Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

High in the skies, his Birthed Phenomena roared to life, shaking the already trembling skies.

He concentrated Dragon's Claw into a single downward motion.

The world shook as space bowed to his whims.

PCHU!

Enrika's head was torn clean through, her eyes only snapping open at the last minute to show her horror. She had been planning all sorts of nasty things for the moment her life finally wasn't in danger anymore, only for this to happen.

She couldn't believe that Ryu actually dared to kill her.

Her throat was caught before she fell to the ground, her gaze vacant. But Ryu's eyes couldn't help but narrow.

He had sensed something just now.

Reaching down, he ripped the pouch on the woman's side away and found that there were hundreds of beasts within.

Of course, most of these beasts were just small fry, a large number of them only being at the Fragmented Sky God Realm. Clearly, Enrika had been sacrificing the lessers because she didn't want to use her more valuable beasts, and that had made her suffer dearly in the end.

Because so much of her soul was diverted to sacrificing her beasts, she could only control one beast at a time and had probably already given up on controlling the beasts fighting Elena.

To make matters worse, because she was only absorbing the weaker beasts as a healing sacrifice, it was taking her longer than it otherwise would have, making her outcome all the more set in stone.

But this wasn't what Ryu had sensed.

'There was something that tried to work but failed.'

The moment he had this thought, he found it. A claw dug into Enrika's skull and he found a shard that made his frown deepen.

'This should be connected to Beast Mimicry Sect territory. It failed to activate because, in all likelihood, the Martial God formations blocked it. Is it a life saving measure...? No, not quite...'

Ryu was sure that life saving measures did exist. Though, it was probably more likely that anyone that had such a thing would instead have a Death Guard following them around much like he had.

Such things were reserved for the cream of the crop, and if Enrika had come here to participate in what was otherwise a small gathering, she certainly was not one. In fact, she was probably barely an Outer Sect Disciple, if she was even that at all.

'This shard...'

There were strong spatial fluctuations, and it hadn't tried to give energy, but rather take it away.

'Was it implanted to control her? No, maybe to take advantage of her?'

Ryu wasn't sure. The Runes on this thing were well beyond him and he suddenly felt the urge to study them. But for the time being, he made a move to put it away. Then, he looked at the spatial bag again.

'Hm... I think that I might be able to stop people from using this spatial device entirely. This is much more complex than a normal spatial ring. I wonder...'

The world inside the spatial bag was like a real world, and it functioned more like one. In order to make it more manageable, there were several runes and things of the like used to aid those without the same sort of spatial awareness to quickly find the beasts they needed in such a large area and safely bring them out.

In addition, because the beast couldn't just plop into your hand, there were also extra runes designed to help one plop them down within a given area. This bag seemed to have a working range of around 10 meters, but someone of Enrika's caliber could probably only control around five meters.

This was to say that in Ryu's presence... until they summoned their beasts beforehand, those of the Beast Mimicry Sect probably wouldn't even be able to mount a proper assault against him. Well, at least not one that required their beasts.

'No wonder she reacted so fiercely to my Spacetime Soul Nature. I just didn't notice it quickly enough.'

Ryu put the spatial bag away along with Enrika's corpse.

He realized that Selheira's father had greatly improved his Golden Moon World. It was just as large as it was on the Sixth Heaven and no longer shrunk down, or else Ryu realized it might have collapsed the moment he stepped onto the Ninth Heaven.

A smile spread across Ryu's lips as he took a step and vanished.

When he appeared again, he found a delicate beauty with a slight frame, taking long, heaving breaths. She stood over three corpses, her fingers dripping with blood and her gaze somewhat absent.

Elena had been waiting for those hidden in the shadows to attack, which was why she had tried to drag out the fight. But in the end, she was being injured so severely that she had no choice but to take that step and brace herself for whatever might come.

But to her astonishment, no one came at all. She could only wonder what happened...

Until she smelled a familiar scent.

Before she felt it in her soul, or before she even saw him, she smelled that scent first...

Ryu didn't know, but the only reason she had started paying attention to him in the first place was because she really liked how he smelled.

It was so calm and earthy, reminding her of cinnamon spice and hints of citrus and pine. It was the sort of masculine scent she could lose herself in for years, never becoming bored of it.

Her gaze turned misty as she slowly looked up.

"... Hubby?" Her voice cracked.

Ryu swept her waist into his arms and hugged her tightly.

"I'm sorry I left you alone for so long," Ryu said softly.

The tears Elena had been trying to hold back fell like a flood as she held onto Ryu even more tightly.

Even when he had been a frail man she could knock over with a finger, he had always felt so reliable to her. And now... all those feelings had come flooding back.