1137 Refuse
Ryu didn't say a word. Oddly enough, he directly closed his eyes. When he opened them once more, they glowed not only with blinding rings of Heavenly Favor, but his Dao Heart itself was so bright that it nearly caused Starlight to blink.
Ryu punched out. It was a punch of absolute simplicity, and yet it had already stepped into the realms of a Fist God, gathering all of his energy into a single point. His body seemed to shift through space although it hadn't, appearing with the very same steady stance right before Starlight.
Starlight's gaze narrowed. Ryu didn't even bother to respond to his taunts, and just now his Dao Heart had shone so brightly that even he could sense it.
The Dao Heart shouldn't have been something that was tangible, and most certainly shouldn't have been sensed by someone beneath the Sky God Realm. The only explanation was that Ryu's own was so radiant that it forced the world to acknowledge its existence.
Even so...
His punch was weak.
Starlight struck out with a palm, colliding with Ryu's fist.
A jarring feeling shot through Ryu's body as he was forced to take two heavy steps backward. In just that exchange, he felt that Starlight was an immovable wall, one he couldn't break through even if his strength suddenly doubled, and that was even after cultivating his Heavenly Chaos Bone Structure.
It was a strength difference that was almost intrinsic. It wasn't just about talent, although that in and of itself was a huge marker. Whether it was the treatment Starlight received from his youth to the pills and herbs he had consumed, to the teachers he had had along his path, and most definitely to the techniques he had practiced and even briefed through.
Starlight was on an entirely different level.
Ryu's expression didn't seem to change in the slightest as he threw out a second punch, and a third. Starlight's palms casually countered. his brows furrowing. He couldn't believe that someone who had given him so much pressure could be so weak.
He hadn't been lying to Ryu when he said those words about his Spiritual Foundation. In the True Martial World, passing down a Spiritual Foundation was a method only weaker Sky Gods used, and it was normally only targeted at weaker talents and poorer backgrounds as well.
Back in Sacrum, the greatest way for a Sky God to accumulate Karma was to test a genius and have them inherit their Spiritual Foundation. Other methods such as Legacy Worlds and Ruins had varied results and could sometimes be gamed by those that weren't worthy. Sky Gods were ultimately capable of making mistakes as well, and it was impossible for them to see through countless generations of change.
In the end, this had become the best method there was and Sky Gods with reproducible methods had become legends whose Spiritual Foundations appeared again and again throughout history. This was the benefit of being able to directly target the most prestigious talents and entice them. Ryu was one such person, of course, although his own circumstances were somewhat different.
However, in the True Martial World, this wasn't possible at all.
Such talents tended to be born in Clans and Sects with large amounts of accumulated Karma and Faith. If a Sky God tried to take such a talent under their wing, they'd find all remnants of their former selves shredded to pieces before they could even make contact. A clan or Sect with such protections would never allow their young genius to suddenly have their future coopted by a stranger whose motives were entirely unknown.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The main issue with taking on a Sky God's Spiritual Foundation was that even if it had been reverted back to a mortal state, it still had the lingering influences of what had once been a Godhood.
Ryu hadn't noticed such influences yet because he had yet to begin to use his Spiritual Foundations in cultivation in earnest, but once he did, he would realize just how much pull the Phoenix Sky God had.
This would just be like when Ryu tried to dual wield spear, glaives and halberds all over again. He had always had the skill and willingness to succeed, but the pull of Faith and Karma had made it almost impossible for those weapons to cooperate with him properly.
Likewise, when Ryu tried to take the Phoenix Sky God's Spiritual Foundation down his own path, it too would fight back. When he tried to plant his Cosmic Seeds, it might very well reject them. When he tried to grow his Cosmic Seeds and shatter it to form a World Sea, it would likely fight back. When he tried to form his own Godhood, it would most definitely fight back, far more fiercely than ever before.
The only way to counter this was to follow down the path the Spiritual Foundation wanted you to follow, the path that it was used to, the path it wanted to see.
But if you foolishly chose to do such a thing, you would find yourself shackled by the same limitations of the God that came before you. Your ceiling would no longer be decided by you, it would be decided on the limitations of the Sky God that came before you... A Sky God who had clearly long since died.
It wasn't even possible to reject this fate. The last time Ryu tried to completely remove the Phoenix Sky God's Spiritual Foundation from himself, he was injured so badly that he very nearly died. There was simply no getting away from it. With such an intimate connection formed, it was impossible for anyone to do anything about it.
In such a situation, Ryu was destined to fail. It only made it worse that this Sky God was from a lesser world. He simply never stood a chance to begin with. From the start, no matter how great his determination was, he was destined to never amount to much.
And this was why the Dao Lord had refused to choose him, this was why the Dao Lord would continue to refuse to choose him.
