Ryu stood high in the skies, the Heaven’s Gates of the Heavenly Court standing tall behind him. Down below, his father rained fists down only on a half-dead Xalvador, his grandfather practically mirroring the actions blow for blow on an arrogant Primus that seemed to have not given up just yet.

As for Ryu, it almost felt as though this matter had nothing to do with him, the veins of black still layering his body. There was a deep darkness to him and his aura at this moment.

From time to time, he would sense Primus look in his direction, the latter’s gaze filled with rage and unwillingness. But Ryu couldn’t be bothered to raise a finger to deal with this man personally. This was his grandfather’s battle, and it was a victory that he would allow his grandfather to have on his own.

This was the only real way that Saint Tatsuya could ever truly lay the burden on his heart to rest.

As for Xalvador… well, he was an even more insignificant character. Though he was Elena’s father, there were some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Whether Titus would spare him or not, that would be up to him. Ryu had no intention of interfering.

“I guess… that it’s time,” Ryu thought to himself.

Cultivation… it was an endless stream of struggle against the tide, a suffocating process of climbing up when there was little air to give and not even the atmosphere itself to push against.

Ryu had experienced this feeling time and time again in these near-billion years. He had lost count of how many times the pressure on his shoulders had increased.

But he had done everything he wanted.

He brought his grandparents back, he repaid those he owed, he pulled his wives together again.

Now, it was time to take that final step.

Ryu had built his entire cultivation path on Control. But in a lot of ways, that path was a paradox in and of itself, and maybe that was the real reason no one had truly unlocked this path of cultivation before.

In the entire world… he was also probably the only one that could perfect it truly.

The only way to perfect his path of cultivation, ironically enough, was to not be able to cultivate at all. It was only because he was born with a False Spiritual Foundation that he could take this path.

It was quite ironic. He thought that his Spiritual Foundation was originally sealed by the Martial Gods, and he blamed them, and then the Heavens for the unfairness of it all… when in reality it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

In the end, it was his Fate that was taken into his own hands.

What was the secret to his success?

Ryu looked up to the Gate looming above his head.

Earth Gate.

All Ryu needed to do was crack it open just the slightest bit. With it, he was able to step a foot into the Pulse Opening Realm as a Mortal. Then, he began to refine its aura, slowly forming what became the root of his Spiritual Foundation.

The trouble was that he hadn’t been able to open Earth Gate before because he hadn’t awakened the ability. His body couldn’t withstand the opening of nodes in the first place, so how could he use Earth Gate?

In the end, that became his largest roadblock, and finding a way past it wasn’t easy. There was only so much he could do with the body of a mere mortal.

Ryu smiled.

He had obviously figured it out, though.

How? He forged his own Earth Gate. If the Heaven Gate could be crafted into a Treasure, then why not Earth Gate?

Ryu’s mind couldn’t help but travel back to the prayer mat that rested in the depths of Shrine Mountain, connected to the nodes of all there was. And then he recalled the human skin tome that was the product of countless years of research into the bodies of the Human Race and refining them.

It should have been obvious to him by now that both were him.

The human skin tome was his way of deepening his understanding of bodies and how to properly make use of them, but the prayer mat…

How could he form the Gate of Earth without intimately understanding life itself?

And then, he refined it, condensed his Shrine Mountain Natural Enlightenment into the essence of the Earth Gate.

It was the only thing he didn’t need cultivation to do, the one thing that could be accomplished with nothing more than comprehension alone.

When he succeeded in surpassing the upper limit of his Natural Enlightenment, stepping beyond the realms of Natural Breath into something grander… that was the day he succeeded in forming the Earth Gate and stepped onto the path of cultivation.

It was a long and arduous journey, taking him thousands of years to complete, but he had done it in the end. And since that day, it was like he had taken a meteor into the stars, his cultivation improving by leaps and bounds every moment of every day until he truly stood above it all.

But now, he was a bundle of Bad Karma, Corpse Poison eating him up from the inside out. So he would need a method to make it no longer his problem.

Ryu’s smile widened as he looked at the Heaven Gate above him.

He had wondered why it always looked exactly like the Gates his eyes produced. Now, the answer was obvious to him.

It sealed away such a large part of the Heavens, closing off so much strength and selfishly keeping it for itself…

It sounded like the perfect place to throw all this Bad Karma away.

As for what corruption that would leave in the Heavens? He didn’t particularly care. He had always done whatever he felt like without regard for others.

So long as his family was safe and happy… who cared about anything else.

Ryu took a step through time, soaring through trillions upon trillions of years.

When his vision cleared, he looked up with a smile at a woman with arrogance oozing down to the depths of her bones sitting on a throne above.

In this rare instance, he didn’t mind someone looking down at him at all.