GRAND ANCESTRAL BLOODLINES

Ryu stood there, his feather blades calm and steady.

He had thought a lot about what the Martial Gods were doing. Even for him, it wasn’t immediately obvious. Even now, he felt like he only had about 90% of the story.

Cheating something like the Title Stele wasn’t easy. Ryu felt that doubly so after feeling its interaction with the Heavenly Court Doors.

While it had felt like the Title Stele had cowered, Ryu felt something peculiar about its actions, as though it wasn’t cowering but sheltering itself for a moment, as if it were actually trying to hide something from the Heavenly Court.

That much was odd, because there was no doubt the Heavenly Court knew that the Title Stele existed. It wasn’t like the thing vanished off the face of Existence when the Heavenly Court appeared. And given how many tabs the Heavenly Court no doubt kept on this world here, it would make even less sense if they didn’t know what all the strongest powers were chasing after.

This made the Title Stele even more curious to Ryu, but that wasn’t what he was considering right now.

How were the Martial Gods tricking it?

It sounded like a silly question, especially since Ryu had managed to trick it several times now. After all, he should have only been allowed to fight for a single Title outside of trying to stamp his name onto the body of the Title Stele.

In that case, why could he do it but no one else? Was he just being the typical arrogant Ryu once again?

This time, the answer was no.

Ryu didn’t think that he was the only one that could trick the Title Stele in that way. It was just that those with such abilities were either of higher cultivation levels or felt no need to do so.

After all, Ryu was only fighting for so many Titles because he needed them for his Corpse Puppet army. Not many people followed such a path to begin with, and if you had the skill to trick the Title Stele, you would be entirely uninterested in such low-level Titles.

So why was he so stunned by the Martial Gods?

It was because his method of tricking the Title Stele involved using its own rules against it.

While colloquially the rule was that one could only fight for a single Title, this wasn’t actually the case. The true rule was that one could only claim a single Title.

This meant that so long as Ryu never integrated with the Title, but instead just took it and passed it off to someone else, it wouldn’t count as claiming, and thus he could fight again.

The Title Stele could feel what he was doing, and it was angry about it, but ultimately it was an item. Much like the Heavens, it strictly followed its own rules, so it was forced to allow Ryu to participate.

What the Martial Gods were doing was very different. They weren’t using the Title Stele’s rules against it; they were pulling the wool over its eyes.

During the battle against Aurelia, Sarriel had kept it close. Honestly speaking, it wasn’t yet obvious who would win. If Ryu was being unbiased, the chances were still practically 50/50 at that point. It was just that Sarriel had maybe a percentage point or two in her favor.

In a battle of that high level, those one or two points would make all the difference, which was why he was confident in her. But it wasn’t to the point that Aurelia had no chance at all to flip the situation if she had a sudden breakthrough or something of the like.

But then the situation changed.

Aurelia suddenly flipped the situation without any sort of breakthrough at all, as though she had been hiding her own power from the very start.

It didn’t make any sense.

But Ryu, though he couldn’t understand how at the time, he knew what was happening.

Aurelia had pulled the wool over the Title Stele’s eyes, tapping into power external to her blade alone. Essentially, she tapped into her Holy Wing Bloodline abilities.

She had parried Sarriel so easily back then because of the unique Holy Wing ability to control atmospheric qi. She had dispersed Sarriel’s Sword Qi without her noticing. It was only a small tick off, but in a battle that was so close, and with Sarriel having already calibrated her every action to perfectly match the situation, it made all the difference.

While it had looked like Aurelia used a great skill, parrying Sarriel’s sword several times over with piercing silk ribbons, that had been nothing more than a facade to hide her true actions.

This situation here, though, was different. The Martial Gods seemed to be pulling the wool over the Title Stele’s eyes in a different way.

But oddly enough, this was the last piece of the puzzle that Ryu needed.

The reason they weren’t using the same method as Aurelia was that they were afraid he would see through it. Others might think that he was talking nonsense before, but the Martial Gods knew what Aurelia had done. So when he said that Aurelia was cheating, most might think he was just trying to protect his wife’s dignity, while the Martial Gods had felt their hearts constrict.

There had to be a reason for that.

This meant that whatever method they were using now, if Ryu actually saw through its secrets, he would either be able to counter it, or this would expose something that the Martial Gods wanted to hide for much longer.

Even as Xalvador and Balthar rushed him, Ryu’s eyes almost seemed absent. His gaze shifted, landing on the Title Stele in the distance, and then toward where the Heavenly Court Doors had manifested.

Why had the Martial Gods hidden all this time? Wasn’t it for the sake of hiding from the Heavenly Court?

‘They’re tied to the Ruin Master Guild… unexpected, or maybe it’s only natural… and should have been obvious.’

‘If the Ruin Master Guild was able to manipulate the Title Stele World to have their little Ruins, then maybe it should be obvious that the Title Stele would have been manipulated in other ways as well.’

‘But the Ruin Master Guild should already know that I’ve seen through them. So why so scared now? Why so intent on making sure I didn’t understand this one particular situation?’

The Ruin Master Guild had always been the outward facing facade. It was relentless in the pursuit of… something.

‘Are they really connected?’

When he thought about it, they were quite similar. The foundation of the Martial Gods was their relentless pursuit of knowledge. They based their entire culture around it, not acting like many other Clans at all.

They didn’t care who their geniuses married or who they had children with as long as they proliferated, created new Bloodline combinations, and forged new skills and techniques.

It was what they pursued with every fiber of their being.

Ryu’s gaze flickered as he thought back to the Phoenix Sky God and the deductions that Sarriel had led him through.

‘… No… the Martial Gods and Ruin Master Guild probably aren’t connected… their fingerprints on things just feel too different… it’s just that… they and the Phoenix Sky God… they’re all chasing the same thing…’

Was it a new cultivation realm? Were they all pursuing what was beyond the Dao God Realm? Looking to step beyond it?

Maybe.

‘Divine Chains, huh…’

Xalvador and Balthar might be absolute powerhouses, but there was one that stood beyond them, and there was only one Bloodline of the Martial Gods that stood as the real hegemon despite the namesake of Balthar’s Bloodline.

Ryu’s gaze shifted again and landed on a woman who was completely silent. She was the only one that had never moved a single inch since the battle began, when even the arrogant Dragon Prince and Young Master Bright had done so.

Solara.

Slowly, her eyes opened, her gaze meeting Ryu’s as though she could feel it.

There seemed to be a spark between the two of them, and this stoic, unmoving woman, who didn’t seem to have ever had the slightest bit of emotion…

Smiled?

It was a genuine, sweet smile. It didn’t seem arrogant in the slightest. It was almost like she was having fun looking at Ryu, having fun playing this game of chess, having fun watching him try to figure it all out.

She knew that he was missing a piece, missing something so functionally important that he would never be able to figure it out, not completely. And for some reason, that pleased her. Once again, not in an arrogant way, but almost a teasing, school playground sort of way.

Ryu could tell from that look this woman longed for a challenge much like he did. She had been quite bored until he appeared and surprised her again and again.

Now… she felt like things might be a little bit interesting.

Ryu was certain of one thing, though.

She was the most powerful Lord in Existence. Even Sarriel didn’t hold a candle to her, not yet, not while her new strength was still so fresh and new.

There wasn’t a secret or conspiracy here at all. There was nothing but the brutest of strengths.

Ryu looked up and for the first time, his eyes saw them, only because Solara allowed him to see them.

To see the chains that covered the whole of the battlefield.

Including the Title Stele.

The Title Stele had cowered because Solara didn’t want the Heavenly Court to sense her and take her away too.

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