Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1851

1851 Dare?

Ryu was brought to a formation and he quickly found himself locked down. There were no visible chains, but they might as well have been. It was a suffocating aura.

The Luminara Clan Sovereign, Aerendil, had been waiting to see Ryu's panicked expression, and yet nothing at all came. It was like Ryu didn't notice that he was unable to move at all. He stood there in silence, his eyes half-closed.

This underground region was truly enormous, as though it was designed to make a person feel small. The ceilings were several kilometers high, covered in stalactites with bodies as sharp as swords. It was like they were reminding you that even if you could by some miracle reach their height, they could still strike you down with a thought.

There didn't seem to be any walls at all. Instead, there were mountains that were difficult to spot the peaks of. If it wasn't for the fact there were clearly no skies nor a sun, one would have thought that they had entered a vast world instead of some underground prison.

However, even with the situation, once again, Ryu didn't seem to notice… even as one powerful aura began to appear after another.

On the mountain peaks, thrones began to appear. It started with one, but then came a second, and then they began to appear in pairs and then trios.

Each one carried the aura of a Dao God, a suffocating, profound sort of inferiority forced many of the Luminara Clan members that had escorted him here to bow, and the weaker ones fell directly to their knees.

Ryu, who should have been pissing his pants, couldn't help but smile. Was he the one being punished here? Or was it them?

The funniest part about all of this was that while it did seem like he would be the one to suffer for this on the surface, he was the most confident of them all.

He had already seen through some of the struggles that were going on here. While the Real Plane was corrupt, to explain it so simply was missing the forest for the trees.

There was supposedly only one human Dao God despite the fact that the Human Race should have been the most adaptable. There were no beasts of powerful Races, which was its own sort of curiosity. The Fey, Naturals, and Faeries seemed to be the dominant presence here, and yet so many of them felt so weak and insignificant…

Sometimes, corruption wasn't just the product of ignorance and incompetence. There were other factors at play as well, and Ryu had a feeling that it was related to some scars that many of them weren't willing to unearth just yet.

Still, what he did manage to find impressive was the sheer number of Dao Gods. Until now, he had already counted 37 of them, and there were still more coming.

However, what was clear was that there were tiers among them all.

Lower Dao Gods, Middle, Higher and… well, none of the Peak ones seemed to have appeared just yet.

If there was meant to be one mountain for every Dao God, then that would mean that there were exactly 221 Dao Gods amongst the Real Plane and that was a shocking number to be sure.

And of them… there seemed to be exactly seven of the tallest mountains.

For seven Peak Dao Gods?

However, even after the number of projections reached over 50, none of the Peak Dao Gods appeared. In fact, if Ryu was correct, no Middle Dao Gods appeared either. It was clear that they didn't find this matter to be important enough.

But, Ryu had at least expected for the human Dao God to appear. But even after all of them had taken their places and no more Dao Gods seemed to be on their way, there was still no sign of the human expert.

'Ah, that explains a lot. A spineless coward, it seems. No wonder the Human Race is so pathetic in this place.'

Ryu had never experienced such a thing because even in Sacrum, where the Ancient Beasts had been the chosen darlings of the Heavens, he had been born in an era where their reign had long since passed.

And on the True Martial World, Humans were still very clearly the dominant Race. It might have been different in other Planes, but at least in the Real Plane, the land was theirs.

But to think that here… they were actually such scurrying rats.

It was so impossibly pathetic that he couldn't help but sneer.

These Dao Gods probably thought that he couldn't see their faces, and they were correct. But he could easily read their auras and get a feel for their karma. It was impossible for any of them to hide from him.

In the end, after seeing what he needed to see, Ryu closed his eyes as though this matter had nothing to do with him. He continued to stand beneath the scrutiny of the Dao Gods, not feeling their pressure in the slightest.

He was a man who had just been through fire and hot oil, this sort of lukewarm water couldn't affect his Dao Heart.

Ryu no longer dared to say that it was impossible for anything to affect the state of his mind again, but what he did dare to say was that if there really was such a thing that existed…

It wouldn't be found here.

At that moment, a snort rang out and a spike of pain shot up Ryu's spine. Someone activated the formation he was standing in and all his hairs stood on end at once.

It was very clearly one of the Dao Gods, and this Dao God carried a very familiar icy sort of aura, one that could have only possibly come from the Luminara Clan.

Well… at the very least, it was most likely that it did.

"Don't try and intimidate me with your bullshit. You can't kill me. The best you can do is try to make my life a living hell, but I promise if that's the route you take…

"You'll be the one to regret it first, not me. But if you'd like to play this game, I can play all day with your Luminara Clan."

A hushed silence fell.

The region was completely silent to begin with, so the words that had been spoken silently felt loud… almost too loud, as though a blaring horn was playing in their very hearts.

The members of the Luminara Clan that were kneeling didn't even dare to raise their heads up and reprimand Ryu. In this situation, they didn't even feel like they had the right to breathe, let alone say something.

The Luminara Clan Dao God didn't expect such a response either, but they also didn't flare out into a rage. The mind of a Dao God had been tempered through countless trials, enraging them, even when they were so caught off guard, was as difficult as ascending the Heavens.

Even if a Dao God showed you rage, it was more likely because they either found you so insignificant that they didn't care to restrain themselves, or they felt that showing emotion at the moment was a positive for them and could be used to their advantage.

In this situation, however, Ryu peeled their arrogant and fake expressions off from the very beginning.

He laid the cards out on the table. They couldn't kill him, the best they could do was try to ruin his life. But in the case that they went too far, there were many things that Ryu could do in retaliation…

The news of Ryu killing a Dao Sovereign had already spread. They already knew that he was a master of Karma and things of the like thanks to his eyes, and it was also clear that he was enough of a genius to know exactly how to make use of it.

If he really wanted to overturn their world… he could do it. And as Dao Gods, they knew better than anyone else just how important Karma and the Faith that was concentrated on Ryu now was.

In front of all of this, the fact that Ryu had Vespa and Vespera in his possession didn't even touch their radars. In fact, even Dao God Luminara had barely spared a thought toward it. In the end, a pair of True Sky Gods was really too insignificant for them to care about.

"Is that so?" Dao God Luminara said after a long while. Their expression was calm and their words were even calmer. A subtle breeze swept by and the world became just as calm moments later as well.

When a Dao God spoke, the world responded, the skies dimmed and the earth softened.

There was an impossible chasm left between them and everyone else.

"And would you still dare to say this after your eyes had been dug out?"

As if receiving a signal, the Luminara Clan members moved.