Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

The pupils of all the World Sea Realm experts constricted at once. For the first time in a long while, they all felt like leaves blowing in the wind, their individual strength and power suddenly meaning absolutely nothing in the face of the volatile cyclone of Faith.

The momentum of this breakthrough was completely unlike the last. Breaking into the Immortal Realms had made an entire small realm come to a grinding halt. But, this time, the entirety of a large world was frozen in place. Whether it was the weakest mortal all the way up to the strongest Sky God, as long as they were in the Shrine World, they were no longer able to move.

Ryu stood silently amidst it all, his hair fluttering wildly. His pupils were like two shimmering moons, making it impossible for anyone to meet his gaze.

At that moment, the skies vanished. The trillions of lifeforms on the Shrine World all looked up, finding themselves in the depths of space.

As though the world itself was moving, the images of the stars began to shift. At first it was a slow crawl, but it quickly accelerated until it felt like the entire 'sky' was filled with images of falling stars. The whirlwind of colors was difficult to process and it abruptly came to a stop before they could understand just what was happening.

Right then, everyone saw a different sight. However, there was no doubt that they were all staring at an individual star.

They came in all sorts of shapes, sizes and brightnesses, but what was the same was the connection they all felt to this star. Having come to a shocking realization, the people of the Shrine World subconsciously understood that they were gazing upon their Fate Stars, a realization that shook them all to their cores.

The Fate Star represented everything about their lives. From the talent they would be born with all the way up until the day they would die. It showed everyone they had a connection with, had lost connection with, or would form connections with in the future. It was the hallmark of everything that represented themselves, had represented themselves or would represent themselves.

To gaze upon such a sight and so completely out of their expectations, this day was most definitely one that would never be forgotten by the people of the Shrine World.

For the powerhouses of the martial world as a whole, though, they felt a fear take hold of them.

It had to be remembered that it wasn't just the people of the Shrine World present on this day. It could be said that every power was represented today. The individuals here could decide the Fate of their martial world as a whole, and even if they weren't the absolute powerhouses, within a trillion years, they would be.

Though this trillion sounded like a ridiculously long time, to cultivators of their caliber and talent, it represented just the beginning of their journey to the peak of Dao. Any yet…

They were all being forced to gaze upon their Fates just like everyone else.

Compared to the mortals, they were especially sensitive about this. Fate wasn't an exact science and something as simple as 'knowing' what would happen could alter a course of events for the better, and most often, for the far worse.

For experts like them, the consequences of knowing was far worse. Their futures could still change, but if they found out the expected date of their deaths now, their Daos could directly collapse.

As a cultivator, what mattered most was your confidence and belief in yourself. Cultivating was ultimately an act of defiance, and to ignore the status quo was to fight against it and have the courage to do so. If you lacked the courage, you had already failed from the very beginning.

The good news was that most cultivators were not equipped to analyze and understand their Fate Stars. There were very few professionals capable of doing such a thing and most were of recluse Clans and Sects that never saw the light of day. The only other way was to have the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils but as far as they were aware, that pair of eyes hadn't appeared for countless trillions of years until it popped up just under a billion years ago.

For such a pair of Heavenly Pupils, since it had appeared once so recently, it was highly unlikely that it would appear again any time soon.

But, it was exactly this line of reasoning that snapped the experts awake.

This change…

They all wanted to look toward Ryu, but their gazes were all locked onto their Fate Stars. Still, that didn't stop their hearts from beating wildly out of their chests.

Heavenly Pupils! The only thing that could cause this was a breakthrough in one's Heavenly Pupils! This Ryu actually had a pair of Heavenly Pupils!

The realization shook them all to their cores.

The worst part of this understanding was that from start to finish, Ryu hadn't used any abilities of his Heavenly Pupils. Had he, they would have most definitely realized.

The only explanation for this was either that the abilities of his Heavenly Pupils weren't tangible, or he hadn't used them at all. When weighing the abilities of most Heavenly Pupils, and then comparing them to the number that would be intangible, they suddenly came to understand that even while destroying the geniuses of the Martial Gods…

Ryu still hadn't gone all out.

Ryu, though, didn't seem to be paying attention to the thoughts of others. He looked into the skies, his expression indifferent. He could see his Fate Star and it was just as bright as usual. It hadn't changed a single bit since his last life, still destined to shine brightly only to meet an early end.

But, unlike how he had been in the past, Ryu was unmoved by it all…

It was then that his still Fate Star suddenly began to spin.

To the horror of the experts all around, the Fate of the martial world was shifting.