The skies suddenly turned a pitch black, blanketing the mountain range. The rumble of thunder sounded like shots from a canon and the sparks of lightning came in blinding hues of radiant blue.
With a look toward the approaching Sky God, Ryu spoke the word without flinching for even a moment, his gaze locked onto the approaching old woman. Since these people wanted to taste his power, he would show them.
Lusting after his talent? There would be a price to pay.
BANG!
A streak of lightning as thick as a thigh shot down from the skies, causing the old Sky God's expression to change drastically. Without a choice, she could only cough out a mouthful of blood as she redirected her palm strike at the last moment upward.
BANG!
The Sky God took a single step back, but her face warped with horror. A layer of her skin had been charred entirely black and a painful surge shot up her arm.
Tribulation Lightning. This was Tribulation Lightning! There was no doubt that his was Tribulation Lightning!
What was happening? How was this possible?
The Sky God was entirely flustered and almost didn't notice that more bolts were descending from the skies as Ryu's figure flickered and vanished.
Ryu's body zipped from lightning bolt to lightning bolt, fusing his movement technique with his Storm Talent and moving about the campsite even faster than he had originally.
"Stop!"
The Sky God recovered quickly, slamming out her palms continuously. After being caught off guard once, she was full prepared this time. Now that she could prepare her strikes, she wouldn't have to face a situation of injury again, but she also found herself lagging behind Ryu as she was forced to defend again and again.
If there was something Sky Gods feared the most, it was Tribulation Lightning. It couldn't be helped, the moment they stepped onto the road of Godhood, they were swimming against the tide of the Heavens. As such, the root of their greatest strength was their Godhood, but this also meant that it was also their greatest weakness.
The Heavens were able to suppress Godhoods, so when Ryu used his Storm Talent, he was using the Heavens as a proxy for diminishing the grade and power of these opposing Godhoods.
Even so, he didn't dare to casually meet a Sky God in a head on clash. The gap was simply too large. It was easier to use his Storm Talent as a distraction, smiting his enemies from afar as he quickly zipped around the campsite.
…
Within the tent, the eyes of the cloaked figure widened.
"Storm Talent…? That's impossible!"
The Storm Talent was an extraordinarily rare ability of the Lightning Qilin, a race that sat atop the True Martial World. Looking at the power and range of Ryu's Storm Talent, the cloaked figure couldn't help but tremble.
"No, this boy is definitely human. How does a human have this Lightning Qilin Bloodline? That Clan would never allow such a thing. All humans who've carried such Bloodlines have long since been wiped out, how could this be possible?"
Unfortunately, this truth didn't matter. What were they supposed to do? Contact that mighty Clan and tell them that a human was co-opting their Bloodline? Even if you had such information, you would have to have a certain level of cachet just to speak to these powerhouses in the first place.
However, to the cloaked figure, this was actually a weight off of their shoulders. If Ryu had this Bloodline, it made sense why he was hiding away on the First Heaven. If he exposed the fact that he had such blood, it wouldn't be just them hunting him down, those monstrous Beast Clans would be the first to do so.
Since Ryu was hiding away like this, even if he had a great background, it was unlikely that he could use it. It might even be possible that he was the bastard child of a Lightning Qilin who was unaware of his birth. In that case, his status was even lower than that.
This meant that they didn't need to worry about retaliation, and the odds that Ryu had been targeting the Frost Clan Ruin from the beginning was very low, so that was another weight off of their shoulders.
In such a case, this ultimately meant that Ryu was nothing more than a paper tiger destined to die not too far into the future. Although he was cautious enough to hide his identity and his face, such methods could only work for so long before he was crushed.
Thinking to this point, the cloaked figure actually relaxed, a smirk spreading across their lips. To them, Ryu had suddenly become like a little bug trapped inside a clear glass. He thought he had all the freedom in the world and he could even see the skies above, when unbeknownst to him if he tried to shoot for those limits, he would hit his ceiling very quickly.
The cloaked figure sneered. They would let Ryu do as he pleased for now.
The likelihood that Ryu's aim was the Heavenly Path was almost 100%. By then, with a limited number of youths to sample from, finding him would be even easier. And, under the restriction that he wouldn't be able to expose his talent freely without putting a target on his back, the refined Jenneless would be able to deal with him with ease.
'It's difficult to tell what kind of weapons he's using or much about his aura due to the obstructions of his mask. However, lightning is his greatest reliance, clearly. In addition, he should have some sort of water or ice affinity if he could take the Yin Water from Jenneless. I will tell Jenneless to watch out for such geniuses and to always confront them in public. Weeding him out will be easy.'
With that final thought, the cloaked figure no longer bothered with what was happening outside, focusing on the refinement process entirely as Ryu continuously flickered and vanished.