Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu raised an eyebrow. The challenge came, but soon after, it shattered.

He took a look at Adlael's pillar as it was forced a half step back and it seemed that his position was weakened considerably. The floundered attempt at a challenge knocked down his Heavenly Favor by a peg and the position of his turn was pushed back.

'It seems that my Heavenly Favor still counts as the same. It seems that no one will be able to challenge me!

Ryu's indifferent gaze met Adlael's furious one as he vanished. He didn't have time to care about this person, he didn't even know where he was going right now. He might very well be going off to his death. He was sure that these folks would get a kick out of that.

Ryu appeared in a world. The moment he looked around, he sighed. He should have known better than to rely on his luck, but what other choice did be have, exactly?

The world wasn't dangerous, or anything, but it was an endless vastness of calm and still waters. The skies above were a gorgeous blue, and the waters were so clear that the docile wildlife and plant life below could be seen with surprising clarity and depths.

This was clearly a world that relied on maybe one of a few things. It could be tranquility, peace, and it would likely also have some large relation to water, all things his own Dao had nothing to do with, let alone with it being so weak.

Under normal situations, who the world was created for the sake of was meaningless to him. His Dao could see through all things, so he would be able to figure out the essence of the challenge without issue.

Now, however...

Ryu took a breath and calmed himself. If the Heavenly Path sensed that he wasn't making any progress, he would be kicked out in a few minutes at best. There was little to nothing he could do about that. However, there wasn't exactly nothing he could do.

He had to find a path that could help him to progress regardless of the obstacle, and in order to do that, he needed to understand what exactly the state of his body was.

He sat into a position of meditation on the water's surface. His body was more incorporeal than not, so he had a feeling that it was just his soul that was sent in and not much else. But that made sense. A Dao Discourse focused on comprehension, not combat. The duel aspect of the round came purely from the other participants, not the challenges themselves.

Of course, that didn't mean that the Dao Discourse would be completely harmless. If this world was filled with destructive bolts of lightning instead, and he had no ability to read and react to them, then he might very well die to one of these challenges instead of another person.

Even so, he was quite calm. These sort of situations that pushed him to his brink were exactly what he needed.

After inspecting his body diligently, Ryu became aware of a few things.

First, although he had coughed out blood, the strain wasn't on his physical body. However, with the good news, there was also bad, that being that it didn't matter. Whatever restrictions there were seemed to be like a dampening of his strength, functionally making it so that his output of strength was as though he was heavily injured.

Second, as he had already guessed, that black blood, likely coming from his Seven Corporeal Souls, were that very same deathly energy that had once afflicted him when his Dao Heart had shattered, but this time, rather than just coming from his Realm Heart and Spiritual Foundation, it was had seeped into his body.

All of the organs that represented his Seven Spirits were covered in web-like black veins, pulsing with that dark Karmic energy.

His Three Souls were also impacted, his birthed soul showing the most obvious results as it was pulsing with an eerie black light different from its usual clear and un-corrupted black. His Spiritual Sea had gone from a clear. reflective, obsidian and oil-like black, to a black more reminiscent of thick, acrid smoke.

The ultimate result was that his Dao was shoe strung and hampered. If he could get rid of these chains, it would return. But...

He tried to circulate a drop of Embryonic Qi to see what would happen and observed that it actually had some position effect. At the very least, the pain in his body receded and the pulsing black veins, well... pulsed a little bit less.

'At this rate, I'll need about... a month? To deal with it!

This was just a guess on Ryu's part. There was no telling if the energy would try to retaliate or not and make the situation worse for him when he was close to succeeding. Since these chains seemed to have a life of their own, it was possible. After all, even the Phoenix Sky God's Spiritual Foundation had been able to read and react to his intentions, let alone chains that could bind even his Fate Star.

Either way, the restrictions were almost solely on his Seven Corporeal Souls and Three Incorporeal Souls, and he also now had a method of weakening it and trying to gain back aspects of his Dao. But...

It was too slow. Would he even have the time?

"No, there's something..."

Ryu's gaze sharpened. After some hesitation, he took a step in that direction. He split his Dao in two once again and suddenly a rush of power came back to him.

It seemed that he was correct.

His Dao had two aspects, one more in tune with Order and another more in tune with Chaos. Dividing Dharma and Dividing Sin fell into the latter category, and as a result, their restrictions in the face of this backlash was far weaker.

In thanks to this, he had gone from feeling as though he only had a Lineal Dao or weaker, Hegemonic Dao.

Even alone, Dividing Dharma and Sin should have been Ancient at worst, but it seemed that though the restrictions were far weaker, they were still there. Even so, this was a great boon and could help him tide the waves until he could fix this situation completely.

However, there was an unfortunate tradeoff.

Dividing Dharma and Sin didn't work well against constructs or in challenges like this, this was why his Dao was stronger against actual people than the Protector Spirits...

Looking at the world now, he felt no sudden enlightenment. That meant one thing...

It seemed that he wouldn't be able to take the path of clearing one challenge after another and blasting through to the end... If he wanted to use his Dao and have a chance, his only option was to challenge actual people.

Ryu chuckled a bit. Well, at least this would make things somewhat more interesting?

He suddenly felt a strong pull on his body and he was ripped away. In a bit of disoriented state, Ryu appeared on the pillar once again, his figure the subject of many gazes.

It seemed that he had been ejected. He failed.