Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's gaze narrowed. An enemy standing right before him could never catch him off guard with an attack. The only limitations would be his body's own speed. But, while the speed of his body was a limitation, the deployment of Ryu's qi was a different matter. 

Right then, Ryu's body flashed, stepping just half a foot to his right. 

The feeling of a fist that could destroy world whizzed by his ear, the booming of space and wind shattering his eardrum. 

At that moment, there wasn't a single a Lightning Sprite that didn't stand to their feet. No matter how fast Ryu's actions were, it was impossible for them to have missed it. They recognized the deployment of their Clan's core technique almost immediately. 

A human was actually using their [Lightning Divine Mark] technique?!

Right then, Ryu no longer hid his Divine Marks within his body, deploying them all in an instant. He hadn't barely dodged just now because he wanted to look cool. The reality was that even with the speed of his reaction, he had only been able to send out a mark six inches from his body so he had no choice but to make do. The result was him nearly losing half his head just to the wind pressure alone. 

Ryu realized that this Heaven's Warrior was no joke. Even with him forcing his Bloodlines back into activity, he had actually almost lost his life to just a single strike. 

Ryu's slitted pupils glowed with a severe light, his dark violet draconic scales crackling with lightning as he vanished once again. His speed was so quick that it felt like instantaneous teleportation. However, even as he ran, he was having trouble finding a gap to attack. 

Even though every strike of the Heaven's Warrior missed, its form didn't falter and its posture remained smooth. Its every punch caused the ground below to implode and distant mountains to splinter in two. The devastation would have been far worse if not for the sturdy spatial fields of the Shrine Plane. 

Ryu could feel the weight of his inadequacy pushing down on his shoulders. He knew well why it was he couldn't find a path to attack right now. It wasn't just because his body was too lacking. In fact, that could be considered a minor issue. The main root of the problem was that he wasn't skilled enough. 

He didn't trust his Great Swordstaffs as they had too many flaws. Forming a pair for him to use now would be like asking to get embarrassed. As for his fists, they were lacking even more so. 

At the same time, Ryu didn't dare to use anything beyond [Third Perspective] on this Heaven's Warrior. If he foolishly tried to use [Lines of Fate], or god forbid [Death Acupoint] on a warrior of Heaven, he would be asking for an early death. He would end up sapped dry within a split second of a split second. 

All he could do was passively observe the Heaven's Warrior but without [Lines of Fate], it was difficult to catch a hold of the secrets of its movement. 

Ryu felt like yet another one of his talents had been stripped from him. But, compared to his Bloodlines, this one felt even more crippling. Ryu only realized just how much of his cultivation genius relied on his Heavenly Pupils right this moment. 

Ryu flashed to the side once again. He attempted to send out a punch, but pulled it back immediately, realizing that the so-called opening would have cost him his arm, his shoulder, and a quarter of his torso at that. 

Ryu's memories couldn't help but drift back to his first meeting with Ailsa and the words she had spoken to him back then… 

Did he have the face to go to an orphan of the Moral Plane, without an ounce of cultivation talent, and ask them to fight against the Heavens?

The irony of it all was that Ryu really was fighting against the Heavens this time, and yet it was precisely because of this that he realized just how selfish and short sighted he had been in the past. 

Of course, he worked hard, and maybe that did allow him some leeway when it came to his arrogance. But, Ryu was reminded of a saying he had thought of long ago… 

What you thought wasn't as important as why you thought it… What life's choices led you down such a road, what experiences did you have that shaped your very being…?

Having strong will power worked the same way, did it not? If you put your head down and gave everyday everything you had, but received nothing in return… Wasn't your will worth more than someone who did the same but gained vastly? 

Ryu had lived his first life pretending as though his hard work bore him no fruit, but did it really not? 

He became an Origin Grade Herbologist in less than a thousand years. He became an Origin Grade Ruin Master in even less time. He existed on a plane of his own when it came to the Four Arts and he cultivated his own path of Feng Shui… 

These were all things cultivators spent billions, trillions of years even, to accomplish. And yet, he had done it all in a single millennia. 

Why? How did he manage it? 

Wasn't it because he had endless resources at his finger tips? Wasn't it because he had the best teachers a child could ask for? Wasn't it because he was born with these number one ranked Heavenly Pupils? 

It was easy to work hard when you were guaranteed results. What was difficult was rising up everyday knowing you may very well not get anything in return for your blood, sweat and tears. 

So the question was, what would Ryu do if his talent did truly become useless one day? 

'What would I do? Would I still have the same resolve?'

A calm smile curled Ryu's lips. 

Ever since he was a child, what he had always wanted to do the most was to sit atop of the world. But, ever since he was old enough to understand the world around him, he realized that he was already there… 

If one day he found out that his talent really wasn't much, that he was just a frog at the bottom of the well… that there was a taller mountain to climb somewhere else… 

"Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Ryu's aura blossomed forth. [Imperial Fist] shed its cocoon, a dazzling golden light threatening to disperse the clouds above.