Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Godefride looked Ryu up and down. Though he seemed to be observing Ryu himself, he was actually looking for Ailsa. After several tries, he gasped in admiration. 

He had heard that the concealment abilities of the Faerie race were top tier and could usually only be unveiled by other Faeries, but seeing it for himself, he could only give his respects. 

The truth was that many Faeries would appear on the Real Plane beside their partner in their smaller forms. Now that Ryu and Ailsa's intimacy had reached the deepest level, Ailsa didn't have to constantly stay in the Ethereal Plane. But, Ailsa was quite fond of the idea that Ryu and Ryu alone could see her, so she kept this habit of hers though it was no longer necessary. 

"Ry…" Godefride cut himself off before he could speak further. "… It's good that you came, my father has been trying to find a way to trick you into coming to the Armament Guild for the longest ti—!"

The sound of a slap echoed and Godefride's head bowed forward, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets. 

"—You damned old man!"

Godefride looked like a madman screaming out to empty space, even Eustis and Sabelle could only cover their mouths in laughter, looking away from Godefride's fiend-like gaze. 

Godefride spit toward the endless starry depths beneath their feet. "I swear the day I can beat that old man I'll send him to an early gra—!"

Another smack landed. Despite being ready this time, there was nothing Godefride could do. He entered another rage fueled tirade about how he deserved respect as The Spear of the Armament Guild. But, it all fell on deaf ears. 

Ryu's lips curled into a smile. The relationship he had with his own father wasn't so comical as their two personalities were practically the direct opposite of Godefride and Aberardus', but that didn't stop Ryu from missing his own old man watching their interactions. 

Ryu had been exceptionally close with his father when he was younger and they used to travel a lot as the Patriarch of the Tatsuya Clan hoped to broaden his son's horizons. Their trip to the Armament Guild was only one such case and there were many other similar occurrences. 

Unfortunately, after Ryu failed to awaken, he felt like he had also failed his father. Those trips that used to have him wide eyed and eager felt more like a weight on his chest and a constant reminder that he would never live up to the expectations his father had of him. 

One of those trips had, of course, been to the Deep Eruption Sect where Ryu had met his only 'friend'. Not that his resentment of the world at that point in his life allowed him to accept such a thing. 

Ryu had always wanted to fight side by side with his father. What Godefride and Aberardus were doing now, backs against the wall, facing enemies from all sides, no one to rely upon but one another… It was a sort of dream Ryu had always had. 

That night when Ryu took his life, he had hoped that whatever happened, he would be able to return in time to help his family. He could have never expected to lose nine cycles of a hundred million years, only to return to find his grandparents dead and his parents in a state unknown… 

Ryu took a deep breath and closed his eyes, the rattling of his blood coming to a slow and steady stop. 

Seemingly sensing something off about Ryu, Godefride stopped playing around and looked toward him again. 

"So, what do you want to do?"

Ryu opened his eyes, his calm having returned. He realized that Godefride's question was quite loaded. After all, Ryu didn't have to know the full situation of the Armament Guild to realize that if they had already reached such a state, the situation was bad. 

Anyone else might hesitate, but who was Ryu? This was why he had found Yaana's worries to be so amusing. From the moment he awakened his memories to this point, his only goal in life was to dive head first into as many problems as he could find. His only concern was that the Armament Guild wouldn't have enough problems to satiate him. 

"Well, I guess I'm a bit interested in learning the saber now." Ryu replied casually. 

"… Excuse me?" 

Godefride almost choked, sending warning signals with his eyes. 

Sabelle might have looked like an adorable little doll. Well, at least her body did while her face was behind her usual mask. But, didn't that massive blade she wielded paint enough of a picture for Ryu? 

Sabelle took the art of the saber very seriously, as did the rest of her Clan. There was a reason why of the nine, only the Virga and Scire Clans managed to remain firmly on the opposing side. Even the Hastam Clan could only be considered to be 'half' on the side of good. 

Ryu seemed oblivious to all of this, though. He believed that he had grasped some from the staff and he didn't see much of a point in forcing his improvement any further, it would only make it more difficult to fuse in the future. 

At the same time, if there was one of the three battles that intrigued him, it was most definitely the battle between saber and the black robed young man. Part of this was because Ryu knew too little about the saber while he at least knew something about the staff and spear, but a larger part of the reason was because Ryu felt he knew where that young man was from. 

While there only seemed to be humans and beasts on the Real Plane, there was actually a few other races, it's just that their populations were a lot smaller and many were reclusive as a result. 

Ryu was fairly certain that man was from the Fiend Race. And, if he was correct, it was definitely the Blade Fiend Clan. 

Ryu suddenly grew very interested in the saber all of a sudden.