Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1244 Untouchable

Ryu fell into silence for a long while.

If the Radiant Star Sect had been destroyed, they had done enough for him that he would most definitely avenge them. He wouldn't allow this slight to go unavenged.

However, he didn't immediately feel rage as he usually would, and that was because while there was a volatile qi in the air consistent with what one might see from a battle of powerful experts, it wasn't quite that just yet.

'This isn't instability from a battle, this should be... ascension?'

Ryu didn't recognize it immediately because he hadn't been present after the first few ascensions of the Radiant Star Sect. This made sense, after all he was in the Sect while they rose to a Higher Heaven, so he wouldn't have been left behind to see what the aftermath would look like. But given the larger than normal traces of spatial qi in the surroundings, Ryu felt that he was correct.

The Radiant Star Sect hadn't been destroyed, they had likely risen to the Fifth Heaven. If they had risen to the Sixth Heaven, Ryu, who had just been there, would have sensed it. The uproar of a Sect rising wasn't small in the slightest.

Ryu also felt that this made the most sense as well. The Radiant Star Sect had spent so long in slumber on the First Heaven and only moved after Aika had broken through by gaining inspiration from Ryu's own breakthrough. Wouldn't it be too preposterous if Aika had so boldly led them upward, no longer hiding their origins, only to die to a small group of Seventh Heaven existences?

That made little sense on its face. While Aika was a bit reckless, it wasn't to the point that she would put everyone in danger just due to her own selfishness. Although it seemed that way with the weaker disciples of the Radiant Star Sect, in reality, the opportunity those few of poor talent were gaining right now was the greatest of their lifetimes.

"This is a bit troublesome now, though...'

Ryu didn't know why they had rushed to rise to the Fifth Heaven, but it might very well be related to the appearance of the Seventh Heaven experts.

Aika had implied back then that there were other strongholds of the Radiant Star Sect scattered in bits and pieces. Since they hadn't gathered at the Third Heaven, it was more likely that these individuals were dispersed throughout the Fourth to Sixth Heaven. In that case, with the coming changes, Aika might have felt that it was better to gather with them sooner as opposed to later.

That, though, left Ryu in a bit of a bind. He had just left the only teleportation platform that could help him travel between the Heavens with ease, and he obviously couldn't go back now. They were on high alert, and even if they weren't, while he was relatively unknown on the Sixth Heaven, he had stirred trouble on the Fourth Heaven multiple times, and his greatest concentration of enemies was probably on the Fifth Heaven.

Even so, Ryu knew that he had to go to the Fifth Heaven now. Trouble was that he would need to gather the materials he needed to build the formation on his own, and without being able to use the large cities... that would be a tall mountain to climb.

Ryu turned and left the area. He doubted there would be anyone paying attention to the region since the Radiant Star Sect had already left and no one had any idea that he had returned to the Fourth Heaven, but it was better to be cautious.

The Radiant Star Sect had originally landed in the middle of the Resonant Bo Sect and the Infinity Blade Sect. One didn't need to be a genius to know that they very much hated Ryu, so caution was the name of the game currently.

"This is also an opportunity...' Ryu thought with narrowed eyes. ... He wanted to see if Starlight had truly cleansed the Fourth Heaven of all opportunities

Ryu's figure flickered and vanished, his speed even faster than it had been on the Sixth Heaven. In fact, right this moment, Ryu felt that even if he didn't enter the void, he could almost match a Fragmented Sky God in speed. Although this was still just "almost", and probably only comparable to the weakest of Fragmented Sky Gods on the First Heaven, for a Dao Pedestal Realm expert to have such speed was absolutely ridiculous.

However, as Ryu moved, he thought of a problem. It was a bit challenging to fuse the benefits of his Spacetime Soul Nature and his Northern Heavenly Wind. Unless...

Tattoos on Ryu's back seemed to appear for a moment. Suddenly, on his next step, he blasted forward. His figure became half illusory, his movement finally crossing a barrier it shouldn't have.

Ryu had never seen a Fragmented Sky God of the First Heaven go all out, but he suddenly felt extremely confident that right this moment, at least on the Fourth Heaven, he was far faster than them. But that also implied that if he descended to the First Heaven, he could leave them in his dust.

Just now Ryu had activated a bit of the Quivering Spectral Wings. They were a treasure of wind and space to begin with, and they knew more about fusing the two seemingly incompatible elements than Ryu could possibly know.

It felt contradictory. If you were traveling through space, there was no wind to worry about. But if you were using the wind resistant capabilities of the Northern Heavenly Wind, then you would obviously lose this benefit if you used space...

However, in that moment, Ryu grasped two concepts.

The first was of mass.

The second was shrinking.

And if he put the two of them together....

Ryu's speed suddenly shot up once again. Despite how fast he was moving, his hair moved as though he was only experiencing a mild breeze, his robes hardly fluttering at all.

At this moment, he felt entirely untouchable.