Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

"Who was that?"

A shadow appeared behind the old man who was still rolling Ryu's Fragmented Crystal between his fingers.

"Some young whippersnapper," the old man chuckled.

"I don't think if that was the case you would have talked to him for so long."

"There's the scent of stars on him."

"He's from the Fading Star Sect?"

"If he was, would he be here and so out of the loop?"

"But wouldn't he know what was going on if he was from the Radiant Star Sect as well? I don't think any disciple from that Sect, especially not such a weak one, would dare to appear out in the open like this so flippantly. Does he not want his life?"

"Maybe, unless he wasn't playing the fool. If he knew all of that, I reverse your question onto you, why would he come here?"

The shadow fell silent before finally speaking again.

"So you know who he is?"

"I have a guess."

The shadow's eyes narrowed. This old man only dared to have a guess when he was more than 90% likely to be correct.

"Who is he?"

"Well, there's not much a point in talking about it. We'll see if it matters in the next day or two."

"You mean he's..."

"Well, he thinks himself to be a clever little runt, so he likely knows where the Radiant Star Sect is located right now. What he doesn't know is that there's a blockade spanning for thousands of miles, isolating them from the world. And because they're all juniors, Aika hasn't taken it upon herself to wipe them out yet.

"So you tell me. Will he be interesting enough to discuss, or not?"

"... What do you want to do?" The shadow asked.

"Money, of course," the old man laughed heartily. "That little bastard actually made this old man speak for so long for nothing more than a Fragmented Crystal, does he take my words as being so cheap?

"I'm going to make so much money off his back that his eyes will go red."

"You want to open a betting ring? That's daring, even for you. Those Sects will not be happy."

"Aha, the first rule of business is indeed to keep the customer happy. But what people fail to understand is that happiness is all relative. If everyone's happy all the time, then are they really happy? Or are they just feeling neutral?

"It's the same way here. If your business is better than everyone else's, happiness is relative. You can be haughty and they'll still come back because there's no one better than yourself. And...

"If you make everyone angry, and they all hate you, is it really hatred? Or are they just all neutral?"

The shadow suddenly felt a headache coming on. What kind of sick, twisted logic was this?

...

Ryu didn't know about the intentions of the old man to make wealth off of him, but even if he had, he didn't have the luxury to care too much about it. Not to mention the fact he didn't usually care enough to get angry about the same things any longer.

It took him over a week, without rest, to make it near the edge of Azure Lightning Sect territory, using the cities dotted along the way to find information of whether or not he was headed in the right direction.

If he wasn't traveling through the void, and even using his Spectral Wings, that journey would have taken him at least half a year, without a doubt. The Seventh Heaven was almost depressingly massive, and it wasn't the kind of place even a Fragmented Sky God could travel through with ease.

The good news, though, was that he wasn't tired. His stamina was simply off the charts, even with an empty belly.

Ryu felt that it was in one part due to his body, and another part due to his new status as a Sky God, not to mention his breakthrough in forming his own unique constitution.

The world around him didn't just match his movements, it was eager to do so, rushing and even pushing the other energies around it out of the way so that they could be first in line.

He had restrained himself while in the old man's city, but now that he needed speed, gorgeous silver runes danced around him and fueled his body with every step. He could even feel his cultivation enhancing by incredibly small increments.

And then he met the first line of defense.

Sensing all the exceptionally powerful Sky Gods around him, Ryu was quite speechless for a moment. They were being more shameless than he thought they were, this was completely brazen.

The instant he had heard about the Battle of Faith, he knew immediately that the Azure Lightning Sect and the Raging Inferno Sect would do what they could to suppress them, including encirclements if they had to.

But usually, this would be done more covertly.

"Where's the shame?" Ryu couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he shot past them.

Get into an all out battle with these Perfect Sky Gods? That would be the pinnacle of foolishness.

That old man had no idea that Ryu could casually enter the void even while in only the first Sky God Realm, so he had no idea that things would be this easy for him.

This would cause the old man to lose a bit of the wealth he was planning on making off of Ryu, but who inquired him to be such a busy body to begin with?

Ryu continued to move and he was finding himself to be more and more without words. The encirclement was practically endless and stretched as far as the eye could see. It took him three more days of traveling just to see the density of Sky Gods finally whittle down a little bit, but by the end of it, he was entirely stunned.

So these were the suffocating methods of these "powerful" Sects. How noble of them.

Ryu, whose personality had mellowed out quite a bit in recent years, suddenly found his gaze turning cold again.

He didn't rely much on the Radiant Star Sect, if at all. But he owed Aika quite a large debt of gratitude and his impression of Selheira wasn't bad either.

These people were truly pissing him off.

Ryu stepped out of the void when he sensed the final encirclement and spotted the Radiant Star Sect in the distance, his unfamiliar aura suddenly becoming akin to a blazing torch in the night.