Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

The Core Elders ignored Ryu, but they directly started to move their encampments, scanning the regions for more triggers. It was only when they couldn't find anything that they begrudgingly took this step, but seeing Ryu's smile, their level of discomfort was growing.

Soon, a quarter of an hour passed, but the encampments had long since moved. They wanted to see if Ryu would still dare to be so-

BOOM! Another dozen encampments went up in flames.

Two explosions. Two dozen encampments. Over a thousand disciples were wiped out, just like that.

"Ah, my mistake," Ryu said with an apologetic smile. "I meant to only take out one, but your movement ruined my formation triggers. I think you can only blame yourselves at this point."

Many of the Radiant Star Sect disciples had come to watch the show. After the first explosion, how could they not want to see what Ryu was up to? But now, they just felt awe.

What was happening?

"Well, time is ticking. Another quarter of an hour will pass quite quickly. I would suggest not moving, though. You might make it worse next time."

How could the Core Elders listen to Ryu? They immediately moved the encampments again. This time, they even directly destroyed all of the core infrastructure.

In their minds, Ryu had somehow tagged their encampments with the runes of his formation. If they purposely left behind some of the core structures, then Ryu's formation would be disrupted.

Another quarter of an hour passed by. Another snap of his fingers. Another explosion. This time, three dozen encampments directly went up in smoke.

Ryu shrugged his shoulders. "I tried to warn you. No one seems to want to listen to me when I tell the truth."

Core Elder Briza was seeing the world in shades of red at this point.

"The Radiant Star Sect is truly shameless. What are you supposed to be? A mascot? Do you think anyone believes that a Fragmented Sky God can do as you've done."

Ryu's smile didn't fade. His hand reached forward and in that instant, a formation of twirling lights appeared around the Core Elder in the blink of an eye.

Ryu snapped his fingers.

BOOM! Core Elder Briza shot out from the pillar of flames, his gaze even hotter than before and his clothing charred black in a few locations.

"I'm disappointed. That's the second time I've been accused of something so ridiculous. I think that warrants punishment."

Ryu snapped his fingers again, and this time six encampments went up in flames.

"You're such a bad person," Hope's laughter reached Ryu's ears again. She tried to restrain the honk portion of it, but it seemed that she was entirely unable to.

"No, I'm a very good person. Didn't I give them a chance?"

Ryu was using an offensive formation of the Unbalance Art Sect, Dozen Star Blaze. In truth, it was easier to destroy these encampments in groups of a dozen than it was to destroy one at a time.

The reason it didn't matter what they did was because Dozen Star Blaze was a tracking formation that could be hidden within the void. And the reason Ryu had disappeared for half a day was because he had already set up the formation and attached it to every one of the encampments in the closest ring of encirclements.

Honestly, only a fool would accuse the Ryu of relying on someone else. When the explosions happened, they clearly had his aura attached to them. But even so, he had to be cautious about letting narratives run wild.

Ultimately, this wasn't just a war of who was right and wrong, it was also a war of public perception, and right now the Radiant Star Sect was mostly trapped and likely didn't have the information networks of their enemies.

As such, whatever they did had to be perfect and without blemish, or else it could easily be twisted.

Honestly speaking, Ryu didn't care about them suddenly bringing their geniuses for him to crush. The impact it would have on the general situation was limited for a few reasons.

First, the battle would happen here if it happened at all, which meant that too few would actually witness it themselves.

Of course, Ryu could use a method like recording and disseminating the information, which could work.

Second, Ryu was just a Fragmented Sky God. Ultimately, it was hard for him to have a huge impact on the overall situation even if he crushed every Fragmented Sky God the Raging Inferno Sect had.

Ryu felt that the perfect Realm for this battle was probably the Perfect Sky God Realm. If he was at that level, he felt that just three months would be enough to crush their Faith and leave them with nothing.

Unfortunately, he was a long way from that and had to take a different route.

This was nothing more than a precursor.

Another quarter of an time passed, and he snapped his fingers again.

Another portion passed, and he snapped them once again.

The encampments were vanishing one after another and Ryu played them like puppets on a string. Even when the Core Elders promised that they were contacting their geniuses, Ryu still snapped his fingers a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth.

Eventually, the Core Elders could only look on in despair.

The entire first encirclement had been wiped out. Tens of thousands of disciples, each with potential of their own, crushed before they could even rise.

Ryu shook head. "It seems the Raging Inferno Sect and the Azure Lightning Sect are formed of cowards. I'm very disappointed."

"We stated they were coming!" Core Elder Briza roared. "Do you think it's easy to travel across the Seventh Heaven?!"

Ryu chuckled. "I stated every portion hour, so it'll be every quarter hour. Do you desire to make me out to be a liar?"

Briza wanted to tear Ryu to shreds, but he barely had a hint of rationality left. If he stormed the walls, it wouldn't be an encirclement anymore, but an act of war. At that point, any one of the Sect's experts could cut him down.

"Anyway, since your prodigies refuse to come to me, I'll go to them. Don't worry, I'll make sure to package up their corpses in a nice coffin and ship them right to your door."

Ryu vanished again. This time, he would appear in the Radiant Star Sect again for several weeks. But the news that came with his coming storm would make the likes of Briza shed tears of blood.