Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1975

Ryu and Hope stepped out from thin air. The latter's expression was filled with surprise, and Ryu's was covered in a slight sheen of sweat.

Even so, the bright smile on Ryu's face couldn't be restrained in the slightest. It was this sort of power that he had been seeking all his life, killing Lords and Sovereigns like dogs...

It was hard not to be intoxicated with what he was experiencing. It was like he was flying on cloud nine.

However, it didn't take long before he reined in his enthusiasm.

This wasn't his power; it was Hope's.

Just now, he had been using Hope a lot like his Internal Matrix. By letting her take on the burden of Fate quantity, he could direct its action with his eyes.

It made it far easier to use the abilities of his eyes as a result, because in a lot of ways, his body was reacting as though he was a Dao God now rather than the Transcended he was.

Thanks to that, he was able to access a depth of ease of use that he shouldn't be at yet.

All it cost him was some Focus, but he was able to replenish that easily enough.

'An affinity of Fate... is truly powerful...'

It felt like Ryu was toying around with the fundamental laws of the world. Things that should be locked in position, unchangeable, or at least restrained, felt like putty in his hands.

With Hope's Primordial Yin in his body, he could offload the burden of playing Fate to her... and that sounded easy enough, but the only reason he could take her Primordial Yin so easily at all was because of Fate in the first place.

Ironically enough, the sheen of sweat on his body wasn't because of the effort of killing these few ants. It was instead because of the effort he put into taking her Primordial Yin... and that was despite the fact she didn't resist.

Still, Hope couldn't help but look around in shock.

She had a Fate affinity herself, obviously... but she had never been able to do such things.

Was this the power of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils?

"Let's go."

Ryu and Hope vanished once again. However, Ryu couldn't help but think...

How had they found him?

Was it because of Aria?

Unlikely. She was in his Inner World. There was no way they could sense it, right?

Did they have a Fate expert as well?

As powerful as Ryu's affinity was, it wasn't to the point of truly being able to ignore all the powerful experts of the world. His advantage was that he had mutated Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils. But it had to be remembered that Dao Gods all naturally gained some control of Fate-if there happened to be one that also had a small Fate affinity on top of that, it wouldn't be impossible for them to circumvent his defenses.

Ryu assigned a small probability to this.

'It's odd. If they had such an expert that could find me. why send these weaklings? If they were so

confident, given how important I am to them now, they would certainly send someone far more powerful if they could get away with it.

'It smells much more like they're throwing darts at a board blindfolded... But how were they so close, then?'

'Odd... odd...'

A realization suddenly hit. Ryu.

'I see... That would explain it...'

He had neglected something. He was hiding himself from detection with Fate, but there were certain things that he couldn't hide... or rather, it wasn't that he couldn't hide them, but rather that, one, he hadn't thought so deeply, and two, it would be much more difficult.

The underpinning of the problem was clear to him now...

They were in the Chaos Plane.

They weren't locking down his location in particular, but rather he and Hope's existence in this place was an anomaly to begin with.

They were creatures of Order in the Chaos Plane. There would naturally be some rejection.

Because of his Chaotic Silk Meridians, things would even out a bit, and that was what caused them to send such a weak contingent.

If Ryu was a full creature of Order, pinning down his location would probably be extremely easy. But because he could meld in well with the Chaos Plane, there were many more phenomena that might appear here that could give off signatures similar to his own.

Meaning, they were likely sending out a net, trying to find his location by sending several groups to places that he was likely to be.

That meant...

'Because we wiped out the group, they've narrowed down the region. There'll be a next and then a next one after that even if we manage to survive... they'll also only grow stronger!

Realizing this, Ryu changed Little Silk's direction.

Since they had been exposed, continuing to head deeper into Fiend territory, albeit at an angle, would be suicidal.

His expression became a hint serious.

How should they get out of this one?

His mind churned.

Suddenly, he looked over toward Hope and raised an eyebrow. Her shock from earlier seemed to have faded somewhat and her breathing was even.

She seemed much less nervous now than she did before.

"You have a solution?" Ryu asked.

He had learned his lesson, so he might as well ask this little wife of his.

"There is a long-distance teleportation method in [Domain]. You just stopped bothering to ask about it because you want to walk your own little path!"

Ryu chuckled. "Little path?"

"You're too stubborn!" Hope huffed. "You would be the only Dao God in existence to never rely on

someone else's technique. It's not normal.'

Ryu smiled, and Hope rolled her eyes. It was the same as always. Whenever he was smiling like that, he might as well have stopped listening and was just letting her ramble.

"We can do it. It's a bit involved, which is why I didn't mention it before. But..."