Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu slid out of the way of a swinging vine, or at least it moved so quickly that it was truly difficult to pick up on what it truly was. Thick fur? A tentacle? A tendril of some sort? It might have even been an arm moving at extreme speed.

Even so, Ryu slipped and shuffled forward, moving in the midst of the swinging vines as though he had eyes dotted all across his body, there was nothing that he couldn't see and his movements were no longer hindered by such speed.

When he was fighting against the panther spirit, the reason he kept getting caught up wasn't because of his mind, his mind was plenty fast enough to see through the movement and his eyes were the strongest part of his body. While these "vines" looked like blurs to almost anyone else below the Sky God Realm, to Ryu they practically moved in slow motion.

His problem the entire time was that his body couldn't keep up. By the time he registered a feint, or a change in trajectory, the attack would have already landed. But now, things were very much different. His body still couldn't keep up, but what had changed was the fact that he could suddenly and abruptly change his direction, something that would have completely shredded him apart in the past.

Of course, it also helped that he had already absorbed a Golden Protector Spirit. Even with the addition of just one, his speed and power had undergone a sharp increase. Due to this alone, he would have already been just barely able to keep up with the changes of speed. But with the addition of his new perspective and abilities...

He looked like a fish in water, shifting and moving, pausing and accelerating at will. He left countless afterimages through the bundles of vines, or what his sharp eyes were easily able to pick up on as hair.

Up ahead, a mountain-like beast that looked like a mount of white shaven fur stood. Ryu had never seen a creature like this, nor had he ever heard of records of it, but he wasn't a beast tamer, at least not by any official metrics, so this was still acceptable.

Even though these tendrils did look like thick lines of hair, or fur, Ryu could feel an aura of flexibility coming from it, an aura that reminded him of his Ice Phoenix Martial Form. That made him feel as though these weren't hairs at all, but rather arms covered in hairs, or maybe even that feeling was part of the illusion of flexibility that was being projected to him.

The mystery enthralled him, pulled him in. Was there really such a beast? Or was it something else?

His irises spun with life, each one gaining a white gold and a dark gold eight trigram diagram. The sharpness of his eyes increased and his Founding Dao beared down with full force.

He could see it, the patterns of lines being drawn across in the skies in an elegant sort of dance. Without hesitation, he accelerated backward, his Spacetime Soul Nature activating when he found a gap and transporting him outside the range of the beast entirely.

He exhaled a breath and his breathing grew steady. These days, his Southern Heavenly Wind didn't feel as useful as it should, mostly because of his Embryonic Qi, but he could still calm his beating heart with a single huge breath, letting him know that it was very much still there.

Ryu hadn't retreated because he felt inferior, he actually thought that he could win the battle. It was rather that this Golden Protector Spirit wasn't suited for him. Everything about it was an illusion. It still didn't use qi, but what was fascinating was that it could do so much with just its body alone.

The hair, or rather fur, was very much real, and that was part of it. The tendrils that were being used to attack him were like thick dreadlocks, the individual furs locking around one another and twisting to create a thicker. more violent form. As for the creature underneath, it was just a single bear that had grown used to using its fur as a proxy by which to interact with the world. Its true body, though, was actually quite fragile and probably the weakest of the Golden Protector Spirits in terms of this matter.

Even so, it completely fascinated Ryu. Indeed, the hair was a part of the body, no less so than the blood that carried his Vital Qi, and that could be freely controlled by him. With the effort of cultivation, one could even learn to control muscles you were meant to, like the heart, and the digestive system mechanisms. In that case, why would the hair be so much different?

This beast, had it been the first Golden Protector Spirit he had tried to take down, he would have ended up in an even sorrier situation than he had against the panther spirit, but there was something that was calling out to him here, something that filled his heart with an intent, but not enough that he could fully grasp what it was.

Did Ryu suddenly want to use his hair as a weapon? Of course not. He had seen hair attacking techniques before, it was just that they relied on qi, and they had never fascinated him like this. Rather, it was just the idea that Vital Qi could be used in this way as well.

He looked down at his nails and circulated Vital Qi toward it.

His nails were the point of his attack whenever he used clawing techniques that had a great foundation in most dragon-related arts. They grew whenever his bloodlines circulated and he would usually use some kind of blade qi to slice them off when he was done.

They grew, as he expected, when they came in contact with his Vital Qi, but far greater than when he had done it passively in the past. They grew to three inches immediately, and would have easily crossed a foot in less than a second had he not stopped it so quickly.

He casually slashed out and his mind seemed absent and blank as a sharpness rang in the air. Soon, a sword qi flew by and cut his nails into clean brackets. a state he liked the best, but he still wasn't quite satisfied.

He had never consciously done this before, but it wasn't as though it was a groundbreaking achievement. His nails wouldn't be sharper than his blade, though, it might help him marginally when he was executing claw techniques.

No, he just felt that there was something deeper here, something hidden in the methods of circulating Vital Qi, but he couldn't quite grasp what it was.

He shook his head. He knew that since he hadn't thought of it immediately, just standing around here wasn't going to help him. He flickered and vanished, trying to find another Golden Protector Spirit to target.

...

The location was the enclosure Ryu had left not too long ago. The signs of battle hadn't faded, and even seemed to be screaming with life as though to make sure the world never forgot what happened here.

A white haired boy flashed and landed, a slight contemplative look on his face. His formation was still there, intact, and it was working as expected, but the Golden Protector Spirit he wanted was actually gone. Whoever had been here had not only been able to detect the formation, they had avoided it, and then cleared the spirit anyway, before leaving.

It was unfortunate. His formation was actually designed to do nothing at all unlike one who had the protector spirit. It would have trapped whoever exited here so long as they had it, and then he would come and deal with them.

He couldn't help but wonder just who could evade him so easily. He didn't lose often, even when he had been holding back for so long. Only then... only that one stain on his record existed, and he would deal with that person eventually. It was just a shame that they hadn't entered this time.

He smiled to himself and turned to leave. Oh well, it was still fine. There were plenty of other traps to check.

Ryu rushed forward and slid, moving with greater and greater speed as he pushed against the space in the surroundings to decrease the resistance against his slide. Suddenly, he felt like he was in the depths of space, moving without the slightest hint of slowing.

The more he fought these battles, the wider range of applications he thought for his abilities, and the sharper his intuitions seemed to grow.

He didn't think that he was stretching himself too thin. If anything, he wasn't stretching himself thin enough. He had a complete Origin Flame, his ability to handle and select from a number of abilities to use in any given situation was better than also top standard Sky Gods. At the same time, paired with his Founding Dao, his ability to master and perfect these abilities was on an even higher level than that.

If he didn't master a thousand techniques, and then acquire a thousand more, he would be undervaluing himself.

His wrist shifted and his blade tilted up, slashing against the underbelly of the lion spirit.

Sparks flew and his gaze turned sharp. Indeed, being able to move and keep up in speed wasn't enough to close the divide in defenses.

However, he had something for that.

His gaze exploded with sparks of black lightning. It appeared he would have to use his Primordial Chaos Qis again.