Ryu became more serious. Ragash's first attack was a fool's errand. Trying to overwhelm Ryu with power when his current body was so powerful was the pinnacle of foolishness.
However, these sort of qi-based attacks were a different matter entirely.
Ragash's Dao had only been artificially suppressed. It wasn't as thorough as what Yaana had experienced with her Black Rose Life Partner. There were still bits and pieces of that comprehension hidden within Ragash. n(.OvelBIn
In addition, something that was most definitely not suppressed was his comprehension of techniques and the amount of qi he had in him.
Essentially, Ragash's Dao and power output had been restrained to the False Sky God Realm, but his combat sense and even his stamina were still firmly at the True Sky God level, whether that be in terms of body or qi. His body likewise kept about the same durability.
To make a complex matter simple, when Leonel said that the current Ragash was probably the most powerful False Sky God of the Seventh Heaven currently, he wasn't exaggerating in the slightest.
Under this pressure, Ryu glided backward calmly, deploying his [Absolute Domain] as silvery runes danced around him.
Ragash swept toward him, his arms spread out wide as though inhaling all the fires of the world, and then he roared.
'What...' was all Ryu could think before he was swallowed up by a vortex of fire.
Ragash stood with a violent glint in his eye. He was cautious and didn't immediately rush into the flames, waiting to see the result. According to his information, Ryu's movement techniques were more than good enough to at least attempt to dodge that, so he smelled signs of a trap.
What he didn't expect was for Ryu to appear completely unscathed.
"What the hell was that?" Ryu asked, incredulous. He looked like he wanted to have a conversation mid-battle. The fact he wasn't taking things seriously at all infuriated Ragash to no end.
Without a word, Ragash rushed forward again, closing the distance in an instant and unleashing a flurry of attacks.
"Was that supposed to be an attempt at breathing fire?"
Ryu tilted his head to the side, blocking the next pair of strikes with his forearms and sliding out of the way of the final one. His movements were fluid and unhurried, there was simply nothing that could escape his eyes and even less that could escape his [Third Perspective]. He watched the battle from millions of angles at once, his Internal Matrix taking in the information and spitting out the perfect response every time.
Then, in a short opening, Ryu kicked out, landing the perfect sole of his feet right against Ragash's chest.
He looked toward Ryu, his eyes flashing with a hint of madness and humiliation. After being woken up, he understood what happened, and yet it filled him with a hint of fear.
He assumed that it was related to Ryu's Dao, or it was at the very least a Dao Charm technique, but he hadn't even sensed it activate.
How could he know that Ryu was only passively using his Dao? His Dividing Chaos didn't need to directly apply pressure on people, he could use it as a method of analysis, and then use more normal means to impact a person... such as his barrage of insults earlier.
Of course, though he was saying Dividing Chaos, in reality he was only using one part of it, that being Dividing Sin. It was even more impossible for others to sense just a small usage of what was ultimately just a single quarter of his Dao.
Ryu chuckled. "Finally ready to battle? It looked like you were a bit shaken in fear just now. Are you doing alright? Feeling nervous."
Ragash grit his teeth hard. "You use a woman's Dao and yet you're so proud of it. You don't have the heart of a warrior at all, how could I fear you?!"
Ryu blinked. A woman's Dao?
He burst into a booming laughter. Ragash was trying to put his Dao in the same box as female cultivators that used charming or coaxing Daos. He had to admit, it was a decent try and Ryu even found it amusing.
"You want to know why you can't sense my Dao and yet you're certain I used it?" Ryu asked with a grin.
Ragash didn't respond, his brows furrowing hard.
"Don't worry, I'll tell you. It's because I'm only using a small portion of it, and passively at that. You would have already lost this fight had the mighty Crown Fire Lord not just saved you, but you want to call it a woman's Dao?"
Lord Crown Fire's gaze glinted with a dangerous light, but he didn't even dignify the dig with a response as though it was simply beneath him.
As for Ryu, he didn't even look toward the man, his knuckles smashing together. In his view, the longer this was, the more humiliating it was, the more disparaging it could be, the better.
"However, since I can't count on the Raging Inferno Sect not cheating, I can show you what it would feel like to face a 'man's Dao'."
"Starting with how to truly roar like a Dragon."
Ryu's smiling expression suddenly vanished and the skies rumbled. His chest expanded and veins of ruby red crawled up his collarbone and throat as his diaphragm followed suit and expanded as well.
BOOM.
ROAR!
A blazing cyclone of fire suddenly manifested before Ragash and he felt his knees go weak.