Ryu silently watched as Goaman’s screams died down, but he didn’t seem to be ‘seeing’ the scene before him at all.

He couldn’t help but wonder. Was he chosen by the Phoenix Sky God because of his talent? Because of his character? Or was it because he was desperate enough to do whatever it would take.

The Phoenix Sky God’s trial required him to dig deep and find the will the fight against Fate. It sounded like the purest of ideals with the greatest of intentions behind it. But, was this true?

Ryu had found that his obsession with fighting against Fate, even his outright arrogance in thinking he was doing so, weighed him down far more than it helped him.

Was this because he had misread the intentions of the Phoenix Sky God? Or was that because this was the intention of the Phoenix Sky God all along?

But, this was only the tip of the ice berg. The question that Ryu had been ignoring until now, the question that he hadn’t wanted to think about…

Why now?

Why did the Phoenix Sky God force him to wait 900 million years to be reincarnated? Why was this the time period they chose? Why would the Phoenix Sky God make his family have to wait for so long? To suffer through such pain of not knowing whether he was even alive or not? What was the purpose?

Was there something particularly important about the Tor Clan?

Just thinking that made Ryu’s expression weird. They had ties to the Zu Clan simply by virtue of having the crystalline jade, but would the Phoenix Sky God be tied to such a clan?

About the only thing Ryu knew about this Phoenix Sky God was that they most definitely pre dated the Zu Clan. What ties could they possibly have to such a Clan, especially when the Phoenix Sky God should have died long before they were even birthed as a power.

It didn’t make sense.

Was it about the hardship he would have to go through as a child? Ryu didn’t believe this either.

How massive was the cultivation world? How many Kingdoms like the Tor Kingdom were there? How many bad mothers and power hungry fathers were there? Was that really the only place in the vastness of the cosmos he could have gone? That was ridiculous.

Ryu was absolutely certain that there were an infinite number of spots he could have been reincarnated at. Even if, for some reason, the Phoenix Sky God insisted on having him reincarnate on his original Shrine World, how many trillions of people were there? Even in this one world alone, there should have been countless chances in 900 million years to reincarnate him into a suitable challenge.

Ryu took a deep breath before he went any further.

In just this few minutes of thought, he felt himself slipping back toward resentment and anger. It was just so easy to blame everything around you when you didn’t want to take responsibility for yourself.

The truth of the matter was, even if the Phoenix Sky God wanted to use him… Didn’t he need to use the Phoenix Sky God too? Without this existence’s help, would he have ever been able to reach such strength…?

The coldness in Ryu’s gaze calmed.

’One step at a time…’ He thought to himself, emphasizing each word.

A conclusion was slowly brewing in Ryu’s minds, connections he hadn’t or was unable to make in the past coming together one step after another. However, he let them brew in the depths of his mind, allowing the picture to form itself as he focused on the corpse puppet before him.

With a thought, Ryu summoned another Lower Skeleton Warrior.

This time, it sapped about 30% of his stamina. But, he felt this made sense. The cost of activating his Summoning Formation was less per capita the more Skeleton Warriors he was summoning at once. This was why summoning two cost less than 50%, but just one cost this much.

Under Ryu’s command, the Lower Skeleton Warrior began to pour Primordial Chaos Death Qi into Goaman, starting the steps toward completing the process.

Now that Ryu had Primordial Chaos Death Qi, he no longer needed to care about the restrictions on Necromancy Techniques. This highest form of Death Qi could be used as a replacement for every Death Qi in existence, including Hecate’s Grave Qi.

…

Goaman rose, his crimson eyes still hovering in a sea of blackness. There wasn’t a single inch of his body that wasn’t colored by this inkiness. But, when he stood before you, your first thought wouldn’t be of this at all, but rather other the obscene amount of pressure he was giving off.

As though he had the weight of a planet, the air warped and bowed around him, the ground beneath his feet threatening to collapse completely.

The current Goaman had already shattered the mold of the Path Extinction Realm. Had he done so in battle against Ryu, things definitely wouldn’t’ have ended so simply. But, he hadn’t been nearly decisive enough.

Ryu didn’t have a heavy enough weapon to give Goaman. But, luckily, after searching the latter’s spatial rings, he had found a weapon Goaman had clearly prepared for himself after his breakthrough.

It was a pitch black Heaven Grade spear that even Ryu himself couldn’t casually swing around. Even just picking it up required no small bit of effort on his part. But, but Goaman, it was perfect.

Ryu had, of course, found much more in Goaman’s spatial rings than just this, including a few specialty rings curated for the nurturing of wraiths.

Ryu had no experience controlling wraiths, nor did he want to. They were too dangerous for someone with inexperience, especially since there were a few in here Goaman had clearly sealed to be used only after he broke through.

Rather than overestimating himself and getting into another life and death situation, Ryu picked out the weakest wraith and passed it over to Goaman to begin the process of reforming some of his intelligence.

With that done, Ryu headed down the Keep and called forth Nemesis once again. It was time to visit this supposed second city.

What Ryu didn’t know was that there’d be some friends waiting for him there.