Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

"Well, don't you look decent," Ryu said with a smile.

Jojo was truly a beauty, and a unique one after that. Her hair didn't even look like hair, it instead flowed like a raging sea of purple-red flames. Her eyebrows were the same, seeming both quite sharp and a bit thicker than what one would expect on a woman, but it just worked perfectly for her.

Her features were a little fierce, but that had little to do with her looking like a man, and much more to do with her abrasive personality. Now that she was being forced to wear a dress, one of flowing black that matched her quite perfectly, it took some of her edge off and it made it far easier to appreciate her.

Now, instead of looking like a delicate bobble head slapped onto a body much larger than itself-something that was the usual for Jojo when she wore her over-sized rose-gold armor-she looked like a real woman with all of her proportions in the right place.

Despite lacking the charm and perfection of a Sky God, Ryu couldn't deny that she was an exceptional beauty. If she managed to maintain her Sword God Aura and entered the Sky God Realm on top of that, she would easily be among the most beautiful women Ryu knew.

Still, he preferred his Eska. Everything about her was perfect, and she was also the type of woman he liked the most. It was also quite easy for her to outclass Jojo since she was well into the Sky God Realms by now.

He sighed inwardly, his thoughts drifting to Ailsa and Yaana. He wanted to know how they were doing, or if they were alive at all. It was difficult to tell. Even though their Primordial Yins seemed to tell him that they were still around, who knew if they were simply in a world much too far off for anything to be registered?

"What are you trying to make me do here?" Jojo frowned, a bit unhappy with Ryu's words. She wasn't here just to be ogled by him. In truth, the fact she put the dress on at all meant that she deserved more credit for understanding her current situation than Ryu gave her credit for.

She absolutely hated dresses and she felt quite naked without her armor. She only put it on because she could tell though Ryu had said it lightly, if it came down to it, he wouldn't mind forcing her to wear it.

"I already told you," Ryu recovered with a smile.

"You want to show me off in public?"

"Of course. Let's go," Ryu gave her his arm to hold.

Jojo's expression twisted with disdain but took his arm anyway.

"Are you really so poor with women that this is your only choice?"

Ryu chuckled. "I get to take the famous Jojo on a date, who cares if I used some unscrupulous means?"

Jojo's lip twitched and she looked away as Ryu shot into the skies. Almost immediately, she spotted a city. It seemed that wherever Ryu had teleported them to, he had already thought ahead.

"Wait, that's Azure Rising City, you're insane!"

"What's the problem?" Ryu asked with a smile.

"That's one of the nine most important cities under the Azure Lightning Sect's territory. You're from the Radiant Star Sect, stepping into that place is a death sentence. No, just appearing in the air like this is-"

Ryu had already shot forward on his great swordstaff, appearing above the city and descending without a care in the world.

"You..."

Jojo's worry was more than just this, of course. Ryu's safety was of secondary concern. What would she do if she was recaptured? Her life would never be the same.

Even though she was under house arrest, the Sect Elders still treated it like more of a child's tantrum. In addition, she had attempted to leave quietly so that no one would notice, not to mention the fact that her escape attempt had been before news of her impending marriage had spread.

But if she was caught now, not only would she have publicly embarrassed the Sect on a grand scale, she would have seemed to have done so at the behest of a man who was a key cog for their enemies.

To make matters worse, as a disciple that they had put a great deal of effort into raising, she knew many of the core techniques of the Sect. Betrayal of this level could mean execution and death, but Ryu was playing around!

Ryu landed on the ground and the two were automatically the subject of countless gazes. Descending from the sky on a sword was not normal at all. In fact, descending from the sky at all was something that only the exceptionally rich or powerful could do.

Flying treasures capable of rising into the air on the Seventh Heaven were prohibitively expensive. Even the Core Elders that Ryu had teased previously would be unlikely to be able to actually afford one. So one could imagine that the only way people would be in the skies would be if they managed to tame a flying God Beast, something that was exceptionally dangerous, or if they could do so under their own power.

No matter how you sliced it, Ryu's entry would gain a great deal of attention. But it only became worse when others recognized Jojo.

That fiery stream of hair, those torch-like eyebrows, she looked like the embodiment of flames themselves.

This face was an easily recognizable one. She was a young genius that had been firmly rooted in the public's hearts. And no one... had ever seen her in a dress.

She was gorgeous...

But hanging off the arm of another man.

Ryu tossed the guards a few God Crystals and then slipped inside.

"So, where would you like to go?"

Jojo had just felt her world collapsing around her, but almost just as quickly, she regained her composure. He might have found this lady a bit annoying in the past, but one thing was for certain: she had quite some mental fortitude.

"Does it matter?" She replied calmly.

Ryu smiled. "I'll choose, then."

And so, Ryu did so, parading Jojo around with a bright grin on his face. She didn't know when, but her too seemed to forget the situation quite quickly. Maybe it was because her mind was so indomitable, but she returned to her true baseline quite quickly, also making certain that Ryu felt her annoyance at every turn.

...

"Who the hell wants a stuffed animal?"

...

"What? Are you force feeding me alcohol so you can take advantage of me later?"

...

"Ah, this food is good. Waiter, bring me three more, this isn't enough."

...

In just a few minutes, the news had already spread all across the city, let alone the fact that they spent hours going from place to place without a care in the world. However, the odd thing was that they weren't harassed even a single time.

At that moment, the City Lord, a man who went by City Lord Hill, was drenched in his own cold sweat. He had already contacted those he should contact, but he still felt like he was sitting on pins and needles. It was something that he hadn't experienced in a long time as a Transcendent Sky God.

The only reason he could think of that made Ryu so bold was that Aika was somewhere nearby watching, and the idea that a Dao Sovereign was overlooking his every movement made it difficult for him to even breathe. Just gathering up the courage to contact the powerhouses of the Sect had left him in a puddle of goo.

'They'll be here soon... then it won't be my problem anymore.'

...

"Sure, let's do it," Ryu chuckled.

Jojo's eyes appeared to finally light up for something. Unsurprisingly, it was related to the sword.

The square was quite spacious and up ahead, there were nine pillars that stretched into the skies, each one radiating a different aura.

This reminded Ryu a lot of Sacrum's Armament Guild, but this situation was a bit different. Rather than nine different weapons, there were just three. Well, there were two weapons, the last one was just the fist.

The Fist. The Halberd. The Sword.

Each got three pillars and there was an eager line of people who loved to test themselves against it. Against this line, Ryu and Jojo easily cut to the front. Anyone who had even a modicum of intelligence knew that these two were just a ticking time bomb waiting to happen.

"Come, come, give me a sword," Jojo remarked eagerly. "I've always wanted to try out this thing but it's never been appropriate for me to come here."

Ryu chuckled. "Just use your own sword."

"Bah, I don't want to use that thing. I'll never use something from the Raging Inferno Sect again, whether it be their treasures or their techniques. Fuck them."

Ryu's gaze flickered. After a moment he smiled and handed Jojo a sword he casually plucked from one of the many he had killed since he stepped foot into the Seventh Heaven.

With a wild excitement, Jojo swift cut a slit into her dress and rushed forward.

'She's close...' Ryu thought after a moment, looking into the skies. 'It's just about time...'

Jojo, for the first time in a long while, felt free.

When one was trying to make such an important breakthrough, pressing appeared like the correct thing to do, when in reality you might benefit more from a deep breath.

Whether her took this opportunity or not. Well... that would be up to her.