Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu stood in the skies, his fury still not abating, and yet coming out in a controlled stream. The silence was palpable and the trembling waves of qi in the surroundings seemed to suppress everything. It felt like with a thought, Ryu could kill everyone in the surroundings should he have wanted to.

Ryu landed in front of Elena, his gaze still intense.

"Do you know why I killed him?" Ryu finally asked.

Elena's eyes watered, her lips rolling over them. How could she not know? But just how much trouble would doing so bring?

Elder Vermo wasn't guilty of much more than a minor slight, if it could be called that at all. He let Elena's impudence slide even though it skirted the rules, and the "worst" thing he did was question Ryu based on the young man's accusations... at least from an outsider's perspective.

From Ryu's perspective, the worst thing he did was make his wife tiptoe around him. In this world, no one was worth that, not a single soul.

"Anyone who makes you feel that way, no matter who it is, I will kill. No matter their strength, no matter their status, no matter what the outcome of doing so might be."

Elder Vermo was a stand-in, a representation of the heartache and trouble that Elena had faced in the Martial God Clan on her own.

And now... she was no longer alone.

Ryu took Elena's hand and leapt into the enormous technique pit, descending with a great amount of speed as though he wasn't worried about suddenly falling to his death like the others had before him.

Elena wanted to say that they should run, that they escape, going down to the Eighth Heaven, or maybe even returning to Sacrum entirely, but when she looked at Ryu's side profile... she knew that he wouldn't do it.

Wouldn't doing so just prove her fears correct? For this reason alone, he would never retreat. He would continue forward as though nothing at all had happened.

Elena looked around, feeling countless gazes on them. There were some Omniscient Sky Gods among them, but they were by far in the minority. In fact, there were only two, and the both of them were exceptionally old. It was rare for such people to come to the technique pavilions to begin with.

As for the rest, Elena was the strongest of them all, her Peak Transcendent Sky God Realm enough to place her near the very top of the younger generation that frequented these pavilions the most.

By the time one got to their older years, there was no point in learning new techniques or methods. Most, much like Elder Vermo, had already given up on cultivation and just wanted to enjoy the rest of their years.

It was rare for the old to come here in the first place, and even then it was usually to exchange something for their juniors... though this was technically against the rules.

However, none of this was what Elena was thinking of when she looked at these people.

She could feel their awe, their reverence... their fear.

The Martial Gods liked to deem themselves as a race separate from humans even though they very much were. Their pride was marrow deep and their lust for battle was insatiable.

And yet, beneath her husband's aura, they all kept their distance, unwilling to get close.

They had all seen him kill a veteran of the Omniscient Realm in what felt like just a few moves. Even after his abilities and phenomena disappeared one after another, they still seemed to linger in their hearts, imprinting themselves into their very souls.

Elena looked toward Ryu again, and at that moment, her worries seemed to be whisked away. Her heart became lighter and her Dao Heart actually began to shine with its own resplendency.

It was at that moment they made it to the bottom row of techniques, the most valuable Core Texts the Martial Gods had beneath the Lord Grade.

Elena blinked in surprise and then smiled.

The Martial Gods worked on the merit of strength and potential, and this technique pavilion reflected that.

One would think that the more valuable the technique, the more expensive it would be, but this wasn't strictly true in the Martial God Clan.

Here, the price of a technique was calculated based on several factors, the most important of which was your Realm to Technique Grade Ratio.

A peak Omniscient Grade technique would be at full price if you were also a Peak Omniscient Sky God, but it would fall to half price if you were only in the Higher Realm, and it could fall by another half if you were in the Middle Realm.

The gaps between the Realms in the Sky Gods was so enormous that such leaps were well worth it.

If you were an entire major Realm below, though, the technique would cost exactly 1 contribution point. So, because Ryu had brought Elena to these Peak Omniscient Grade techniques, she could practically trade for as many as she wanted because she was only in the Peak Transcendent Realm.

Of course, it wasn't just as easy as it seemed to just come here, and that was made clear by the scent of blood and corpses before.

Looking down, one could see wailing souls and a built up resentment that had accumulated over the ages.

In this large technique pavilion, there was a special formation that allowed those beneath the Dao God Realm to fly. The problem was that the deeper you went, the harder it was to stay in the air. If you got greedy and went beyond your limits, you would suddenly find yourself accelerating toward the bottom with a gravity millions, even billions of times past what you were capable of handling acting on you.

As such, the least valuable techniques were all the way at the top, while the most valuable were all the way at the bottom.

But Ryu had not only come here... he had taken her with him and he had made it look easy.