Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu sat in silence, not even bothering to gloat as though this was very normal. He didn't seem to mind the gazes that he was receiving at all. 

"You went easy on me?" Selheira asked. 

Though her voice had the same amount of gentleness, it was tinged with a hint of a wronged air to it. Clearly, she wasn't very happy about this. But then again, if Ryu did this, would their games have even been fun? If the gap between him and Old Wan was so wide, how much wider was it between the two of them? 

However, surprisingly, Ryu shook his head. 

"No, I didn't."

Old Wan's lip twitched. Was this brat trying to humiliate him further, claiming that Selheira could beat him even easier? Forget it, he had lost his bearing as a senior anyway, he might as well let this matter slide. 

But after he regained his calm, Old Wan's gaze flickered and he suddenly understood something. 

"I see…" he said lightly. 

It wasn't very complicated, Ryu had used the Dividing Karma half of his Dividing Heaven Dao to crush Old Wan in just three days. But as far as Ryu saw it, the fact that Old Wan lasted so long was a true testament to how far apart their skill level truly was. 

It had to be remembered that Ryu's Dividing Karma was the more human side of his Dao and it was the first of the two halves to manifest. Back when it first appeared, he had used it to crush the Godhood of a Sky God and knock them down from False Sky God to Fragmented. 

Inherently, it was a Dao about understanding people, their intentions, their weaknesses, and then turning it against them. It could also be used to see through the connections between people, to plot out events on a timeline, and to indirectly attack individuals through their strings of Karma. 

This sort of Dao was perfectly suited for the game of Domain. 

The fact that Ryu's Dao could be used in the game was already enough to give him a leg up. Not many had Daos that were suited to be used like this as no one would form a Dao just for the sake of a board game, no matter how entertaining it was. It was just that Ryu's was lucky enough to be applicable. 

But this was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Ryu's Dao was still in the Third Immortal Grade, it had no business analyzing and reading through Old Wan's thoughts, so he needed a limiter, and that limiter came in the form of his choice of two tiers instead of three or more. 

No matter how savvy and intelligent Old Wan was, or however many moves he could see ahead, if he was limited by a simplified board there was little that he could do. What good was being able to go 100 miles an hour if the track was too short for you to even accelerate to that speed?

When Ryu was going against Selheira, while it was true that he might be able to use his Dividing Karma Dao to deal with her since she was a far weaker player than Old Wan and they had only added one tier, there were a few problems with this. 

For one, the addition of one tier wasn't just a minor change, it was an exponential one. If two tiers had 100 variations, three tiers had over 100 000. The gap was large enough that despite the skills gap between Selheira and Old Wan, the added variables made it almost impossible for his Third Immortal Grade Dao to keep up. 

Secondly, because of the length of the game, his stamina wouldn't be able to keep up. Using one's Dao drained Focus Qi at a rapid rate. There was only so long that he would be able to use his Dao in such a setting. In fact, the only reason he had managed to last three days to begin with was because it was just a casual game and not a battle. In an intense battle, he might only last a few hours which was why he rarely brought out his Dao in full strength. 

"I see… Let me experience it." Selheira suddenly said, a bit eager. 

Ryu blinked but still nodded in the end. Old Wan could only slink off in defeat while Aika laughed so hard she forgot her dignity as a Sky God. 

Selheira sat across from Ryu and felt the bristling of his aura. She entered her own state of focus, that familiar wild aura coming out in waves. However, in less than 100 moves, she lost. 

With the speed of cultivators, 100 moves was just a few minutes. Never in her life had she lost a game so quickly, and at the same time, unlike Old Wan who had only had his moves read on a board, Selheira felt as though she had been stripped naked before Ryu, every one of her deepest, darkest thoughts exposed to him. 

There was no doubt the depth to which Ryu could analyze Selheira was far deeper. She was thankful that the match had only lasted a few minutes because she wasn't sure if she could handle such scrutiny for much longer. 

Ryu smiled lightly. "How about we return to three tiers, I'm feeling good about this one."

Selheira blinked before nodding, a smile blooming beneath her veil. 

The two began to play once more, and this time, they didn't stop for years. If it wasn't for the fact that Heavenly Path's opening was soon to be underway, they may very well have played each other for decades. 

By the end of it all, Ryu managed to squeak out a small margin of victory with six wins versus Selheira's five. If it was up to Selheira, they would have played one more match to even the score. But Aika was much too excited to raise the Radiant Star Sect up to the Third Heaven, so there wasn't even much of a chance to dispute.