Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1790 To Death

Ryu's senses sharpened as he soared through the air. He sensed a Dao Lord lock onto his presence and a slashing sword cut through the air.

Ryu calculated everything, ending it from start to finish.

The Dao Lord didn't use even a fraction of their power. Their only goal was to stop the flames from hitting the armor.

Even so, Ryu felt an unprecedented level of danger.

The sword qi sword through the air. It was flat and didn't carry hardly any sharpness. It felt more like the Dao Lord was wielding a club rather than a spear. It seemed to be ssort of unique defensive sword method.

In truth, Ryu felt that it was full of flaws and impossibly inferior. This Dao Lord actually didn't even have a Hegemonic Dao.

It had to be remembered that the minimum requirement to enter the Lord Realm was a Hegemonic Dao. It was incredibly rare for a lower Dao to birth a higher Realm, though it did happen.

All the Dao Gods of the True Martial World were like this as far as Ryu knew. They all had Ancient Daos but had managed to take that final step to Dao Godhood, anyway.

'I've actually improved to the point of being able to see through a Dao Lord's Dao… it's a weak Dao Lord, but it's true, nonetheless.'

Ryu's gaze glowed hidden within the flames, and he used that fuel to dodge.

Ryu timed it perfectly. In the instant before the odd sword light touched him, the flames exploded and scattered across the air.

The powerhouse frowned for a moment, but sensing that the flames were no longer a problem and were quickly whittling away in the air, he didn't mind it anymore.

Ryu landed a long distance behind the army in a bundle of flickering flames. He looked like he was waning and about to blink out at any moment.

He didn't move immediately. If he had just gotten past the most dangerous part, this was likely the be the second most dangerous. But first he wanted to know exactly where he was going.

He reached out with his senses, but Ryu was speechless by what he found.

'They're in the army?'

Ryu sensed that Selheira and Empana were actually in the army.

He could only clearly sense Selheira as he had yet to finish his Summoning ritual on Empana. But the thing was that they were both near one another, staying in the sbattalion.

Ryu sighed when he saw this. It seemed that escaping wasn't going to be an option.

He could sense Mae as well, but she had clearly gone into hiding. That made sense. If these people found out she was a Dream Wraith, they would immediately try to collect her for spare parts.

'Alright.'

Ryu suddenly hopped up.

The bundle of flames he had been quickly spun into a humanoid shape.

The Dao Lord that had hit Ryu away earlier spun back with a shocked expression.

Ryu shook his head and ignored him. To others, though, he probably looked like he was a bit shaken from surviving disaster. Only Ryu knew that he was scanning his spatial rings to find something that he could wear.

He shook his head.

'It's been too long since I've Crafted or concocted anything. I don't even have something decent to wear.'

In the end, he casually took out swhite robes with sky blue embroidery. They had been given to him by his mother, so he might as well.

"Hello. My medallion has been destroyed. Can I have another?"

Ryu looked up and met the gaze of the stunned Dao Lord.

The man was known as Commander Monk. He was said to be quite an eccentric man, and the reason for his odd Sword Dao was that he was known as the man who used his Sword like a Rod.

Commander Monk frowned. How could he not be suspicious? A mere True God survived not just the attack of a Dao Sovereign, but himself as well? His attack was even more direct, so there was no way that a Fire Spirit Body would be enough to change things.

"Who are you?"

Ryu sighed and suppressed his need to say something sarcastic. Ultimately, his wife was in this army, so he had to be here to make sure that nothing happened to her.

The good news was that Selheira wasn't sent into the vanguard.

The bad news was that she wasn't in this particular battalion. They might have been in the sarmy, but they were separated by hundreds of kilometers as the armies spanned lands.

"Just a youth who wants to kill Fiends." Ryu said with a smile.

"Is that so?" Commander Monk looked toward Ryu indifferently. Standing high above his army, his arms clasped behind his back, he looked toward Ryu with undisguised suspicion.

If it wasn't for the fact Ryu also successfully survived his own strike, he would have thought there was a 100% chance that he was a spy.

However, even though this was the case, that didn't mean that he trusted Ryu.

By this point, several had turned their attention over here. Many of the soldiers didn't dare to break rank, but that wasn't the case for the other Commanders.

When they saw that it was actually Ryu that survived, they were shocked as well. In fact, they even began to send suspicious glances at Commander Monk.

It wouldn't be the first tsomeone of the Real Plane had betrayed them for the Fiend Plane. Swere even beginning to think that Ryu must be a spy they wanted to let infiltrate.

Ryu sensed this change as well and smiled.

He knew that this would happen, and at this point, Commander Monk only had two options.

The first was to kill him in an attempt to clear his name.

The second was to take Ryu in.

Although the first choice seemed like the smartest, it was the most foolish thing he could do. If Ryu was dead, how would his nbe cleared? It might even look like he was just trying to silence Ryu.

In that case, the only path forward, even if it seemed a bit suspicious, was to take Ryu in. Only if Ryu were alive could Commander Monk possibly wash himself clean of these suspicions in the future.

Looking at Ryu's smiling face, Commander Monk couldn't help but wonder if Ryu had thought of this, and that was why he was so relaxed. But in the end, he shoo his head.

A True Sky God shouldn't have the capacity to do this. He shouldn't even be able to sense the suspicious glances of the others.

That was when Commander Monk made a few "deductions".

If Ryu was part of the vanguard, that could only mean a few things. He was obviously a talent, so that must mean that he had offended the wrong person.

The only explanation for him being able to survive the attacks of both himself and Commander Tiger should be by having sgreat treasure of ssort.

The final scion of a fallen Clan, then?

This sort of thing was all too common, and these lost geniuses, suffering from an eradicated backing, often had hidden treasures that managed to survive the carnage.

This would explain everything, especially since if Ryu had such an amazing treasure, it would also account for how he could wreak enough havoc on the other side that even a Dao Sovereign would target him.

A flicker of greed danced in Commander Monk's gaze, but it was expertly concealed.

It didn't matter to him whose command Ryu was under before. Now, he would be under him.

With an almost careless toss, he threw a silver spatial ring at Ryu.

"The vanguard is never properly registered. There's no point in finding out which barrack you were under. You've shown enough promise to join the main army. This will be your identification."

Ryu sneered inwardly as he caught the ring. He didn't bother to thank Commander Monk. The idiot thought that he was intelligent, but Ryu could read his thoughts as though he were an open book.

'Still, if he deduced that my "Clan" offended someone great, and he still dared to this, it likely means that his own backing isn't too bad either. It's likely that he's from a decently powerful Clan as well.'

This had to be ssort of record for him. He had just gotten here, but he had already offended an Omniscient Sky God, a Dao Lord and a Dao Sovereign.

Surely he was on a roll.

However, he wasn't quite done. After sthought, he decided thought it was best he say something in the midst of the battle raging high above.

"Thank you for your kindness, Commander. There are sshameless people in this army that don't understand that we are fighting for the sake of the Real Plane, and not for the sake of our goals and greed."

Commander Monk's pupils constricted as he watched Ryu flip the ring in his palms. At this point, Ryu was practically pushing him into a fire pit.

Before, there was still splausible deniability he could use to his advantage. But now Ryu was drawing a clear line between himself and whoever he had offended.

This was a completely different matter.

And yet, Commander Monk still couldn't kill him.

Ryu looked up with a smile and slipped the ring on. At that moment, a gorgeous silver armor clicked into place on him and his power soared as he studied its mechanisms.

"I'll be the best warrior you have."

As he spoke those last valiant words, the aura of a Founding Dao pierced the skies.

Ryu had spent much of his second life ignoring logic and smarts, preferring to use his fists and biting words.

But his temperament had been refined again and again.

Truthfully, he didn't have to use his fists and a sharp tongue all the time.

He could play a Dao Lord to death with his mind alone if he really wanted to.