996: Mountain

Mountain

Ryu's gaze flashed, his palm calmly stretching out and the Mountain Character in his irises glowed with a fierce light.1

At that moment, despite the fact there wasn't even the slightest bit of strength added to his palm as though he had only held it out to feel the briskness of the wind, a single tap on the jaguar's forehead forced it into the ground.

A mighty pressure descended, crushing the jaguar. If there was even the slightest bit more, the creature just might very well be crushed into a meaty paste.

Ryu rarely used his Natural Enlightenment. In fact, he only used it now because it was convenient. It was the easiest method of controlled suppression he had.

It had been a long while now since Ryu had grasped Shrine Mountain's incarnation. The abilities it gave him access to, especially after using it in his eight trigram diagram, were extraordinarily powerful. However, they ultimately boiled down to suppression.

Shrine Mountain represented a lot more than just this. It was the link between Heaven and Earth, the arbitrator of life, death and reincarnation, not to mention being the core of the mysteriously birthed Shrines.

However, such things weren't what Ryu could consider using for now. He hadn't delved deep enough into the mysteries, and even if he had, with Sacrum's current weakness, it would be almost impossible for such abilities to impose themselves on the True Martial World, that was just the harsh truth.

That said, the only thing that Ryu would not lose access to was this suppression. Mountain had fused into his Dao along with his other Inheritances, it was what connected his Dividing Karma and Dividing Tribulation, the root of what formed his Dao, Dividing Heaven.

It could be said that Mountain had become the foundation of Ryu's Dao, its very core. The core of a Hegemonic Dao that embodied Heaven and Earth itself… A Dao that dared to take the name Dividing Heaven…

How could a mere Earth Grade beast possibly so easily deal with its suppression?

It would have to be at least of the Tenth order to even think about moving currently, and at least of the Eleventh to be able to maintain its full strength now that Ryu's Dao was on the verge of entering the Third Immortal Grade.

The jaguar glared upward at Ryu, its teeth bared and its muscles flexed to the extreme as it tried to pressed upward. But no matter what it did, it couldn't elevate itself and could only allow Ryu's palm to press upon its forehead.

"Be obedient," Ryu said lightly.

An overwhelming soul pressure descended and crushed the spirit of the jaguar.

In Sacrum, Ryu wouldn't dare to use his soul like this. Without the medium of a Visualization, it would put him in danger and force him into potentially suffering backlash. One only needed to look toward Jenneless who actually had a far more powerful soul than his own back then to see the kind of dangerous situations even a strong soul could end up in.

However, after researching several Soul Techniques of the True Martial World, Ryu had come to understand how their foundations were formed and how the people of this world used their souls directly in techniques without putting them into harm's way.

In the past, Ryu had relied on taming beasts by having them follow him willfully.

Little Rock was a beast he had to battle to a standstill. Nemesis was a beast he had saved from a life of torture. Little Silk was personality defeated and restrained by him. And Little Gem had been a little baby when he met her, making it quite easy to build up a trust bond.

All of the relationships with his beasts were built on true like this and they could technically betray him whenever they pleased.

However, now, Ryu had the ability to force beasts to submit whether they wanted to or not. And, he had the soul talent to be completely unobstructed in doing so.

Beast Taming Soul Techniques were actually quite rare. But Ryu was able to create one of his own just by reading a large number of Soul Techniques and Soul Cultivation Techniques. His soul talent was simply in a stratosphere of its own.

Maybe there was a reason why of all his talents, the one that the Martial Gods went out of their way to strip away from him was this one… It made one wonder what Ryu's true Spiritual Foundation was like.

The jaguar's gaze went dull and it lost its luster.

'Unfortunate. I guess my technique isn't quite perfect yet. I took control of it, but it lost much of its own intelligence.

'That's fine, I never planned on having a mere Earth Grade beast follow me for a long time anyway. It's just useful for the time being.'

"Up," Ryu said coldly.

The jaguar beast stood. It was about three meters long and two meters tall. It was quite a large beast, but compared to the Ninth Order beasts Ryu was used to, it was actually extraordinarily small.

When the organizations of the Second Heaven saw Ryu force an Earth Grade beast into submission with a single palm and a few seconds, their eyes widened. The eyes of the only beast taming Sect among them brightened like torches.

The time it took for a beast tamer to control a beast was a sign of their prowess. To be two Orders below the jaguar, and yet force it to heel within a few seconds… Just what level of soul talent did this monster have?!

Ryu gracefully landed on the jaguar's back, standing tall. He raised his body and his mind calmed. It was time to go hunting.

His Spiritual Sense flourished and he locked onto ten targets at once.

"Go."

The jaguar blazed a trail forward, and yet Ryu looked as though he was standing on solid ground, his eyes closed and his mind serene.

He pulled the string of his bow and released it, it felt like an inhale and an exhale, a picture perfect representation of elite archery.

In less than half a minute, ten participants had fallen to their deaths, wide eyed. All they saw in their final moments was a flash of darkness. 

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