Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu watched Empana slowly sink into a state of meditation. Quite quickly, the latter began to struggle, unable to make much progress forward. But Ryu could also tell that he was calm and unbothered. Rather than bucking up against the wall he faced, he pressed his palms against it and began to slowly push. His effort was consistent and though his progress was slow, he was making some.

Though he obviously hadn't seen Empana go at it with any of the other barriers, Ryu was pretty confident that whether it was the earlier ones, or the coming later ones, they would all go pretty much the same way. Empana wouldn't give up. Rather, he would run out of time. Eventually he would have run into a bottleneck he simply couldn't press past at all, but Ryu didn't believe he would have the time to even reach that stage in the first place.

'Lizard Demon Race...' Ryu's thoughts spun as he began to piece together some of the information he had.

Back when he was captured by the Lizard Demon Race to be their Ruin Master, he had gained access to their libraries and it could be said that aside from their most important core techniques, he had read pretty much everything else, including their history and other matters. Thanks to this, Ryu was well aware of some secrets that he otherwise shouldn't have known.

The Lizard Demon Race descended from a pairing of what were known as Demon Serpents. There was speculation that they had some Dragon blood within them too, but Ryu felt that this was nonsense. From his reading of their history, he was fairly certain that they had descended from a Demon Serpent and a weak offshoot of the Dragon Race at best, like a wyvern.

Their writings also seemed to allude to the fact that this so-called "Demon Serpent" they descended to was precisely the Bone Serpents, or rather World Serpents, that were the arch nemesis of the Dragon Race. It could only be said that this Fifth Plane Clan certainly had an over-inflated sense of self-worth.

Even if it was the case that they had descended from these creatures, so what? With how many wives, lovers and children powerhouses tended to have, even if it was rare for them to conceive, over enough Cycles of a 100 000 years, how could many children not be born?

When the age of these Clans was taken into account, how could they possibly house all of these descendants? Ryu wouldn't be surprised if there were a few First Heaven Clans that were distantly related to former or even current Ninth Heaven Clans.

The Dream Asuras were descendants of the Dream Wraiths, but that didn't even mean anything until Mae managed to become the Chosen of the Fifth Plane. This situation was much the same. If the Lizard Demons spent less time pining after their ancestors and more time improving, if they really had such talent hidden deep in their veins, maybe they could have brought out some of that potential by now.

This aside, there was a fairly simple way of telling how talented a Lizard Demon was. The closer they resembled a snake, the purer their bloodline.

That was what made Empana so odd. Unlike his stepmother, he walked on two legs, and his serpent features were minimal at best. It was clear that not only was Empana a poor talent compared to those of the Ninth Plane, and even Eighth, he was a poor talent even when the comparison was the Fifth Plane alone.

This should be why his stepmother had been able to gather up so much power in the first place. Those old fogies of their Clan must have been obsessed with how pure her Bloodline was, while Empana, though the pride of their Clan, had a Bloodline that was far too weak.

It was the pinnacle of ignorance in Ryu's opinion, but that Clan and their mistakes had nothing to do with him. He was sure that, by now, Empana had already set those people straight.

"Mm, alright, I understand now." Ryu called out for Empana to pause. "Your Bloodline is quite weak even by the standards of your Lizard Demon Race, right?"

Empana looked over at Ryu and nodded. "My mother and father both were quite talented. I'm not sure what happened to me."

Empana shrugged, clearly not caring much about the issue. "How much do you know about the origin of your Clan?"

"I only know what they've told me, and I've never bothered to check again. It's very difficult for a Demon to improve their Bloodline under normal circumstances, so I've invested far less time into this."

Ryu nodded. Humans could just swap out their Bloodline at any time, they were the freest. Though, of course, actually finding a powerful Bloodline was another matter entirely.

Beasts were perfectly in tune with the Heavens. It wasn't necessarily easy either, but just training was enough for them to refine themselves. After all, their entire cultivation system was built off the backs of their Bloodline.

Then there were Demons that were caught in the middle. They were restrained by their Bloodlines and unable to swap them as easily as Humans could. And at the same time, their connection with the Heavens wasn't as great as Beasts, nor were their cultivation methods so streamlined, so actually progressing this Pillar was a nightmare for them.

There was another matter as well, something that Ryu was only just starting to understand and something only a few could grasp.

And Ryu believed that this was actually the key to helping Demons improve. Nether Qi was a special sort of Order, one designed to find Order in disruption, so much so that an untrained eye might assume it to be Chaos.

But Ryu was too intimate with Chaos to fall for such a thing. His lip curled.

Empana was going to be the blank canvas he needed to take the next step in his Dao. This time, Ryu wouldn't rely on Embryonic Qi. He felt that doing so would only be a detriment to himself and understanding the real processes going on here.

The Rotten Sea itself was enough of a catalyst for growth, he just had to find the best way to take advantage of it.

Ryu took his time tweaking his Bloodline Resonance and guiding Empana. He passed on some methods of Bloodmancy and watched the scene before him unfold.

It took time, over a day, in fact. However, in the end, it was yet another success.

Empana's eyes brightened. It should have taken him three days to breakthrough. The fact it had only taken one was huge.

Plus, he felt that near the end, he had begun grasping something special that filled him with excitement for the next hurdle.

But soon, that excitement plummeted as the suppression of the sixth layer hit him in waves. It wasn't just the suppression, but echoes and waves of battle seemed to be radiating from everywhere at once.

It was clear that Ryu was correct. Not only were there a large number stuck in the fifth layer, but there seemed to be a substantial population stuck in the sixth as well.

Ryu and Selheira crossed over with Empana and felt the fluctuations as well.

Ryu's lip couldn't help but curl. This was about what he expected.

The geniuses in this layer were in fiendish pursuit of crossing the next one. There was a qualitative change every three barriers, and it could be said that for most that made it this far, the seventh layer was the absolute best most could hope for.

The pressure down here was enormous. The fifth layer had already felt like wading through a sludge, but this felt more like mud that was only a few hours away from drying out completely.

Ryu stretched his body a bit, getting a feel for this new layer and feeling that there truly was an exponential increase in difficulty. If the seventh layer progressed even worse than this, it could be imagined how difficult taking that step would be.

After some thought, Ryu chose to head right for the seventh layer once again. If they were going to do this, they had to do it right.

After breaking through the sixth layer, he felt that his Bloodline Resonance had increased, but not as much as it had while he was guiding Empana.

It seemed that he had found a bit of a shortcut.

He weaved his way down, avoiding all the battles happening around them.

'They are probably searching-.' Ryu was about to say blood crystals when a bright light illuminated the barrier ahead.

Someone was using a Blood Crystal in an attempt to break into the seventh layer.

'So bright...' Ryu's eyes sharpened.

The moment the blood crystal appeared, it was like the entirety of the sixth layer fell into silence.

And then the chaos came.

The Demon at the barrier was doing their best to remain calm as the blood crystal's aura seeped into them.

Ryu grinned. 'A Bone Serpent, huh? These guys are all so arrogant. This should be amusing.'