Ryu felt it before he saw it.
The first time he went to the Ninth Heaven, he was buried deep under layers of ocean, so insulated that he couldn't truly feel the Ninth Heaven, and that was a good thing too. Back then, had he appeared within the majesty of the Ninth Heaven, he would have been crushed to death.
Ryu knew this, but when he really experienced it himself, he realized how large the gap was.
The Eighth Heaven was nothing compared to the Ninth Heaven. In fact, it felt like the gap between the Eighth and Ninth was even larger than the gap between the First and Eighth. It wasn't a matter of qi quantity, but rather that it felt like this was the first world Ryu had ever stepped into that was truly…
Complete.
When Lysander broke through the final layer, the breakthrough Ryu had been trying to suppress rushed through like a wild roar through the skies. He sucked in the qi in the surroundings so greedily and wholly that a vortex formed.