Hearing Rio’s words, Raika couldn’t help but grit his teeth in frustration!

Raika was not weak by any means at all.

If it were any other person, once stuck inside his artificial realm, Raika would have complete control over their body, mind, and soul, as he was omnipotent within his artificial realm’s boundaries!

Through the use of the various ’laws’ embedded in his artificial realm, Raika can freeze anyone in time or space; he can even wipe out people’s memories and implant new ones in their minds!

His original plan was to trap Rio in his artificial realm and format Rio’s memories, but unfortunately for Raika, Rio was the only person in the entire universe who was immune to Raika’s artificial domain’s effects due to his ’True Immunity’!

The moment Raika used the ’laws’ against Rio, his ’True Immunity’ shattered the realm and caused him severe mental damage.

For an SS-ranker, their world authority serves as their most powerful ability, deeply connecting with their soul and sea of consciousness.

If the world authority is damaged through some unusual means like what Rio did with his ’true immunity’ and Lia’s power, it can send mental damage back to the main sea of consciousness.

And this was exactly what Rio wanted.

When he had split half of his soul to contemplate proper attacks against Raika, this was one of the attacks that he came up with, and that’s why he was able to execute it so perfectly right after the battle started!

Raika’s realm collapsed for the second time today, and even if the damage from the backlash was likely minimal, the attack would probably still make the person behind Raika frustrated. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"Although other attacks don’t seem to go through to your real body, attacks that hit the sea of consciousness and the strings of destiny seem really effective against you..."

"Aren’t I right?"

Hearing Rio’s words, Raika’s eyes narrowed as he stood up from the ground, wiped the blood from his face, and imbued his holy lyre with power.

"I will not lose to you, Rio. I cannot afford to lose!"

[World Authority: Realm Weaver!]

[Echo of Paradise: Frozen Dream: Palm of Absolute Zero!]

As Raika realized that trapping Rio inside his realms was pointless and countereffective, he decided to change his strategy and just fight head-on!

Using the world authority ’Realm Weaver,’ Raika summoned dense frost elementals, easily skipping skill charge time.

then smashed the spot that Rio and he were standing on with a palm attack from above made out of ice so low in temperature that it was almost reaching absolute zero!

The attack was so fast that it was almost impossible to dodge it; thus, Rio didn’t bother dodging it.

[Sword Intent: Defensive Approach!]

[Elemental Sword Art: Shadow Type: Full Shadow Elemental Boost!]

Using his sword intent and shadow elemental affinity, Rio enhanced the power of his shadow robe to the maximum level possible and let the powerful attack fall on him.

*BOOOOM!!!!*

The massive frost palm fell on the moon’s surface with such insane speed and strength that the small moon couldn’t withstand it anymore!

The northern half of the small moon’s body shattered into pieces on the spot, and the southern part was flung off far into the empty space due to the sheer force of the attack’s impact!

That attack was powerful enough to destroy nations instantly and wipe out civilization easily, but to Rio, it was not even worth dodging.

From the start to the end, Rio just stood on the same spot and let the attack fall on him.

His body passed right through the attack using the powers of the shadow robe, and thus the attack didn’t even make a single scratch on him and lost all effectiveness against him.

"I am only a single step away from reaching rank SS; moreover, your ’World Authority’ is simply the weakest in front of me, as I have taken precautions against it beforehand, so just give up and spit out the truth..."

"Don’t force me to do something that would make things irreversible..."

Rio was not the same weak awakener now who would be easily threatened by just a mere breath of an SS-ranker.

Aside from not having a ’world authority’ of his own, he was pretty much almost in the same category as that of early-stage SS-rankers.

It wasn’t as easy to defeat him anymore as it once had been.

"You... have you already... no... you are still not at that level; you are still not at that level but you are already influencing the ’laws’ of the world to certain extent..."

"I see, you must have learned it by analysing Lia’s destiny manipulation ability..."

Rio knew exactly what Raika was muttering about.

For the past few days, whenever Rio had time, he would analyze the bracelet Lia gave to him.

Originally it was just to understand destiny manipulation.

But soon Rio started using it for improving his control over the power of the ’laws,’ and for some reason, despite not actively controlling the ’laws,’ his skills automatically started borrowing their powers on their own.

The same thing happened just a bit ago when he boosted his shadow robe and the ’law’ of ’darkness and shadows’ automatically lent him some power, thus making his shadow robe even more effective.

This was a weird phenomenon, but its effects were good, so Rio didn’t bother messing with it and since it had activated after interacting with Lia’s power, Rio didn’t feel that it was harmful to him.

"No, I can’t let you keep advancing... if you become an SS-ranker... at this you will awaken it..."

Ignoring Raika, who was muttering random stuff to himself, Rio activated the bracelet again and made the crown floating above his head the next target.

[Sword Intent: Precision Approach!]

[Sword Sage’s Enlightenment: Destiny Manipulation: Detect Destiny Layout!]

Instantly a strange premonition appeared in Rio’s mind, causing him to look at Raika with a frown.

The moment Rio looked at Raika with that frown, all alarms of danger in Raika’s head started going off at the same time, and goosebumps appeared all over his body.

Even his holy lyre that already had cracks from the previous fight started creaking and trembling crazily!

Before Raika could understand what was going on, Rio’s next words made him completely panic!

"There’s no one behind you.. Could it be you are..."