Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

Chapter 2034 Two

Sarriel's body flickered and she suddenly appeared tens of kilometers from Ryu. Ryu didn't follow up, at least not quickly. He only took a calm step forward, crossing an entire kilometer before taking another step that was just as calm.

His body was beaten and bruised, his clothing barely covered his lower half, and his blood coated his body. And yet, his aura only seemed to be growing taller and more vibrant.

Sarriel looked up at the world around her, seemingly analyzing something before looking down at the wound on her arm. There seemed to be a flicker of surprise within as well.

She recognized the skill Ryu had just used. The most powerful abilities of the Mystery of Heaven and Earth Pupils were all well known enough to be recognized if you were looking for it. Considering she knew exactly what Ryu had, it wasn't a surprise that she could.

The problem was that shouldn't be so powerful.

[Rob the World of its Color] should be a skill capable of countering Immortal Rings, but it wasn't supposed to be able to do this...

Ryu had stripped the world down of its Fate itself. Or, more accurately, the Fate that supported her eyes.

Ryu had been looking for a home run that forced her into a corner, something like what he had done to the three-pupil girl. Back then during their battle, he had used [Rob the World of its Color] to strip one of her pupils of its sight and the ability that came along with it.

But no matter how he looked, he couldn't find a method of doing the same to Sarriel even if he was willing to sacrifice his life.

Her Heavenly Pupils were too strong and her Fate was even stronger.

This, however... he could certainly do.

With every calm step, his aura continued to rise.

Since Sarriel didn't want to use the abilities of her Heavenly Pupils, he would use his own. He would see how she would deal with this.

[Lines of Fate].

The world of black and white became layered in Ryu's eyes. Every probability was firmly grasped, and without the twisting of Sarriel's eyes...

He took another step. But this time, when he appeared once more, his sword was already at Sarriel's throat.

Sarriel's eyes narrowed.

CLANG!

Blade met blade as a katana came out from seemingly nowhere.

Sarriel elegantly fluttered back, landing on the ground with short, delicate, and practiced steps.

With a swing of her arm, she dispersed the pressure from Ryu's strike and a large carve-out of land curled to her side.

The wind pressure of her blade alone brushed by Ryu's side, flashing by his indifferent expression as his hair kicked up beneath the pressurized, condensed air.

Strands of his white hair were diced up as they fluttered, but his eyes never left Sarriel.

The blade was just as long as he remembered, taller than even he himself, let alone Sarriel. Even without counting the handle, its thin frame was a slowly curved edge of over seven feet long, putting even some spears to shame.

Even with a spear that long, the hand position would shorten the range considerably. But with Sarriel's katana, she might as well have been using a long-ranged weapon.

There was only a short silence before the two erupted. The howls of blades filled the skies, and their movements flashed in relation to one another.

Ryu held nothing back anymore. He didn't reserve the power of his body; his Heavenly Pupils flashed with one ability after another, and he pulled on the power of his great swordstaffs, commandeering the light and darkness of the world to levy attacks that split the skies into night and day.

Sarriel's wrist flickered and parried one of his blades to the side. Despite the cumbersome length of her blade, she used it with the agility of a short sword, pivoting to the side, twisting her wrist, and piercing at the spine of Ryu's second great swordstaff in one fluid motion.

If she succeeded, both blades would be blasted apart, leaving Ryu's chest wide open. But Ryu himself was no slouch. He might be lacking in comparison to her power, but his skill never lagged behind anyone.

His own wrist twisted, and the spine of his blade suddenly curled in the air, sliding beneath Sarriel's piercing strike and parrying it upward as well.

His blade continued, looking to slice Sarriel in two.

Sarriel took this matter in stride. The pivot of her feet continued to carry her momentum to the side. If Ryu kept following to split her in two, his blades would have to cross over one another, throwing his footwork into chaos and leaving him open to suffer a counterattack.

It was a huge no-no for dual weapon wielders.

Or so Sarriel thought.

Ryu followed through without hesitation, his torso flexing as he swung down even harder. At that same moment, his second great swordstaff disappeared from his palm entirely, appearing high above the skies in a blind spot Sarriel just might not notice. The blade appeared at Sarriel's waist, ready to cut her in two. And that it did.

Ryu could feel the sensation of soft flesh followed by the slight resistance of bone before it too was sliced right through.

However, he subconsciously felt that something was off. Sarriel wouldn't suffer such a

blow so easily.

Sarriel's body was split in two, blood splattering everywhere.

However, even as her corpse fell to the ground, she appeared again in the distance and out of the range of the attack he was preparing with his second great swordstaff

from above.

Ryu's gaze flickered and he realized that this was an ability of her Truth Pupils. She had finally used one other than [Truth Clone], and within his [Rob the World of its

Color] domain no less.

However, he wasn't too surprised. He had deployed the domain mostly to suppress her casual use of the lines of illusion and reality. That passive ability was too shocking to deal with, and it made his own passive abilities-[Third Perspective] and maybe [Focus] could fall into that category as well-feel empty by comparison.

Cutting off the Fate of Heavenly Pupils, especially when he speculated that Sarriel might have more dominion over the Truth Pupils than any predecessor before her, was too difficult.

He could limit the passive ability greatly, but the actual skills that she consciously deployed would be a much taller mountain to climb.

[True Death].

Contrary to its name, it was nothing of the sort. She could easily create a lifelike

replica of herself to cheat death in her stead.

Ryu's gaze flickered as he looked up into the skies. With a swipe of his hand, his dark great swordstaff returned to his palm from the air. He knew that Sarriel had taken this route because she saw his attack coming.

At the same time, he could already see how she might use [True Death] with her other abilities, especially her Summoning.

There were several Necromancy techniques that could be used to cheat death. If they were layered with [True Death]...

Sarriel suddenly smiled, her aura fluctuating. For some reason, when Ryu saw this smile, he felt his heart shudder.

It didn't take him long to realize why. This smile... it was the very same smile as the Sarriel he knew the most intimately. This was the Sarriel who kissed him, the shy and reserved girl who was pure of heart and open about her feelings nonetheless. It was a beautiful sort of dichotomy that could warm the heart of any man.

"You killed me, Ryu..." she said in a soft, pitiful voice.

Ryu took a breath and exhaled before his gaze suddenly sharpened, looking down at

the corpse by his feet.

Blood surged and swirled into a portal. Out from the inside, a second Sarriel took

shape.

"... I don't want to live anymore," she said sadly, looking down at the ground.

The Sarriel he knew the best raised her katana to her throat and slashed down. Ryu found himself almost calling out to tell her to stop. But it was already too late. His body shuddered as the Sarriel that walked out from the blood portal seemed to gain new life. She looked toward Ryu with an arrogant smile, gazing between her dead

self and him.

"How pitiful," she said with an almost sickly sweetness.

Ryu's mind felt like it had been fried.

The headless Sarriel's corpse pulsed and yet another blood portal appeared. Out from

within it, another arrogant Sarriel formed.

He looked between the two, one near him and another a distance away. However, no matter how he looked at them, they were perfectly identical. There was

no sign of a clone at all as though there had always been two Sarriels from the very

start.

100% clones... clones so perfect that they could very well be the real body.

Wait... had he ever been fighting Sarriel's real body? He simply couldn't tell.

And these clones, as far as he could see... had no weaknesses at all. He couldn't even deal with one Sarriel; how would he deal with two?