Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Chapter 2069 One-Man

Ryu found the situation in his Inner World to be pretty much as he expected.

Kira and the Three-Pupiled woman were listless. He didn't even bother to chain them down. In his world, they couldn't do anything that he wouldn't allow them to. So they could only sit in place.

Though, even if he allowed them to roam freely, it was up in the air if they would even deign to do so. That was because Kira's Dao of Heart was crushed, and the Three-Pupiled woman wasn't far from it.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Then there was, of course, Aria Moon.

She was still absolutely furious, and unlike the others, she hadn't seemed to have run to the end of her rope just yet. She was still scratching and clawing, trying to find a way out.

It was just unfortunately useless.

Finally, there was Hrakka, and as a bonus, there was Little Silk.

After seeing his wife's combat style, if you could even call it that, Ryu was truly speechless.

With their connection, Ryu could share memories and thoughts with Ailsa as he pleased, so he understood much of what she had gone through already, and he likewise understood her combat style and how it worked.

Ailsa was practically Ryu's mirror. Much like him, she had been born with what seemed like one set of Meridians, but it had ended up being suppressed until they both found methods of awakening their second set.

In Ailsa's case, she was both a Quibus and Cultus Faerie. On the one hand, she was the absolute best companion that a Necromancer could ever want, and on the other, she was able to nurture the most powerful existences in the world.

When such a person appeared in a single body, and they were given trillions of years to be idle...

They were essentially a one-woman army.

There was a reason why Ailsa had almost overrun that section of the Heavenly Court all on her own. She had the capital to do so.

But was Ryu really that inferior to his wife? Of course not... he just didn't really like relying on others.

He never had much fondness for the Path of Necromancy. Originally, when he and Ailsa were mapping out how he might take revenge on the Martial Gods in Sacrum, he had to lay out several paths toward becoming a one-man army himself, and ultimately, that was a path that he had to take.

But it wasn't the path that he most wanted to take.

Much like Ryu's dislike of talking after his Rebirth, preferring to use his fists when he could manage it, he likewise far preferred to use his own abilities in combat as well.

Although he was good at controlling corpse puppets, he always ended up drifting away from the path for one reason or another.

Now, however... Ryu felt more assured in himself and his path. Rather than trying to follow the path of Necromancy out of necessity, he felt that he could do it with true intent.

He felt truly free for the first time in his life.

So was his wife better than him in this regard? He didn't believe so.

In terms of raw nurturing ability, Ailsa would always have him beat, by miles at that. But in terms of resources...?

He had perpetual access to two of the most powerful Qis in existence, both Chaos Qi and Embryonic Qi, the second of which practically allowed him to rewrite the entire foundation of a person's talent.

This was why when he started picking up new recruits, his main focus had not been on their raw strength, but rather their Dao Hearts.

Empana fit that bill perfectly. As did Aria Moon.

Even if it was in terms of nurturing, what could Ryu's eyes not see through? He might not have the systematic methods of nurturing his wife had, but he did have methods of seeing through a person's weakness and targeting them.

When all things were factored in, when it came to nurturing, both Ailsa and he were practically a wash. They were neck and neck. And honestly speaking, Ryu should be ahead with the weight of Embryonic Qi doing a lot of heavy lifting.

There was no reason why he shouldn't be able to create an army just as strong as she had, and do it even faster at that.

This Three-Pupiled woman and Kira were also decent starting talents. At the very least, they were far beyond Empana in this regard.

Kira and his Ancient Sinew Bone Structure had a lot of potential that he was simply too cowardly to use, while the Three-Pupiled woman's desire to steal Ryu's Heavenly Pupils had given him several ideas on how to best make use of her.

The trouble was that not only did he not know where he would suddenly find a bunch of Heavenly Pupils to try out on her, but both of them had weak Dao Hearts that made him hesitate about whether it was worth nurturing them at all.

However, in the end, Ryu made a different decision.

Wasn't the solution easy? If they had a weakness... get rid of it.

How could you remove the need for a Dao Heart's influence? That was obviously by turning them into corpse puppets?

Why should he keep them alive if their Dao Hearts were worthless?

Instead, he would refine their corpses using a new method. Then, he would make use of their talents from the afterlife.

If their Dao Hearts were weak, he would eliminate the need for them entirely. Ryu flipped over a palm, and a book bound in human skin appeared in his hands. By now, he had already read through this book from front to back, and the shocking amount of information in it awed him even in his current state.

Now, it was about time he put those actions into practice.

His one-man army would start now.