Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu stepped out from the challenge world, stretching his neck. Now that wasn't too bad, right? Then, his gaze landed on Litaor who suddenly had a look of horror pasted on his face.

"What's the matter? Aren't you taking a bit too long? Hurry it up, would you?"

Beads of sweat began to pour down Litter's brows. He could even look at Ryu directly without feeling a fear constrict his heart. He knew that it was partially because he had access to nothing but own Dao in this world, and it was clearly inferior to Ryu's own, but that didn't do anything to move the needle,

If you told a child that there was nothing lurking in the dark, would they even believe you? Right now, Litaor felt like that child and he couldn't even seem to bring himself to take a step forward. His heart was beating out of his chest, and he didn't even know which challenge he should pick.

Maybe that was the key. Maybe if he picked a random challenge, Ryu wouldn't follow through with challenging him?

They had all seen the last round play out. There had been a few challenges and each one taught them something interesting, but none were more interesting than a challenge that succeeded.

It turned out that after a successful challenge, you would then have to face the challenge zone that the person you had forced into a duel had challenged. This added another layer of complexity, because even if you hated someone, you had to make sure that their Dao was similar enough to yours that if you won, you wouldn't screw yourself over. And at the same time, even if your Dao was similar enough, you had to be wary of whether your enemy would pick poorly on purpose and lose just to mess with you as well.

There were really only two options. Either Ryu was bluffing him and wanted him to pick poorly on purpose, or Ryu...

Wait, this Ryu had just cleared a fire elemental challenge. His Dao clearly skewed in that direction.

The reason why Litaor was so hesitant was because his own Dao was related to lightning, obviously, as he was a genius of the Azure Lightning Sect. And, he had seen Ryu's Lightning Qilin Manifestation, so he had been all too hesitant to move forward.

But just because Ryu had the Bloodline, didn't mean that he could use it. Fire and Lightning were the two strongest elements there were. He had simply never heard of a Dao that used them both.

Litaor grit his teeth. If he picked poorly on purpose, he might accidentally stumble into a challenge that was beneficial to Ryu rather than the other way around. In this situation, he had to go all out.

His eyes scanned and he picked after several minutes of heavy scrutiny. He felt lucky that his robes were high quality, because if not, it might have already attached to him like a second layer of skin. Unfortunately, that couldn't do anything to hide the beads of sweat falling down his face.

His pillar surged forward and Ryu's surged to meet it.

Litaor gripped his fists. He had guessed correctly.

This time, he was patient and didn't attack immediately. The moment he sensed the aura of their pillars connect, though, he paled considerably once more.

Although he couldn't feel the strength of Ryu's Dao as something had obscured it on purpose, what he could feel was the tsunami-like pressure of Ryu's Heavenly Favor. He realized immediately that if Ryu didn't challenge others, they would simply never be able to challenge him... Even if he lost 50% three times over, it still wouldn't be enough.

Litaor immediately regained his composure and prepared to escape. Of course, escape was impossible when the arena was just a slot of illusory land that connected two pillars. Rather, he was planning on directly giving up and watching Ryu fail.

But what he didn't expect was that Ryu wouldn't attack him either. Instead, he smiled.

"So what are you going to do? Give up?"

Litaor froze, his jaw clenching tight. Everything from the playful light in Ryu's eyes to the oppressive might he radiated made him feel small, made him feel inferior.

"Go on, I'm not going to stop you. If you think that the challenge you selected would slow my steps, let's see if you're correct."

Litaor didn't respond, his fists clenching tight.

"What's the matter? Didn't you like to tell people to hurry up? What are you dragging your feet for? There's still a lot of people left to go, we can't all be waiting on you."

Litaor's gaze turned red. He felt a heart shuddering amount of rage brewing up within him, so much so that he felt like he might suffocate if he didn't unleash it right now. But his rationality was telling him that Ryu was goading him on purpose, that he wanted to harm him, to kill him.

Litaor released a turbid breath, one filled with such heat and animosity that small clouds of crackling lightning formed.

Ryu smiled, that disgusting, overly confident, uncaring for the world smile.

And then Litaor suddenly felt small. His pillar broke off and the challenge was won by Ryu.

"Oh what a shame." Ryu clicked his tongue. "I could have sworn with all that talking you were doing, you'd have some strength to back it up."

Litaor felt something within him snap, and for the moment, Jojo had a serious expression on, something rarely seen on her delicate features.

Since Ryu had been here, he had already shattered the Dao Heart of one person, and had clearly just heavily swayed Litaor's. Just what kind of person was he to do this so easily?

If she knew that just a few months ago Ryu had also induced the hearts of several Sky Gods to shudder as well, how would she react?

Ryu's chuckles echoed as he entered into the challenge.

Thunderous lightning flood dragons plunged from the skies and toward Ryu, looking to crumble everything in their path.

Once again, Ryu punched a single chain infused fist... And the world fell to ash.