Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Solara’s grandfather took a heavy step back, and then another, before he slowly stabilized himself.

“Oh. Not bad.”

Half of Ryu wanted the old man to die right then and there, but another half thought that it would be far too easy for him to fall like this.

Ryu wasn’t satisfied with just this alone. If he was going to have his revenge, it was going to have to be far worse than this.

It seemed that humiliating the man’s granddaughter wasn’t nearly enough for Ryu, but why would it be? As far as Ryu was concerned, what was the worth of Solara’s life or that of her grandfather? Why should he bother with measuring his level of satisfaction just based on this alone?

He wouldn’t be done with them until he said he was done.

“The woman. Where is she?”

Ryu blinked.

He had almost forgotten that there were some people behind him. It seemed that they hadn’t quite understood the situation they were in, and why would they? They didn’t have his eyes; was it even possible for them to understand a confrontation on the level of the one he had just had?

The Almighty was on a level where he made even more Dao Gods feel like ants. While Solara’s grandfather, though he seemed to have been injured quite severely, had only truly suffered superficial wounds despite also clearly suppressing himself in some way or form.

In terms of raw strength, at least when there was no suppression to consider, Solara’s grandfather was probably maybe a half-step beneath the Almighty in strength.

In fact, if Ryu was correct, the only reason for the gap to begin with was the Title. This made Ryu wonder if that was what Solara’s grandfather was truly after, a method to bridge the gap between himself and that behemoth of a man.

It also made Ryu wonder just what sort of strength the Phoenix Sky God had, because somehow… he still felt like these two were just ants before him, and that was hard to wrap his head around.

All of these people were Dao Gods, and yet the strength difference was massive. It wasn’t a matter of being lower, middle, higher, or peak. Each one of these individuals had already reached the furthest extent of what the realm had to offer.

This was a difference in Dao, in Comprehension, in Control.

A difference that couldn’t be explained in just a few words, because the definitions of those things were far from so clear…

Eventually, Ryu looked back out of curiosity more than anything else.

“Woman?”

“The one with the Title of Quiant. Bring her out.”

Ryu froze for a moment.

The Title of Quiant? Was he talking about Taedra?

All of a sudden, countless puzzle pieces came together, and the final things that Ryu didn’t quite seem to comprehend were carefully fit into place.

Ryu’s expression shifted. Any amusement that had been there vanished into the air, and for a moment it seemed as though he had become entirely disconnected from the world.

Calm, unbothered, and yet frighteningly cold. Like someone separated from energy, he hardly moved at all, and the world down to its very atoms shifted into silence.

The young man didn’t seem to notice Ryu’s change at all.

“Originally, we came just to deal with you since you’ve overstepped your bounds. But there is the scent of a Title on you that we have been trying to find for quite a while. Hand her over, and we will give you a swift death.”

BANG!

A head exploded.

Ryu didn’t even move, but the young man that had spoken shivered once before his body fell from the air.

The only one of the three that Ryu cared to even look at looked calmly to his side, the splatter of blood that would have hit his face stopping a full meter away before gliding down a golden barrier.

“I wonder…” Ryu said slowly. “… No, there’s really no need to wonder if I already know the answer. You must be the few that killed my great-grandmother. I wondered why it was that Primus always had a stick up his ass, why his methods never seemed to make much sense and his goals were never all that clear to me…”

A hum came from Ryu’s lips.

“Now you seem to think you can do the same thing to me? Do you think I’m the same weak excuse of a man?”

“I believe you’ve already proven yourself to be.”

BANG!

A second head exploded.

Now, only the young man in the middle was left.

“I’m not really sure what he was referring to,” Ryu said calmly. “It couldn’t possibly be my wife, because she’s quite cozy and safe at home. You’d be surprised what the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils can do when they have perfect synchronization with mutated Truth Pupils. Right about now, the Truth Clone my wife sent will probably collapse now that the gateway between the two worlds has collapsed.

“In the meantime, the fool I just slapped can simply calmly wash his neck.”

The only young man that was left continued to look at Ryu as though he was trying to understand something.

“… You speak too much.”

“Do I?” Ryu asked. “In the past, I didn’t like to speak very much. But that quiet, stoic man was never the real me. I can’t stand to explain myself to ants, but when my blade starts itching… my tongue also gets sharper.”

The two didn’t seem to move, and yet there was a warp in space. Two blades manifested from nothing, clashing against one another before warping around each other’s forms and collapsing.

BOOM!

Space crumbled and there was a violent ripple outward.

“It is a sign of weakness,” the young man said as though his words were truly so precious.

“You don’t see the irony in that, do you?” Ryu asked, taking a step forward. “You come here, speaking of Titles, trying to control the thoughts of people, putting so much stock in words themselves… and then claim that they should not be spoken.”

The young man involuntarily took a step back and then looked down at his feet as though he was shocked by his own actions.

He looked back up to Ryu, a frown marring his once indifferent expression.

“It’s precisely because of that that words are so precious.”

“Look at you, speaking in a full sentence finally. Would you like a reward for that?”

Ryu took another step forward and the young man took yet another step back.

“You…”

“And now we’re back to saying so little. It’s a shame, you had so much potential. Words only have meaning because they are spoken. You wouldn’t be able to understand a single thing about your path, even to communicate it to yourself, without words and understanding.

“Theoretically, you could if you built cultivation on your own from the ground up, but I think we both know you aren’t nearly that caliber of genius.

“You built your foundation on the shoulders of giants, learning from their words, and piecing together information from their languages, only to turn around and pretend as though you’re distilling knowledge by keeping your tongue chained to the roof of your mouth.”

Ryu took another step forward and the young man took another step back. There was a shuddering in the latter’s Dao Heart that he couldn’t understand. His Dao wasn’t even built on words, and his philosophy of speaking so little wasn’t even something that he held dear to his heart.

It didn’t make sense for Ryu to be able to just latch onto this and give him such hell for it. The worst part was that even if he could feel that something didn’t make sense was happening, he had no ability to articulate it or even pull himself out of it.

He was stuck and could only watch Ryu ramble nonsense and feel his heart being chipped away, piece by piece.

“You probably think you’re the strongest Lord in Existence, no?” Ryu suddenly asked.

The young man froze, not sure how to answer this question.

But then Ryu’s aura plummeted, falling from Lord to Quasi Lord, and for some reason, he found himself taking a breath of relief.

The moment he did, he knew that it was over.

“Not anymore,” Ryu said calmly.

He raised a finger and the head of the last young man exploded.