Sever

For the first time, a savage grin spread across Ryu's face. What a truly full circle moment. This time, he wasn't a favorite. He wasn't a person of this world, but he had taken so much from it. It was only natural that their Heavens try to wipe him out. Sending down Heaven's Knights was only the obvious course of action.

But rather than feeling like he was being targeted, his blood boiled.

26 years… it had been too long since he had had a real battle. Not against those pitiful so-called geniuses who couldn't even withstand a single strike from him.

His body shook, and suddenly the translucent scale armor that coated him became more obvious. The torso of his robes shattered into a rain of fabric, and a robust, vascular figure appeared.

His skin was so clear that it seemed possible to reflect the lights of the Tribulations itself, his muscles so condensed they looked like filaments of steel had been run beneath his skin to form them.