Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's eyes blurred, blood vessels popping one after another as crimson streaks fell down his cheeks. Trying to completely reverse the Fate of an Omniscient Sky God, who had been hit by at least half the strength of a Dao Lord, and separate to kill over a dozen Perfect and Transcendent Sky Gods at once, all as a mere False Sky God himself, was something beyond just playing God.

Teasing apart Hope's Fate was particularly difficult because it was so tied to his own, but the damage his own body had taken was far too little to kill these Sky Gods. If anything, it would just tickle them a little bit.

Even so, that foundation was part of the reason he felt that he could succeed. Swapping the Fates of others was one thing, but tugging and pulling at the Fates of so many at once was a completely different tier of difficulty.

He didn't believe that he could have succeeded unless he had some sort of anchor that went beyond the norm tying him and Hope together. In the end, he only had one shot at it and no room for error, so he had to go all in.

Luckily, it had ended up working out in his favor, but they had to move.

He got up, or rather he tried to. In the end, he ended up stumbling with Hope in his arms and coughing up a mouthful of blood.

He looked down after barely managing to catch himself.

'Why is she not awake?'

Ryu's expression became more than just a little hint gloomy. Hope should have woken up by now, all of her injuries were healed, so why was she in a state like this?

Blood leaked from Ryu's eyes and lips, but he didn't have time to even wipe them away. If he didn't get moving, he would be finished.

With a wave of his hand, he stored all the corpses away. Leaving them behind was like leaving behind evidence of his eyes.

'With the current situation of the Eighth Heaven, sensing things shouldn't be nearly as easy, if possible at all. Just looking at it, the two Planes are stacking atop of one another, there's no way to easily do what was possible in the past...'

Before, the Chaotic Space Dao Sovereign had sensed Ryu immediately. But with his eyes back and [Third Perspective], Ryu would definitely sense it if someone's senses locked onto him. However, there was no such thing right now. That could only mean that the Dao Sovereign was either occupied or couldn't-likely even both.

Considering the Dao Sovereign's attempts to make it to Dao Sovereign from Dao Lord, there was no doubt in Ryu's mind that he would now be going all out to become a Dao God much like Black Worm had. The entire Heaven was definitely embroiled in war.

Ryu coughed up a mouthful of blood and began to circulate his Embryonic Qi. Almost instantly, his body was a great measure better.

He looked at Hope and eventually had no choice but to put her away into the Golden Moon World as he slipped away.

He wasn't sure what was wrong with her, but it definitely had to be related to her soul. His [Fate Reversal] was very good at working on the physical body and physical changes, but the soul was the medium through which cultivators communicated with the Heavens. Changing Fate surrounding it was orders of magnitude more difficult.

The only hope of helping the little woman was to use his Embryonic Qi, but her body was even more taboo than his own.

Not only was her Fate tethered to his own, she wasn't a native of this world. The Taboo Powers were already ostracized by the Heavens, so one could imagine how a true outsider might be treated. She would need even more Embryonic Qi than himself.

But if she did manage to get pregnant, theoretically it should tether her to these Heavens more and it would be easier for him to heal her soul as a result.

Ryu didn't actually expect this. He thought that she had just suffered a physical attack. He should have known that a man like Old Wan would be far more vicious than that.

It wasn't enough that he was using a Dao Lord's Incarnation to attack a False Sky God, but he also layered in a clear assault on the soul at the same time.

Considering Old Wan likely knew about Ryu's Perfect Blackbody and how resilient it was to losing parts of itself, this was no doubt a truly vicious attack, one that wouldn't be easily dealt with.

The more Ryu thought about it, the more the rage he had buried threatened to come back up.

He was going to really enjoy killing that man. He would savor every second of it. And he would make certain that it wasn't painless.

He had no intention of returning to the Sect right now because he knew exactly what would happen.

The worst-case scenario was that Old Wan would detect him before the others did and attack to kill. He would die even before he made it to within striking distance of Aika.

In the best-case scenario, Aika would simply banish Old Wan, leaving a danger lurking in the darkness.

He trusted Aika... somewhat. But she was far too soft and she lacked decisiveness... no, more accurately, she lacked decisiveness that was used in the right fashion. She was more rash than she was decisive.

In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if Samson already knew about this matter. He would be enraged for a small time, but eventually side with Old Wan, believing that he was acting in the best interest of the Sect.

And maybe Old Wan was... but what the hell did that have to do with him?

He was going to kill, and he was going to kill to his heart's content. Anyone who stood in his way could die too.

Beneath his rage, blood leaked from his wounds even faster. But as he moved through the void, they closed slowly, but surely.

It seemed that strengthening his body had in turn strengthened his Taboo Body Cultivation, which had, in turn, made it even harder to heal once again.

But that was fine. Right now, even if he was in tiptop shape it would matter little if he ran into someone who could kill him.

The immediate danger was pretty much solved, but he wasn't out of the woods yet.

He had learned over these years to not underestimate the methods of these great powers.

Anyone who was guarding the gateway at a time like this had extremely low standing amongst their powers, but it was still likely that they had a soul tie or something of the sort in their main Sects.

While Ryu had shrouded himself well enough, there would likely still be several auxiliary methods of tracking him down.

He couldn't stay on the Eighth Heaven, but he couldn't return to the Seventh, and he certainly couldn't go to Ninth as whatever problems he had to face here would likely be multiplied several times over.

There was no way for him to return to the Nether Plane, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to either. That would come with its own host of issues, especially after Primus killed that Fire Giant. He could probably hope that Mae's master would protect him, but how would he even get a message there?

He really only had two options.

The first was to leave the True Martial World entirely, return to Sacrum or try to make it to one of those other worlds. In the first case, he'd enter closed-door cultivation and hop from Shrine to Shrine, hoping for enlightenment. In the second, he'd be rolling the dice on something even Dao Gods didn't dare to do casually.

The second was to gamble on the Ethereal Plane.

He would stick out like a sore thumb in that place, but he had his methods. Relying on Ailsa's Primordial Yin, it wasn't impossible to mask himself as a Faerie for a time.

On the Seventh Heaven, if he wanted to do this, he would be out of luck. But on the Eighth, where the two Planes were touching, so long as he found a weak spot in the void, he could manage it.

The trouble was that any weak spot would have the largest concentrations of Ethereal Qi, and on the other side there would be a large influx of Real Qi. That meant no matter which side he was talking about, both would be teeming with experts.

The only good news was that the space in those areas would be so volatile that the only way someone would be able to spot him was either by luck or having a spatial Soul Nature as strong or stronger than his own.

And that was if he didn't use the very same method he used to sneak into the Raging Inferno Sect.

With that thought, his Cosmos Fog flourished and his internal size began to expand wildly.