Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's mind felt like it was filled with fireworks, one thought after another linking together in ways he never thought of in the past... or maybe he had and he had simply ignored them.

He was a Ruin Master, maybe the greatest Ruin Master of this corner of Existence, but it had colored his perception of the world in ways he hadn't truly seen until recently.

He had such flexibility when he looked at language and how they were used, but his thoughts themselves were filled with such rigidity. When it came to things outside the bounds of normal cultivation, it was as though he was no less foolish than others.

Never in his wildest imaginations could he have thought that mere mortals could display such feats of power, and yet it had happened, it was true.

All his life he had been so obsessed with cultivation. One way or another, even if it meant driving a knife through his own heart, he wanted to reach that goal one day. And he had eventually gotten it...

But the result caused him to abandon everything else. What good were the arts, were games, were enjoyment to his path of cultivation? They were just distractions, deviations from his true purpose and things only designed to slow him down, weigh him down.

All he thought about was the next breakthrough, the next cultivation realm, the higher Dao-nothing else mattered.

And those sort of thoughts had stifled him.

He wasn't just Ryu Tatsuya the cultivator.

He was Ryu Tatsuya, the Herbologist who created a method to improve one's Spiritual Foundation when even his mighty Tatsuya Clan had thought it impossible.

He was Ryu Tatsuya, the Ruin Master who found the location of the Death Shrine when it had always been the stuff of myth and legend.

He was Ryu Tatsuya, the man who as nothing more than a mere mortal, found the thread of the mighty Phoenix Sky God's Faith and ripped it out from its tapestry.

His Dao flourished and poured into the Sightless Eyes formation. At that moment, it became more than just a disorientation of the senses, but instead became a disorientation controlled in Ryu's very palms. What had once been a random action, beset by the whims of the volatile energy in the air, was gripped like a writhing snake in Ryu's palms.

At that moment, the avatars in the air shifted and their focus moved from Aika to Sovereign Black Worm. The man who was already unable to match Aika's strength on his own was simultaneously besieged by large swaths of enemies, shocking him to no end.

His intention moved and he shot out a palm toward Ryu's formation, realizing that he had to break it as soon as possible. But in an irony of ironies, it was actually Aika who stopped it this time, barring his path. To make matters worse, the avatars likewise took up arms to stop him from descending toward the formation and causing him to retreat again and again away from Ryu.

Ryu didn't even look up toward the skies. He could feel the rage of a Dao Sovereign boring holes into him, but the indifference painted across his face was as hot as a searing iron on Black Worm's own.

Pushing off the ground, Ryu suddenly accelerated. He could feel that his Focus Qi was draining far slower with his Dao Vessel taking the brunt of his Dao activation and wielding the formation as well, but his time was still limited.

The survivability of the former Dual Radiance Sect members were off the charts. Their Constellations were like different tools in their toolbox, each perfect for any given situation.

Black Worm was even worse as Ryu was quickly beginning to understand why he had chosen such a ridiculous name. The man didn't even seem to care how many pieces he was chopped up into, and to make matters worse he seemed to carry some of the same control over Karma and the like that Starlight had.

Ryu could only deploy his throne in hopes of helping more, but from the looks of it, Black Worm was already out of his range.

But how easily he was able to survive had little to do with Ryu now. So long as the man stayed away, he could accomplish what his real goal was.

He appeared near the gateway, his eyes flashing like lightning. He ran over the runes, cobbling them together in his mind and building one model after another before tossing them away.

Ultimately, he realized after just a few seconds that understanding the runes weren't going to help him. Insofar as they were important, they were really just incredibly solid and almost stiff. It wasn't overly complex, but they were reliable, something you might expect from a teleportation platform designed to go across the Heavens.

There were no loopholes to take advantage of, and even if there were it would hardly matter because the largest failsafe here was the sheer girth of and tonnage of the pillar hidden beneath the earth. Any slight deviations or mistakes there could be was more than absorbed by it and there was no easy way to "crack" this thing.

Flickering tears of space spun around the region, pumping out with what Ryu assumed was probably the Ethereal Qi everyone was going crazy about. It should have been dangerous to even stand in this region, but with his Soul Nature, spatial tears were the last thing Ryu feared. In fact, he found it lamentable that there weren't more.

'More...? It's possible, but only as a last resort. It would be too hard to control that. Aika, Old Wan and Samson might get swept up in it... They're all powerful, but no one is above space, especially not space created by an object so powerful and well-constructed.'

Ryu gave the battlefield a glance before turning his focus back to the hidden pillar.

His mind churned, trying to think of a solution. But the longer it went on, the more he felt that it wouldn't work. He was running out of time, his Focus Qi would definitely run out before Black Worm died.

Suddenly, his eyes shone with a bright light.