Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1839

1839 Arrogance

Ryu could never mistake the voice. And even if he did, he would never forget the feeling it could give him. There was just one person who was capable of this. It was the second woman he had ever loved in this life and the woman the Heavens had decided was his perfect match. His Life Partner, the love of his life.

Ailsa Tatsuya.

The shudder that went through Ryu's soul made him snap awake. In fact, even his Dao Heart stopped its complete rampage and looked into the skies, clearly pulled by the same matters.

His Dao Heart was more pulled by the influence of the Heavens than even he was. There was simply no escaping this… its feelings for Ailsa were even more primal and real than Ryu's own. In fact, had it been in control of his body back when he first met Ailsa, they would have never gotten off to that slow start at all.

However, after hearing the voice once, Ryu felt that it had to be a trick of the mind. There were too many things that didn't make any sense.

If Ailsa could sense him enough to find him here, how could he not sense her? This matter didn't have anything to do with cultivation. She was his wife, how could he not find her location based on their souls alone?

"Ryu!"

The voice echoed again, and this time, it clapped like thunder. He could sense that his wife was actually very angry right now, even exasperated. If she could really sense him, she could likely see through all his thoughts right now.

How could she be happy?

His current pathetic state wasn't the man she had fallen in love with. He had always had his flaws, but it seemed that maybe part of his charm was ignoring them.

Unfortunately, he simply couldn't ignore them now. It felt like the weight of the world was suffocating him, and there was nothing that he could do about it.

At that moment, he felt like an image was seared into his very soul. It was the glaring crimson eyes of a very pissed-off Faerie.

Even without her saying anything more than his name and showing him this pair of eyes, he could imagine what she was thinking. She was basically his other half, and maybe had he been a woman, he would have precisely been a copy and paste of her.

She didn't seem arrogant, but that was only because her sharpness was blunted by being by Ryu's side. However, until now, she had been away from him for trillions of years. That sharpness had long since returned.

If not for her arrogance, how could she leave her family and choose to slumber for nine cycles of a hundred million years just to wait for him? No normal living being could possibly do this. It was something that most couldn't fathom having the Dao Heart to do.

In fact, when he first rejected her, any normal woman would have been heartbroken and shattered into a million pieces.

She had waited for him for almost a billion years, yet his first instinct was to be cold toward her and reject her. How could any fragile mind take such a thing?

And yet, instead of reacting with tears or heartbreak, the first thing Ailsa had done back then was scold him. In fact, had he not been so arrogant back then, her words would have been a true dressing down. Her tongue was no less sharp than his own as well.

The difference between himself and Ailsa was that her trauma in life came much later. The reason her arrogance wasn't as obvious was because she was the person that Ryu might have become had he not failed his Awakening at seven years old.

Of course, she had still faced her own trouble. It was the loss of her brother that caused her to make the decision she had back then. If not for this, with her arrogance, how could she possibly take a step away from her own goals to follow after a man of all things?

So… he understood.

She was infuriated.

She had waited for him for trillions of years. Who knew how much hardship she had gone through, how much weight she had to hold on her shoulders, how much humiliation and rage she had to suffer through? As difficult as it was to make it through the cultivation world as a man, the worst of fates were probably faced by beautiful women without the strength to protect themselves.

Yet, she had made it through all of this, rising up to become a Dao God. Now, she was happily waiting to complete her duties and for her husband to come back to her…

All for his mind to suddenly collapse when they were so close?

This was absolutely intolerable.

Maybe had she spent all this time by Ryu's side, she would have reacted with a softer approach, maybe giving him more caring, more understanding. However, she had her own breaking points as well.

It would take her years just to explain everything that she had gone through in these years. If Ryu really collapsed here, she might be infuriated enough to burn the whole world down.

However, even with all of that said, her words could only really be boiled down to a single sentence.

If you dare to die here, don't think of being my husband ever again.

Ryu was a bit stunned when he read the meaning in her eyes. That was because there was no teasing in them, no almost childish sort of affection.

She was 100% serious. This wasn't a happy-go-lucky, tsundere sort of anger. This was true fury. If she were here, she might even be releasing a pressure enough to force Ryu to his knees.

Staring into her ruby eyes, Ryu's mind was blank for a moment.

His wife had truly changed. Maybe in all this time, she had kept him in mind because she had her own pride. She had already chosen a man, so she had no intention of choosing another. She only had one Primordial Yin to give, so she wouldn't lower herself to allow someone else to touch her.

It was an arrogance written right into her very bones, and it was an arrogance that she had earned through her blood, sweat, and tears. Because unlike Ryu… she had already become a Dao God.

Ryu continued to look into those eyes.

He should have felt infuriated with her reaction. But those weren't his first thoughts. In fact, he felt that if that had been his reaction, he would have given up on his last shred of dignity. By then, he really might as well die.

She had been loyally by his side for so long, she had sacrificed more than he even knew. If he couldn't hold up a small bargain on his end, she was right… what right did he have to call her his wife?

If the world knew that a little True Sky God was calling a Dao God wife, wouldn't he be making his Ailsa a laughing stock? If this same world knew that this True Sky God couldn't even control his own body, and maintain the state of his own mind, wouldn't it be all the worse?

Neither Ryu nor Ailsa had ever cared about the opinions of others, though… and that was precisely what made Ryu freeze.

Because this was Ailsa's method of telling him that it wasn't because of the world that she wouldn't want him, but because of her own pride.

If her husband was a True Sky God… fine. That wasn't his fault, and their circumstances were to blame. She was more than willing to give him all the time he needed to catch up.

But if her husband was pathetic and weak, that was something that was unacceptable to her.

In fact, even before she became a Dao God, she would have felt the same way.

Much the same way Ryu loved arrogant women the most… she too loved arrogant men the most.

Ryu's first impression had been "bad" by a normal woman's standards, but what Ryu didn't know was that Ailsa very much liked how he had acted back then. If he could so easily give up on his first wife, she would have looked down on him. In the end, his feats had subdued her completely.

But this version of Ryu was entirely unacceptable to her, and she made that clear.

All of these thoughts streamed into Ryu's mind in a single bound. He saw through them clearly, feeling each one as though they were individual strands being woven together.

This feeling…

Ryu closed his eyes. He felt hollow inside, and he felt that a decision had to be made.

Ailsa's fury was like a searing brand on his soul. But it felt like the road ahead was still the same difficulty.

Should he care about his wife's fury? Wasn't she just one of many reincarnations as well? Wasn't she even real?

The thought made a spike of pain rip through his chest. He found it difficult to breathe, and he felt like even his Dao was about to collapse.

Even with his eyes closed, he still saw those eyes. Their fury haunted him, and no matter where he looked, it wouldn't vanish. Its emotion was practically tangible, carrying the suffocating presence of a Dao God. Compared to the Temperament he had seen from others, Ailsa was on a level all her own…

Ryu's heart shuddered, a realization hitting him.

The tears he had been holding back subconsciously fell like the rain. The skies above began a downpour that seemed like it would flood the world.