Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Ryu almost stood in perfect silence, unmoving. And yet, it was like the world itself was being shaped and formed around him, shifting and twisting, almost lusting after his form.

His Childe of Order Constitution mapped onto his Childe of Chaos Constitution, the two forming a harmony that sang to the world as though serenading it into a lull.

And then came that perfect silence once again. But this time, it wasn't just Ryu, but the world itself as well.

The winds calmed, qi fell into silence, and the colors dulled.

Ryu had once painted the world in black and white before pulling layering with the colors once more with his abilities. But once again, it seemed to have fallen back into that state, as though the world had been stripped of all of its qi, or maybe rather that all of the world's qi had fallen into Ryu's domain.

Silence.

A true silence.

The sort that came without the howls of wind or even breathing.

And then Ryu clenched his fist.

It was like crackle, the subtle grinding of skin against cool metal, a barely perceptible increase in the rush of blood and the flow of one's heartbeat.

But then he vanished.

In one moment, Ryu had been standing there just fine, facing off against the menace of the world. And in the next, he had already appeared before the Almighty.

A look of disdain and careless disregard was on his expression. A large part of him was wondering how it was that the Title Stele had even allowed this sort of man to get a Title like Almighty. But another part of him hardly cared for the Title at all.

All words were too empty for him. Filled with so many meanings, twisted across so many cultures and thought processes, it just wasn't worth it.

As a linguistic expert who loved studying languages, Ryu had realized long ago that if he wasn't going to pick a Title for himself, it would be incredibly difficult to distill his whole meaning down to the very root. It was why he had chosen the path of picking his very own name.

In this way, it simply didn't matter what others thought the word should mean… he would ensure that when they thought of Ryu Tatsuya, they only thought of one man, of one legend.

But it was also deeper than that.

What was right and what was wrong. The moral compass of one tribe versus the laws of one clan. Sometimes words themselves could decide all of these things.

Did the word adultery mean something closer to mistake or something closer to sin in one language? Did the word murder mean something closer to closing a chapter or snuffing out a life? Did the word sky mean something closer to a glass dome or a deity above them all?

Those subtle differences could not only dictate the meaning of the words themselves, but how the people using them perceived the word…

Was adultery easier to accept in this culture or not? Was killing another something that could be easily shrugged off or not? Was the sky something to be admired and chased after? Or was it something you only had the right to observe from a bottom position of the world, never to challenge or blaspheme?

No one noticed, but from the very time you were a child, these sorts of things influenced you. It was hard to find out what sort of person you truly were, to shed all of the societal impacts on your life and understand…

Who was Ryu Tatsuya?

Today, though… Ryu had a feeling that he would figure it out. And he would figure it out by making rivers of blood run so far that they dried beneath the sun. He would split the skies open and force down the tears of the Heavens. He would sunder stars and collapse legends, rip out the hearts of men who deemed themselves to be above everyone else…

Who deemed themselves to be Almighty.

BOOM!

Trident and great swordstaff met in the air. Booming claps of thunder, and tearing and ripping qis rippling out in all directions. It should have been the sort of clash that shattered space for countless miles, and yet the world was forcefully stabilized beneath the might.

Almighty Control.

Ryu felt as though his body had been gripped by the Heavens themselves and he was sent flying far back. It was like the clash itself was close enough before he was plucked up like a puppy from a litter, unable to resist even with his Control.

Zercius reacted in kind, his chains lashing out toward Ryu's back and forcing the latter to quickly turn, slashing out continuously to face off against the rain of chains.

But that was when Primus acted.

The disgust in Ryu's heart seemed to have reached the deepest depths it possibly could. If before he already couldn't stand the presence of Primus alone, right now he had to make a conscious effort not to vomit.

Did he understand what happened? Of course he did.

The fool had overextended himself, melding his soul with the personality of another and causing changes that he hadn't calculated for. As much as Ryu wanted to kill the former Primus, the man was certainly too prideful to gang up with others for the sake of defeating him.

But now, this current Primus didn't seem to have thought through that very far at all, practically attacking on instinct as though driven by nothing more than a chance for victory.

To him, he needed the Phoenix Sky God to fix everything. And Ryu was standing in the way, so Ryu had to die.

Ryu was suddenly bombarded from three sides. Every time he tried to regain control over the situation, a telekinetic sort of Control would come from the Almighty, shattering the momentum he was building and sending him flying into the arms of another attack.

PUCHI!

A slash of chain barely grazed against the side of Ryu's neck, and yet it still ripped a ghastly slash nearly down to his throat.