Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu remembered being stunned and then laughing when his mother had said this. But, he knew that she was very much serious. 

Rather than choosing Ice and Lightning, Ryu's mother had assimilated the Eastern Heavenly Wind, the Wind of Sharpness, into her Dao instead. One blade was as swift as the wind and the other was as swift as lightning. Even though Ryu himself had already reached the point where he could vaguely see the battle prowess of Cosmic Seed Realm experts over the horizon, he knew that his current self wouldn't' stand a chance against his mother. 

The truth was that Ryu's mother and father were probably no less talented than Sarriel, maybe a step below due to their lack of Heavenly Pupils. They weren't the type of people Ryu could challenge across three Realms. He would have to be at least well into the Dao Pedestal Realm to spar with his parents of back then. 

Ryu wondered why he thought back to this memory but his mind immediately gave him a reason. 

Back then, when he laughed and asked his mother why she hadn't chosen Ice instead, her smile vanished and she said very seriously:

"Swords are for killing. The Ice Phoenix is the representation of life. How could I combine them?"

Ryu hadn't really understood how profound those words were back then, but that was exactly why the comprehension of one person couldn't' just be passed on to another through words alone. Even if Ryu internalized these words after convincing himself that they carried weight, it simply wouldn't be the same. 

What you knew was often less important than how you came to know it. And now, after experiencing so much and coming full circle, these words of his mother had finally resurfaced, bubbling up as though a flower finally ready to bloom. 

In truth, Ryu had subconsciously been following the path he thought his mother should. He had always used one blade for defense and the other for offense. He felt that this push and pull of yin and yang suited him quite well, especially due to his Mysteries of Heaven and Earth pupils. Locking himself down to one direction given his talent seemed like a waste.

However, now that his mothers words were coming back to him, he felt like he had always been overlooking something. 

What was the point of him taking such a difficult path? If he was going to use one blade for defense anyway, why wouldn't he just use a shield instead? Wasn't he a bit too stupid for a supposed genius? 

No matter how great the defenses of his blade became, how could it ever compare to a good shield? 

One might think that a blade could be more useful in parrying or using skim, but couldn't' a shield execute such techniques as well? In fact, the margin for error with a shield was much, much wider. Even someone relatively unskilled in combat could parry with a shield. 

Ryu suddenly began to re-envision every battle he had been in. Except, this time, he replaced the blade he used for defense with a shield instead. Then, he began to run through the steps of battle with only this change in mind. 

Without fail, one after another, each one of his battles ended several steps earlier with him as the victor. In fact, there were many life and death situations he had been in that could have been completely avoided had he just swapped one of his weapons for a shield. The realization was so striking that it hit him like an avalanche. He almost couldn't believe it. 

When Ryu framed things this way… He felt like a fool. In fact, he felt like such a fool that he began to chuckle to himself, his laughter only growing louder and louder. 

That was right… Swords were made for killing. 

Why would he waste time assigning a blade to defense. In that case, what was the point in having a blade at all? A blade was meant for slaughter, for carnage, for severing… 

Why was the Severing Blade a sword? Who knows, maybe it wasn't a sword at all, maybe it was just that the sword was fashioned after it. 

The cultivation system as the martial world knew it was created by humans, but that didn't mean it appeared from thin air. It took grasping and understanding the Heavens to slowly piece together one step after another. It was more accurate to say that humans didn't create cultivation, but rather that they discovered it. 

The Severing Blade represented nothing more than that… To Sever. 

It wasn't there to defense, it wasn't there to be delicate nor caring… In the most crude sense, it was there to kill. 

Only after the Severing occurred could the connection be reformed. It could be said that with each Severing, one would experience a cycle of life and death in that sort of way… 

Ryu walked so aimlessly that he reached a part of the swords faction where people were quite scarce. Sword cries and howls filled the sky but Ryu couldn't seem to hear them, nor could he see the faces of reverence those around him were shooting toward his figure. 

Ryu had no idea that he had stepped into one of the most sacred lands of swordsmen… It was the Holy Battle Ground of the swords faction. 

Holy Battle Grounds were regions of dense Faith where penultimate battles of history took place. When it came to weapon's masters, these locations held particular significance because it allowed one to test and refine their Dao. The further you could walk into this Holy Battle Ground, the firmer your Dao and the more you could gain as well. 

Ryu's steps had unconsciously led him to this place. He hadn't even realized how far he walked in, but the scars of battle were only growing more prominent. 

A surging sword qi swept by his cheek, missing by just a centimeter, yet Ryu didn't seem to notice at all, continuing to walk forward slowly, but surely.