Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu’s smile didn’t fade, caressing Yaana’s cheek lightly.

“You just stand here and look pretty.”

“Ryu, I…”

Yaana’s words trailed off as she saw the look in Ryu’s eye. She knew that look. It was the same one that made her melt every time.

So confident, so imposing, so indifferent to the thoughts of others.

To Ryu, it didn’t matter how many iterations Yaana had been through. He was more than smart enough to understand what was happening, and yet to him, those men weren’t him. They had never been him.

He, this Ryu, was the only one that mattered. The only one that would ever matter.

When he got like this, she was entirely unable to resist. Even though she could help, even though she wanted to help, she took a step back.

“Hope needs your help,” Ryu said softly.

Yaana’s pupils trembled, and she lowered her head.

“Yes…”

Ryu lifted her chin up and gave her a soft kiss. A single tear rolled down her cheek, and then in a flash, she had vanished.

Looking up, Ryu smiled.

“It seems my wife is quite powerful.”

Maybe that was the only slight hint of defiance Yaana would ever show him. When it came to him, her heart was simply too soft. But just now… he couldn’t even track her movements.

A light chuckle came from Ryu’s lips, and then he turned to face off against the world of cultivation.

His eyes landed on them one by one, many of whom had fury written into their very bones. After all… he had killed far too many of their geniuses. Every single one of them had suffered at his hands one way or another.

The armies chained by Primus formed one faction. The top-level worlds that had sent their geniuses to the Title Stele formed another. Finally, there was Zercius, who was by his lonesome… or rather, he might as well have been, because Ryu completely dismissed the Martial Gods that remained as ants.

“I… can’t believe you…” Fading Star said softly, her head lowered.

It didn’t take much for Ryu to understand her fury. He had married Hope, she would be giving birth to his firstborn, and yet he was protecting the woman who had all but destroyed her Race and most certainly had wiped her world from existence.

The only reason Hope was even suffering so much in childbirth now was because her Path of Reincarnation was cut off, and whose fault was that if not Yaana’s?

“True. You can put all the blame on me. It’s my fault for burdening my wives in this way. Your anger…” Ryu spread his arms wide, his fists clenching. The world shook, and the Shrines sang. One swirl of energy after another pooled forth until they formed great swordstaffs so long they eclipsed the three-meter lengths of his wings.

“… I’ll take however much of it you can form.”

A wild grin spread across Ryu’s face as he took a step forward.

He had made himself clear already. His wives could be as willful as they wanted. For the sake of seeing him again, for the sake of helping him to survive, Yaana had angered the world.

But so what?

He was nothing if not a man of his word. Not a single person here would be able to make his wife lift up a single finger.

The slit on Ryu’s forehead split open once again, an eye that carried the vicissitudes of life and the depths of the universe opening up.

A formation seemed to form between his three pupils, and the world fell into a pool of black, white, and grey, a shuddering might descending over them all.

And then Ryu moved.

A single man against an army of the strongest, and yet he didn’t feel the slightest hint of daunt.

SHUUU.

A single swipe of Ryu’s sword shattered a legion. Swarms of Dao Gods, the likes of which had ruled over their own corners, couldn’t withstand a single blow.

It was a strike of sheer audacity, of uncaring arrogance. It didn’t matter to him that Primus looked on from above, that Zercius held a plaque in his hands that could call down the Heavenly Court at any moment, that the master who had once impressed him enough for him to kneel before her was here…

None of it mattered.

A roar peeled through the skies. The Dragon Empire—and more specifically, the Dragon Emperor himself—seemed to have completely lost his patience with the grand display.

He was akin to a wall of gold, his body formed of scales more reflective and beautiful than any series of gold coins.

Even out of the corner of his eye, Ryu felt nothing more than disgust looking at this man. Say what you want about Pyrothos, but at least he looked like a true Dragon—a beast littered with scars and battle wounds.

“You are the last person who should be calling someone else too pretty.”

A sneering voice echoed in Ryu’s ears.

“I don’t remember giving you access to my mind so that you could waste time with your little jeers.”

“Shut up and let me out.”

“I feel like battling more.”

“We had a deal. The Dragons are mine.”

Ryu’s lip curled into a sneer, but he released Lu’card nonetheless.

By now, he could have released his entire army, but he didn’t do so. Not yet, and not now. Instead… he seemed to be waiting for something. Something that—

A pair of palms blocked Ryu’s way, a rotating energy pulling from Fading Star and pushing from Radiant Star fusing together to cast shadows over the world itself while simultaneously becoming the only beacons of light that mattered in the slightest.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Ryu rotated his great swordstaffs, his Eternal Dawn and Darkmoon Veil Bone Structures activating at once in opposite directions. He met Fading Star with light and Radiant Star with darkness.

It was like he had found their weaknesses in the single blink of an eye and countered in ways that only he had the versatility to do this.

“They’ll call me ungrateful. But unfortunately, you really shouldn’t have attacked me.”

The Dao God couple had their souls severed, their heads falling from their shoulders.