Ryu's expression turned cold. If someone could become a Sky God twice, it would indeed be a feat maybe never before seen. Becoming one in the first place was so unimaginably difficult, Ryu's perspective on the world shouldn't be seen as a common matter.
The most troublesome part of it all was that if there was a Sky God who could do these things and accomplish these matters… Wouldn't it be the Sky God that had absolute reign over life, death and reincarnation? It almost fit… Too well.
The scent of a plan seemed to form and Ryu could almost feel these invisible hands wrapping around his neck. The feeling only made his gaze grow colder.
In the end, Ryu shook his head. He still hadn't reached a point where he could take this Spiritual Foundation out of himself. And, even if he could, as he progressed through the cultivation levels, it seemed to become more and more an inseparable part of himself.
By the time Ryu became strong enough to deal with whatever backlash the Phoenix Sky God had left in store for him, their Spiritual Foundation would be such an ingratiated part of his personal strength that he would more likely than not cripple himself.
Even if he managed to reconnect with his previous Spiritual Foundation, he would have to start from the very beginning. And, since it was unknown if he could go through the Awakening and Dao Pedestal Realms once again, he might be stuck with a Spiritual Foundation that was permanently stunted, forced to stay in its infantile phase.
Knowing all of this, Ryu realized that he didn't have a choice to step back any longer. Maybe from now on, he could only treat his original Spiritual Foundation as a foreign object he had lost Fate with. As things stood now, it didn't seem like he would ever be able to reconnect with it.
But, what Ryu did know was that he wouldn't allow anyone to just snatch things from his body, even if it was theirs to begin with. If the Phoenix Sky God wanted to come, they could come. After all, his Realm Heart was in need of more Godhoods...
Did the Phoenix Sky God think they they could just use Ryu as a Karma farm and then throw him away when they had no use for him left? He would ensure they pay a great price for trying to step over his head.
"Master, there's another thing of importance… The fifth Visualization on the first floor…"
The three Ancestors visibly tensed. Ryu hadn't even finished his words but even the most immature Flora seemed to have dropped everything to look at him. It was either that these four had been greatly emotionally scarred by this fifth Ancestor of theirs, or the difference between them was so enormous that they didn't even dare to have disrespectful thoughts.
Seeing such a reaction, Ryu's words slowed and trailed off. He suddenly wasn't sure if he should explain what happened anymore. But in the end, since he had already begun to speak, it was probably too late to do much of anything else.
"…"
The three Ancestor fell into a deep silence after hearing Ryu's explanation. They didn't quite understand how these things had happened, but that man had always been on a level that existed beyond their plane of understanding.
Technically, those statues on the first floor were real things. They had just been brought from the Real Plane into the Crystalline Jade, something that was already a nonsensical feat to begin with. But, for it to then take root in Ryu's Spiritual Sea… That was another monstrous feat all to its own. In fact, it was probably more impressive than the first.
Ryu waited patiently, but his Master and the other two remained silent for much longer than he thought they would. He thought he might ask again, but it was then his master finally deemed to speak.
"Little Ryu… The truth is that none of us really know who that man is.
"As you might have already guessed, myself, Eska, Flora and Morvar were all born in vastly different Eras. If four Sky Gods had appeared in our Clan at once, maybe it would have been us who took control of the Shrine World.
"Each of us led our Zu Clan to its own era of prosperity, but it was never to an exaggerated amount. At best, we could be considered to be among the top few dozen Clans in the whole of the universe, but we were nowhere near being invincible.
"Inevitably, the end of our lives came and we prepared to pass on. But, it was then that that man appeared before us and brought us into the Crystalline Jade. For a long time, I was alone until Morvar appeared here. Then it was just the two of us until Eska appeared. And finally, after that, Flora appeared and she became the last."
Ryu nodded. He had already figured as much, these were things he could have understood on his own. As for the details, they didn't matter very much. But, what was fascinating was the involvement of that man. If he really could do such a thing…
Didn't that mean he had outlived the lifespans of four Sky Gods?!
In fact, it was even more exaggerated than this. It was unlikely that Balaur, Morvar, Eska and Flora were born back to back in quick succession. It probably took several generations for another to be born, making the lifespan of this individual even more exaggerated.
Of course, Ryu thought of the possibility that he was overthinking things. Considering what he had seen from this man's Visualization, it might very well be possible that they bent reality to their whims and traveled back in time…
But that thought felt more like fantasy than anything else to Ryu.
For an expert, going forward in time wasn't actually all that difficult. Just Ryu's experience in the fake Nether Realm proved this. Not only had the Martial Gods been able to warp time around this era, shifting Ryu forward hundreds of years, but they had even managed to gather up all sorts of talents from across Eras as well.
Folding time and shuttling people through it in a forward and linear way wasn't difficult, at least not relatively speaking for what was actually being accomplished. So long as you had the resources and the backing of a competent Sky God, it could be done.
In fact, slowing down time to a crawl wasn't impossible either. In Ryu's possession, he had multiple Immortal Caves with this function. It was less involved than shuttling through time and any competent Ancestral Grade Formation Master would be able to lay an array capable of this down.
Though it was impossible to comprehend Inheritances under a time dilation, it was quite useful for maximizing rest or practicing various more physical arts. But, the distortion made comprehension too difficult and even if one tried to press past this distortion, the likelihood of Qi Deviation skyrocketed the more exaggerated the time dilation.
This was all to say that so long as time was going forward, manipulating it to the whim of a true expert wasn't a problem and could even be considered 'easy' by Ryu's standard of the word. However…
Going back in time, as far as Ryu was concerned, and based on his understanding and expertise as an Origin Grade Ruin Master…
Was absolutely impossible!
Just logically, the paradoxes involved were almost impossible to fathom. Ryu couldn't even begin to grasp how one would resolve them all, and that was with his intelligence.
Unfortunately, that just left him with two things that were about just as difficult to accept.
The first option was a Sky God that had somehow lived the lifespan of four on the low end and maybe upward of ten Sky God lifespans on the high end. And the second option was that there was a Sky God capable of ignoring the paradox of time.
Both were equally ridiculous and Ryu couldn't quite decide which was more so.
Seeing the fluctuating lights in Ryu's gaze, Balaur knew his disciple had thought of the same problem they had. But, they were all Sky Gods, there was no way they would have mistaken the same person for someone else. They were 100% certain that this man they met was the very same man for all of them.
"… We don't quite understand the purpose of this man. All we know is that he has a vested interest in our Zu Clan and we've always assumed that he was an Ancestor of ours, but that would only make things even more complicated.
"He was the one who warned us about the return of the Ancestral Beasts but things also aren't as simple as they seem. The return of the Ancestral Beasts is only a signal for something far more sinister… The Ancestral Beasts won the favor of the Heavens by defeating the Fey, they are considered to be the champions of the Heavens…"
Balaur met his disciple's gaze, the weight of his next words echoing throughout Ryu's mind.
"… The return of the Ancestral Beasts represents the last of the Heaven's efforts. Everything it had left has been poured into them…
"They are the last line of defense for Sacrum."
[Author's Note: Sorry everyone... Just one chapter for today. Good news is now we can get to the meat of this volume with all our prep out of the way. In no uncertain terms...
[Shit's about to go down].