Grand Ancestral Bloodlines - Chapter 2222

Chapter 2222: Approach
Ryu raised his head to the skies, unleashing a howl that blanketed everything.

The air seemed to freeze, black wings of tar extending out from his back. But then they too were encased in beautiful Ice Phoenix Heavenly Patterns.

No one seemed to notice that these Heavenly Patterns weren’t coming from Ryu’s Bloodlines. He had none left in his body. For a long while now, he had been completely bone dry. Even his bone marrow itself had turned to nothing more than ash in his body.

When he said that it was a miracle that he was even standing right this moment, it couldn’t have been more true.

These Patterns… they came from a very different place.

Ryu’s Dao Heart pressed onto the world, his Control reaching a state these geniuses couldn’t fathom.

This world was his to control.

“Come.”

A gravelly voice filled with the menace of an abyss of killing intent filled the air, blooming forth like waves of black wind.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Ryu spun, blocking a blow from Bright. His forearm rattled, but a shattering impact that should have ripped him apart formed scales of ice in the air instead.

He was still sent blowing back, but Bright forcefully shook his gauntlet, wasting a split moment shaking the ice off.

There was a change in the air, and Ryu felt the blow coming before even his Spiritual Quintessence picked up on it.

A sword. Sharp, fast, heavy—swirling with a might that gathered all the qi for kilometers and concentrated it into a single edge.

Elena’s mother.

If not for Elena, all of the Martial Gods would long be dead.

The wild grin on Ryu’s face grew wider.

He loved it. Challenge him more. Press him into an even smaller corner. Try to bury him beneath your techniques and your spirit, your Dao Hearts and your qi, your cultivation methods and your confidence.

He wanted it all.

Even in the face of it all, he would do things as he pleased.

The blade passed right through him, cutting into the tar-like flames that covered his body. Or so it seemed.

The tar deformed, the blade entering so sharply it split Ryu down his collarbone and chest, even aiming toward his hip.

But then it suddenly bounced back.

Ryu’s split body rebounded, the tar still covering what should have likely been a gaping wound.

But he hardly had the chance to recover before Elena’s father and stepmother acted.

Ryu laughed into the skies. “Who told you that you could live?”

It felt like a demon was speaking down from the clouds above, a contradictory dichotomy that played with their hearts and psyches alike.

Ryu’s wings flapped once as though he had only just now remembered he had them.

He had watched the entire battle between Sarriel and Aurelia. He knew her battle style like the back of his hand. How could she possibly hit him so easily?

That went doubly so for Xalvador, who he had fought personally.

So how was it that right after Aurelia’s blow connected, Xalvador’s came next, slicing into him? In fact, it almost looked as though Ryu had thrown himself into the blade.

Xalvador’s expression changed, feeling that something was definitely wrong. But it was too late to do anything.

The red-gold Heavenly Patterns on Ryu’s body could have only possibly come from one creature.

The Emperor Phoenix.

The sword qis of the husband and wife pair were torn out of Ryu’s body, pulsing through the patterns in the tar-like blackness until they suddenly formed at Ryu’s palm.

BANG!

Ryu’s hand landed on Leander’s chest.

Elena’s stepmother’s eyes only opened wide for a brief moment, her last thoughts of wonder. Just how was it… that she had died so easily? She wasn’t that much weaker than Xalvador and Aurelia…

‘Oh…’

She only finally realized it the instant before she exploded into a rain of blood.

Ryu hadn’t killed them because he couldn’t. He hadn’t killed Aurelia and Xalvador because he didn’t want to.

BOOM!

“LEANDER!” Xalvador roared, his expression cracking to give way to grief and rage.

SLAP.

The echo of a palm crossing his face resounded through the world.

“Losing your cool in the middle of battle. I could have taken your head ten different times. You call yourself a genius? You only live because of your daughter.”

“FATHER!”

In the far-off distance, the few Martial Gods that hadn’t moved held Elena’s little brother back.

Ryu only flicked a finger, a solid block of wind hitting the young man in the gut so hard he keeled over.

Xalvador clenched his fists hard, blood seeping over the hilt of his sword.

“What? Are you very angry? Do something about it, then.”

A sharp wind came from behind Ryu.

“Stay down.”

Ryu vanished, appearing behind the soaring Young Master Bright and grabbed a hold of the top of his head.

All of Young Master Bright’s momentum seemed to be ripped out of his control, his body veering through the air as his head was sent smashing into the ground…

Again.

By now, he had attacked too many times. Ryu saw through his patterns, and that was that—this idiot had none at all. He relied so heavily on his Heavenly Pupils that he fought on nothing more than instinct.

Because of this, Young Master Bright’s Dao wasn’t directly related to combat at all, but was more of an auxiliary ability used to strengthen his body by proxy. It was part of the reason he had survived the explosion in the first place.

He was a healer. Killing him would be as difficult as killing a cockroach, but it only seemed appropriate.

In that case, Ryu would take a completely different approach.

“Do you know why I keep humiliating you like this?” Ryu asked, bending down as he pressed Young Master Bright’s head into the ground. “It’s because you annoyed me. Honestly, I don’t want you to die so soon. So how about you stick around to watch how I achieve what you wanted your entire life?”

Young Master Bright released a roar of absolute rage, but it was the clapping of someone else that cut the tension one more.

“Not bad, not bad,” Young Master Shade’s voice echoed.