Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu’s smile was light, his eyes gentle. It didn’t really matter how Yaana’s face was obstructed or how he couldn’t see her usual soft cheeks and delicate button nose.

He knew his woman when he saw her. Just like he had realized that she and the Phoenix Sky God must be one and the same during the Title Stele event. This was precisely what he had figured out. It was just that he wasn’t sure if he was correct.

Time was a finicky thing, but the one truth that had seemed to always remain steadfast was that while it was possible to travel forward, going back was impossible.

This was the understanding Ryu had always had, and it was also this understanding that had made him question the Zu Clan Ancestor’s existence. It didn’t make any sense to him.

But those details, they didn’t mean much to him right now.

Yaana looked up at Ryu, hints of helplessness in her eyes. She had hoped that it wouldn’t end like this, but it always did, didn’t it? Why was he so smart?

The Ryu she knew would just let his enemy fight. He wouldn’t help just for the sake of helping, he didn’t care about any of that.

But she knew deep inside that maybe even that was optimistic. Even if he couldn’t figure it out, he would want to defeat the Phoenix Sky God personally. Because of that, he would probably be ahead of her to kill off all these people first.

In the end, whether he figured it out or not, the end result would be the same. Just like her father planned.

“I missed you,” Ryu said softly. “I looked everywhere for you, but it seems if a woman as powerful as you doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. Is that so? Did you have fun hiding from your husband?”

Yaana’s pupils trembled. She hurriedly shook her head, but seemingly realizing that she was supposed to be the Phoenix Sky God right now, she suddenly stopped.

She had long forgotten what it felt like to have this feeling. For some reason though, despite the power she held in her hands, she had always felt like this in front of Ryu.

Even during his first life, when he was a frail mortal, when she was his greatest protection in the world, she had still not been able to stop those nervous butterflies.

She was a prideful woman in her own right, but different women reacted differently to love. And she… well, she couldn’t control her desire to melt to Ryu’s every touch and word.

The flames faded from her hair, her wings fluttering off into motes of complex Runes. Soon, her long length of black hair had returned, those dark eyes that carried the depths of the universe shimmering with a lustrous light.

Her lips slightly parted, but Ryu shook his head.

“There’s no need to explain anything. I understand. Just the same as always, you’ve been my silent guardian angel. Thank you, Yaana.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes.

Every time, it was just the same. His pride was too great.

It was the same reason he struck Iam dead every time. The same reason he returned and killed Little Rock every time. The same reason he would stand before the world and say the same words he said every time.

Ryu smiled. “My wife can be as willful as she wants. So what if she destroyed a few worlds? So what if she cut off your path of cultivation? So what if she doesn’t want to use her strength to help you?”

With a tilt of his head, Ryu looked back to the sea of experts, feeling his own Fate twisting and turning in his chest. The assuredness that had once been there continuously slipped away.

He knew that this wasn’t because of Yaana. It was because of Iam. He had already pieced everything together.

Going back in time was impossible. The only way to overcome the paradox that came with it was a Control that superseded the Laws of the Heavens.

However… there were ways to do that that came with less repercussions than others.

The Nameless Immortal God’s method came with the least ripples. He put his life in the hands of luck and the husband, hoping that his natural aptitude would eventually win out.

It took him 108 tries, but in the end, on his final attempt, he stood at the peak of the world again.

Despite this being a method that came with the fewest ripples, these ripples came nonetheless. The world was bent and twisted, one direction pulling toward the Nameless Immortal God, and the other pulling toward the Heavens.

In the end, these bends in the laws were what triggered the creation of the first Taboo World—a world which, for the first time, went against all the rules of the Heavens.

However, even then, this wasn’t completely natural. There was another man messing with time at the same time. In fact… there were three.

The first was Yaana herself. Trapped in the stream of time, and wanting nothing more than to see her husband, she did everything she could to get back to his side, but the result was her pissing off all the powerhouses in Existence.

The second time, it was just Ryu. He faced off against these enemies of Yaana, one powerful existence after another that wanted to take his wife’s life… and he realized that he alone wasn’t enough. So he went back, much like he had told Iam.

If he faced off against Existences too powerful for him because he didn’t have enough time… then he would just make his own time.

The third time… it was Iam. Or so it seemed…

It had to be remembered that Ailsa, Yaana, and the others had all fallen victim to a wormhole, an unexplained gap in Existence that caused them all to slip backward in time.

A wormhole that connected the past and present, all because Ryu couldn’t control his temper and insisted on killing Iam no matter what.

That very black hole, the one Ailsa and Yaana fell victim to…

Was the result of Ryu attacking through space and time to shatter Iam to pieces.

As for why Ryu was so completely and utterly infuriated, disregarding everything to do this…

It was precisely because Iam was Yaana’s father. From the very start, to him, his own daughter was nothing more than a pawn to reach this very moment.

Iam was dead. He wasn’t coming back. He had given up his life for this.

He lived on as his Title, the name he had chosen to give to Ryu’s story, because in the end, he knew that Ryu wouldn’t be able to escape his own arrogance. So… things would end exactly as he expected.

Ryu would go on a rampage, killing as he pleased. He would eventually hit a roadblock he was unable to push past, too weak to overcome all the powerhouses of Existence.

He would go back in time, searching for what he was missing to increase his strength until he completed his magnum opus… the reconstruction of his very own Visualization in the image of his Fate Star, allowing him to control everything with perfection.

And then the first thing he would do when he gained that power… was kill Iam.

Lost in this cycle, he would rush back to the future, only to find the present a tangled mess of Fate even he didn’t have the power to undo…

Stuck in a paradox of his own making, and wrapped up too much in his own Control to undo.

The more powerful he was…

The more impossible it was for him to win.

He had reached the peak…

But at what cost?