Grand Ancestral Bloodlines

2047 Irony

It was ironic that Ryu realized this about himself. He had always seen himself as a hypocrite. A man who wanted for everything and wouldn't be satisfied unless he could have it all.

He didn't care about the hopes and dreams of Wobbling Fairy. Since she had chosen to lay with him, she would be forever bound to him or suffer his wrath.

He didn't care about who he killed, who their families were, who was waiting for them to come home... but should anyone think to do the same with his family, they would surely also face his wrath.

He had so many contradictory views, all of which could be summarized in a single word.

Hypocrisy.

Never did he think that at the height of his life, when he faced off against the dream he had chased after the longest, that he had wanted for the most, that he would actually have such thoughts about it...

That he was actually okay with losing... just this one...

But only if he had been able to give it everything he had. Only if he was able to burn as brightly as he could...

Even if it was just for a short period of time.

Ryu couldn't help but remember his Fate Star.

That day, on his 1000th birthday, he had looked up at it for the first time in a very long while. He remembered how bright it was, how large... but it was too large, too bright.

It would burn through its fuel quickly. He would be like a flashpan in the span of the wider universe. Although he would shine boldly and largely, he would eventually burn out just as quickly, forgotten and abandoned by the world, never to be remembered...

The name Ryu Tatsuya would likely be lost to the stream of time. He would have existed for too short a period.

He had made peace with that long ago. Or so he thought.

At the very least, he had forced himself onto another path, trying to find other ways to be useful.

Although he had allowed it to jade his life, he couldn't help but wonder now if the only reason he had become so hateful of the world was precisely because his Dao Heart hadn't been by his side at the time, because his soul had been stripped from him and hidden away in the Death Shrine.

What if this was the real way he would have reacted back then? What if it took all this time, and facing off against true death, not to mention gaining those pieces of him back, to finally allow him to see his truest self?

It was almost amusing in a way.

Almost.

It should have been terrible. How long had it been now? How many years had passed with this smile on his face? Had it been a split second like he felt it was? Or had

centuries already passed outside unbeknownst to him?

What was the truth? What was the reality?

He didn't know.

But he was content.

Was the choice to take this step stupid? Maybe.

But he had done things his way to the very end. And that was enough for him. "Since you've done things your way, how about we do things my way now?"

Ryu didn't really react to the voice. It was so ambiguous he felt that even if it spoke again right now, he would be unlikely to recognize it. There was some sort of filter over the voice, making it impossible for Ryu to tell if a man or woman was speaking. In fact, even if one told him that a different person had spoken every word of that sentence, he would still find it believable.

It was like the voice had disconnected so thoroughly from the laws that dictated the universe and Existence itself that even their sense of self wasn't grounded... almost like they were mouthing the essence of words, and not just speaking them, so their "self" wasn't involved at all.

Ryu analyzed this in an instant and understood that whoever was speaking to him now was an expert beyond his imagination. Maybe such a person was one of the existences that he had chased after his entire life, a person who sat on a perch above the world, looking down on the world with a careless impunity...

To them, he was nothing more than a fly.

Ryu laughed. "I think I'll pass."

"I knew you would say that. If you agreed, then you wouldn't be content anymore, now would you?"

"You understand me well."

"I know you better than you know yourself."

"Is that so? Maybe so."

Ryu chuckled again, not minding it. Maybe someone so powerful really did have the

right to say such things.

He felt calm, relaxed. He stared off into the endless cosmos, his heart resting at ease.

"Do you know why I picked you?" the voice spoke again.

"Is there a need to ask? I, Ryu Tatsuya, am always the best bet."

"And yet you are about to lose yourself because of your stubbornness."

"I've lost myself before. It was quite embarrassing. This, though... isn't that. If

anything, I have finally found myself."

"Indeed. And it's quite annoying. You're insufferable in the worst sort of ways. There

are a few men like you across Existence. One I met before. For a long while, I thought he was you reincarnated. But he is not. You two are so similar that you've taken opposite paths."

"A few? I doubt that."

"I knew you would say that too."

"I'm interested now. What is his name?"

"He is Nameless."

Ryu blinked for a while and then burst out into laughter. He laughed so hard that tears almost flooded from his eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he had such cheerful laughter. He must have been only seven or so years old when his Grandpa Kunan had

made a ridiculous joke.

And yet, here he was, laughing so heartily.