Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu tore through Raging Inferno Sect territory at an unprecedented speed. As a Fragmented Sky God, limited to such a speed, it would have taken him days to travel from one end of the Sect to another. However, as a Perfect Sky God, it only took him a couple of minutes to leave the outer ring and enter the inner ring.

This was a bit of a wakeup call for Ryu, not because he hadn't known the level of strength that acted as a gap between Sky God Realms, but instead because it reminded him that even if this was a large distance to him, that didn't mean it was a large distance to others. If he was not careful enough, getting trapped in the core of this Sect would be enough to end him.

But wasn't that part of the fun?

Ryu felt the formation shift again when he entered the inner core, as he had expected. It became more robust, more thorough. If he had stepped into this region as casually as he had stepped into the outer ring, he would have been found immediately and likely besieged from all sides.

Thankfully, he was prepared this time.

Now that he had entered the inner region of the Sect, a bit of its character began to manifest. The earth was a red-hot crimson color that made it feel like you were stepping onto another planet. This color theme was well matched even by the leaves of the trees and the foliage of the vegetation below them, only slightly accented by muted colors like browns and blacks.

He still couldn't see any Sect walls, but he could sense that the elevation was actually descending, an interesting phenomena because Sects and Clans preferred elevation. Even the Radiant Star Sect of the First Heaven had their core Sect up in the clouds, and no one had batted an eye.

Whether it was strategically or otherwise, it was odd to place your Sect in a situation where it could be besieged by outside forces at such a disadvantage.

Most Sky Gods couldn't fly, and that was especially on the Seventh Heaven. Even if you factored in flying treasures, most would choose to fight on the ground. How could a flying treasure allow you to display your fullest might?

As a result, most of the benefits and disadvantages that mortal armies worried about, in terms of terrain advantages and anything of the like, were the same for Sky Gods as well, just on a much larger scale.

Leonidas didn't believe that such a powerful Sect would be so stupid, so he continued moving forward, slowly coming into contact with more and more people.

As he did so, he was starting to understand, and he also felt he had begun to grasp why there were no walls either.

The entire Raging Inferno Sect was like a superheated sauna. The closer you got to the center, the more outrageous the temperatures became.

Ryu could sense that if a person tried to use qi to stave off this heat and damage, it would take up a substantial amount. As much as half of your qi might be occupied by this fight alone before you even began your battle.

Of course, those with strong Fire Inheritances like Ryu were relatively better off, but combating these fires and this heat in specific seemed to require a special sort of technique.

'How bold...' Ryu thought to himself.

Were they that confident in their technique that it was the only barrier between themselves and a full-out ground invasion? Well, other than their own military might, that is.

Ryu had only just started to see members of the Raging Inferno Sect. There were likely some members in the outer circle as well, but they had been too scattered for him to have a reasonable chance of coming across them. This was to say that this inner ring was where most disciples resided, even the Working Disciples.

Yet they were able to thrive in this environment?

Ryu stood for a moment, and then his silver runes adjusted. At that moment, the oppressive heat around him vanished and became part of his strength.

Even so, he was still intrigued.

For this heat domain to take the action of such a powerful talent of his to counter was absolutely astounding.

For context, Ryu's current Fire Inheritance had improved along with his Dao. Thanks to the eight trigram diagram, the improvement of his Daos and Inheritances were always linked now.

His Fire Inheritance wasn't by any stretch of the imagination normal either. It carried nature from the Phoenixes and Dragons, not to mention the odd white flame and even the Origin Flame that he had corralled now.

Even if his Internal Matrix was disregarded, his Fire Inheritance should be untouchable to these Working and Outer Disciples. He was confident in crushing even Core Disciples, let alone them.

So how could they walk around while he couldn't?

Soon, Ryu found the answer. It wasn't a technique at all, or more accurately, it wasn't solely a technique. It was a token badge each of them wore.

He pondered about stealing it but Hope's voice immediately stopped him.

"It's not going to work-"

"That's what you stated last time, and aren't I here now?"

Hope rolled her eyes. "It's not the same. Those tokens are designed to self-destruct when anyone other than their owners touch them, let alone analyze them."

"No crafted treasure is infallible."

"That's true, but they don't have to be. The formation around them does."

Ryu's eyes lit up with understanding. It seemed that these badges were just superfluous to the larger formation he was already inside. If he wanted to suppress their function, he'd have to suppress the entire large-scale formation.

He continued to move, trying to see what else he could understand.

"-Senior Sister Jojo is struggling with her breakthrough, that's what I heard."

"Lower your voice, are you trying to die?!"

"We're in the Outer Sect, who's listening?"

Ryu's steps came to a pause.