Grand Ancestral Bloodlines Chapter 2272

[ … words ]

“Who the hell are you?”

A goddess of a woman with flowing golden hair and sparkling ruby eyes stood across from Ryu. It could be said that the entire Ethereal Plane was up in arms. Not only had a human entered their territory unannounced, but he had even infiltrated the Cultus Empire.

“I think you know that already,” Ryu said calmly, a smile pulling at his lips.

Ailsa’s eyes narrowed.

“This isn’t a place you can be. Leave, or else—.”

“Or else?”

Ryu calmly pulled out a spear. Then, as though changing his mind, he opted for a single dagger instead. The common blade glistened beneath the sparkling rainbow clouds of the Ethereal Plane; it truly felt like a paradise on Earth.

The Patriarch and Matriarch of the Cultus Clan both shot out from their abode, but the latter was so sickly that she had to be caught by her husband long before she made it very far. But the angriest of them wasn’t the two parents at all, but rather a young man that Ryu had never seen before… at least not any place but Ailsa’s memories.

Ailsa’s elder brother, Barria.

This point in time was long before the death of Barria, a death that inevitably set Ailsa along a completely different path than she was expecting.

Right now, she wasn’t the woman who had abandoned her place as princess to chase after a human. Instead, she was the Ailsa who would one day be betrothed to a Martial God, an Ailsa who was part of a culture that didn’t seek after their Life Partners any longer.

Ryu’s gaze shifted from Ailsa for the first time since he arrived, landing on the young man that would soon die.

This young man was truly a pivotal backbone to everything. If not for his death, the Faeries wouldn’t have fallen victim to the machinations of the Martial Gods so easily, and Patriarch Cultus just might have maintained a backbone.

But it was also this very same personality of this young man that would make taking Ailsa out of here all the more difficult.

The same stubbornness that made him such a great cultivator, and a target the Martial Gods had to take out, was the very same stubbornness that would stand in place to protect his sister from an outsider.

“Tell you what, let’s fight a round first.”

Ailsa sneered. “Why? So you can prove yourself? Do you believe I’m weak enough to lose to you?”

“Yes,” Ryu smiled. “If I’m not stronger than you, then how could I possibly hold up the skies for you?”

Ailsa’s gaze flickered, feeling her heart skip a beat. A slight hint of a blush colored her face, but it was only for the briefest instant before she regained her calm.

She had read about this in a book. It was a matter of obvious truth that you would be highly compatible with your own Life Partner. Ryu would be exactly the sort of man she liked most, but that didn’t mean that she had to live with him.

The Faeries had long separated from the outside world. She also didn’t like the idea of her husband being decided by the Heavens of all things. If she fell victim to this, then how would she fight against the tide of cultivation in the future? Ryu might even become a bottleneck that weakened her.

The irony of it all was that she was correct. Ryu had once been that bottleneck.

But no more.

“You don’t stand a chance,” Ailsa said coldly, her palms stretching out as two eight trigram diagrams formed, one of resplendent white gold, and the other of heavy darkness.

Ryu’s smile deepened. This wasn’t actually the first time he had seen Ailsa in this life, but the first time he hadn’t interfered much other than to stop her parents from sealing away the other half of her bloodline.

Or, more accurately, he stopped it from being necessary. As such, in this timeline, Ailsa had been raised as both a Cultus and Quibus Faerie from the very start, and as a result…

The skies were soon filled with Summons and Corpse Puppets, then came the Spirits and Nymphs, in the far distance, there were even some plants of prey, carnivorous monstrosities brought back from the depths of near extinction to fight for Ailsa.

“Then, shall we begin, my lovely wife?”

“I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but I’ve married no man. And should I one day, it certainly wouldn’t be you.”

“What? Do you think I’m not handsome enough?”

Ailsa grinned. “Handsome enough? Maybe. But are you more handsome than I am beautiful?”

Ryu’s eyes lit up as though flames had been ignited.

“I’m not sure. How about you let me take a closer look?”

Ailsa didn’t even realize that had anyone else said this, she would have already spiraled into a furious rage. But instead, she continued the banter as though it was only natural… as though it was only right… as though this was what felt best to her.

“How about you take a closer look at the blades of my puppets instead?”

A great battle erupted on the scene that day, the Ethereal Plane practically turned upside down under the actions of one young man.

A legend had long begun to spread in Sacrum, tales of a young man without a Spiritual Foundation that managed to find a way to grow his own…

He took the method he created for his parents, allowing them to evolve and improve their Spiritual Foundations and formed his own method of Absolute Control, one that allowed him such dominion over the Heavens that he could replace the function of a Spiritual Foundation itself…

And then, taking it a step further than even that, he finally succeeded in forming his own.

It was a Spiritual Foundation of Legends, one capable of continuous improvement, of continuous evolution… of always being able to take things to an extreme and go just one step further.

The Beyond Perfect Extreme Spiritual Foundation, they called it.