bodies becoming fleeting memories in the depths of the battlefield.

Zercius accelerated back as quickly as he could, a depth of fear in his soul that he couldn’t quite understand.

Anyone else should be dead, he should definitely be dead. Those two dozen were probably the strongest Devas in all of Existence with very few exceptions. They had worked together to form a hymn, setting aside their differences, all for the sake of targeting a mere Sovereign.

And yet, not only were they countered, but their own power was used against them in a bloody, mangled mess.

As someone sensitive to laws and how they worked, he knew exactly what Ryu had done. But even understanding it, he didn’t want to believe it. Not even for a single moment.

Because that would mean that Ryu was a monster, a monster the likes of which couldn’t be described or understood.

Just what level of comprehension ability was this? How could you even fight against such a man?

Zercius didn’t have the patience to wait anymore. There was no other decision that he could make in a moment like this one. There was only one path forward if he wanted even a semblance of a chance.

When he saw the grievous wounds on Ryu sealing up one after another at a speed that didn’t even make logical sense, the last bits of his pride crumbled to ash and he no longer cared about anything else.

“OPEN!”

The skies trembled.

Ryu looked up, his silver eyes reflecting the gold above. The Heavenly Court Doors solidified once again and then began to slowly open up.

But this opening… it just felt far different than it had before. Ryu had experienced something similar to this feeling before… it was what he had experienced when the True Martial World broke free of its shackles for the first time.

He had wondered in the past why the Heavenly Court Doors reminded him so much of Heaven and Earth Gate, but it had long become obvious to him why that was.

Why did the Heavenly Court gatekeep what sort of strong individuals could remain on the lower plane? Why did they want to take Sarriel away? Why did they give him a time limit?

It was all to limit the sort of strength on the planar worlds below so that more of the power of the Heavens could be concentrated in the hands of the few.

But also, when they opened… truly opened…

All of the laws they had kept for themselves before suddenly returned to their rightful place.

Ryu raised his head and laughed to the skies as he felt the Dao Gods around him getting stronger and stronger, their control beginning to take more precedent.

And then, a man who looked like nothing short of a deity took a step out.

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