Brune of the Wallowing Wisp Sect was the one to speak, however, Ryu didn't look in his direction. Considering his Spiritual Sense, he had no need to. But even if he wasn't blind, Ryu wasn't the type of person to waste his effort on giving such people attention.
He didn't like banter. If someone pissed him off, he would directly kill them. If he couldn't directly kill them, he wouldn't pay attention to them.
Unfortunately, there were two issues stopping him from taking the former path.
The first was that these individuals were all at the World Sea Realm. It was clear that by now, the true pinnacle disciples of these Sects were making their way back. All of these individuals had status similar to Jenneless. Meaning, they were all Heaven Class geniuses with World Sea Realm cultivation.
At this moment, Ryu calculated his limits to be about the Half-Step World Sea Realm Earth Class level. If it was Heaven Class, he should be able to match up to someone at the Lower or Middle Cosmic Seed Realm levels. The leap into the World Sea Realm was truly too large, at least when the targets of observation were these individuals.
The Cosmic Seed Realm was the Realm where one planted their comprehensions into their formed Dao Pedestals, while the World Sea Realm was where these seeds bloomed and shattered your Dao Pedestals into a vast sea.
The people of the First and Second Heaven had piss poor Daos in Ryu's estimation, so their Cosmic Seed Realm experts weren't very powerful. As such, he could still leap across those gaps.
However, the World Sea Realm was the Realm where one gained full access to their Spiritual Foundation as it would go from a solid state to a liquid state, making its energy usable.
Due to this, there was an enormous gap between the Cosmic Seed Realm and the World Sea Realm, especially in lower Heavens like this one.
Back in Sacrum, the gap wasn't so exaggerated because anyone who could make it to these Realms were all extraordinary, and that went for their Inheritances as well. But here, it was different.
It was all a matter of relativity.
Of course, Ryu was aware of all of these matters and he had also already seen all of the corpses as well. But he had still come. The likes of these people wouldn't make him take a step back.
His life was on the line? Good. He liked it that way.
Seeing that Ryu directly ignored him, Brune was actually more amused than anything else. Of course, this was because it only took a moment of observation for him to realize that Ryu was blind. In addition, in a place like this one, no one dared to casually spread out their Spiritual Sense for fear of triggering one of the hidden mechanisms, so he might not even be able to precisely lock onto their location.
"Look at that, Brune, you were actually ignored," Aantha spoke coquettishly, her voice carrying a heavy sensual air.
Brune laughed. "It can't be helped, he's blind. He probably stumbled into this place by accident. Look at his cultivation, I doubt he came here on purpose."
Seeing Brune's light mood, the rest also seemed to become amused. After killing their way here, they thought that things would be easy, but they immediately found themselves dancing on an edge between life and death. Who could have known that making it here was the easy part?
There was one person among them, though, that wasn't laughing, and that was a new addition to the three Sects that had just arrived, Farroth of the Metal Work Sect.
Farroth was an Inheritor Disciple that had just returned after receiving a summons from his Sect. Previously, he had been out exploring. But he came back to find his Sect half in ruins and embroiled in war. To make matters worse, these other Sects had sent their own Inheritor disciples and they had even slaughtered many of his own disciple brothers on their path here.
The so-called "everyone" Brune had referred to when he mentioned how many they had killed did include a large number of loose cultivators or disciples of other Sects that happened to be in the area, but there was no doubt that a large number of them were Metal Work Sect disciples.
How could Farroth not be unhappy?
That said, the truth behind his silence now was very different.
"Farroth, is there a need to keep pouting like this? I've already said that I'm sorry, I really couldn't afford to not be cautious so I accidentally killed some of your fellow disciples," Aantha said while licking her lips.
Despite her words, it seemed like she was still reminiscing about the rush.
Farroth snorted coldly, but didn't say a single word.
The truth was that he actually recognized Ryu, this was a man who had killed one of their Inheritor Disciples despite being at the Immortal Ring Realm. He had had half a mind to warn these people, but once he remembered that they had slaughtered the disciples of his Metal Work Sect, he chose to remain silent. Since these people wanted to use this opportunity to weaken his Sect, he would return the favor. He could only hope that Ryu wasn't so weak.
Not all Inheritor Disciples were created equal.
In Sacrum, becoming an Inheritor Disciple meant that you would likely become the next Sect Master, but in the True Martial World, it was a touch different. While being an Inheritor Disciple could mean this, it also carried other meanings.
For example, the Radiant Star Sect had Seven Peaks that represented Seven Inheritances. Each one would need a new Peak Lord and as such needed Inheritors. Likewise, there were exceptionally important positions that would need to be filled when the older generation retired such as positions of Grand Elder or a position like the Head of the Disciplinary Hall.
Inheritor Disciples were essentially the individuals that would take up these high level roles in a Sect once they were ready. As a result, there could sometimes be large differences between Inheritor Disciples, and it was even possible to be demoted from Inheritor Disciple back to Core Disciple.
As such, Farroth didn't actually fear Ryu, but he hoped that Ryu would be able to give him a surprise regardless. His position was too sensitive to use to kill these precious disciples of other Sects as it would only make the position of his Metal Work Sect worse. But if Ryu was able to kill them, this would mean that there might even be some that came to help their Metal Work Sect expel the Radiant Star Sect and kill them down to their last man.
As he saw it, it was a win-win.
The other disciples laughed when they saw Farroth's reaction and didn't mind it too much, only the cold faced Fairy Mae gave Farroth a second glance before turning away, her gaze just as cold as ever.
At that moment, Ryu suddenly took a step forward, and then another.
He couldn't be bothered with the conversations of these people. All this time, he had been observing the catacombs and scanning the region from top to bottom.
Others didn't dare to stretch out their Spiritual Sense so wantonly, but he most certainly did. These collapsed restrictions, left in haggard pieces, had no shot at sensing his Void Spiritual Sense. As such, he could be as cavalier as he wanted, so long as he was cautious about his actual steps.
In truth, this region near the edge was already a great spot for meditation, but Ryu knew that deeper within, the results would be even better.
After just a few silent minutes, he felt that he had already mapped out all the pitfalls in this region and could begin to move forward.
Brune blinked when he saw this before he started chuckling to himself again. Didn't this Immortal Ring Realm brat see that even they were being cautious? Even after a while, the deepest they had gotten was a few dozen meters. At this pace, it would take them a couple years to reach the core, but none of them minded this too much.
It wasn't easy to find opportunities to temper themselves. Usually, the main issue would be not having enough of such opportunities. They weren't as lucky as the higher Heavens, having many ruins and legacies to explore.
They all understood this very well. Being at the World Sea Realm, they were already near the end of the potential of the Second Heaven where even False Sky Gods stood at the very top. There simply weren't that many opportunities to improve.
Now that they had found one, why would they care about a couple years?
However, the smile on Brune's face froze after Ryu turned and took his fifth step, then a sixth and seventh.
In just a few seconds, Ryu had traveled a distance forward further than any one of them.
The gazes of the geniuses flashed with a cold intent.
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