Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

?Chapter 2033 Dreary

A new personality, a new soul.

new soul, a greater soul strength. A greater soul

strength, stronger Heavenly Pupils.

The cycle seemed to be endless as Sarriel pulled out one shift and change after another. From arrogant and haughty, to lustful and conniving, to bloodthirsty and possessive...

Her emotions changed like the pages of a book, and the fluctuations in soul strength that came along with it were rising to the point that even Ryu's own began to feel suppressed from all sides.

The lines between deception and reality blurred, and soon what was just illusion was becoming more and more of what the truth could only hope to be.

And it all happened in the blink of an eye.

BANG!

Ryu, who was already locked deep within the depths of a crater, found his body forming a second within it. A force so great came from above that the crater

deepened, forming a concave abyss within what was already a several-kilometer-deep pit.

All of his bones threatened to shatter, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood once

more.

Sensory input came at him from all sides, and it was hard for his mind to decipher all of them even if his eyes could see through them.

He could tell that Sarriel was doing this on purpose. So what if his eyes were powerful if his cultivation was too low to decipher everything that he was seeing?

It was the same concept he had grasped with his Spacetime Soul Nature. At a certain point, if he kept things too simple, then those with minor grasps on the two elements would be able to see what he was doing. However, he had learned many decades ago by now that if he wanted to maximize his Spacetime Soul Nature, it was in his best interest to layer the complexity to the point where even if an opponent had some familiarity with concepts he might use, they wouldn't have the time in the middle of battle to deal with it all.

Ryu just never expected that there would come a day where something like this was effective against him.

He coughed up another mouthful of blood, his body practically laying flat beneath the pressure. His body was barely holding up, and it felt like if it was pushed just the tiniest bit more, all of his bones would collapse to ash,

Sarriel continued to stand at the edge of the crater, striking out with palms that layered on top of one another again and again.

Sometimes her laughter would echo through the skies, sometimes it would be a sharp screech, and at other times there would be a thunderous roar that seemed impossible for her delicate body to produce.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

And yet, despite the blood leaking from his lips and the pressure threatening to shatter his body, Ryu looked up to the sky with an eerie calmness in his gaze.

His horns rippled and the silver marbles that now formed his eyes danced within the reflective light.

It had been a very long time since he was truly forced into a corner. He couldn't remember the last time.

The Nether Plane Realm he entered had been a joke, the Holy Worlds of this Plane were more of a fight against his own psyche rather than him facing off against any real enemy, and in these last few decades of his life, his only real competition felt like it was himself.

Maybe it was arrogant to have these thoughts. After all, in this time, he had run into plenty of so-called "geniuses," existences that were beyond him in talent and raw strength. But it was just that no matter how strong they were, he could never truly take them seriously. As far as he was concerned, that so-called Earth Ranking might as well not exist at all. It was a pathetic hodgepodge of wannabe elites.

They were people that regardless of their talent level, he felt like he could find some method, some way to defeat them.

But now... it felt different.

When was the last time he had felt like this? When was the last time he well and truly felt that he had entered a battle that he might lose? A battle that challenged his Dao Heart and his sense of superiority?

Honestly... he really couldn't remember.

A grin spread across Ryu's face.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

His body convulsed with every pressurized strike from above, but slowly, his hand began to rise. From the pinned position to his side, it reached up into the air.

The pressure descending from above caused his skin to fragment and his tattoos to nearly collapse in on themselves, but they held up.

Then, with a flash, his great swordstaff appeared once more.

SHUUUU!

The pressure seemed to be sliced in two. A radiant golden aura shot upward.

He was too obsessed with only showing as much as Sarriel was. With his eyes, he could estimate just how much she was holding back, and at most, by now, she had used maybe 30% of what she was capable of.

Just measuring up against her previous strength, he knew that clearly.

He knew for certain that she had more powerful Summons. He had yet to even see her use her Dao more than passively. He had yet to feel her Natural Enlightenment. In fact, she still hadn't brought out her katana. At most, she had shared some of her insights with the sword to the Ice Queens she had Summoned earlier.

It was mostly his pride dictating his action. However, his pride of today wasn't the same as his pride of years ago.

He was still the same confident, arrogant Ryu... however, his mind was much more flexible. He was much more willing to bend and not break.

So what if he wasn't hiding as much strength as she was? If he won the battle, wouldn't it be the same?

Instead, his arrogance pivoted and his eyes blazed with fighting intent as his Undefeatable Will soared into the skies, piercing through the clouds and shattering falling meteors.

He bet that he could improve even faster than she deemed to reveal her real trump

cards.

BOOM!

Ryu's body vanished from the pressurized crater.

The moment he was no longer there absorbing the bulk of the attacks, the ground beneath him collapsed, forming an abyss tens of times deeper than it had just been. If a mortal stood at the edge, it would look as though the hole fell into the very depths of

hell.

But Ryu himself had already appeared in front of Sarriel. Not only had he appeared, but his second great swordstaff was also in his hand.

Sarriel's expression changed again. A shy and bashful look colored her gorgeous

features, and she stumbled backward. She tripped on a rock, which caused her body to

seemingly by coincidence fall out of the way of Ryu's blade.

As though an advanced application of a drunken stance, Sarriel stumbled, shied, and clumsily made her way out of the range of his most lethal strikes.

Her personality changed again and she became as gentle as a lotus but as distant as a warm breeze in the depths of winter.

Her movement technique changed once more into a slow and steady cadence, calm and collected, unhurried and unbothered.

Their gazes met across the void. One would have thought that there would be some

frustration in Ryu's eyes. He had never missed so many strikes in a row in his life. His actions were usually too precise, and he was used to outsmarting his enemies into almost presenting themselves to his blades.

And yet, there wasn't even a hint of it in his eyes.

At that moment, his eyes reflected the very same calmness that was in Sarriel's. It pulsed with a will that didn't seem to care about the disparity in strength. In his eyes, there would only ever be one outcome no matter what she hid. Ryu took a step forward again, his aura surging. An eight trigram diagram appeared at

the base of his Heavenly Dao Tree, and high above it, encompassing both the tree and

his Silver Star.

The world overturned beneath his aura and his eyes flashed.

[Rob the World of its Color].

In that moment, the skies lost their specks of vibrancy. The meteors falling from above

almost became dull and lifeless in one respect, and yet all the more deadly in another.

A black and white paintbrush dotted the skies, and it felt like all the qi in the world had been forcefully sucked away.

Sarriel suddenly found that her control over illusion and reality had been put in a stranglehold and she was slightly late to react.

Though she still dodged, Ryu's great swordstaff cut into her sleeve and drew blood

down her slender arm.

Blood trickled down as the only splash of color in the now dreary world.

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