Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1800 Heavenly

Ryu's breathing was even and calm. He layered complexity atop of complexity, and then he compressed them, forcing them into a state of complexity.

He seemed to be able to draw and erase at will. And yet, he was never erasing at all. Instead, he was rearranging, fitting the Fundamental Runes in like puzzle pieces and sliding them in together.

This left only a single logical conclusion.

Ryu had never made a mistake, he had never second guessed himself, and he was continuously charging forward like a fearless sword.

The more he worked, the more complex the Immortal Sakura seemed to become.

Dark Phoenix Heavenly Patterns radiated up its crystalline trunk, its branches becakin to grey clouds, ethereal and untraceable.

It was a sight that had stripped the Immortal Sakura of its beauty, and yet had given it a devastating and powerful aura instead. It looked like a true force of nature, enough to shudder the heart with a single glance.

Ryu got up from his meditating position with his eyes still closed and punched out.

The tree lashed out with him, its branch undergoing a myriad of changes, before it suddenly stopped.

Ryu shook his head and the tree burst apart, only to cback together. It seemed to be the exact same, and yet its aura had changed once again.

It seemed even more ethereal than before.

This time, Ryu sent out two strikes.

His fists seemed cast in illusions and the tree above him lashed out with a vicious might. Space was cut and split, a heart shuddering aura pervading from it. It seemed that standing before it, there was no escape.

Ryu nodded, but he seemed indifferent to it all. Because he was still far from finished.

His SpacetSoul Nature shuddered and a Silver Star appeared high in the skies.

At first, they seemed like two separated entities, but then Ryu's disposition changed. He channeled the thoughts in his mind and led the both of them with his heart.

In that moment, they becone existence, still separate, and yet somehow feeling like a single whole… it was almost like they were both a part of the spainting, a silvery star, reflecting an array of silver shades, rising up through the fog of dawn. It cast its light down on the mysterious tree below it, forming an enigma that even the Gods could not see through.

Ryu struck out with a punch and this tthe branches of the tree cut through space not through strength, but with a casual flare. They left secrets in their wake and there was an order to their chaos.

Ryu shook his head. It shouldn't have any order at all.

That was when his Bone Structure thrummed and Cosmos Fog rose up, adding to the clouds and becoming one of them.

Space becchaotic and it all shuddered.

Ryu shook his head once and dispelled it, trying again. After sensing the changes, he shook his head again and dispelled it once more.

"What is he doing?" Isemeine asked within Eska's mind, feeling that her mind was spinning.

"He is…"

Even Eska's heart was shaking.

Ryu wanted to add Spacetto his technique, but the problem was that it cwith too much Order. Space and twere the fundamental laws that allowed the universe to have structure in the first place. Adding them to a technique of chaos and Chaos sounded excellent, but in reality it would weaken the strongest abilities of his technique.

Ryu had obviously already realized this, and Eska thought that he would change his mind and take a step back. But to her surprise, since he began, he had never taken such a step. He might have taken one to the side, but never one backward.

That meant that Ryu was now trying to fundamentally change the foundational laws of tand space, twisting them from one of order to one of chaos.

The first thing he tried was a strong gravity, forcing his Silver Star to rotate and enact the power of a black hole. However, this was just distortion, it was technique Order as well.

The reason that Ryu had tried it was because the foundation of chaos was unpredictability, not breaking laws. However, the distortion wasn't as helpful as he wanted, so he dispelled it.

Then, he tried fragmenting the space, turning it into a mirror world and relying on what he had seen from Lu'Card's spatial world.

However, this was just distortion by a different method. Though it didn't weaken the attacks of the tree as much, he still wasn't satisfied.

What made Eska's heart shake the most was that all of these methods were good solutions. Sof them even moved her and she thought that Ryu would finally settle on them, but one after another, Ryu dismissed them.

It was on the seventh attempt that Ryu made a complete overhaul. Instead, he pumped even more Cosmos Fog into the tree and rewrote the laws in the region.

Since he would have to rely on sform of Order no matter what, why not twist those laws?

Since this technique wanted Order so much, he would form a new foundation for Order, creating a new Order.

His Cosmos Fog solidified and then his Inner World trembled.

Ryu knew now that if he summoned his Inner World in battle like he did with [A God's Brush], the strength of this method would reach an all new level.

However, he uncaringly stripped his Inner World away, and then he made his Silver Star vanish.

Once again, he had created three levels of his technique. There was really no need to take out his full strength every time.

Under normal circumstances, he would only summon the Immortal Sakura. If the situation warranted it, he would summon his Silver Star that held the essence of his Dao. Only if the situation was particularly bad, would he care to bring out his Inner World.

"I will call you… [Heavenly Dao Tree]."