Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1589

[ thanks to Chronotitan <3 2/6]

Control over Spacetime and Reincarnation, Life and Death. They felt like two halves of the same coin, and a person who could control them all would truly be invincible.

No. If he took a step back, control over Reincarnation, Life and Death would seem to naturally lead into Spacetime. It was too difficult to separate them, especially if you started broadening their definitions, and even more so if you were Ryu.

Ryu didn't usually think in words. He knew and understood too many languages. Plus, thinking in words alone took up too much time. Instead, he thought in concepts, feelings, images...

In fact, Ryu was fairly certain that this was why his Comprehension was so exceptional.

When he thought of Spacetime, he didn't just think of space or time.

Space was a whole bunch of things. In one sense, it was a fabric upon which reality was woven, in another, it could be thought of as distance, in yet another, it could represent emptiness or the lack of something; there was even an emotional and more human component to it as well.

Time felt much more straightforward to the layman. It only moved forward, it was constant, etc...

But was it?

Time seemed to be regal and unimpeachable, but in Ryu's mind, its most important characteristic wasn't that it was constant, but instead that it was the exact opposite.

He most associated the word "time" with the word "relativity," whether that be in a physical science sense or even, once again, in an emotional sense. Why did time seem to fly by when you were doing something you enjoyed, versus not? Why was the same allotted time worthwhile in some sense, and yet wasted in others?

Ryu made these sorts of connections in his mind not just for things that were complex and vast, but in all matters. And that was why he was able to form a web of associations in his mind, linking things together that most would be entirely unable to.

In a sense, it might even be said that Ryu owed his Comprehension to his training as a Ruin Master, even though most Ruin Masters had never gone as far as he did.

Likewise, it was also due to this that Ryu began to see more and more overlap between Spacetime and Reincarnation, Life and Death.

What forced them all together was Fading Star's display.

She was so powerful that she seemed to create a pocket around her where all laws ceased to be, almost akin to the beginning of the universe.

And yet, just a single drop of her blood seemed to be prepared to spark life itself.

Ryu felt his heart shudder, vast ways of comprehension forming so violently within him that his Dao broke through, improving from the Fragmented Grade to the False Grade, and at the same time, due to his Internal Matrix, becoming the equivalent of the True Grade.

However, Ryu hardly seemed to notice this at all, his eyes blazing.

'Where there is Spacetime, there is life. It's a necessity, it's law...'

Ryu had never been more certain. The Phoenix Sky God and the mysterious fifth Zu Ancestor were one and the same, and this person seemed to control the most powerful Dao in all of Existence.

Ryu thought his Dao to be amazing, but ultimately it was just an ultimate Comprehension enhancer. His Dao didn't really physically do anything aside from playing with the minds of people.

Of course, he was selling himself far too short. His Dao was objectively outstanding.

But when he thought about how this mysterious entity might not only have their claws in his Spiritual Foundation, but even in his soul... and even worse than that, his master... his woman...

Ryu felt fury he had barely suppressed after meeting Ailsa threaten to bubble forth once again.

His Fire Dragon Bloodline stirred and it roared. The echo should have shredded his body to pieces, but he just sat there, his gaze impossibly cold.

He could feel his Dao Heart shaking. Ever since he had forged his Dao, this was the very first time he had ever doubted it. Standing before the person that was said to be the strongest in all of Existence, a person who had already reached the mountain top he was looking for and scorned it, trying to find another, he felt a feeling of inferiority trying to wash over him.

And for the first time, he felt that he caught the faintest strand of the Phoenix Sky God's Fate, their true Fate. Not one obscured by fairy tales or one buried beneath thousands of lives, but the real one.

And then he felt a gaze.

It felt like a looming pair of eyes that stood above Existence, one that could see to every corner there was with the slightest bit of intention on their pair.

It didn't even seem to be focused on Ryu at all, rather it had just caught him like a fly passing by in its periphery and it took casual note of it.

And yet, Ryu's body was suddenly covered in a cold sweat from head to toe, his Dao Heart quaking so violently that it began to crack along its edges.

The Spiritual Foundation that the Martial Gods had gone through so much trouble to seal, maybe just so that another Phoenix Sky God didn't appear, shook and trembled as though it might collapse beneath a mere periphery glance.

And then it vanished.

Ryu's entire body went limp. It was something not even under his control, his body had tensed so much that his muscles had shredded apart after going beyond their limits. There was simply no strength left to stay in a seated position, let alone move.

Ryu was forced to lay there, staring up at the ceiling as though it had wronged him.

For a long while, he didn't say or think anything, just letting his Vital Qi, or what barely managed to remain of it, slowly heal him.

Then a wild grin spread across his face.