CLANG!
Ryu's knife clashed against Ariad's enormous metallic arm, his dragon soul flaring outward and giving him the strength of mountains. In that instant, the latter was sent flying like a speeding bullet, cutting through the skies and the wild friction of the air.
Ryu's figure flickered. His initial intention was to pursue, but he instead dodge out of the way of slicing wind, appearing to the back of Leolar the instant after the latter had attacked.
However, before Ryu could pierce his knife into Leolar's back, the latter's robes split and a long snaking tail threatened to pierce through his throat.
A wild grin manifested on Ryu's face, his second blade rising up in a reverse grip and parrying the piercing metallic tail to the side.
SHUU! SHUU! SHUU!
Ryu's arms became a blur, assaulting the joints of the tail. His eyes were like two blazing stars, able to see through everything.
A mechanism created by the geniuses of the Martial World? An intricate and novel application of metals he had never personally laid eyes on in his two lifetimes? None of it mattered. Before his eyes, before his Dao, it would all be laid bare.
"Break for me!"
BANG!
Leolar didn't even have time to turn around before his precious tail shattered into crumbling pieces, falling to the planet that sat below them.
He felt a piercing pain in his heart. The amount of wealth a member of the Hidden Blade Sect burned through was astronomical. Every mechanism they formed had to be done by their own hand, it was the pride of their Sect. But, to have such an intricate mechanism severed and dissected right in front of him like this, it felt as though he chest was bleeding.
He couldn't understand how a pair of Blade Grade weapons had accomplished such a thing. But, the flourishing light that glowed upon them painted a different story. It had nothing to do with the daggers and everything to do with the man wielding them.
Ryu was relentless. He had hardly finished dismantling Leolar's tail when he lunged forward again. An illusory coat of red covered him from head to toe, making it seem like his body had been swallowed into the form of a humanoid dragon.
A tail formed out of the illusory coat to Ryu's back, suddenly snapping up and slapping at the air.
BOOM!
The harsh sound of wind exploding and space quaking resounded. Not long later, a projectile was rocked out of the air and sent flying back to where it had come from, suddenly appearing before Ariad in the blink of an eye.
"Take Form and Conquer the World!"
Ryu's voice boomed. A strong surge of Chaotic Qi was suddenly pulled in from all sides.
"Are you crazy?!"
Leolar almost fainted from shock. Using Immortal Rings in this place was like asking to die. But then he remembered something that made his heart grow cold.
It was a death sentence for them. However, to Ryu, it was like being blessed by a god on high. This Chaos Plane was nothing more than his own backyard, and they had stepped into his territory. It was clear that their greed had caused them to forget this fact.
"Shit!"
Leolar felt the oppression come in from all sides, his armor threatening to crack and splinter around him. The volatile energies surged and the qi concentration skyrocketed.
Ryu felt as though he was riding atop a cloud, his body being filled with such flourishing vitality that he almost released a moan into the skies. However, he instead roared, releasing a savage and bestial call that seemed to quake the entire plane.
Leolar once again realized just how serious the situation was. He couldn't afford to hold back any longer, doing so would only cause him to give up his life on a silver platter.
"HA!"
He spread his hands outward, the metallic beak that covered much of his face expanding and suddenly encasing his whole face and eventual body. In the blink of an eye, he had become an odd, humanoid bird man, his body covered in individual feathers, each intricately hand crafted and pieced together even down the length of a newly formed swaying tail.
In that moment, in the distance, Ariad seemed to have come to the same conclusion. Faced with the counter of his own projectile, multiplied several times over by Ryu's strength, he too roared, his aura flourishing as he punched outward with his large mechanical arm.
Ryu's wrist flickered, a strong surging tide of blade qi appearing before Leolar in the blink of an eye. However, just as quickly as it had appeared, the large pair of wings that now attached themselves to his arms flapped.
Leolar's speed was so blinding that they left afterimages in Ryu's Spiritual Sense. If not for his eyes, he would have lost track of Leolar entirely. The difference between just before and now felt like night and day, as though he had become an entirely different person.
In the distance, Ariad's disposition had completely changed as well, shattering Ryu's counter strike in just a single punch.
He balled both fists, facing them up to the sky and bracing his elbows against his hip. A flourishing red aura wafted from his, his gaze becoming piercing.
Ryu could feel the enigmatic air around them, the subtle sort of shift that took place as they carved their own place out in the world. It was as though the Heavens had been forced to acknowledge their presence as sentient existences, as though without this step, they were worthless.
Daos. There was no doubt about it, they had activated their Daos.
Ryu's grin only became more wild, his hair fluttering and his aura piercing the skies as his 13 Immortal Rings pulsed wildly, each giving off a vicious dark gold glow.
This would be the first time he was fighting those who had comprehended their own Daos. Or, at the very least, the first time someone was using them against him. And he had to say…
"So weak?"
His figure flickered and vanished, appearing before Leolar's humanoid bird form. He would hack them to pieces just the same.