Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1278 Nothing to do with him.

Ryu felt at peace for some reason when he saw Selheira approaching from the distance. He had always felt that there was something odd about her aura, he had previously concluded that it must have been related to one of her Six Pillar talents, and he felt that he was almost certainly correct now.

She had a way of making all those around her feel endlessly comfortable and at ease. She had a gentle demeanor and calm bearing, something that felt far more appropriate for a woman of smaller stature. But despite the fact that she was at least as tall as Jojo, if not a bit taller than that, she carried the grace and charm of a more petite woman without it seeming odd or awkward.

While she wasn't usually the type of woman Ryu liked most, and he didn't really think about taking her on as a wife, he still felt that her company was nice, especially since she was a good opponent in Domain. Though, Ryu wasn't sure if she'd still be much of a match for him now. During their games he had restrained his Dao as well, but now his Dao was even more powerful and had powerful effects even when he wasn't actively using it, not to mention the existence of the Origin Flame within him smoothing out his thought processes.

It was funny, though, Selheira's gentleness had vanished when she faced him across a board, but he didn't feel put off by it. Who knew, maybe that was why he liked playing with her so much to begin with.

Ryu looked down from above and toward the three before him. With a shake of his head, he turned and left the cave, appearing out in the sunny skies for the first time in a long while. He didn't really pay attention to how much time had passed while he was away, but it was probably at least several days if not weeks. It was harder to measure such things between Heavens and especially in the presence of Infinity Mist.

Selheira spotted Ryu and smiled. However, before either of them could say anything, Ryu felt a fierce aura to his back.

He hadn't stopped paying attention to Jojo in the slightest, he had just felt like he wanted to see Selheira so he had taken a step out. However, what was surprising was that the current Jojo seemed to be furious.

This clearly wasn't because of Ryu, or else she would have shown this anger previously. Even when he turned and ignored her, she didn't seem to react much to it. But now seeing Selheira, she seemed to have lost all of her composure in its entirety as though she had just spotted a mortal enemy.

Before Selheira could even descend from the skies, Jojo unsheathed the giant blade from her back, stomping on the ground so hard that it rippled out for hundreds of meters like the waves of the ocean.

Jojo's junior brother, who had just stepped out of the cave supporting Brutus, was shocked silent. He had been following Jojo for a long while, and he had been hearing about her in the Sect for years, but he had never heard of her drawing her sword. No one had been able to make her take a battle seriously enough to do such a thing. She usually just relied on her fists and her Sword God Aura. But this time, she actually pulled it out without even exchanging a single blow.

At first he thought that she was targeting Ryu, but when he got the full view of the situation, he realized that the target was actually a veiled beauty in the skies.

Jojo's roar filled the skies and Selheira seemed to finally notice her.

Ryu frowned. Jojo had moved too fast for him to react to stop her. He had originally thought that she would be targeting him, so he wasn't prepared for her target to be elsewhere entirely.

Selheira's smile dimmed somewhat. Sensing her change, her snow white owl flapped its wings and hit a speed that Ryu had never seen it touch before. It slipped to the side, leaving Jojo chopping at air.

However, Jojo shifted her stance at the moment, swinging her sword and using it like the guiding lamppost in her flight. It was clear that Ryu wasn't the only one who could use Sword God Aura to fly, it was just that Jojo's methods were a bit different than the usual. Rather than placing her sword beneath her feet, she continued to swing it while using the flying momentum to add to her strength.

This seemed like an insignificant difference, but the amount of control she was exhibiting was astonishing. At the moment, although she was clearly relying on her sword to fly, she looked no different from a Sky God using the laws around them to fly instead.

Selheira's smiling brows seemed to finally dim down entirely, flattening out. This was a face that Ryu only saw when she was focused on her next move in Domain, but this time.

Selheira's arm trembled and her fist suddenly punched out. The soft silk of her dress fluttered, but a devastating roar seemed to echo out from that dainty fist. The skin of the back of her hand and forearm glistened like the rainbow and sparkled like crystals, a devastating BOOM roaring across the skies as she punched against Jojo's blade.

BANG!

Blade and fist met, a shocking wave of rebound rippling out like the sudden waves of a once calm but now disrupted lake.

Ryu's gaze narrowed. If it wasn't for the strength of his eyes, just looking at such a scene would have probably hurt. The strength of these two women was astonishing, and it didn't even look like either one of them had gone all out, they were still probing one another.

Even so, Ryu didn't seem to have the intention of interfering. That wasn't because he didn't feel like protecting Selheira, it was rather that this didn't seem like the kind of thing it was appropriate for him to interfere in. These two clearly had a history.

Of course, if it seemed like Selheira was going to suffer, he would do something. But it was still unknown if he was in position to save her if she couldn't protect herself, at least not without truly going all out.

Ryu thought that he had caught up with Seventh Heaven geniuses already, but this felt a bit too exaggerated. These two didn't feel like just Seventh Heaven geniuses.

Ryu had fought with Starlight before, and back then he had suffered quite a bit even at the hands of a young man who was an entire cultivation realm beneath him. However, the reality of that was that Starlight had relied heavily on his various talents to output that kind of strength. But right now, Selheira and Jojo were using nothing particularly outstanding talent wise outside of Jojo's Sword God Aura.

Obviously, though, Sword God Aura wasn't an innate talent. Even if you were born with a Sword Soul Nature, you weren't guaranteed to form Sword God Aura.

All of this just seemed to be their base, casual strength.

Of course, there was something else to consider, and that was the fact that Starlight had been very young and he had yet to cultivate the special techniques of his Sect fully, nor integrate them seamlessly into his battle style. That might be why he had to more heavily rely on his talents to bridge the gap his skill lacked.

Even so, watching the two women clash in the skies like this, Ryu felt that he was seeing a Heaven beyond a Heaven. Even if they were indeed beyond the standards of the Seventh Heaven, that didn't change anything. His goal was to surpass all and even subdue the powers of the Ninth Heaven to make them pay for what they had done. Feeling complacent about catching up with the Seventh Heaven wasn't something that he would do.

Suddenly, the clash of the women above came to a sudden stop.

Jojo landed on the ground with a heavy boom and Selheira's beast companion, more aggressively than usual, swooped to the ground, kicking up dust and nearly blowing down trees in the distance.

The two stared at one another, one furious and the other cold.

Jojo sneered. "Still the same overgrown bimbo, just seeing your face annoys me. What's with that veil, can't let the world see your ugly mug?"

Ryu was speechless. Why did it feel like these two were both fiendish foes and friends aat the same time, did he just not understand relationships between women well enough? No, that couldn't be the case, that was because this was more like a relationship between men.

If he saw that bastard today, his first instinct would have probably been to beat him to within an inch of his life first, then they could talk after.

Selheira seemed unmoved by these words. Her lips only slightly parted as she spoke lightly.

"That armor is still just as flattering on you."

It seemed like a compliment, but given the context, only a fool would think so. Jojo remembered that look Ryu had given her earlier and suddenly a comment that would have usually rolled off her shoulders became extremely annoying.

"Say that again. I'll strip you naked and hang you from the highest pole I can find."

"How uncultured. What would your mother think?"

"What did you say about my mother?!"

Ryu looked back and forth between these two and shook his head. He had been trained by Elena long enough to know not to interfere, this matter had nothing to do with him.