Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu's roar shook the skies, his fury sinking into his every action.

His Great Swordstaffs seemed to have vanished into thin air. And yet, his Dominion still remained omnipresent, his fists colliding into Isemeine in a relentless barrage. For a moment, it truly seemed as though Ryu had lost his mind, but whenever Isemeine caught a glimpse of those cold, dark eyes, she forgot the pain her body was in for just a moment as her heart trembled.

Ryu's hand snatched at Isemeine's ankle, whipping her body into the mountain below.

He charged after her, the crimson veins pumping throughout his cheeks glowing with an even fiercer light as he collided with her.

Isemeine knew she couldn't roll away and tried to thrust her spear upward to use Ryu's momentum against him, but the result was completely outside her expectations.

Ryu didn't even pause. In fact, his momentum accelerated.

Before Isemeine could understand what was happening, Ryu's body had crashed into hers, causing another fountain of blood to fly like a projectile from her mouth. And yet, her spear which should have pierced his heart, had completely gone through his body without any sort of resistance.

Isemeine's expression warped. The only way to counter Spirit Body was by using atmospheric qi, but it was too difficult for her to control Nether Qi. To make matters worse, she should have been able to attack too quickly for Ryu to react, yet his Spirit Body had far more agility and fluidity than it should have at this stage.

All of Isemeine's thought processes were shatters as another fist beat her head into the ground.

A smoldering rage simmered within the depths of her heart. She had never felt so infuriated in her life. This sort of humiliation, this sort of abject indifference toward her status and her very being… When had she ever experienced such a thing before?

Isemeine roared, her shrill cries filling the skies as tendrils of gold lashed out from her body.

The ground she had been buried into shattered beneath her might, a crater of earth spreading out around her.

She whipped her spear forward, her fury practically palpable.

But, at that moment, Ryu's Great Swordstaffs suddenly appeared again.

His right arm swung down in an almost slow motion. Yet, Isemeine somehow felt that no matter what she tried, it wouldn't be enough. Nothing she did mattered.

The tip of Isemeine's spear glided across the tip of Ryu's blade, suddenly finding itself completely off course.

Before Isemeine could react to the most perfectly executed [Skim] she had ever seen in her lifetime, she finally lost control of her arm, her spear uncontrollably falling to the ground.

Ryu's second Great Swordstaff swept forward in just as slow of a motion, only for Isemeine to find that her left arm had also become useless.

What once was a slow motion suddenly became blazingly fast. Isemeine couldn't even follow the speed with her eyes before she found her body laying limply and without the strength to move.

Isemeine looked down at her body, her neck seemingly the only thing capable of motion. What she saw only left her more infuriated.

Her clothing, if it could even be called that at this moment, was nothing but shredded rags. What once was her delicate skin was exposed beneath shallow cuts and crosses, barely any of her decency remaining. To make matters worse, she couldn't even move to cover herself with the state her limbs were in.

Isemeine looked up to glare at Ryu, her body trembling uncontrollably. She could feel that backlash of the energy she had used coming already, yet she had never expected to ever reach a day where she would come to her last resort, only for it to be completely useless.

Ryu didn't seem to care about her plight in the slightest. He slammed her into another mountain face, spreading her body out into the shape of a star.

With a palm, he sent a flickering flame forward, incinerating what remained of Isemeine's clothing to ash.

Isemeine's face turned pale as a sheet of paper, not only due to the humiliation, but due to the pain as well. That lightning flame filled her with a fear she had never felt before. Even her own healing factor, something she was quite proud of usually, seemed completely useless before it.

Isemeine grit her teeth into a sneer.

"What? Are you going to rape me? Have at it, I'm sure I taste better than your whore wife."

Ryu didn't say a word. Instead, he reached a finger toward Isemeine's breast. It was as though he didn't register anything other than the sight before him at all.

Despite her pale face, Isemeine didn't even fidget. But, the moment Ryu touched the skin between her breasts, pressing into her sternum, she felt all the blood freeze over. Her heart stopped, her thoughts stopped, she couldn't even breathe.

A cold sweat erupted all over her, her lips trembling to the point it turned blue.

She felt a looming shadow of death sweep over her, sending a layer of cold breathing down and into her soul.

"Since you know my name, then you must know that I have the strongest eyes this world has ever seen."

Ryu's voice was deep and carried a crackling ice within it. It felt as though just his intention alone could halt all the energies of the world, and in fact, it was exactly like that. With his Dominion, there wasn't a single grain of sand that wasn't under his absolute control.

"Since you're aware, you must have heard of [Death Acupoint], right?"

Isemeine shivered.

Ryu's finger rose up again, trailing a line to her lower body and suddenly pressing just above her belly button.

Isemeine's body convulsed, her forehead pumping out sweat as her lips turned an even fiercer shade of blue.

"That feeling that you're experiencing right now? Like death is flashing before your eyes? That's what it feels like to have your [Death Acupoint] grazed."

Ryu's finger glided upward, uncaringly pushing Isemeine's breast up with a knuckle and pressing down on the skin it had hidden beneath.

Isemeine's eyes rolled back, her body beginning to convulse.