1248 Taboo Power
'Taboo refers to evil...' Ryu's gaze narrowed.
As a Ruin Master, he was very much familiar with how language changed overtime, he could even be said to be quite a language connoisseur. It was why he had very carefully chosen the language he used to name his Dao, something most others wouldn't even think about.
Often times, tracking the changes in language was the best way to read the complexities of history and uncover secrets that had long since been buried.
The saying that the victors wrote history couldn't be more true, but the one that the victors could not do was erase the context of language, at least not without destroying all of their literary works as well. Even if they burned everything ever written by their enemies, would they do the same to themselves? And if they didn't dare to do this, then the context and ebbs and flows of language would always remain, this would forever be something that they could not escape.
Something like the shift in meaning of Taboo was definitely a nice crumb trail that Ryu could look into. Those words of the Favor Alchemy Sky God were spoken casually, but to Ryu they revealed quite a lot and gave him a piece of ribbon to tug at and untangle.
"Do you know the names of these Nine Taboo Powers?"
"... Their names have long since been wiped from history, how would I know?"
Ryu raised an eyebrow. He didn't believe those words for a second, but it was curious. What the Favor Alchemy Sky God related to these people?
"What's your relationship with the Taboo Powers?" Ryu asked.
The Favor Alchemy Sky God frowned, her aura fluctuating. "Stop asking me questions."
"Are you from one of these powers?"
"No. Leave me alone."
Ryu raised an eyebrow. At least when she said no, she didn't seem to be lying, but that only made him more curious. If she wasn't a part of them, then why was she so agitated. Also, the timelines didn't seem to match up properly either.
Although Ryu didn't know anything about these Nine Taboo Powers, it should have been very long since they fell. This conflict should have started and been concluded countless cycles ago. The Favor Alchemy Sky God may have died a long while ago, and had been waiting for him for just as long, but it wasn't to the point where she had history that went that far back.
"What do you know about the Unbalance Art Sect?" Ryu suddenly asked.
"What did you say?"
The startled tone in her voice already told Ryu everything he wanted to know.
"So, they are indeed part of the Nine Taboo Powers. Quite interesting."
The Unbalance Art Sect's inheritance was oddly powerful despite the fact Ryu had yet to succeed in fusing its individual pieces. It simply didn't make sense for it to appear like it had, and as it had. And it was hard to understand why they had been destroyed as well. The survivability of a Sect like that one should have been off the charts.
Of course, there was always the possibility that they simply couldn't find people with affinity with their Core Teachings. But such a thing wouldn't have left a Ruin behind. And more importantly, a Sect having trouble finding successors wouldn't pit the few they managed to find against each other for slaughter, that would be the epitome of stupidity.
"What do you know about the Unbalance Art Sect?"
"About them? I guess you could say I'm their successor."
The Favor Alchemy Sky God nearly jumped from her meditating position, her qi nearly going out of control again.
"This is bad, this is very bad..." she bit her lip. "... it's no wonder, it's no wonder..."
Ryu seemed quite calm despite her reaction. He planned on wiping out all the Clans and Sects that participated in the current garbage system of the True Martial World for no other reason than they pissed him off. He didn't care about helping other people, he just wanted to vent his frustration, that much was enough for him.
To him, this wasn't "bad" it was just the inevitable happening a few steps ahead of time. Plus, he had never been caught like Eska and Isemeine had, and he had also stopped himself from being branded. In addition, he had used the Unbalance Mantra in public many times before, but no one seemed capable of seeing through it. Just by its very nature, it was difficult to almost impossible to see through.
He was simply unmoved by it all.
However, Ryu was curious about something.
"What's no wonder?"
"I..."
The Favor Alchemy Sky God shook her head several times but still ended up answering. It turned out that Ryu wasn't her only way out of the fate of death, she had deduced three other paths. But the reason she had chosen Ryu in the end was because his Fate seemed unbound and difficult to track and trace: Being by such a person's side would help to shroud her from being discovered by those Dao God monsters.
However, it turned out that the reason it was difficult to track was because of this.
The Favor Alchemy Sky God seemed to abandon her cultivation and began to tap at the air in front of her as though she was trying to divine something. Stars descended and an abacus that covered the skies and was forged of star qi manifested.
The more she tapped, the paler she became, but it didn't seem that this paleness was coming from fatigue, but instead what she was seeing.
Suddenly, the abacus collapsed into motes of starlight and reconvened together to form the image of a shackled silver star. When the Favor Alchemy Sky God saw this, she nearly fainted.
Ryu didn't have an unbound Fate at all. Instead, he had the exact opposite, his Fate was entirely chained and his destiny was under the control of others. How could she have made a mistake like this? This was the worst kind of failure. Ryu wasn't her best choice, he was the worst choice she could have made.
Tears welled up in her eyes and began to fall uncontrollably.
Ryu, who was watching this in silence, recognized his Fate Star immediately. He had seen it himself many times before. So, although he couldn't guess at what the Favor Alchemy Sky God had been doing, he could deduce the result of it.
Also, he could tell that these tears weren't for himself, nor were they for the little woman. She was shedding those tears because she seemed to have already concluded that she had floundered at something, something far larger than herself.
Life and death wasn't so easy to play around with, even with an apparently miraculous pill like her own. By using Ryu as the catalyst to extending her life beyond what the universe had in store for her, the Favor Alchemy Sky God had bound herself to Ryu to an even greater fashion than even Ailsa. Although Ryu and Ailsa were Life Partners, they still had the ability to live their own lives if they so chose to do so, but the Favor Alchemy Sky God didn't have such a luxury.
While she had mentioned something about taking on Flowing Frost's Karma and Fate, what she hadn't mentioned was that she wouldn't have a choice but to take on Ryu's as well. The moment she had died, she had lost the right to control and maneuver her own Fate.
This was the greatest weakness of her Heavenly Favor Pills, her magnum opus... Cheating death was simply too difficult. And now it seemed that she would have to pay the price for it.
How far could such a person even go? With such a chained Fate, with such a restricted Fate Star, would it even be possible for Ryu to enter the Sky God Realm? She truly didn't know the answer to that question...
At this point, every bit of progress Ryu made forward would only become a greater anchor when that day came. And when he finally tried to form his Godhood, to take his first steps toward shedding all mortality and separating himself from the Heavens, how would his Fate Star react?
This was all her fault, her stupid mistake. She had divined Ryu like a normal individual of the Martial Path, but because he had interactions with the Taboo Path, the method of calculation should have changed entirely. Because she was unaware, she had made a fundamental miscalculation right at the start...
Her divination never stood a chance.
Ryu looked indifferently toward his Fate Star and turned to leave. He didn't feel like saying anything more, and the Favor Alchemy Sky God definitely didn't feel like talking. In fact, she had stopped cultivating entirely, there was no doubt that her Dao Heart had suffered severe damage.
However, Ryu didn't feel like it was his duty to console her. If she didn't want to believe in him, that was her prerogative.
In the beginning, Ryu feared gazing upon his Fate Star because he was scared of what it showed him.
Now, he didn't bother to gaze upon it because he simply didn't care what it had to say.
He had shattered the chains on his Spiritual Foundation, and he would likewise shatter the chains on his Fate Star.
Nothing in this world would bind him.
Since he had gotten his answer from the Favor Alchemy Sky God, his objective remained the same. He wanted to see who was truly the best Ruin Master in the True Martial World...
Himself? Or those elderly codgers on the Ninth Heaven.
A diabolical grin spread across Ryu's face. He just so happened to want to express a bit of fury.
