Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

The moment the biting cold words left Ryu's lips, the ground around him shattered, a dense bronze aura surging out from. Gripping his great swordstaff in one hand, he suddenly flashed forward, appearing before Vie in the blink of an eye and swinging down with the might of a mountain.

Vie's pupils constricted, but his reaction was slow, his glaive swinging upward to meet Ryu's strike. However, the moment their blades met, Vie felt like the entire world was crashing into him. His grip instantly tightened on his polearm, but it hardly seemed to matter. The ground beneath him alone withstand it, his feet shooting through the ground to the point even hips were buried.

Even so, Vie barely managed to block despite coughing up a mouthful of blood and feeling as though his arms were going to collapse.

Ryu's fury reached a new peak, matching with a hint of frustration. There was a letting your qi run wildly like this wasn't a battle style that Ryu had ever used before, only by perfectly controlling your qi could you bring out 100% of your strength. Allowing it to run rampant was akin to dispersing your strength and weakening yourself.

To make matters worse, Ryu had just broken through and hadn't had the Focus Qi to consolidate his Realm, so he was even more unfamiliar with this power than he had been with his Path Extinction Realm cultivation. This was like a double hit to his current battle prowess.

Even so, despite his frustration, his second swing came down even fiercer and wilder. Since he couldn't control it, he would unleash more, and even more on top of that.

Vie's expression changed. He had never seen anyone use qi like this. Ryu was wasting at like 90% of the qi he was expelling, wasn't he worried about running out?!

Even though he thought this, Vie was all too aware that even if Ryu did run out eventually, it would have nothing to do with him. After all, there was no way Ryu would run out before this second strike landed, but if he let it land, he might really be finished.

"Big brother!"

Vie was immediately prepared to activate his life saving measures, but just before he had to, a rain of daggers assaulted Ryu to the side. They slowed down when they met the wildly fluctuating Bronze Resonance Qi that formed a pseudo domain, but their was still more than the amorphous blob of slowly concentrating energy could deal with.

Ryu frowned, however he didn't move a single inch toward the daggers, his great swordstaff falling even faster.

Let alone Vie, Ranna, who had sent the daggers to begin with, was absolutely Was Ryu trying to exchange his life for Vie's? Did he think that her attack was so easy to ignore? Not only were all of her daggers special, but whether it was her techniques or her Dao, they all melded perfectly into one. Inwardly, though, Ranna smiled. This was good, didn't this guarantee that Ryu's Heavenly Favor would become hers? By then, it wouldn't matter that she had been delayed outside of the tower for so long. No matter what changes happened from here on, she would be in control of her own destiny...

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The daggers reflected off of Ryu's skin as though meeting a steel wall, not even the faintest white mark was left behind.

Vie's expression changed. 'Shit!'

BOOM!

The city of diamond rattled and shook, rippling waves of earthen torrents spreading out in all directions.

Ryu raised his great swordstaff, his expression livid. Another fleeing piece of trash.

He extended his blade, pointing it toward Vie's little brother in the distance.

"I promise you the next time I see either one of you, you'll only leave with your heads separated from your shoulders."

Ryu's words echoed and a wild fluctuation of Bronze Resonant Qi caused the rippling earth to be suppressed back down to flat land.

Feeling the suppression and an instinctual fear, Vie's younger brother immediately fled. a joke, he hadn't stood a chance against Ryu before, how could he know that the latter had entered the Dao Pedestal Realm and had such improvements to his body?

Ryu didn't even bother, his head turning toward Ranna who had dared to take advantage of the situation.

Ranna's petite figure trembled and she immediately explosively retreated, a fear taking root deep within her heart.

At that moment, Ryu's battle against Starlight seemed to replay in all of their minds. None of them seemed to have realized that Ryu's Focus Qi was nearly at rock bottom, as such, they all assumed that Ryu was toying with them like this without even using his strongest talent. In such a situation, how could they be casual about taking action?

Ryu turned his head back toward Mae and Aantha, his expression softening somewhat.

"Take a rest. When you feel like you are 100%, enter the tower. No one will enter before you do."

Ryu's words were domineering and couldn't be questioned. He spoke clear enough them all to hear. It was clear he simply didn't care who it was, no one would be able to stop his steps. Since he had said so, he meant it.

Mac and Aantha looked toward Ryu and then toward one another before nodding and sitting down to meditate.

The atmosphere became oddly quiet, but it was obvious to everyone that the only reason Ryu didn't pursue kicking them all out was so that he could stand before Mae and protect the two sisters. He slammed his great swordstaff into the ground, standing tall and unmoving. The geniuses could only grit their teeth. The imposingness of Ryu's momentum wasn't something they wanted to face.

As Ryu stood there, his Bronze Resonance Qi continued to leak out, solidifying in the air. The more he hesitated, the more impossible it became to even approach Ryu, let alone defeat him and made his words sound foolish.

After taking several pills and resting for a few minutes, the two sisters stood.

Unlike Ryu who needed to replenish their Focus Qi, they only needed to replenish their qi and heal some injuries. At their cultivation, and considering their injuries weren't too severe, so long as others didn't interfere, just a few minutes was more than enough.

"We'll be back," Mae said gently. Her gaze seemed to flicker back and forth between something demure and something else that was much more... demonic, but it that she managed to suppress it this time as she took a step inside.

Ryu nodded and Mae entered, leaving Aantha with a silly grin on her face.

Aantha came over and patted Ryu heavily on the shoulder a few times. She a bit silly doing it, having to stand to the tip of her toes just to make it look semi decent. She seemed to be trying to be much older than she was, but the lack of maturity just made it cute.

"You're not, not bad at all. I was going to tell auntie and uncle how useless you were, but you've somewhat redeemed yourself. Not bad, not bad indeed. My big sis's husband has to be at least this good, if not, wouldn't you be too useless?"

Oddly enough, Aantha's words pissed the spectators off far more than they pissed off Ryu. In fact, Ryu didn't seem to be bothered at all, he only shook his head and smiled.

Aantha was caught off guard. Did this brute just smile at her? He could do that too? That was possible?

"Come on, smile again, I didn't see it clearly the first time."

"You're wasting time, little girl. I'm not going to stand on guard here forever. Soon as Mae comes out I'll leave you to fend on your own."

"You wouldn't dare!" Aantha was clearly offended. "Don't you know that your future happiness is in my hands? What if I tell uncle bad things about you? How are you going to stop a Sky God from beating a layer of skin off your butt?!"

Ryu's brows twitched. He would rather die than be spanked, even his own parents had never raised a hand against him. What nonsense was this little girl spewing?

"Keep talking nonsense and I'll peel a layer off of yours first."

Aantha gasped, apparently not expecting such retaliation. She turned and ran toward the tower.

"Big sis! Big sis! Your husband likes little girls! You have to divorce him immediately!"

Ryu shook his head as Aantha vanished into the tower. He really had to find some time to discipline this little girl eventually. She was already an adult but she still acted like a 12 year old.

The smile on Ryu's face vanished as he turned back. He looked down to find that was only five meters from him, standing with a cold expression on her face.

He didn't say anything. This woman had kept quite a low profile. In fact, from his eyes, she hadn't made a real move against Mae or Aantha, which was the only reason he hadn't everything to deal with her immediately. But since she had come forward now, she clearly had something to say.

"I think we both know that you have a lot of secrets that you want to keep, so I'll propose something that helps but sides. In exchange for letting me into the tower, I'm willing to swear an oath to not reveal your secrets to my elders for span of three days. That gives you a lot of time to do quite a number of things."

"You can reject, but this will also mean that the moment you step out from this place, your death will be inevitable. There are many Sky God elders waiting for our exit to the Fourth Heaven, there will be no escape, and even if your elders and that of the Dream Asura Race team up, you'll stand no And I'm sure you know there's no certainty that the Dream Asura Race will be willing to help you in the first place. It seems to me that Mae made her choice in spouse without her seniors' approval."

"So what do you say?"

Hearing Jenneless' words, the eyes of the surrounding geniuses glowed. Indeed, this was an excellent opportunity. If they all swore the same oath, then Ryu really might let them in!