It was an absolute massacre. Ryu didn't move a single step, he didn't move a single finger, he didn't even seem to breathe too hard.
The beasts surging toward him hit a wall, their bodies shredding to pieces. Flesh, bone and blood fell from the skies, screeches of horror echoing through the landscape.
Ryu took a step forward, his white robes fluttering, completely untouched by the mass of crimson. He didn't even seem to care what sort of beasts he had killed and which had managed to survive. He simply took out a bow, stepping through the skies with an indifferent expression on his handsome features.
The bow was tall and bathed in fiery rubies. It was more than three meters tall from head to toe and had a bowstring forged of dragon tendon. Just touching it made the blood rush and roar through Ryu's veins, almost as though his Ancestors were ready to pounce and tear his weapon to shreds.
Such a thing made the bow especially docile. Despite being of the Ancestral Grade, it seemed to shake in fear beneath Ryu's touch, willingly listening to each one of his commands without the slightest hint of reluctance.
Ryu stretched out his free hand, pinching two fingers to his thumb and drawing a line with it across the skies. Before the eyes of all those that could see it, a solid arrow of fire was formed, and yet it looked no different from a metal forged construct.
The heat in the surroundings skyrocketed. Maybe had Ryu cared, he would have realized he had overdone it a bit. But, this didn't stop him from nocking and drawing this arrow.
When he released it, it was as though the whole skies were lit ablaze. The clouds burst apart, incinerating to nothingness, the blue of the dome above was painted in red, and the space threatened to split apart.
The beasts in the wake of this arrow couldn't even enter a hundred meter radius of it without being incinerated to ash. Snow of ash began to fall from the skies, making the bright day feel as though it had lost all color.
BANG!
A mountain in the distance was flattened to the ground as Ryu continued to walk through the skies, his pace unhurried and yet resulting in him crossing several kilometers at a time with a single bound.
Somehow, Ryu could instinctually feel that the bow and arrow had exactly the last piece he needed to complete his Dao. Unfortunately, having been run out of the Armament Guild, and being very much aware that their people hated his guts, he probably wouldn't be able to get enlightenment from them. Luckily though… These beasts seemed to have provided him with the perfect targets. Unluckily though… Ryu's strength was too exaggerated for these middling beasts to handle.
Much like he had the first time, Ryu appeared randomly in a forest of the Pedestal Plane. It used to take him months to even years to travel through this place, but now his speed couldn't be compared to the first time. In addition, the space of the Pedestal Plane was far weaker than what he had become used to in recent years, so he tore through with even greater ease.
It took Ryu not even an hour to make it over the location of the Awoken Moon Sect. But, as he had somewhat expected… There was nothing but an endless snowy plain. Even the pit that had likely once been here had been buried beneath the perpetually falling snow.
The heat coming off of Ryu threatened to turn this place into the Pedestal Plane's largest ocean, but he retracted his aura, looking around.
Ryu didn't seem too surprised by this outcome. In fact, it could be said that he had expected it. The Awoken Moon Sect had its own fail safes and if it had been destroyed, he would be among the first to know as its Throne. He was mostly just worried about Guiot's little sister's well being, he had grown fond of that little girl.
That day when Ryu saw the teleportation formation to the Moon World, he had also easily been able to see through the fact that there was a function that would allow the entire Sect to be taken with it. Clearly, if the Awoken Moon Sect could afford to take this option considering the dire financial situation they had been in last time Ryu had seen them, they were doing very well.
Ryu remembered having to slave away for over a year to gather the Qi Stones he needed just to send himself and Guiot over, but in just a few hundred years they had actually gathered up enough wealth to send the whole Sect. How could Ryu not be impressed?
Of course, he knew that this was in large part due to himself. With how many battles and escapades he had been on in this time, he had gathered a ridiculous amount of Faith for his Ice Phoenix Clan's old subordinate Sect. It could be said that he had done right by them.
At that moment, Ryu sensed several auras converging from the horizon, but they were surprisingly human. They barreled forth, streaks of fire following in their wake as they blazed a path toward Ryu.
Ryu had actually seen many humans on the way here. In fact, in the first batch of beasts he had brutally slaughtered, there were many humans among them as well. However, after saving many of their lives, he didn't mind them afterward.
It could only be said that the war had taken the whole Pedestal Plane by storm. In fact, the Mortal Planes, for once, weren't the victims of the backlash. Though, soon, Ryu suspected that many beneath the Immortal Ring Realm would try to make their ways toward safety.
Like this, the vicious cycle of violence would repeat itself, and the previous generation of White Devils would be replaced by a new legend of horrors… Well, that was what would have happened had Ryu not left a nice surprise for them when he made his way down the first time. How could he possibly allow anyone to casually mess with the growth of the Tor Clan? Plus, although Yaana hadn't said it, she also had fond feelings for the Opus Kingdom who had taken her, her cousin and her aged grandfather in.
Ryu didn't like cowards to begin with, so he didn't care how many of them died in their endeavor. They had already enjoyed the gift of the Immortal Plane for so long as humans, but now they wanted to run?
Ryu was so absentminded and uncaring of the people approaching that it wasn't until they were already within a kilometer that his gaze focused and suddenly realized who they were.
When he saw a very familiar Patriarch Ember, the very man who had almost killed him that day of the tournament, his indifferent expression almost gave way to a smirk.
Patriarch Ember seemed to have remembered Ryu well. Not only did he know of Ryu, he knew of Ryu's last name long before the world shuddered beneath his roar. However, just the same, a seething humiliation was within his heart even after all this time.
Ryu, though, wasn only thinking of one thing. It seemed he could have some fun before going to the Moon World.