Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Chapter 2191 One Chance

Chapter 2191  One Chance

Ryu looked at the Title for a long while. He never left the battlefield, but he could feel the oppression that came from it.

'This is your method of trying to kill me, huh? Is that it?'

Ryu looked up at the Title Stele. Even now, the top of the obelisk was obscured by clouds. It was impossible to see the individuals that had left their names beyond. It was almost like it was taunting him, reminding him that he hadn't reached such a level yet, that he was still inferior, still beneath them.

Ryu grinned, raising one great swordstaff and resting it on his shoulder, then raising the other one and pointing it up at the Title Stele.

He had heard that the Title Stele was the one that etched your name into its being once you voiced it. But he had other plans.

He was going to etch it in himself.

That was the price this thing was going to have to pay for pissing him off.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Pillars shook and the skies quaked.

Yeger Sun moved.

Falling Snow moved.

The Roc Prince moved.

The Phoenix Princess moved.

The Fate Barrier shook beneath their presences. Each one had the destiny of someone that could shake the world. Oddly enough, even the likes of Falling Snow were among this number. But whether he had truly shaken off his greenhouse flower aura, that was something that only time would tell.

But it wasn't just them.

Xalvador moved.

Balthar moved.

Aurelia wanted to move again, but was far too injured to do so. She had no choice but to retreat, her heart still seething with fury that her chance to become the Emperor Sword had been so unceremoniously snatched from her.

Sarriel's breakthrough… it should have been hers. It was what she deserved. It was what she had fought for.

Her Dao Heart flickered and roared in her chest, and this usually calm woman looked at Ryu as though her gaze itself could burn him to ash.

But even so, she turned and left. Her control over herself could only be said to be immaculate. She sat down on her pillar, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was like she had forgotten everything in the world around her… like the Title Stele had nothing to do with her.

She would have her revenge.

…

Ryu stood in the midst of all of this, his body hardly having any blood left to boil. Seeing so many move, he knew that they had also seen just how special this Title was. But more importantly than that…

They all seemed to ignore him. Their gazes, sharp, scanned over each one across from them, and whether by coincidence or not, they all skipped over him.

And maybe that made sense.

Considering his state, they probably thought that he couldn't even make it back to his pillar; that was why he was still foolishly standing here, holding onto his weapons as though he were really some sort of threat.

Ryu's gaze, though, was still focused on the Title Stele as though he hadn't seen their appearance at all. As much disregard as they had for him, he seemed to have even more for them.

He was playing a completely different game. His intent, his focus, his Dao Heart was shining for something very different.

Maybe these people here knew what the Heavenly Court was, maybe they didn't. But as far as Ryu was concerned, even the Heavenly Court itself was nothing more than a stepping stone.

The reason he had yet to go was because he had bigger fish to fry.

He felt that this Title Stele had something far more important waiting for him. Plus… he didn't want to leave his wives.

And yet now, this Heavenly Court he saw as nothing more than a stepping stone actually had the audacity to come down and take one of his women away.

There might be a grin on his face right now, but he was pissed. The boiling remnants of droplets of blood in his stream right now weren't there because he was excited to face off against these few. They were there because he was absolute, completely, and utterly furious.

At that moment, the Phoenix Princess seemed to finally realize that Ryu was ignoring their presences. The tension in the air was practically palpable, and with seven geniuses—six by their estimation because most ignored Ryu—not a single one had moved just yet.

But for obvious reasons, she didn't like Ryu very much. It wasn't much of a surprise that she was among the first to notice him.

She moved.

The tension rose in an instant. The sudden movement was elegant and graceful, a single step across the void of space. But every one of them watched her intently as though they would all skewer her the instant she showed any intent to deal with them.

Ryu's gaze, though, only shifted to her when she was already within five meters of him. Even a distance of a thousand times that was nothing more than a blink of an eye to cultivators at their level, let alone such a fraction of that.

"Your wife was very arrogant," the Phoenix Princess said in a calm, sultry voice.

"And she still is," Ryu replied. His blades trembled.

"How much longer do you think she'll be able to be when you can't even keep your ridiculous weapons steady?"

"I see that you're not very experienced. Usually, when it starts to pulse, it means that things are close to reaching their climax and someone's world is about to be painted white."

The Phoenix Princess frowned, not understanding the innuendo at first before her gaze flashed with rage.

The feathers that adorned her hair trembled.

"I'll give you one chance," Ryu spoke before the Phoenix Princess could speak again. "I would advise every one of you to lay down your pride and attack together. If not, I can tell you what will happen right now.

"I will pick you off, one by one, laying your head to rest at my feet, soaking in your blood to soothe my skin, eating your flesh to satiate my thirst.

"When I'm cutting down the last of you, you'll feel regret, you'll feel helplessness, you'll feel hopelessness… you'll wonder why it was you who didn't listen to me in the first place, you'll feel everything you had accomplished until now crumbling before your eyes."

Ryu paused, and for the first time, he seemed to look at them. Really look at them.

It was then they felt just how much Ryu's Dao Heart was still blazing.

"Die," the Phoenix Princess said coldly.

Her palms flipped and the feathers on her hair extended, a group of them forming a peacock tail on her back and one of them landing in her small palm. The aura of a saber and sword filled the skies, the chaotic aura of the two clashing and yet somehow also melding into one so perfectly and seamlessly that it seemed to form an entirely new Weapon Aura.

She thrust forward, aiming right at Ryu's chest. It was a direct and pride-filled attack. It wasn't just complexity boiled down to absolute simplicity. It was truly simplicity itself.

There were no variations, no changes, just an abrupt and violent point.

In that moment, it embodied the saber just the slightest bit more than the sword. However, the instant it was about to reach Ryu, it fluttered. Its aura changed again, and the blade seemed to dance, its tip becoming impossible to track.

Somehow, it kept the same power, but it gained the flexibility of a sword. It seemed to attack Ryu's chest in countless different locations at once, and it was almost impossible to tell which one was real.

Ryu crossed his great swordstaffs over his chest.

BANG!

He was sent flying, his arms nearly ripping from their sockets. His muscles had atrophied so much that even his bone structures couldn't help him much. Not that they could, considering this was yet another Weapon Aura Title. They couldn't use their other abilities here even if they wanted. They had nothing but the blades in their hands.

The Phoenix Princess took a step forward with an indifferent air. As calm as her sentencing Ryu to death was, her movements were even calm.

No matter how violent her blade, her expression was unmoved. The cheery, laughing, seductive princess was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating assassin, a Warrior Goddess with every intention of cutting down everything before her.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

She suffocated Ryu, her blade undergoing a myriad of changes with every step. At some point, it became clear she was toying with him, humiliating him, putting him in his place as her blade began to seep through his defenses, slicing into flesh and scraping against his bone.

This Godblade Title was made for her. Her Sword Saber Soul Aura would rule the—

SHIIIIIING!

The Phoenix Princess' head flew into the skies.

The arrogant expression was still frozen on her face, her blade still prepped to levy another strike.

And yet, she would never get the chance.

Ryu stood in silence, his great swordstaffs pointed toward the ground.

"Next."