Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1299 What could...

Rogryll's frown only deepened. He began to feel that something was wrong. It was one thing to pause on the first step for so long, but it was another thing entirely to have been stuck for so long, and to have such outward and visible pain. He could even see the blood leaking from between Ryu's lips.

Things weren't adding up. If his Dao Heart was truly this weak, then after experiencing this level of pain, he should have already given up long ago. But if his Dao Heart was strong, he shouldn't be struggling this much in the first place.

Nothing seemed to be making any sense. However, he was the only one thinking this deeply about the matter.

Everyone else felt that Ryu was simply too pathetic, aside from maybe the other elders who felt that the situation was odd as well. As for Mae, she wasn't thinking about this matter at all because the more she saw Ryu suffer, the more furious she became. If it wasn't because she knew that disrupting someone on the Samsara Step would cause a flaw in their Dao Heart, she would have already flown down personally.

At this point, Ryu was entirely on his own.

Her cousin suddenly chuckled. "What trash."

Mae, in her fury, snapped her head in his direction, her furious crimson irises looking as though they had been lit on fire.

"What did you say?! Say it again!"

Hurath's was taken back for a moment before his gaze softened. He seemed to look toward Mae with care and affection in his eyes as his tone softened.

"I'm only stating the truth, Mae. Even children can make it past the first few steps. In fact, of the exactly 10 000 steps, even a child who has passed through Awakening yet can take at least ten steps. In fact, I myself made it to the 16th step at the age of five years old. For a grown man to not even be able to make it to the second step is pathetic."

Mae's gaze blazed. "There's clearly something wrong going on. Isn't it precisely because it's so ridiculous that you should use your head and try to think of another explanation? You think that someone without a strong Dao Heart can turn down the Inheritance of a Dao Lord even when it was handed to him on a silver platter?!"

Hurath's expression turned weird.

This wasn't the first time Mae had told this story, but who would believe that nonsense? Although no one told her to her face given her status and the possibility of her lashing out, even her own father didn't believe her, let alone everyone else.

Turning down the inheritance of a Dao Lord? Even Rogryll wouldn't be able to do so, let alone the rest of them. It sounded more like a joke than anything else, and the worst part was that it all relied on Ryu's words as well. It wasn't as though they could take a look into his mind and check unless they were also willing to kill him.

In their minds, Ryu just wanted to protect himself. The less people knew that he had such an Inheritance, the less danger he would be in. But in their opinions, he should have thought up a better lie. Even if this Dao Lord had murdered their fathers to the last man, woman and child, they would still accept the Inheritance if for nothing other than using it as a catalyst to try and get revenge. It could be said that there was quite literally no reason to ever reject such a thing.

Only Mae, who was apparently blinded by love, could possibly believe such a thing. In truth, even Aantha who had been there was skeptical, let alone everyone else. Of course, Aantha was also hesitant to say that Ryu was definitely lying, because she had seen the physical action of Ryu shattering the Inheritance as well.

Seeing Hurath's gaze, Mae's temper flared and she struck out with a palm without thinking. But before it could land, her father snorted. Her qi was swallowed up by an invisible force, vanishing into thin air as though a god had blown it away.

"I've been very tolerant of your outbursts, Little Mae, but don't think that I'm so easygoing. This is the sacred land of our ancestors, it isn't a place for you to be so disrespectful, let alone attack. You are the future of our Dream Asura race, act like it!"

Rogryll's voice boomed and seemed to echo through his daughter's body.

In truth, though he felt that something might be wrong, no matter how he thought about it or flipped the situation in his mind, he couldn't find an answer. This left him greatly disappointed. He had thought that his daughter had better judgment than this.

Even if she had chosen this man to be her first, that was fine, but to be so obsessed with him at the same time was absolutely ridiculous. That was unacceptable. She didn't even consider other men now, and this couldn't be allowed to continue.

In his opinion, no matter what went wrong, it was best if Ryu's Dao Heart shattered now and everything came to a conclusion like this. Such a strong backlash of the Dao Heart wouldn't just sever his path of cultivation, but might even end his life. So long as this happened, everything would be fine.

To Rogryll's surprise, though, despite the fact he had put his foot down, thinking this matter to be over, his daughter was only stunned for a moment before she suddenly began to tremble with rage and rage. She shook so violently that her golden Soul Fire threatened to spill over, causing many to retreat so that they could avoid the region. The less strong among them might die when contacting these flames for even a single time.

"Ryu has my Primordial Yin, so you'd better give up any thoughts of watching him die! I don't care even if these stupid steps really think that his Dao Heart is so weak. In the Heavenly Path, it was he who protected your daughter and your niece. He treats me extremely well and he's also the reason I was able to enter the Cosmic Seed Realm so quickly. Don't use your small minds to look down on him!"

Mae seemed to be about a step away from truly losing it. Her temper had become more even keeled after stepping out of the Samsara Wheel, and she hadn't even had a flare up of her Soul Fire in a very long time, but this matter seemed to have triggered it once again.

No one could understand how these strong feelings had managed to survive through the experiences of the Samsara Wheel, but what they didn't know was that it was precisely because of the Samsara Wheel that they had become so powerful. Using the Samsara Wheel experiences and matching them with what she knew from this life, then comparing and contrasting them, she realized that there were truly no other men like Ryu.

She had been young when she lost her virginity to Ryu, and truthfully it was more of a impulsive moment than anything else. It was easy for doubt to creep up as a result. If the her before she entered the Samsara Wheel had seen this scene with Ryu, and then heard her fathers words, and the ridicule of others, she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't waver.

But thanks to the Samsara Wheel, she had the experience of a woman who had lived thousands upon thousands of years. She was far more strong minded than she had been in the past, and she was far more certain of her choices.

Now, even her paternal figure couldn't cause her mind to waver.

However... The news that Mae had already lost her Primordial Yin was akin to a boulder falling into the calm waters of a lake. A raging wave shot into the skies, and everyone's expressions changed one after another, even Hurath, whose stare had been gentle toward Mae just a moment ago, turned twisted and gloomy in an instant.

In the Dream Asura race, virginity wasn't taken very seriously, which was why no one had cared much about this. In its place, however, Primordial Yin had taken precedent. The current Mae was akin to a woman who had lost her virginity out of wedlock in the most conservative of cultures. And yet she had so boldly proclaimed it as though to draw a line in the sand.

Rogryll's stare flashed for a instant before his expression too became gloomy. He slowly shifted his gaze from his furious daughter, unwilling to continue looking at her at the moment. Instead, he looked down toward where Ryu was, a thick, bloody smell beginning to permeate in the air.

He held killing intent in his heart, and it was no small piece of it.

...

Ryu felt a shudder in his mind. At that moment, at the center of his Spiritual Sea, one of his Primordial Yins began to rampage about, becoming a blazing golden blaze that seemed to want to swallow up everything in its path. Seemingly reacting to Mae's fury, it turned toward Ryu's other Primordial Yins, looking to swallow them up whole.

Ryu's daze was awakened by this sharp anguish in his head. It felt as though someone was drilling through his skull and into his brain.

It was only his powerful Dao Heart that had kept Mae's strong Primordial Yin in line in the first place, not to mention his powerful soul. But with his Magus Lock compromised, and now his Dao Heart cracking, what could possibly keep it in line now?