Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

2039  Blossoming Petals

Blossoming Petals was a flowery Bone Structure seemingly without any real substance to it. Other than evading and escaping danger, it was hard to expect much of anything. But it was precisely that that caught Eska's attention. She had spent her whole life with this simple Bone Structure, even going to the point of building an entire minor cultivation system on it—which by now, her Immortal Sakura could certainly be called. These two things, though, seemed unrelated. Her Bone Structure was designed for evasion, but her Immortal Sakura was once one of the greatest defensive techniques of Sacrum. It was so good, in fact, that even Ryu, who was almost always insistent on using his own techniques now, still used Eska's Visualization. In fact, if Ryu wasn't so arrogant, he would have realized that he used all of the Zu Clan Visualizations in some form, from his master's to his wife's. But that was beside the point at this moment, though it was an important one nonetheless. What was more poignant at this time was the fact that in Eska's eyes… these two matters weren't identical at all. The reason why Eska had such a weird expression on her face when she saw Ryu fuse his Ice Phoenix Heavenly Patterns into the blossoms of her Visualization was because, in doing so, he changed the entire fundamental foundation of the technique itself. It had to be remembered that [Immortal Sakura] was originally best at parrying. The blossoms didn't usually outright block strikes unless they were particularly weak. What the blossoms did instead was redirect power, misdirecting the strength of a blade or technique away from the user located in the very center. This parrying strength was built on the evasion characteristics of Eska's Bone Structure. When one observed a blossom petal gliding in the wind, it was possible to see its myriad of changes and its shifting forms. Lighter than a feather, it allowed itself to be carried by the currents that surrounded it until it gently fell to the ground. What made Eska's [Immortal Sakura] so powerful was precisely this method because it allowed two things. First, at the highest levels, the trajectory of attacks didn't need to be calculated at all. The change to the atmosphere around said attack would cause the Immortal Sakura to react immediately, causing a fluttering blossom petal to appear in its path. This meant that the Focus Qi necessary to use this Visualization Method started and stopped at the creation and sustaining of the Visualization. The rest happened automatically at Eska's level of control, and this was practically unheard of for a technique at this level. Over the years, her ability to do this had only increased further and further. And second… when an attack collided with a petal, it was influenced by its own current, allowing subsequent parries to occur with greater ease. It was actually a misnomer that [Immortal Sakura] was only good at parrying short burst, non-energy attacks. But this was still just the tip of the iceberg because there was something else that Eska had studied to form her shocking Visualization… The legendary Immortal Sakura tree itself. And namely… the name Immortal. Now the question was… what happened when the Heavenly Dew Bone Structure and the Blossoming Petals Bone Structure fused into one? White gold energies danced on the wind, and the fluttering blossom petals around them took shape to their back, forming wings that spanned so far that they seemed to want to challenge the Tribulation clouds above in terms of size. They took a breath, steady and calm, unhurried and unbothered. Then the dam broke once more. First, they formed the Heavenly Zu Bloodline, a Bloodline that now carried the strength of both Heavenly Dew and Silver Touch. Now, they had formed… The Heavenly Blossom Bone Structure. A blooming Immortal Sakura began to take form in their eyes, but it still seemed a world away from completing. However, at that moment, when a bolt of lightning descended from the skies, something absolutely horrifying to the spectator happened. They raised up a palm not holding their spear-whip, and the lightning collided with it. However, instead of burning them to ash, the lightning actually diverted its path, crashing into a mountain in the far-off distance. There were no shortage of individuals paying attention to this situation. For one, the Tribulation had grown powerful enough to block a large majority of the Griffins outside. This alone would have been enough for even the Dao Gods to pay attention, even if it had been a mere Dao Lord Tribulation. But to make matters more shocking than that, it was a Triple Tribulation that only seemed to be growing stronger and stronger. This person wasn't breaking into Dao Lord; they were trying to break into Godhood in a single bound. And judging by the momentum, they didn't even seem to be doing so just to reach the Lower Dao God Realm either. Hope had done this before in the past just a few decades ago, in fact. The shock of that event had still not yet settled down, but most still didn't know which expert of the Rebirthing Cultus Sect had experienced such a thing. However, the experience between Hope and Eska was akin to night and day. Hope had lived a very long time… but that was only compared to Ryu. She had still only lived on an order of thousands of years. What was that compared to Eska's trillions? Even Isemeine had lived for a much longer time than she had. Their experiences accumulated and suddenly burst forth in a single bound. KACHA! BANG! Another bolt of lightning fell from the skies, fast and shocking, so much so that it appeared before them in less than a blink. However, at that moment, the two swayed slightly. Their body almost seemed to just lightly shift with the wind but also seemed as though they remained in the same spot. And yet… the lightning bolt missed them entirely.