GRAND ANCESTRAL BLOODLINES

Ryu looked down at the arm through his chest, or maybe that was what he tried to do. In the end, the only thing that shifted were his eyes, his body lacking the strength it needed to even move in such a way anymore.

Feeling its presence, and the way a burning fire ripped through him, he was eerily calm facing the end.

There didn’t seem to be anything to fuss about.

Had he wanted victory? Yes, he had. More than maybe anything else in this world. But this was just how the world of cultivation was.

He had killed more than his fair share of people who had their own dreams and aspirations, their own hopes and goals. He didn’t even think twice when he did it.

He had said it more than once, even ironically at that…

He didn’t need such hypocritical feelings.

He laughed to himself. He was such a hypocrite that he was even willing to decide what was okay to be a hypocrite about and what wasn’t.

That was who he was. His creed came down to his personality and his personality alone. He didn’t allow outside influence, even a so-called moral compass, to decide who he was.

And that was when the answer finally came to him.

“I see…” Ryu said softly.

Ryu’s eyes shifted up from the arm in his chest as he met Iam’s gaze. There was a calmness in there that belied the savage nature of the aura he was giving off, nor the dense Corpse Poison and Heart Demon aura.

He looked like that scholar sitting at the library once again.

What was the main difference between the Phoenix Sky God’s Trial and these others? It was that compass…

Throughout all these lives of his, he really had been the same person. The difference was in what he decided was important to him and what he decided wasn’t.

Whether it was as the Heir to the Tatsuya Clan or the Heir to the Tor Clan, he was a noble in both lives.

In one life he was coddled and caressed, shown love and support.

In the other, he suffered untold humiliation even by the hands of his own parents, seen as little more than a tool to be used or executed for the sake of a legend that wasn’t even his own… all because he had been born with a hair and eye color that he shouldn’t have been.

But in both lives… he had chosen defiance.

That was the underlying difference.

Defiance against the Heavens.

Defiance against the Tor Clan.

They were two things on completely different scales. To say that he was the same in both almost seemed asinine as a result.

But to a little boy who knew nothing of the world, who could see nothing of the world, the Tor Clan was his Heaven.

It was a matter of perspective. Could you truly look a child in the eyes and laugh at them because of this?

By extension, could you look at any one of his other lives where his choice was something else and look down on them just the same?

There was a flash in Ryu’s eyes.

Of course, he could.

He didn’t like their decision at all. How dare they humiliate him in this way? How dare they stain what it meant to be him?

But as he slowly shifted his lenses, as he began to see them in a different light, Ryu began to see other things.

He didn’t just see a man lowering his head to a noble. He saw a man who chose to lower his head so that this noble wouldn’t target his wife and children.

He didn’t just see a monk following an inglorious, annoying path of gathering Fate and tricking others. He saw a man steeped in discipline, willing to cut from himself the insecurities and temptations of flesh.

One after another, his lives were recontextualized in his mind.

Sarriel was a woman he had once adored, but fell out of favor with him because of her choices and decisions. But logically speaking, was she any different from the woman he had taken a liking to back then?

He had eventually gotten over it and changed, embracing her as his wife. But had he ever really faced exactly what that meant?

Maybe in part… but it wouldn’t be unless he embraced it for himself that it would make all the difference.

“And why do I have to do that?” Ryu asked, once again speaking to himself.

There was a shift in the air as he seemed to be talking to no one at all. Even his sense of self seemed to have vanished, replaced by nothing.

Most, even Iam, seemed to believe that this could only mean one thing.

Death.

What else could it possibly mean?

Ryu, however, was still lost somewhat, drifting through the empty abyss.

Even if he understood, it didn’t mean he had to like it.

He accepted Sarriel as his wife not because he was in favor of her actions, but because it didn’t matter to him.

Normally, he would be a man disgusted by Elena’s laziness, her distaste for battle… even if she was willing to go all out when the moment called for it, it shouldn’t be enough for him to love her as much as he did.

He could go down the list of qualities about his wives that he didn’t like one by one with great ease. Even Ailsa, his own life partner, had quirks about her that he didn’t like—and sometimes ironically enough, those quirks were just perfect reflections of himself.

But he didn’t care… because as he had said, he would hold up the skies for them.

Who cared if Elena was lazy? Who cared if Sarriel preferred to keep a low profile? Did it matter if they could stand behind their husband’s back? If he could protect them as he had always promised to?

But his standards for himself… those were very, very different.

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