Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1850

1850 Holding

Chaos continued to rain, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with Ryu. He sat in silent meditation, and no one bothered him. Quiet, unassuming, unmoved.

Soon, the Fiends seemed to realize that they weren't going to get anything out of this. In fact, because the Holy World had been located on the Real Plane, if they were too careless, they might end up being completely wiped out.

Of course, Ryu knew this. That was why he was confident that after a few clashes of getting nothing out of it, the Fiends would eventually choose to retreat.

This was also why Galadriel had chosen to take such a suicidal approach to begin with. Fiends would be at a disadvantage in the Real Plane, and the only way to get a leg up was through tricks like this.

They had already sent such a great genius, only to end up losing him. The loss of a top 100 character in a cultivation Realm wasn't small at all.

Even in a world with just a single plane like this one, there were still hundreds of billions of people. One could imagine, then, just how many there were to a single cultivation group, and even further than that, just how valiant someone standing in the top 100 of that group could be.

After Lichen died, Galadriel knew that he wouldn't be able to escape punishment even though it wasn't his idea. Taking out someone like Ryu would have been a huge merit that could offset this.

Unfortunately… he had ended up with pretty much nothing at all.

Like this, one situation came to an end… but another had just started.

…

Ryu was surrounded by cultivators as though he was a prisoner, and in fact, that was pretty much what he was.

When Aerendil returned and learned what happened with the chains, he was enraged for a moment, but then he sneered. He would let Ryu put on his little performance for now.

It was indeed a bit troublesome that Ryu understood how valuable he was right now, but that didn't mean that there was nothing that they could do to him. In fact, they could still play him to death in a million different ways.

He could feel free to play some games to save himself a little bit of face, but in the end, there would only be one ending.

Ryu was escorted by three Dao Lords and Dao Sovereign Aerendil toward Luminara Clan territory.

The Clan actually wasn't all that nearby. They had taken over this Holy World because it was a land of Ice and Darkness, not because it was nearby. The location of their actual Clan was quite a distance away.

It also seemed that travel in this world was made more difficult precisely because of Holy Worlds. Because the space was divided into so many pockets, it made it all very difficult to coordinate.

That was when Ryu realized that the reason he had had such a hard time controlling space when he first got to this world wasn't because he was adjusting to the new laws, but rather because anyone would.

If he was sent to another world of equal power to this one, he wouldn't necessarily struggle nearly as much.

He kept this thought tucked into the back of his head. All the while, he didn't seem to be nervous about his current situation at all. Instead, he was checking in on Mae and Selheira.

Selheira was doing just fine. She couldn't cause as much of a ruckus as Ryu could in the vanguard armies, so she was having a much more normal progression in comparison to others. Plus, she had Empana to protect her should things go wrong.

The one he was more worried about was Mae.

She should have been close to the border when they initially teleported over here, but obviously, she hadn't chosen to join the army like Selheira had. Though, this made sense.

After all, it had to be remembered that she was a valuable resource that would be hunted down, and she also had no idea that Ryu was coming here. In her situation, she would likely restrain her senses and footprint to the maximum so that she could avoid detection, and then slowly gather information in an attempt to blend in.

It might also be possible that she wasn't the only Dream Wraith sent here, so she might have some support, though Ryu wasn't 100% sure of this.

Regardless, after Ryu's interaction with Selheira, he realized that being overly protective and shielding his wives from the wind and rain might be something that he wanted to do, but that didn't necessarily mean that it was something that they would want to do.

At the end of the day, they were their own women, they had their own ambitions, and they had their own goals. He couldn't stifle them too much.

Eska and Isemeine seemed to be different on this front. Eska had experienced so much life already that it was hard for her to be passionate about anything other than reviving her Zu Clan. As for Isemeine, she had her ambitions, that was for sure. But after fusing with Eska, her personality had somewhat mellowed out and now their decisions were usually made based on a mutual balance.

This was all to say that he certainly didn't need to worry about the two of them because they were the most okay with riding Ryu's coattails and cruising to the next cultivation Realms.

Eska had already proven herself several times over, and Isemeine had made the decision to be with her as one person. There was simply no need to worry.

Mae, on the other hand… she was a hard character to get a grip on because Ryu had not only known her for the least amount of time, but she was also by far the youngest of his wives. When he met her, she wasn't even 20 years old yet.

She had her ambitions, but they hadn't solidified into anything concrete. And by the time they had the chance to, she met him.

However, cultivators could learn much more about one another through exchanging fists than they could through exchanging words.

Ryu had a grand battle with Mae before they became husband and wife. And it was a true battle, not a spar. Each one of them was trying to kill the other before… things happened.

So he knew that her truest nature was no less prideful than Selheira's. However, unlike Selheira, her personality wasn't hard-nosed enough to reject his help.

As such, if he went to find her now, she wouldn't reject him at all and she wasn't mature enough to understand where her discomfort was coming from even if she did end up sensing any discomfort at all.

In that case, after he felt himself mature, Ryu chose to take a different approach to this matter.

He would find Mae, but if she didn't need his help immediately, he wouldn't interfere.

Plus… that also gave him an excuse to solidify his presence in this world first, and then consider other matters at a much later date.

…

The Luminara Clan.

Travel had been a great hassle and had mostly been done through the most forceful means: that being riding on the back of beasts.

There were some teleportation channels here and there, but there was no robust system like Ryu was used to.

He quietly took a note of these things… especially since he was aware that the encampment that the Luminara had set up had the capability to immediately shuttle a Dao God over. He wondered what kind of formation that could be. Or, maybe…

'It could be the case that only a Dao God had a body powerful enough to withstand that sort of forceful teleportation… that's possible.'

Ryu was soon put in a room, but it only took him a glance to see that it was a glorified cell. It looked beautiful, but it was icy to the point of being uncomfortable for anyone who didn't have an ice affinity, and it was also the kind of room that was layered with formations everywhere.

Even those wide open windows would lash out the moment they sensed him.

Ryu couldn't help but chuckle. The Gods of this world truly were too stupid.

First, they tried to target him with an element that he was already now intimately familiar with, and second, their formations were so shoddy that he felt embarrassed for them.

In the end, though, he didn't make much of a fuss at all.

He sat in silence, and then three days later, he was brought somewhere else.

They descended down several kilometers below the earth, and Ryu's own gaze couldn't help but flicker.

'Space is becoming more predictable and sturdy the further down below we go… interesting.'

Would also be an interesting place to kill someone.

This second thought came as swiftly as the first, but Ryu didn't seem to have the expression of a person who thought he might be dead soon.

In fact, he seemed to already know what was coming.