Ryu's aura seethed. He was by far the weakest on the battlefield, and yet his stamina felt endless, his bag of tricks even more unfathomable.
It didn't seem like he thought of things in advance. His mind was just sharper, his thoughts quicker, his confidence unflappable.
He didn't care about charging into battle without a thought or care in the world. He didn't need a plan before he acted; he was confident to the point of arrogance.
These so-called geniuses, these pinnacle existences that stood atop the world, that had refined their skills for centuries, pampered by the best teachers, the best techniques, the best resources…
It only took him a glance to see through their weaknesses.
The explosions to Ryu's back cald to reveal the visage of a beaten and bloodied Young Master Bright. His armor was chipped in countless places, his body leaking blood caked in flakes of gold.
It looked as though they were watching a god bleed ruby and gold, almost as though liquid so precious shouldn't be shed at all.
He stumbled but caught himself before he collapsed. Looking at Ryu in the distance, there was a seething rage in his gut, but it had beco impossibly calm, the sort of focused will and intention that concentrated his qi until it was as heavy as tal and pure as ice.
Young Master Bright clenched his fists, his armor slowly reforming as he poured more and more qi into them. With a clink, a new visor slipped over his face.
Even now, though, Ryu didn't look back at him.
They still hadn't learned their lesson.
Young Master Shade seed to show that he still had no intention of interfering. There were a few shadowy figures in the distance that seed to be black horses most were shocked had even made it up here. And then there were the Martial Gods, or what remained of them.
Without Solara, they seed to have huddled around Xalvador. The re fact so many of them could make it up here painted its own very obvious picture, but what did that have to do with Ryu?
Steam ca from Ryu's maw. His body had long hit its limits, but he kept pressing past it. There was no one that could decide his limits but himself. Even his own body didn't have the right to draw that line.
The steam coming from his maw sparked, flas spontaneously combusted as a silence fell over the battlefield.
The words he had spoken earlier still reverberated in their minds, pulling on their pride and plucking at their heartstrings.
If they didn't work together, he would kill them one by one. As they fought over their pride, they would find those they thought to stand equal to them, or maybe just a re half-step below, falling one after another… until there were none of them left.
They all knew what they had to do. But none seed willing to be the first to make the choice, almost like doing so would be admitting defeat.
Then Ryu grinned.
Savage, dismissive, uncaring for his state or theirs. It was a grin that was disdainful of each and every single one of them.
Then, he looked off into the distance. He seed to be able to see through the layers of the Heavens, ignoring them all until he landed on a woman with tears streaking down her cheeks.
Undefeatable, indomitable, a man who stood at the pinnacle of the world.
That was what he would be.
His won would be the most carefree people in this world.
None here truly seed to understand just how much he stood by these words.
If not for Hope and his child, he would have gained another Realm Heart.
If not for Ailsa, this Heart Demon wouldn't be nearly so powerful or suppressive. He wouldn't have rushed himself and he wouldn't have to waste so much of his soul strength suppressing what was happening to his Dao Heart.
If not for Sarriel, he wouldn't be so heavily injured in the first place. Even if he set that aside, he had thought of seven different ways to use her to complete his third eye, none of which he had even considered using because of their implications.
He had his own principles, his own way of viewing the world.
Standing at the top of the world wasn't just a flex of power to him. It was what it represented that ant the most to him, what had always ant the most.
To give his parents what they wanted, his grandparents, his wives, himself, his future children.
When that was taken from him in his first life, he did everything he could to be useful, but was it ever truly for himself? How much effort did he put into mutating and improving his parents' Spiritual Foundations? How much effort had he put into finding the lost Shrines to revive the Ice Phoenix Clan to its forr glory? How much wealth and prosperity had he bought to his four maternal and paternal Clans?
Even to this day, had there ever been another person to co up with a thod to evolve a Spiritual Foundation? But he had done it as a mortal, using the library of an inferior world, with nothing more than the most basic form of his Mysteries of Heaven and Earth Pupils to rely on.
The savage grin on Ryu's face grew wider.
From the days he was his weakest, to this very day where he stood at his strongest even while half-crippled, he had always striven for the top.
He was the umbrella that would cover his family, his wives, his children, from all the storms the Heavens could throw at them. He would be his own Do of the Heavens.
CHI.
Veins of blue began to appear across Ryu's blackened flas.
Veins of red-gold followed suit, a growl etched in black appearing above his head.
Go.
Sensing Ryu improve again, they couldn't hold themselves back any longer.
They surged.
Reviews
All reviews (0)