Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu inwardly whistled, feeling the strength of this titan. The gap between the Golden ranks and the Diamond ranks was more than twice that of the Silver and Golden Protector Spirits. It felt ridiculous that someone not in the Sky God Realm could be so powerful. Even now, it didn't seem like it was using qi.

Was this what Ninth Heaven geniuses felt like? To be so powerful even without full access to its abilities, it seemed that the Ninth Heaven lived up to expectations. Even so, there was absolutely nothing this beast could do that Ryu couldn't see through.

"There's only one Diamond Protector Spirit? Not multiple? In that case, 1 don't have much time at all...

The distance between here and where he had just left from was a few tens of thousands of kilometers. If the strongest of them used their greatest possible speed, it was a distance they could cross in less than a dozen minutes.

Could he defeat this titan that fast? His confidence said yes, but his understanding about his Dao said... maybe. The spirits didn't function the same way humans did and his Dao wasn't as effective against them. However, Ryu's confidence overrode his other thoughts as a grin spread across his face.

With a stamp, he flickered and vanished. As soon as he moved, the fist of the titan spirit moved as well, collapsing all of the spatial tunnels that Ryu had formed. Ryu's brows couldn't help but jump as he came to a stop in the void, just barely avoiding the fate of being crushed into a meaty paste.

Alright, maybe he was a bit too eager. This spirit was something else power wise, and it was obvious that no one, not even someone who had consumed 999 Golden Protector Spirits, should be able to defeat him. There was only one Diamond Protector Spirit because he was meant to work with everyone else who was worthy.

However, Ryu wasn't a fan of the idea. He stood in the void in silence for a long while. Well, it was only a few seconds, but such a thing was an eternity in a battle of this scale. What interrupted his attempt at thought, though, was a sudden pressure that came from the titan spirit. Some part of its bloodline was pressuring him, trying to close down the spatial nodes he was standing within.

Ryu could fight back against this with ease, especially with his affinity, but it still made him an extra hint cautious. This titan spirit was even more powerful than he knew. His better judgment was right to tell him to be cautious, and he was foolish to have tried to ignore it, albeit for just a split moment

'Hm...' Ryu sighed.

He had gained some insight about his Bloodlines after he succeeded in completing his Mental Realm cultivation method. He had learned that he could use his Bloodlines as an extension of his instincts in battle, almost like a Sixth Sense..

Within his Bloodlines carried a whole host of memories that came from beasts he shared a lineage with. Within those memories not only included the talents that he had awakened one by one, but also various miscellaneous thoughts and experiences, anything that survived, really. Part of the reason it was so difficult to awaken talents was precisely because of this. There was a sea of completely useless information within... but there was also a whole host of useful information in there as well not related to talents at all.

The blood had paths that it preferred to move along, muscle memory borne of countless generations of experience and a tie of Fate that made it run more smoothly when completing certain pathways. However, tapping into that required a subtlety and talent that was even beyond what it took to find and unearth talents within your bloodline in the first place.

For geniuses who had all of their talents follow down a single path, this was easy. Their talents would awaken naturally because it was their sole focus to begin with, and then they could throw all their attention behind picking up on these subtleties.

The level of cheating was even bevond what Rvu had expected. They didn't even need to build their battle experience off the backs of countless life and death experiences because all the battle experience they needed was already built up by their Ancestors, they just needed to unearth it.

Of course, this was just the simple explanation, the reality was more complex than that. It still required a great amount of talent to unearth these combat styles hidden within your bloodline, and only the worst of the geniuses would fully rely on them.

So, as Ryu had expected, the Golden Protector Spirits he had fought didn't represent the pinnacle of Eighth Heaven talent. Rather... it was quite middling. Well, middling by Ryu's standards for him. These were rather what the average to below average prodigies of the Eighth Heaven could accomplish, and by extension this Diamond Protector Spirit....

Was only average on the Ninth Heaven.

When Ryu had this thought, his expectations came to a head and he made a decision. There was absolutely no chance that he would share mere crumbs with other people. This Heavenly Path actually expected him to be happy with mediocrity?

BOOM!

Since he couldn't vanquish this titan spirit head to head like he wanted to, he would just have to cheat. Since they could do it, why couldn't he?

Ryu took a breath and his gaze sharpened. An overwhelming pressure poured out as his Birthed Phenomena took shape and his Founding Dao rose into the skies like a looming mountain. His irises flashed with twin eight trigram diagrams and a blast of qi raged into the surroundings.

Black lightning flashed. Black flames rose from the grounds. And in the middle of it all, a heart shuddering, and yet beautiful mist took shape. The last of them only appeared for an instant, but it caused reality to nearly collapse.

The improvement, or rather relative improvement, of Ryu's Dao was the headliner. Thanks to his Mental Realm cultivation method, his Dao, though still being immature, could exhibit shades of a true mature Dao-it made sense that such an ability would take the forefront. But that didn't mean that there weren't also benefits..

Along with the increased efficiency, so too did Ryu's Spiritual Qi gain a huge bump. For formations he created through the use of his Visualizations, their potency could exhibit a level that was a half-step into the God Realms.

So, this time, when Ryu used the Sightless Eyes Formation, it was so potent that the titan stood blankly in space, not understanding what was happening. The panther spirit had at least been able to mount somewhat of a resistance, but the titan spirit felt stripped even of its proprioception. It was akin to its soul having been ripped out of its body and sent adrift into an endless.

There was no up, no down, no left, no right. There was no heaviness, no speed, no time. It couldn't move because it didn't even know how to go about doing so. All of its sense of body was stripped from it and it became as lame as a newborn, unable to do anything for itself.

Ryu took a breath. He didn't have much time. If the titan wasn't a spirit, it would probably just rage and send its Bloodline pressure outward. Any power that it could send out that had its full brunt behind it would be enough to shatter this formation. Ryu still wasn't sure if it could do that, so he didn't want to risk it at all.

He raised his blade and his gaze sharpened. It all came down to whether he could harm this titan spirit or not, and he only had one thing that he felt could allow it.

His Infinity Mist Cosmic Seed flared. His control was much better now, far better than it had been in the past, but it still felt as though he was trying to leash a dragon, the spurts of failed control causing his body to shred itself apart

Even so, his gaze flared and he rushed forward, swinging his blade down with a mighty pulsing strength.

BANG!

The feeling of slicing something apart never came. Rather, it felt like it was fracturing everything in his path. Even his great swordstaff shattered into so many pieces it looked as though it had been burnt to ash. Toward this result, he could sigh. That was why he had only tried it with one great swordstaff. It seemed that he would only have one weapon from now on, aside from his bow, that is.

The Titan's head was crushed, and the only reason the rest of its body hadn't followed suit was because by that point, Ryu's control had dissipated.

All at once, Ryu was suddenly flooded by a radiant blue energy and the amount of acumen was so great that he was certain he would have roared out in pain if not for the Origin Flame. He suddenly understood that maybe it wasn't the fact that the Heavenly Path was being stingy, but rather that it simply hadn't believed a single person could take in so much.

But now... It was all his.

Unfortunately, the procedure was much longer than he expected it to be.

Ryu almost snarled. 'This stupid Heavenly Path wouldn't let other individuals impede with me, would it?"

He had only just had this thought when the first blazing paths of individuals entered the frayed edges of his quickly shrinking Spiritual Sense.