Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

1773 Burn (1)

Ryu stood in a daze. Every memory and illusion was like another stab and twist to his chest.

He couldn't even feel rage anymore, just helplessness. It was like standing in a vast nothing, finally realizing just how insignificant you were.

Maybe in another life, he would have been no different from Patriarch Ember, a cowardly man who could only slink around in the darkness and target those far weaker than himself while bowing and scraping for those far more powerful.

There was nothing worse for a man than losing their sense of self, their sense of purpose. It was the worst sort of life. It made everything feel… meaningless.

If he wasn't born into the Tatsuya Clan, if his parents hadn't diligently shaped his character, if his father hadn't trained him and his mother hadn't guided him, if his grandparents hadn't kept him on the right path…

Would he even have the right to be Ryu Tatsuya?

If they had done all of that, but he didn't have the talent to live up to their expectations, would he have cared to listen to their teachings at all?

If he didn't have the Tatsuya Clan Library, what would he have done when he realized he couldn't become a cultivator? Would he have still learned so much through other means? Or would he have wasted his life away, becoming a homeless, aimless youth until he died of old age?

How much of himself was even truly himself? How much was decided by his circumstances? How much of his arrogance was warranted, versus how much of it was simply due to luck? Was any of his arrogance deserved at all in such a case?

Ryu had realized that he was lucky long ago. It was something that his wife's cold glare and reprimanding had beat into him.

When he first met Ailsa, they got off to a very rocky start because of his arrogance in one part and another part due to the fact that Ryu didn't want to betray Elena.

The truth was that there was a third reason as well, and it was because Ryu didn't believe that anyone should have the right to tell him who his "perfect" partner was. He didn't like the level of control the Heavens had over his life. He didn't believe that the Heavens had the right to decide such things.

For much of his life, he had resented the Heavens, but as he matured, he realized that there was simply no point. The Heavens never chose anything. Everyone was under the same umbrella of chaos, hoping to come out just a little bit better on the other side.

But the reality was far harsher than Ryu even knew…

This was the difference between understanding something and how you understood something.

This was the gap between comprehending something and how to you comprehended something.

But this change in understanding felt like repeated stabs to the chest. It was too difficult to accept, too much to grasp.

The bright light of Ryu's Dao Heart had long begun to dim.

Everything he had built his life on was crumbling down, so how couldn't it?

The nine figures had seen this already many times. It was truly a paradox for this place to exist at all.

On the one hand, those with the weakest Dao Hearts were the most likely to pass this test. They didn't have a strong sense of self and they were used to bending the way the wind blew.

But on the other, they were entirely uninterested in those with weak temperaments. How far could such a person make it through the Realm of cultivation? There was no point in them wasting their time at all.

Why even hold on at this point? To continue protecting his family? His wives? Wouldn't they just die eventually and become completely different people as well? Completely forgetting their last lives? How could these new people still be his family? They wouldn't look the same, think the same, they wouldn't have the same bodies, the same talents, the same likes and dislikes…

What was the point of it all?

What had he even tried so hard for?

To reach the top of the world?

What was the point of that? If he did it, didn't that just mean he was luckier than others? Didn't it just mean he had some lucky circumstances that they didn't?

What was the use? What would reach the top of the world prove? What good was it if he couldn't take pride in it?

All of it was worthless. Every last little thing was completely worthless.

Ryu stared forward, his gaze dull.

'What is the point… What is the point…'

He had given up his next life because of his confident in himself, in his character. He believed that he didn't need a next life because he would accomplish everything he needed in this one.

But what he never thought about was the fact that if he always had this very same character… then why had he never stumbled onto this path in a previous life?

He had waved it away, thinking that maybe he didn't have the right combination of talents to accomplish this in a former life.

But now he knew the truth.

This was just probably the only life he had the courage to do such a thing…

Ryu clenched his fists, and his pupils trembled.

It was a joke, honestly. He had said so much about his Bloodlines, roaring at them and trying to get them to fall in line, believing that only he deserved to be in control of his own faith…

When in reality, he wasn't in control of anything at all.

Ryu clenched his fists even harder, his veins popping and crackling along with his bone.

He wanted control. He hated this feeling so much that he wanted to die.

His Dao Heart began to burn, truly burn. It continued to grow weaker and weaker, his sorrow echoing through time and space.