Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1949

For the first time, a savage grin spread across Ryu's face. What a truly full circle moment. This time, he wasn't a favorite. He wasn't a person of this world, but he had taken so much from it. It was only natural that their Heavens try to wipe him out. Sending down Heaven's Knights was only the obvious course of action.

But rather than feeling like he was being targeted, his blood boiled.

26 years… it had been too long since he had had a real battle. Not against those pitiful so-called geniuses who couldn't even withstand a single strike from him.

His body shook, and suddenly the translucent scale armor that coated him became more obvious. The torso of his robes shattered into a rain of fabric, and a robust, vascular figure appeared.

His skin was so clear that it seemed possible to reflect the lights of the Tribulations itself, his muscles so condensed they looked like filaments of steel had been run beneath his skin to form them.

Ryu took a step forward, and he… actually attacked first.

He appeared before the first Heaven's Knight and punched out with a brutal fist. Space seemed to want to crack beneath his power, but it was forcefully restrained. At that moment, there was the faint outline of a star to his back.

He had already activated [Tatsuya Constellation].

BANG!

The head of the half-formed Heaven's Knight shattered to pieces.

Ryu moved like a phantom, killing three more before the Heaven's Knights could even react. It was like he didn't take them seriously in the slightest, but the time he would have to do this was short and that was proven moments later.

Suddenly, the Heaven's Knights seemed to awaken all at once, a pair of red eyes from each one of them training onto Ryu.

BOOM!

A heart-shuddering pressure rained down and they seemed to form a formation with one another. Swords, spears, halberds, and weapons of all sorts were raised into the skies.

Ryu sidestepped a blade, only to find two more piercing toward his back.

His body flickered and he pivoted his hips, sliding through the oncoming weapons and turning back at the same time.

His palms crashed into the chests of the Heaven's Knights and a violent, chaotic force ripped them to pieces.

He had already noticed that in this Tribulation, his Soul and Qi were restrained. They seemed to only want him to use his body…

And he was perfectly fine with that.

The savagery in his eyes only grew as his Vital Qi pumped through his veins.

It rushed through the Nine Mutated Pillars in his body. The swirl of colors in his blood only became more prominent and his strength exploded.

He slammed out with a palm, earth and ice fusing into a balanced mix of perfect defense.

CLANG!

He reached out with the other hand, lightning, fire, and wind mixing into a violent spiral on his finger.

PENG! SHUU! SHUU! SHUU! PUCHI!

His impromptu finger technique pierced through the chest of one Heaven's Knight, and then mowed down another three without making a single sound before shattering a fourth in a rain of Runes and blood.

The more he battled, the more savage his methods became. It was like he had gone back to the close combat expert he had once wanted to be, ignoring his great sword staffs.

A buried fury seemed to bubble up in the depths of his heart. The more he killed, the more violent it became until he suddenly couldn't hold it back anymore.

ROAR!

He raised his head and bellowed into the skies. The rainbow colors surging through his body gained a dark tinge to them and his Rage Flame bellowed out.

All the Heaven's Knights above him were enveloped by a cone of red-black Fire Breath, only to be incinerated to ashes.

Ryu took another step, ripping a claw down the head of a Heaven's Knight and tearing them into five pieces.

A tail of multi-colored energy formed to his back along with a pair of multi-colored scaled wings.

With a single swipe, a scythe of energy ripped into a troop of Heaven's Knights, severing them at the waist.

Everywhere he stepped, death rained. And soon, there was no one left to kill.

His heaving breaths sounded like the howl of a storm, but when he looked into the skies, he knew that it wasn't over.

"Is this all that you have?!"

Ryu's voice seemed layered by three, an abyssal rage ripping into the resonance of the clouds above. There was a change, and suddenly the world fell into silence.

A finger.

That was what it looked like, and it was hard to tell when it had appeared at all. It was so large that from another angle, it might have looked like a pillar of solid elements falling from the skies above.

Ryu found himself locked down by an aura so powerful that he couldn't move a single inch. It was so oppressive that his bones began to creak even before it got close.

But the excitement in his eyes only grew more fierce. With a violent momentum, he shredded through the lock of that aura.

"Take Form… And Let Your Name Roar."

Ryu mouthed these words, but for some reason, most couldn't hear exactly what he said at all.

However, while they couldn't hear him, they could see the result.

A Birthed Phenomena appeared high in the skies, 13 Immortal Rings the size of planets pulsing to its back and a silver star even larger than hundreds of them combined appearing even higher above them.

All the energy in the world seemed to coalesce, and Ryu reached out an arm, the intent in his eyes blazing as the Seed of Light pulsed in his body.

His Vital Qi responded, and a line of blood came from his finger, forming a golden-red great sword staff.

PENG!

Ryu spun the one great sword staff in his hand once and let it slap into place in his palm.

He took a step forward, his hair fluttering before he slashed out, his eyes glowing so brightly they looked like a second and third silver star in the skies.

"[Sever]."

He said coldly.

First, there was silence.

Then there was a sudden rush of wind.

Finally there was a collapse as the finger that held up the Heavens was split in two.