Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Chapter 2205  Always

Ryu's presence was practically sucked into the Title that wasn't a Title, the cracks around it akin to fissures in reality themselves—not descending to the Abyssal Plane or even the void, but rather a true nothingness.

It was as though the Title erased what was meant to be and what had been, existing as a marker of failure for the strongest Treasure in all of existence and a reminder of a cultivator beyond cultivators that had once been here.

Ryu couldn't focus on anything else even if he tried. Right now, this Title was trying to crush him… but it wasn't just the momentum that was killing him.

He could feel something familiar coming from it… a cascading sort of variation, erratic and all-encompassing, the sort of twisting, winding change that he had only felt from one other thing before…

Reincarnation.

There was a strong Reincarnation here, one that told Ryu that somehow this very same Title hadn't just been stamped by one person, but multiple.

No, it wasn't multiple people. It was the same person throughout several lifetimes.

And that… that was what stabbed at his ego the most, it was what truly had him frozen here.

If not for this, his Dao Heart would have long shrugged it off. He would have long been able to do what Solara hadn't been able to—or, rather, hadn't gotten the chance to even try due to the interference of her elders.

It was also because of this that Ryu knew that Solara wouldn't interfere. If she killed him now while he couldn't move, it would be like she was losing twice over. Once when her grandfather interfered, and right this moment now.

There was only one way for her to remove the only stain on her Dao Heart, and that was for Ryu to not only succeed… but for her to then kill him with her own hands.

That was the only way forward.

For the very first time in his life…. Ryu might not be first in wanting to succeed in a cultivation endeavor. Ironically enough, it was the enemy to his side cheering for him the most.

But right that moment, he felt that emptiness looming, a weight he had pressed down and ignored returning in full force.

No… he hadn't pressed it down and ignored it… he well and truly believed that he had long dealt with it, that it would no longer interfere with the man he was now.

He had said it plainly and clearly, those past lives… they weren't him… he could get over them because he was a new man now and he would never live another life again.

But then what was this? Who was this man superior to himself, capable of living out so many lives and ending up with the very same conviction every time?

Was he actually inferior to someone in Dao Heart? Was he so weak? So pitiful? Had he just grasped at any excuse that he could find to make himself feel better while in reality, there were lofty existences laughing at him from above?

Ryu stared at the Title, and stared at it, his teeth clenched, veins popping across his body, and fissures— for the first time since it had formed in this iteration—began to squeal across his Dao Heart.

There was no escaping it this time. It was a mirror put up to his face, a strong slap across his very own cheek, a reminder of weakness, of folly.

The last time he had ended up in such a state…

…

Ryu walked alongside Ailsa and suddenly became very quiet. This time, it was he who looked off into the distance, his gaze somewhat blank.

"What happened to paying attention? Who's looking off for other things now?" Ailsa said.

Her voice was somewhat soft as though she had already sensed what had happened.

She could remember her words back then as well, and honestly speaking, she had felt them to be quite cruel. She was a wife before she was a cultivator—how could she not allow her husband even a single moment of weakness? Wasn't it in sickness and in health? It couldn't be that she was the only one that could feel pain and sorrow, right?

But back then, Ryu's weakness had been boiling over into a strong frustration for her. It wasn't just his limitations, it was the chains his limitations placed on her as his wife and Life Partner. There were things she simply couldn't do because he was too weak, and it was hard for resentment not to build over so long.

After seeing him pop up in an even worse state than she remembered, she couldn't even hold back anymore even if she wanted.

She might be Ryu's Life Partner, and their personalities were perfect mirrors of one another, but that didn't mean that they weren't different in their own ways…

Or maybe not.

Ryu also had his own breaking point with her, did he not? Maybe if he was a little more stubborn, and had trillions of years to ruminate on it like she did, he might have truly gone forward with their divorce.

"It seems…" Ryu said lightly. "… That someone has done something that I couldn't."

There was a matter-of-factness in Ryu's voice, one that didn't seem to carry the real emotions his body was facing. And that was because he had purposely cut that off. He had no desire for Ailsa to see him in that state again.

"… I'm sorry, Ryu," she said softly, taking his hand. "I was very angry back then."

Ryu looked down at his covered palm, remembering this as the only time since he met Ailsa again that she had initiated any sort of contact with him.

He took his hand back.

"Not like this." he said coldly.

Ailsa's pupils trembled, but she soon regained her calm. After a while, she nodded.

The two fell into silence.

"I believe in you…" she said softly. "… I always have."

This time, it was Ryu's pupils that trembled.