Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu became more serious. Ragash's first attack was a fool's errand. Trying to overwhelm Ryu with power when his current body was so powerful was the pinnacle of foolishness.

However, these sort of qi-based attacks were a different matter entirely.

Ragash's Dao had only been artificially suppressed. It wasn't as thorough as what Yaana had experienced with her Black Rose Life Partner. There were still bits and pieces of that comprehension hidden within Ragash.

In addition, something that was most definitely not suppressed was his comprehension of techniques and the amount of qi he had in him.

Essentially, Ragash's Dao and power output had been restrained to the False Sky God Realm, but his combat sense and even his stamina were still firmly at the True Sky God level, whether that be in terms of body or qi. His body likewise kept about the same durability.

To make a complex matter simple, when Leonel said that the current Ragash was probably the most powerful False Sky God of the Seventh Heaven currently, he wasn't exaggerating in the slightest.

Under this pressure, Ryu glided backward calmly, deploying his [Absolute Domain] as silvery runes danced around him.

Ragash swept toward him, his arms spread out wide as though inhaling all the fires of the world, and then he roared.

'What...' was all Ryu could think before he was swallowed up by a vortex of fire.

Ragash stood with a violent glint in his eye. He was cautious and didn't immediately rush into the flames, waiting to see the result. According to his information, Ryu's movement techniques were more than good enough to at least attempt to dodge that, so he smelled signs of a trap.

What he didn't expect was for Ryu to appear completely unscathed.

"What the hell was that?" Ryu asked, incredulous. He looked like he wanted to have a conversation mid-battle. The fact he wasn't taking things seriously at all infuriated Ragash to no end.

Without a word, Ragash rushed forward again, closing the distance in an instant and unleashing a flurry of attacks.

"Was that supposed to be an attempt at breathing fire?"

Ryu tilted his head to the side, blocking the next pair of strikes with his forearms and sliding out of the way of the final one. His movements were fluid and unhurried, there was simply nothing that could escape his eyes and even less that could escape his [Third Perspective]. He watched the battle from millions of angles at once, his Internal Matrix taking in the information and spitting out the perfect response every time.

Then, in a short opening, Ryu kicked out, landing the perfect sole of his feet right against Ragash's chest.

The strong impact made Ragash feel as though the air had been knocked out of him. He didn't know if it was a coincidence, but just then he had been right on the verge of circulating his qi in that area, but Ryu's kick had actually disrupted him.

A hook flashed across Ragash's chin.

"If you're going to try and mimic the dragons, at least do it with some real flare. That was too pathetic, it made my blood curdle."

Ryu's constant downpour of insults matched the rain of his fists. To everyone's astonishment, Ryu's skill in combat, something that Ragash should have had the firm advantage in, suffocated the latter.

He spoke and berated Ragash while calmly dodging his efforts and countering with a violent rain of his own. It felt like his movements were perfect, almost too perfect. Even his breathing took place at the perfect time, bracing himself appropriately and exhaling with a show of force every time he attacked.

It was hard to say he moved like the wind because in the next moment he could flash like lightning, or descend like a raging tsunami.

At some point, Ragash felt as though he had become an immobile practice dummy. His mind was filled with Ryu's insults and he couldn't even muster up his strength.

The faintest corner of his mind could barely latch onto a lesson his own master had given him years ago, a lesson of momentum and the importance of it in battle.

Ryu had firmly seized the moment, but not only that. He was able to just as firmly keep it. Every strike flowed into the next and from the moment he made the choice to be cautious and not stream into his flames after Ryu, he had lost the initiative.

But it was something even worse than that.

Ryu's body seemed to be in tune with Momentum itself. It was like the Heavens were rewarding him with stronger and stronger strikes. He was becoming undefeatable, a mountain too tall for him to climb, an earth too solid to dig into.

A grunt rang out and Ragash shuddered. His eyes opened wide and he seemed to snap out of a trance-like state.

He roared again and a wave of qi blew Ryu back, causing the latter to flip on the air before landing gracefully.

Ryu didn't seem mad, he only chuckled as he looked toward Lord Crown Fire.

That grunt just now hadn't targeted Ryu. Instead, it just woke Ragash up.

Ragash hadn't just been lost in Ryu's barrage, but Ryu had been playing with his mind. Ryu was becoming more adept at using his Dividing Chaos in battle. If this had been allowed to continue like that, Ragash would have fallen into such a depth of despair that he wouldn't be able to wake up until he was beaten to death, but by then it would have already been too late.

In truth, Lord Crown Fire only had himself to blame. He had manifested as a show of force, but that sort of pressure wasn't something the likes of Ragash could handle. His Dao Heart wasn't nearly as firm as Ryu's, so there was only ever going to be one outcome to this.

Lord Crown Fire seemed to realize this as well, but it was already too late for him to suddenly just leave as it would be admitting that his Raging Inferno Sect's disciple was just wholly inferior to Ryu in every way.

Ragash took deep breaths. His face was swollen in many places and his body was filled with lumps and bruises. Just breathing felt like labor, however he was still a True Sky God at the end of the day. He had suffered worse injuries during training. He could withstand this much.

He looked toward Ryu, his eyes flashing with a hint of madness and humiliation. After being woken up, he understood what happened, and yet it filled him with a hint of fear.

He assumed that it was related to Ryu's Dao, or it was at the very least a Dao Charm technique, but he hadn't even sensed it activate.

How could he know that Ryu was only passively using his Dao? His Dividing Chaos didn't need to directly apply pressure on people, he could use it as a method of analysis, and then use more normal means to impact a person... such as his barrage of insults earlier.

Of course, though he was saying Dividing Chaos, in reality he was only using one part of it, that being Dividing Sin. It was even more impossible for others to sense just a small usage of what was ultimately just a single quarter of his Dao.

Ryu chuckled. "Finally ready to battle? It looked like you were a bit shaken in fear just now. Are you doing alright? Feeling nervous."

Ragash grit his teeth hard. "You use a woman's Dao and yet you're so proud of it. You don't have the heart of a warrior at all, how could I fear you?!"

Ryu blinked. A woman's Dao?

He burst into a booming laughter. Ragash was trying to put his Dao in the same box as female cultivators that used charming or coaxing Daos. He had to admit, it was a decent try and Ryu even found it amusing.

"You want to know why you can't sense my Dao and yet you're certain I used it?" Ryu asked with a grin.

Ragash didn't respond, his brows furrowing hard.

"Don't worry, I'll tell you. It's because I'm only using a small portion of it, and passively at that. You would have already lost this fight had the mighty Crown Fire Lord not just saved you, but you want to call it a woman's Dao?"

Lord Crown Fire's gaze glinted with a dangerous light, but he didn't even dignify the dig with a response as though it was simply beneath him.

As for Ryu, he didn't even look toward the man, his knuckles smashing together. In his view, the longer this was, the more humiliating it was, the more disparaging it could be, the better.

"However, since I can't count on the Raging Inferno Sect not cheating, I can show you what it would feel like to face a 'man's Dao'."

"Starting with how to truly roar like a Dragon."

Ryu's smiling expression suddenly vanished and the skies rumbled. His chest expanded and veins of ruby red crawled up his collarbone and throat as his diaphragm followed suit and expanded as well.

BOOM.

ROAR!

A blazing cyclone of fire suddenly manifested before Ragash and he felt his knees go weak.