Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

There were only really two ways that this sort of situation would go, and Ryu's instincts toward the bonds of Karma were practically screaming.

The first way was his death. The Heavens would throw everything at him to release the Faith he had gathered and allow it to spread across multiple people. This wouldn't be a conscious effort, but rather just a natural phenomena no different from heat rising or condensation in the morning.

The Convergence was designed to build up a large number of experts, at the price of a Dark Age of sorts, usually to deal with a coming threat, though it was often just a natural phenomena of coincidence.

The fact that so much build up for an entire world was concentrating on Ryu alone was unacceptable to the Heavens and it would try to rectify that. The Heavens didn't know good or evil, it only knew how to maximize the survivability of its children and focused on increasing the strength of its best as well.

However, there was a second method as well.

Depending on how desperate the Heavens were, or how pressing the matter of this Convergence was, it could choose to take a different route, and that was to create an opportunity that surpassed every other opportunity before it.

Ryu's mind immediately went to the Title Stele, but he dismissed that idea almost immediately. It was a hundred years from now, or rather, 98 by now, it was too long. A century was a mere blink of the eye for the Heavens, but in the midst of a Convergence where Fate was swirling together into large tides, there was no time to lose. The fact it had waited this long was only a testament to how large what it was cooking up was.

So, the moment Ryu realized what might be happening, he instantly asked about Aika and the others.

"It's hard to tell, it felt like it was happening everywhere at once. For some reason, there was this huge shift and the Ethereal Plane and Real Plane clashed heavily.

"According to Old Wan, the Ethereal Plane is very sensitive to the elements and elemental shifts. There's a Guild here that gathers information, they're extraordinary and their methods are shocking. They brought news from the Eighth Heaven that someone's been stealing a ton of high level Natural Treasures and destroying cultivation grounds that have been used for generations."

Ryu was speechless and he couldn't help but run a hand through his hair.

This matter was more complicated than he thought he was. He thought that it was the doing of the Heavens for sure, but if this was his fault, that meant the other foot had yet to drop, and it would most certainly drop...

Eska frowned. "Why are you... No..."

Realization overwhelmed her. Ryu had disappeared for two years after the end of the Complete Path. She had no idea where he went, but now she suddenly knew.

Those timelines, they synced up perfectly.

"Ryu..." Eska said softly.

Ryu sighed. "This is just typical of the Heavens at this point. It was it that gave me the information I needed to gather those treasures in the first place, but now I'm being punished for it. If it was going to throw a tantrum, why bother?"

Eska was speechless. Ryu was truly the only person who dared to talk about the Heavens this way, most didn't even dare to evoke its name for fear of punishment.

She didn't know whether to be worried or proud.

"Since you're at the center of it... again, I think you know that this only makes matters worse. That means that you've not only gathered a large amount of Faith from the Convergence itself, but your actions as a result of gathering that Faith is direction impacting the Planes themselves."

This was on a completely different level. Forcing two Planes to clash like this could lead to a cascading series of effects that could force the hand of the so-called Dark Age sooner, throwing the whole cultivation world into chaos right when they needed to be at the top of their game.

"So what exactly is happening?" Ryu had a vague understanding, but he wanted to be certain. He needed everything laid out so he could make the proper decisions.

"Like I said, the Ethereal Plane is particularly sensitive to the Elements. It's unlike the Nether Plane which is sort of a mirror world where Reincarnation and the like lies, instead it's layered right on top of our world and we are very connected in many ways.

"Any treasure of sufficient level that appears here also spreads out anchors in the Ethereal Plane. The loss of one is fine, but the loss of so many caused a destabilizing effect that has opened up far more gates to the Ethereal Plane.

"Like this, Real Qi is spilling into the Ethereal Plane, and Ethereal Qi is spilling into our Plane. The effects are particularly strong on the Eighth Heaven and gateways to the Eighth Heaven located right here in the Seventh."

"Gateways?" Ryu asked. This was a clear foreign concept to him.

"There are bridges to the Eighth Heaven from here that exist, but they are mostly dormant from a forgotten age, no one dares to use them because unless you have the strength, you'll be slaughtered, and if you have the strength, you won't need them.

"The effects are definitely strongest on the Eighth Heaven because that's where he... or Lord Husband took most of the treasures from.

"As for the effects of the Ethereal Qi, it's a bit more difficult to explain but it's almost as though it's filling in gaps cultivators didn't even know they had. In its presence, people who have been stuck at bottlenecks for years without hope of advancing suddenly did.

"It's almost as though the Ethereal Qi is another half to Real Qi and after experiencing one for so long, experiencing the other is like a wave of relief.

"As for where Aika and others have gone, they all started a huge battle near one of the largest sights. It seems that Sovereign Black Worm is inching toward becoming a Dao God."