Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Mae's gaze flickered.

She had just pierced Ryu through the heart, this battle should be over. Was his vitality really so powerful despite not being in the Sky God Realm just yet?

And what was this pressure she was feeling? Was this a Dao? What level was his Dao at that it could make her feel this level of pressure? What was happening here?!

Before Mae could think anymore, Ryu's blade was already mere inches from the top of her head.

She roared, her scales shimmering with a bold light as she raised her sabers above her head.

BANG!

Ryu's great swordstaff went flying back, Mae's sabers quickly pursuing. If piercing his heart wasn't enough, she would just rip him into inch sized pieces. So what if he had a powerful Dao? It didn't suddenly boost his physical strength to a level that could match her own!

However, right when she was about to counter, Mae felt herself shudder as she quickly retracted her blades.

Just then, she felt that if she continued she would lose an arm.

She retreated a step quickly, piercing her tail down and causing a small scratch in the ground she used to propel herself backward before accelerating forward again.

However, it happened again. Just when she wanted to skewer Ryu through, her fatal sense of danger alerted her once more and she dodged to the side, slipping out of the shadow of Ryu's blade.

It was absolutely suffocating. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, Ryu's precision with his blades had reached an unprecedented level. He was neither faster nor stronger, but he seemed to see into the future, pressuring her from a location she hadn't even stepped into just yet.

Ryu flickered and vanished.

Mae's ears perked up, the tips of her toes trembling as she readied herself to dodge again, but just when she was about to, she felt a vicious blow to her side.

Her body bent around her hips, her body shooting off to the side like a speeding bullet.

BANG!

Mae collided with the wall, rebounding off of it and flapping her wings once to dodge out of the way of Ryu's follow up blow.

Ryu suddenly vanished again and Mae's heart seized. She braced herself but it was already too late.

BANG!

Ryu landed a firm kick to the small of her back, sending her flying once again.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Ryu was relentless, beating and battering Mae from all sides. He didn't seem to have any mercy for the fairer sex, his gaze blazing with a brighter and brighter light. Every time he appeared, Mae would fly off in a new direction even faster than the last time. She simply couldn't keep up.

"DAMMIT!"

Mae roared.

She knew by now that Ryu had seen through her. The reason he kept attacking her with the blunt ends of his great swordstaff and his feet was because it would never do lethal damage. Due to that, her innate senses couldn't pick up on it as easily.

But what she didn't know was how Ryu had seen through her so quickly. It only seemed to take two exchanges before he saw through it and adjusted, flipping the situation on his head. The only explanation was that his Dao was some sort of auxiliary, sensory type Dao, but she had never in her life met one so powerful.

If this Ryu Tatsuya really brought her to the edge, she wouldn't be able to hold back any…

BANG!

The butt of Ryu's great swordstaff smashed into Mae's nose from above, forcing her head to snap backward and collide with the hard ground below.

The jarring change rattled her brain, shaking her to her core. In that instant, her mind went entirely blank before her crimson irises quite literally lit on fire. Her eyeballs blazed as though an abyssal flame was being conjured out of their depths, rising up like a tempest without even the slightest bit of heat.

ROAR!

This time when Mae roared, Ryu felt as though the walls of his mind were being collided against and his soul quaked as though it might collapse any moment now.

Ryu's expression flickered and he quickly retreated.

There was something that Ryu was ignorant of, though it couldn't be helped. There were simply too many things to keep track of, too many things to learn, too many new concepts to integrate. If it hadn't been for this, the moment Mae transformed, he would have realized that the greatest danger she posed wasn't in her physical combat strength at all…

The Asura Race was a demonic race. The demonic race in this context were humanoid species that had traces of their lineage link back to the Nether Realm. The closer they were in origin to their Nether Realm ancestors, the more powerful they tended to be.

It was said that the Asura Race was among the most enigmatic for no other reason than the fact they were said to have descended from the most enigmatic of the Demon Kings… The Dream Wraiths.

It could be said that not only was Mae's bodily strength not her greatest asset, it could even be said to be her weakest. There was no doubt that the greatest strength of the Asura Race, especially their women, wasn't their fists, but rather their souls.

The moment Mae shrieked, she released a soul attack as though it was second nature. She didn't have to circulate a technique, nor did she have to put any effort into protecting her soul, she could simply attack just like it was her Soul Nature.

Despite not knowing this original, Ryu reacted immediately, several blockades appearing in his Spiritual Sea reflecting the echoes of Mae's screech.

It was no wonder Mae had been relying on her instincts to sense danger all this time. Not once had she released her Spiritual Sense to begin with because it would count as going against one of the supposed rules she had to follow.

There wasn't a single doubt in Ryu's mind that her soul was far beyond the Sovereign Grade.