1241 Timebomb
It originally took Ryu a month to make it to the Heavenly Dew Pavilion's outer territory. This time, however, it didn't even take him a week. Had he used the Quivering Spectral Wings, he might have been able to complete the journey in just three to four days. The amount of speed he had access to right this moment was simply ridiculous, he practically glided through the air, not facing the slightest wind resistance.
'This should be enough time for news to have spread and for others to have a general understanding of what's going on here!'
Ryu had realized that the little woman had been silent for a very long time, but he also wasn't the type to randomly start a conversation with someone he knew so little about, so he hadn't cared enough to pay great attention to it at all.
He walked into the city slowly, and as expected, there was an odd air to it.
He wasn't very worried about exposing himself. Whatever fame he would have gotten for participating in that event was likely overshadowed by these events. On top of that, less than a week wasn't enough time for such news to spread anyway.
In addition, if the Heavenly Dew Pavilion was looking for him, they wouldn't be looking here. First they would check the closest teleportation platforms, and when they realized he hadn't used any of them, they would change their target to the vicinity where he should have been.
There was no way they would believe that a Dao Pedestal Realm expert like Ryu could travel in a week what, realistically, should have taken him months to travel. Even if they used the speed they observed during the event to measure him, they would still be several weeks short of his actual speed.
Ryu found a restaurant and entered it. He didn't plan on using an information network.
For one, the price on such information was definitely ridiculous, maybe only Transcended and Omniscient Sky Gods would be able to afford the price. Secondly, he may very well be the one they were looking for, so how could he be so casual about leaving a trail for others to follow? As long as he was patient, he bet that he could find the information he needed.
It took a while, and Ryu devouring quite a bit of food, but he finally began to hear some faint inklings. He had to change his strategy from passively listening to using his newly strengthened Northern Heavenly Wind to carry hidden words to his ears. It was a subtle art, but when he got the hang of it, he was able to listen in on even Sky Gods.
...
"... The situation right now is quite bad."
"What do you mean? It can't be that they plan to wipe out the whole Sixth Heaven, right?"
"Let alone the Sixth Heaven, those people wouldn't care even if they massacred all the Heavens beneath the Seventh."
A silence fell.
"Just what happened?"
"Not many people even know. They just showed up a few days ago and started terrorizing. It was as though their first goal before anything was to establish dominance, as though they thought we had forgotten just how powerful they were."
"It was only earlier today that they made their first demands. They're making every Four Star Sect and Clan and above send out all of their geniuses beneath a hundred years of age. Those that don't comply will be wiped out."
"They're actually so bold? Even if they're powerful, how many of them could there be? And just how arduous is it to descend from the Seventh Heaven? If they infuriate everyone, won't they just die here?"
"Watch what you're saying. We're not at a level where we can hide our words from supreme experts, if you want to die, take yourself."
"This isn't the time for that. This is being blown way out of proportion. Isn't the city running just fine? And how many did they send? A dozen people? Two dozen? I don't believe that the gap is large enough that such a small number of people should be able to dictate how we run things."
"Yeah? And what if there's a Dao Lord among them?"
The silence immediately became deafening. Although Ryu couldn't see the person on the opposing side, but he could tell that he was probably sweating buckets by now. As for his companion, he decided not to rub it in, clearly his reaction had probably been similar when he found out.
"... Do you have any idea why they're doing this?"
"I'm not 100% certain, but I've listened there's something wrong with that formation. It's being overloaded and no one seems to know why?"
"Formation? The Dao..."
The voice trailed off, clearly he was worried about speaking about this as well. The Dao Restriction Formation was an open secret no one seemed to want to talk about, mostly because the implications were far too humiliating.
"How could it be overloaded? The only way for that to happen is if..."
"Someone must have broken the restrictions..."
"But that's impossible, should a Tribulation descend during an attempt? Even if they somehow succeeded, wouldn't they have a brand on their foreheads?"
"I listened that someone broke the Hegemonic Dao limit, but for whatever reason that plus one disappeared. I assume that one of the Sixth Dimensional Clans or Sects dealt with him. But not long after it vanished, an Ancient Dao appeared, and not even a few years after that, another Ancient Dao appeared right after that."
Listening to this, Ryu frowned. Shouldn't individuals be aware that he had formed an Ancient Dao? Why did they sound like they had no idea? Was this a secret kept by the Sixth Heaven? But it was the geniuses of the Fourth and Fifth Heaven that had seen him, unless...
Ryu's pupils constricted. Starlight.
Starlight had an odd ability to vanish from the minds of others, but what happened when others interacted with him? How arduous would it be for those who constantly kept forgetting Starlight to also remember the individuals he had interacted with? If Starlight was a blank, wouldn't Ryu's battle with him also transformed blank?
But that left one problem. Starlight should have returned to the Seventh Heaven, no? Then shouldn't those of his Sect be aware of him?
Wait... Why had he made the assumption that Starlight had been able to return to the Seventh Heaven?
He had presumed that because he could remember Starlight easily that the latter's abilities weren't useful on him... But what if they were to a small extent and Starlight had simply exited to the Fourth Heaven just like everyone else?
Didn't that mean that he had transformed a ticking timebomb?
