Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Chapter 2230  End

BADUM.
Ryu's body convulsed, his eyes snapping open. As though his Dao Heart was only now being awakened, radiant power echoed through the Planes of Existence.
Akin to a slumbering dragon being poked awake, he stared up at the skies, his body laying there with a gaping hole in his chest. But judging by the placidness in his gaze, one would have never thought that he had experienced such injuries in the first place.
BADUM.
'What a… peculiar feeling…'
The Spiritual Foundation was in the Abyssal Plane… but so too was the Fate Star. Ryu had never truly connected the two because they seemed unconnected.
He had lost count of the number of ancient texts and annals of history he had pored through. Not a single one of them had any mention of any sort of connection.
So why was it that he felt so… awake right now?
'I see…'
Another radiant pulse came from Ryu's mind and he was enlightened to something truly shocking. But it had nothing at all to do with his Fate Star, his Dao Heart, or its relation to his Control.
Well, he guessed it did in part. But regardless of that, it didn't matter. What truly mattered to him was the conclusion, and it alone had him laughing.
The laughter filled the air, his eyes brimming with what looked like tears.
Ryu couldn't remember the last time he had felt such a way. Maybe on the night he had taken his life, but this time… his reasoning was very different.
"So unfair, so very unfair. This world is quite cruel."
The echoes of Ryu's voice peeled across the skies, clouds dispersing and words collapsing as though feeling his odd happy melancholy.
"Never again," he said.
This time, the words carried a conviction with them that radiated like the sun.
It was beyond just words. It was ingrained into his very Title, a foundation he chose to lay for himself.
He would never fail them.
Never.
If he did, his path of cultivation, everything it had ever meant to him, everything it had ever represented, would collapse.
And by extension, as this was his last and final life…
He would lose it as well.
But he had no intention of allowing such a thing to happen.
He was Ryu Tatsuya and the path in the future, the peaks he would reach, weren't something that anyone else could hope to fathom.
BADUM.
A link between Ryu's Fate Star, Spiritual Foundation, and Control grew fiercer.
He had slowly begun to understand that this was a link he was missing for his new cultivation method. In fact, he should probably be thanking himself for being stuck at Quasi Lord for too long. If he hadn't, he would have left behind a flaw that would have been difficult to fix.
Of course… it was his cultivation method, so he would have most definitely found a way to turn things around. But why go through the trouble if he didn't have to? Why fail if he didn't have to? Why take a step back if he didn't have to?
From now on, he would only walk forward.
What was the greatest Control if not that of Fate?
He already had such a great affinity for it, but what he had never truly contextualized was how other cultivators gained it.
He had a strong affinity for it because this was the way he was born. Eventually, he integrated it into a Soul Nature, but he had always had it.
It was likely that for normal cultivators, as they approached Dao God, and spent long periods of time within it, they too grew closer to their Fate Star. Being able to sense all aspects of themselves and have perfect control of one's path through all Planes of Existence…
That was what it meant to be a Dao God.
But Ryu's cultivation method was a step beyond. He had incorporated control into every aspect of his being, from the earliest cultivation realms to the highest.
When he stepped into Lord, it wasn't just a matter of gaining a closeness to his Fate Star.
He gained real Control.
Real dominion.
Real dominance over his own Fate and the ability to swallow, suppress, and crush that of others.
A formation was triggered in the depths of his dantian and the linkage was completed. A trifecta of Soul, Spiritual Foundation, and Fate Star was created.
…
Absolute carnage was being wrought in the Abyssal Plane. A single Fate Star swallowed everything in the vicinity, growing larger and swallowing up more.
It reached the bounds of Existence itself, growing so enormous that it couldn't grow any more… not without crushing everything.
But then it pushed past that boundary.
Beyond Perfect Extreme.
BANG!
The Abyssal Plane fragmented around it.
…
BADUM.
Ryu's aura had grown so powerful that none was capable of standing near him, let alone actively trying to get close.
Like a flickering flame carrying a density of power and might that could burn a world to the ground, he just lay there…
Until reality shattered.
Ryu found himself falling, or so it felt. Beneath him, an enormous Silver Star had appeared.
Elena's little brother stared at it far too intently. While most others smartly looked away, his stubbornness was his undoing.
He screamed as his eyes were burnt away, his irises becoming nothing more than flashes of white as blood fell like a rain of tears.
Ryu fell toward this star, his body still limp and unmoving. But soon, it became clear that he was "falling" much too slowly. Rather than falling, it was more like reality had been twisted so much that their usual judgments were impossible to follow.
And then the Silver Star rotated.
There was a huge suction of energy, but it didn't come from the Fate Star… but rather Ryu himself.
The enormous Star, unfathomable in its scope and even larger in its dominance, was obediently pulled into Ryu's body.
But just when it seemed that things were finished, the world shattered once again.
This time, it was an enormous sea of blue silver, so large and expansive, and filled with such dense qi, that the surroundings felt dull and uninteresting by comparison.
However, within it, treasures so rare a single world might only be able to produce one of them in a lifetime floated within.
But their greed couldn't even grow before it, too, was sucked into Ryu's body.
BADUM!
BADUM!
BADUM!
Power radiated out of Ryu in waves, thrumming energies from all places were sucked away. With a crack running through the Planes of Existence, qi of all kinds were pouring in toward the sudden formation of a void.
With the Fate Star having appeared and then vanished, and the same happening for the Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation, it was like the region around Ryu had become an area of especially low concentration.
In response, energies naturally flowed to the region… and right into Ryu's body.
BADUM.
The black tar-like flames on Ryu's body grew thicker and bolder, shrinking into his shriveled-up corpse and then latching onto his Perfect Blackbody Soul.
At the same time, the Spark of Life Flames of his White Phoenix Spiritual Foundation poured into his body.
Black flames circulated into Ryu's Chaotic Silk Meridians, white flames pulsing into his Embryonic Silk Meridians.
For the first time in a long while…
He felt alive.
The Karmic Flames that had been burning him alive were swallowed up whole, his Fate Star, lodged in his Inner world, rotating and devouring it all.
His Fate Star seemed to seamlessly borrow the powers of his Perfect Blackbody Soul, and his Soul and Fate Star alike borrowed strength from his Spiritual Foundation. And by extension, his Spiritual Foundation borrowed abilities from his Fate Star, gaining a sea of Karmic Flames to them that radiated out into the White and Black Flames of Ryu's body.
Ryu exhaled a breath.
'Finally.'
Embryonic Qi began to manifest within him faster and faster until it became a sudden flood. Mixing in with his Spark of Life Flames, it was as though he had reignited his own body…
Because that was exactly what happened.
BADUM.
Ryu continued to lay there, just staring up at the skies or what was left of them. His thoughts were still on the matter that had just become clear to him, and it was hard to shake himself free of that.
But as his bones grew back, and his muscles and sinew began to wrap around them, only for his flesh and blood to slowly fill in the gaps, he knew that he couldn't just continue to lay there.
The longer he did, the longer it would take to get that moment… the moment that he could set all of this back to the way it was meant to be.
It seemed that the Title Stele was correct. He would indeed get him involved. In fact, anyone that tried to stop him from doing so would suffer a Fate worse than death.
Ryu felt his fingers fully form once more.
He clenched his fists a single time and space shattered around them.
It was time to end this.