Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Chapter 2193 Roc Prince

Chapter 2193  Roc Prince

The Roc Prince's demeanor changed the moment Ryu accepted. There was a sharpness to him that rose to the skies and settled to the earth. It was forward and yet steady, menacing and yet controlled.
Then he moved.
In an instant, his lightning spear was at Ryu's throat.
Ryu took a half step back, his light great swordstaff raising to block. His arm trembled, his blood jostling through his body.
In that moment, his blade nearly flew from his palm.
It felt like little at all had changed. His body was half broken, his strength minimized to an extreme. What the Roc Prince could learn from him seemed to be nothing at all.
However, the Roc Prince didn't stop his attack, nor did he seem to change his demeanor. There was one thing he was focused on: victory.
Ryu didn't react much to the change either, fielding one attack after another with a focus. Despite this, though, each one sent him back.
Over time, the Roc Prince seemed to grasp his blocking patterns.
The light great swordstaff was far better at taking this head-on, its sharpness piercing. By comparison, the dark great swordstaff was far better at parrying, obstructing, and diverting.
The two played well together, especially when facing off against a single weapon. Depending on the attack it faced, there were an array of changes that it could make.
But when the Roc Prince began to focus attacks that they weren't particularly good at dealing with against one another, he began to turn the tides to an even fiercer extent.
It had always been Ryu figuring out the weakness in others, but now the Roc Prince seemed to be doing what he did best himself.
There was an air of arrogance in his actions, as though he was trying to prove a point to Ryu, as though he was trying to show him that he wasn't the only genius here.
Memories flashed in Ryu's mind of the first time he met Little Rock. Back then, they had started off with a clash too. The two stubborn men had butted heads, fighting it out on that mountain peak.
In those days, Little Rock wasn't even a true Lightning Roc. His Bloodline was too sparse. It likely took a great deal of effort to reach this stage finally, and now he had such a talented descendant, prepped to look out onto the world.
Even as the Roc Prince oppressed Ryu more and more firmly, beginning to litter wounds across his body, he couldn't quite seem to deal the death blow.
Every time he was close, Ryu seemed to just barely shift away at the last moment. There was a calmness in his silver eyes that never vanished.
After several more exchanges, his lips slowly parted.
"If you do not display your Path of the Spear, you will never win this."
The calmness of Ryu's voice belied the terrible state of his body. It felt as though what he was saying was nothing short of ridiculous.
However, the Roc Prince's eyes flashed.
His spear danced, lightning sparking with a healthy radiance. Thunder clapped, and a single strike rang out like three in quick succession.
The world seemed to pause for the sake of this strike.
Ryu watched on calmly, not truly feeling like much had changed at all. That was because the Roc Prince didn't listen to his advice.
But maybe he was right to. Right now, all of the Roc Prince's attacks were the simplest of the simplest. They were practically the foundations of Martial Forms, just the slightest tick up.
However, because of that, there was no immediate or obvious flaw to pick out. His defense and attack methods were airtight. It almost felt as though Ryu was asking him to change his tactics for no other reason than to hopefully find a chance to win.
Ryu lightly shook his head.
His blade suddenly moved, the light great swordstaff suddenly swapping hands with his dark great swordstaff.
In that moment, Ryu began seamlessly swapping his weapons between his palms as though they had always been there.
The situation on the battlefield changed.
The light great swordstaff caught at the tip of the spear, both weapons freezing in the air with a tremble. Then with a flicker of Ryu's wrist, the spear bent and bowed, violently popping upward.
The Roc Prince couldn't immediately regain control of the spear as it wobbled above.
The light and dark great swordstaffs swapped again, and the slash of Ryu's dark swordstaff became that of the golden blade.
BANG!
The air exploded as the blade came to a stop by the Roc Prince's neck.
"When I speak, you listen." Ryu said like a strict drill sergeant. "My weaknesses aren't so easy to exploit. If you can find them, I've found them long ago, and delved into how to best make use of them far deeper than you can imagine."
Ryu's great swordstaffs were fused into his very body. They might be tattooed onto a particular forearm, but swapping them was as easy as breathing for him. It was just a matter of a nudge from his soul, so trivial it might as well not be an issue.
He had never even bothered to use this ability before because it was entirely unnecessary.
Ryu retracted the blade, a cold sweat sheen appearing on the Roc Prince's brow.
"Again." Ryu said lightly. "This time, with everything."
The Roc Prince took a breath and then exhaled. The last bits of doubt in his heart vanished and his stance changed.
Bracing the body of his spear against his body, he sank into a deep horse stance.
And then a second lightning spear appeared, bracing against his other hip.
Ryu blinked as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Then, he began to laugh uproariously.
In this world, the only one ridiculous enough to dual wield spear had been himself. And yet, even he had ended up abandoning the path, opting for great swordstaffs instead.
Deep within himself, this was a bit of a regret for Ryu. He had been strongarmed by the heavens into abandoning a path he had designed for no one other than himself.
There was no doubt that Little Rock had said something to his son about this, and this was the ultimate result of it all.
It was so crazy that Ryu's laughter boomed across the skies.
There was only one reason Ryu had abandoned that path: it was for the sake of his wife and her intentions. It was Ailsa who wanted him to veer onto the path of the great swordstaff, and maybe she hadn't been entirely incorrect.
To think, though, that the Heavens would give him a chance to correct this path deviation.
Ryu no longer had interest in dual wielding spears, but for no other reason than his own satisfaction, just how good would it feel to help another accomplish it by proxy?
"Come!" Ryu roared.
The Roc Prince didn't have to hear this twice; he moved, his elbows almost whipping as he lashed out with both spears at once.
There was a flicker of understanding in Ryu's eyes. The Roc Prince might be in human form, but he was still a Roc.
Such birds, even in Ancient Beasts, had hollow, extremely flexible bones. But more importantly than that, their arms directly translated to their wings in human form.
Because of that, it felt like Sylas could practically see a majestic creature soaring right toward him.
Ryu's grip on his great swordstaffs tightened just the slightest bit.
BANG!
The first clash echoed, and time seemed to freeze for just the smallest instant as there was a struggle that Ryu almost immediately lost.
And then, they erupted.
Their attacks were relentless, filled with the fiery passion of what felt like their Fates intertwining with one another.
Ryu's arms were no less flexible than the Roc Prince's own, and while his power was lacking, he didn't seem to fatigue beneath this relentless barrage either.
The CHI CHI Chi of their blades colliding came to a grinding halt as their four blades crossed.
BANG!
They were forced to retreat, the Roc Prince taking a single step back while Ryu took a full three.
"Your blade is strong, and you've already realized that using both weapons for offense is the right way. You are far ahead of me at this age than I was. However, your flaws are also obvious.
"Your arms are flexible, but not near as much as your wings. You are limiting a great deal of your own potential because you've yet to realize this. If you want to be in human form, what you've done is enough to crush weaklings, but someone who knows what they are doing will make you suffer."
Ryu began to list off the main weaknesses of the arm. The details were so fine that the Roc Prince began to wonder if he was hearing directly. He had only observed him for barely ten minutes.
"… You are especially poor in the clockwise direction… You overuse the flexibility of your arms, your footwork needs to be more active.
"Come, again."
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