Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

"What are you doing, this is stupid!"

Hope's voice rang in Ryu's ears.

"That so?"

The noncommittal answer nearly sent Hope over the edge. This was just being a daredevil, the man was looking for death.

Messing with the Sects the way he had was already a huge misuse of his time and a complete disregard of his own personal safety, but now he seemed to have become addicted to it.

This was a battlefield that even Omniscient Sky Gods wouldn't dare to step into, so why the yell was a Fragment-or she guessed a False Sky God now-going?!

And why had his breakthrough still not ended yet?! He couldn't even hide himself properly because the qi was flying about everywhere.

"Ryu! Seriously! I can't protect you!"

Ryu raised an eyebrow, his expression becoming stern. He was quite lenient with Hope these days because he had started to think of her like a friend, but he had his own stubbornness.

"What was the first thing we talked about when you insisted on following me?" Ryu said.

Hope froze.

She remembered quite well. Ryu had actually tried to tell her to piss off back then because he didn't want the fact he had a Sky God ready to jump in at the last moment to impede his progress. Ever since he had regained the ability to cultivate, Ryu had made it an art to get himself into life and death situations and make it out on the other end even stronger than before. It was what he had been doing ever since he was 14 years old in this life, and now that he was approaching his thirties, while having experienced many more years than that, he had no intention of stopping.

Of course, by now, the both of them understood the real reason Hope had insisted on following back then.

Although she had said that it was because she wanted to break through and return to the Transcendent Sky God Realm, and although now it might be more about her enjoying Ryu's company as well, those two reasons had never truly been the main reason.

The main reason was that her Fate was tied to Ryu's. If he sunk, she sunk. If he swam, she swam. It was that simple.

Her method of Reincarnation was ingenious, but it had also made it so that her Fate was now permanently tied to Ryu's.

For a long while, this fact had left her in a deep, depressing mood. It felt like she had gone through all that trouble to cheat death, only to end up on a road with a dead end waiting on the end of it.

However, the secondary meaning of Ryu's words were even clearer than its first layer.

This was his life, not hers. He wasn't going to make decisions based on trying to keep her safe and he was going to keep living his life on his own terms.

Like he had said to Patriarch Ember all those years ago, he would rather die than lower his head like a dog and bark for treats.

So what if the Heavens were trying to balance out his excellence by tipping the scales with Dao Sovereigns and maybe a Dao God?

He didn't give a damn. Even if he succeeded and this just tilted the balance even further against him, he would just do it again.

They said that cultivation was an act of constantly swimming against the tide. The only difference was that some would try to shift into calmer waters, moving toward regions where the pressure they faced was lessened.

Ryu didn't feel a need for all of that.

His Dao Heart was as clear and as reflective as glass. It was unblemished and perfectly polished. Nothing his mind could control would stand in his way, so the likes of fear... apprehension... cowardice...

They weren't in his long dictionary of translatable words.

Ryu accelerated and his focus akin to an arrow slicing through the wind.

He was much faster than he had been in the past, not just due to the strengthening of his body, but also that of his qi.

In addition, his Perfect Blackbody Soul, after taking the pill Hope had concocted, had already caught up to his new bodily strength and was pushing up against barriers that put even most True Sky Gods to shame.

It could be said that while only his Qi Realm was beyond the Fragmented Realm currently, his body was infinitesimally close to breaching the True God Realm, while his Soul and his Dao were already on that level.

However, all of this was meaningless in the face of such powerhouses that could crush him with a single finger. Even that might not be doing them justice as it was likely that a single glance would be enough.

Even though his target wasn't them, but rather the gateway itself, there was no doubt that all of them would be around that region. If there was one thing Hope was correct about, it was that this was very stupid.

But it was also very Ryu.

The Spectral Wings appeared on Ryu's back and he accelerated even further, slicing through the void as though it wasn't there at all.

There was a reason he wasn't trying to hide himself, and that was because he knew that it was useless. There was nothing that he could pull out of his bag of tricks that would hide him from the senses of a Dao Sovereign.

This time, he was really gambling with his life... and his trust of Aika.

Ryu crossed the Seventh Heaven with a blazing speed and soon he saw exactly the scene that would have likely killed anyone else.

It could only be described as Armageddon. Space and reality seemed like fleeting concepts as those behemoths in the sky did battle.

Aika, Old Wan and Samson fought against not only several Dao Lords and a Dao Sovereign, but also armies of billions below.

It was absolute carnage.

And they all sensed Ryu at the same time.