Ryu took a deep breath.
He didn't feel lucky that his heart had been targeted and not his head. After thinking about it for a moment, he realized that it was by design. Whoever attacked him realized that he was preparing a [Warp] and timed his attack such that it landed just when his Visualization was complete. Had this person attacked his head instead, his Mental Realm would have shattered, breaking the connection he had to his [Warp] and making it fail.
In the end, the heart was about the only place he could attack to execute his plan.
'Whoever this person is has a level of Spiritual Qi control I've never seen before. More control than I even thought possible…'
"Are you alright now? Because this little one seems to think that I'm his mother."
Ailsa's voice entered Ryu's ears. It was rare for him to actually hear her speak aloud. Normally, it would just sound in his mind, but the feeling wasn't the same. It was easy to forget that there was such a beauty on his shoulders all the time.
Ailsa walked toward Ryu with a shimmering white gown. Her golden hair flowed like the first light of dawn, and her ruby-red eyes held an ethereal magnetism to them, the kind that seemed of another world. It was the kind of thing you'd expect in the glint of a Faerie's eye.
Women were rarely so tall in Ryu's experience, but there was something about Ailsa's height that made her seem even further from the natural world.
In her arms, a bundle of white nestled in her bosom. Its body was incredibly frail, but it seemed quite comfortable using Ailsa's ample chest as a pillow.
Ryu frowned. That was most definitely not what a Griffin was supposed to look like. Their fur and feathers were white, yes. However, it wasn't meant to be entirely white. Their feathers were meant to form a crown on their heads and the very edges of that crown varied in faded colors. Some Griffin bloodlines had blue feather tips, others had red, the possibilities were endless. But, each represented a different strength of bloodline.
However, white feather tips didn't exist…
In addition to this, all Griffins had a gemstone on their foreheads. It was this gem that carried the strength of their Innate Spiritual Sense.
Innate Spiritual Sense was a fairly simple concept. Whereas those without one, like Ryu, had to awaken their Spiritual Sense by Mental Realm cultivating. Griffins had theirs from birth. This both made their Mental Realms more robust, and they had, on average, much larger ranges.
Their gemstone was the source of this ability, not to mention the core of much of their Inherited techniques. But… This young Griffin didn't seem to have one.
And, to address the elephant in the room… How did a five-story tall egg produce what amounted to a puppy that could fit in Ailsa's arms.
Ryu sighed, gingerly walking to Ailsa. He accepted the baby Griffin when she passed it to him.
The little guy was actually quite adorable. It slept away, apparently not even realizing that Ryu was holding it up by its armpits.
The legends of Griffins having eagle claws, scorpion tails and lion bodies were actually tainted versions caused by members of their kind with extremely impure blood. Their true form was right before Ryu now. Well… In part.
They had soft paws hiding their claws like a lion cub would. Their backs did carry wings, but their tails were completely as one would expect, covered in soft fur. The real distinguishing quality of Griffins was the seamless transition of their fur covered faces into a subtle beak. That and, of course, their gemstone and crown of feathers.
This little guy really did look like a Griffin for the most part, right down to its small beak and folded wings. But it was far more lacking in every other regard.
It should have been born at least five meters in size, at a minimum. Yet, it wasn't even two feet in length. It should have had a colored crown of feathers, but it was completely blank as though it hadn't inherited any of the Griffin Clan's most powerful bloodlines. And, it didn't even have a gemstone.
No. Ryu realized now that it did… It was just that it was so incredibly small that it couldn't peak out from the fur on its face…
[Author's Note: If you'd like to see the inspiration for this version of the Griffin, check out RRR's wiki fandom page. I've been slowly building it up recently. It already has detailed explanations of every Qi Realm cultivation stage up to the Path Extinction Realm > https://rise-rising-risen.fandom.com/wiki/Griffins]
The baby griffin yawned, its small little tongue sticking outward as its large eyes sleepily blinked open.
It silently observed Ryu for a moment, realizing that it had never seen this human before.
'… Its eyes are white… It doesn't have the World Pupils…'
Ryu almost smiled bitterly. All those born with the second ranked Heavenly Pupils had golden eyes, just like all those born with his pupils had silver eyes. The fact this baby Griffin didn't have this coloration meant that the reason Ryu risked his life wasn't even waiting as a reward for him.
Ryu sighed. "You're a cripple too, huh…?"
Ryu gently brought the small Griffin into his arm, rubbing its crown of fur until it settled back into its nap again. It snuggled into Ryu's arms, seemingly finding him even more comfortable despite his lack of appropriate assets.
'Since you're a girl, I'll call you Little Gem…'
"… So what's wrong with her?" Ryu asked. He believed that Ailsa definitely had an answer by now.
"The little one is cursed."
Ryu was speechless for a moment. Wasn't one of the abilities of the Griffin race to cure all curses? What kind of warped reality was this?
Ailsa sighed. "Not all curses are created equal, and nothing is infallible."
"So someone harmed this child with capabilities beyond even the natural abilities of the Griffin?"
"Not exactly… It's not someone, but some thing. The Heavens cursed her."
Ryu's gaze flashed with a cold glint.
"The whiteness of her coat and eyes are symptoms of this curse. It's almost an artificial cap the Heavens place on certain powerful species to stop them from growing too powerful and allowing the balance to be maintained.
"For this little one to appear, it means that the Griffins are at a tipping point in their evolution. They may be ascending to a new tier of strength soon, so the suppression on them has an added level of fierceness. It's a trial the Heavens sets for bloodlines… Little Gem just happened to be the unlucky one…"
Ryu had known that cultivation had tribulations to undergo, but he never thought that bloodlines did too…
"The worst part about this curse is that this doesn't necessarily mean that this little one is a great talent either. The Heavens are simply trying to bottleneck the reproduction rate of the Griffins. How talented Little Gem is, is unfortunately irrelevant. This is why the little one is so unlucky…"
Ryu's gaze became colder.
For one, this meant that the Ancient Beast's were already so close to completing their comeback, and maybe even coming back stronger than ever judging by Ailsa's words.
But, he wasn't even thinking about this in any real capacity.. He was more so focused on the Heavens pissing him off again.