Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Originally, Solara didn’t want to do this. Ryu was already a cultivation realm beneath her, so she had also suppressed herself to Quasi Lord. But even though she had used her chains to do this, she knew that there were certain advantages that she would always have, so she likewise chose to restrict some of her abilities.

However, watching Ryu toy with her like this was well and truly pissing her off. Since he seemed to think he somehow had the right to stand on the same stage as her, she would show him just how much she was holding back.

Or, rather… the tip of the iceberg.

The qi in the region solidified. Her wings fluctuated just once and it was as though a layer of black had been peeled off of Ryu’s body.

She appeared before him in an instant.

“Sever.”

Chi.

An arm flew from Ryu’s body, only for tendrils of black to snag it out of the air, forcing it to reconnect.

Ryu side-stepped a slashing chain, grabbing at it with his perfectly healthy arm.

Fast and sharp, his movement didn’t hold the slightest hesitation, but that didn’t stop Solara from sneering. Trying to grab her chains of all things?

A dense fog suddenly coated Ryu’s palm. Cosmos Fog.

Solara’s expression changed as she lost connection to her chains for the briefest of instances. It was only a split moment, but it was enough for Ryu to grab onto it and pull.

She was launched off her feet, not having expected such a thing.

An elbow drove into her face.

Her skull deformed, a chilling pair of silver eyes becoming the fuel of nightmares as Ryu took another step into it.

BANG!

She was sent flying even faster than before, but this time she barely flew ten meters before her wings flared out. She purposely took on more damage just to save her own pride, the tendons and ligaments of her wings being pushed to an extreme just to stop her in place.

Her hands were already moving, one seal after another quickly taking shape. The crown above her head shimmered, making every seal easily ten times more powerful. The Divine Hegemonic Crown communed with the Heavens, making it feel as though an army of Solara’s were forming seals instead of just one woman.

Claps of thunder rang through the skies, Tribulation Clouds forming. But then runes on her wings lit up, sucking them inside.

The Divine Wings pooled in its power and controlled qi, rippling with streaks of lightning as they concentrated over their surface.

To commune with the Heavens. To control its energies. And then…

To write its laws.

Divine Chains flared to life.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Divine Chains descended from other dimensions, piercing into Solara’s body. Veins popped across her, and then a skintight armor began to take shape. And yet, just looking at it, Ryu knew that this armor weighed as heavy as worlds. It was just that rather than making it bulky, she had somehow twisted them to maintain her endless flexibility at the same time.

BANG! BANG!

Solara smashed her fists together, chains extending from her back akin to a peacock’s tail.

Chi.

She vanished.

Ryu took one step back and then erupted with a roundhouse kick, his torso practically tearing into itself with how hard it pulled on his abdomen for more torque.

BOOM!

Two shins met in the skies, a reverberating power echoing on in all directions.

CRACK.

Ryu’s leg split in two, his bone cracking beneath the pressure entirely unable to withstand it.

A chain lashed out from Solara’s back, slapping against his face in retaliation.

His body spun, but as though she didn’t feel like it was enough, a chain descended from the skies, piercing right through his chest and nailing him to the ground.

Solara appeared above him high in the skies, releasing a relentless barrage of fists. One after another, craters of howling winds extended from her knuckles, the laws of the world forcefully shaping them into a Fist Aura that devoured the might of the world.

When it first formed, it was nothing but air pressure. But then it communed with the Heavens through her crown. And then it sapped away the Heavens’ energies through her wings. And then it wrote its own laws of power with her chains.

By the time it collided with Ryu, its power was so great that it was easily hundreds of times what was already a shockingly mighty blow.

Ryu hacked, but his body had no blood left to give.

“There is only one, there can only ever be one. And it will be me!” Solara’s voice echoed as though it came from the Dome of the Heavens.

She raised a palm high into the skies and the Tribulation Clouds that had been sapped into her wings were ripped out, forming an enormous javelin in her hands.

It tried to resist, pulsing with a dark gold might, but then chains began to sink into its body.

It doubled in size, and then doubled again.

But then it began to violently shrink, and every time it did so, it became more and more stable until it looked no different from a silent dark gold spear.

Solara cocked it backward, her eyes blazing with a deathly might.

Her shoulder stretched back, her hair fluttering wildly beneath her billowing aura. There was such a fierce light in her eyes that it seemed as though she might be able to pierce through even the hollow emptiness of the void with her gaze alone.

BANG!

Her arm suddenly accelerated forward so fast that its movement was impossible to track. It was like in one moment her body had tensed to its limit, and then in the next her hand and finger were pointed ahead, booming, shattering concentric circles of air and space rippling again in larger and larger plumes.

The javelin tore into Ryu’s body seemingly the very same instant Solara released it, warping spacetime much the same way Ryu had before… as though she had devoured his abilities as well.

And then it exploded along with Ryu’s body.