Location: Unknown.

"What even is this place? The spatial fluctuations here are insanely powerful, and strange visions are colliding with each other everywhere..."

Standing on a transparent glass-like platform, Riya felt confused and fascinated by the scenery.

"Forget about the scenery, kiddo; these two have fainted..."

Riya was so impressed by the colourful, ever-changing scenery of the place that she almost forgot that she came here with her friends.

At some point, Kai had floated near her with a look of concern on his face as he tried to make her snap out of her trance.

"Err... Wh-what happened?"

As if awakened from a dream, Riya snapped out of her daze and looked at the place Kai was pointing to, only to realize that Lia and Link had both fainted on the ground.

"Uh? How did that happen?"

Seeing this scene, Riya was perplexed.

Both of them were likely much stronger than her in terms of mental damage resistance and were much stronger than her in combat skills, and yet, the moment the group entered the portal, both of them fainted!

While walking over to her friend’s side, Riya looked around vigilantly to see if there was anything that had harmed them, but to her confusion, there really wasn’t anything around.

"What’s even going on here?... And how come I am the only one who’s not fainted-"

Before Riya could finish her question, a voice interjected and answered it.

"It’s because you were not supposed to be a part of the timelines at all. You were supposed to not even exist for most of the duration of the timelines that these two friends of yours have become stuck in..."

"The same is true for that cat friend of yours..."

Shocked by the sudden answer, Riya tried to imitate the combat stance of Link and looked at the source of the voice vigilantly only to notice that not too far away, a young man was sitting on a swing.

The swing wasn’t connected to any tree or base at all; it was just swinging in empty air with no support or anything holding it up whatsoever.

The person sitting on the swing had light greenish hair and pupils. His handsome face was enough to make people mesmerized, and an elegant lyre rested in the young man’s arms.

Seeing the other party, Riya became even more vigilant.

"You are... Raika? The one Rio mentioned."

Raika nodded his head at Riya’s words as he played with his lyre and replied with a charming smile on his face.

"Indeed, I am Raika, the master of the holy lyre, the saint of the Nebo civilization."

Riya’s eyes narrowed as she clenched her fists tightly and a deep frown appeared on her face.

[Kai, this guy was able to severely injure even Rio in the spirit realm; if he attacks us, our group that’s already in a bad situation will be wiped out...]

[I can’t sense any vitality or life force from his body at all, so it would be impossible for me to use those life force overdose type of methods to fight him...]

Rio was busy fighting someone outside, while Link and Lia had both passed out; she was the only one still standing.

The biggest problem at hand was that she wasn’t a combatant, and aside from some basic self-defence martial arts that she learned from Link, she had no close combat skills whatsoever!

"Haha, you don’t have to be so vigilant; even if I wanted to harm you, I couldn’t..."

"Creating a version of me that can use the power of an SS-ranker consumes a lot of energy, and Rio is keeping that version of me at bay out there..."

"This version of me is just a weak, ordinary human being, so I can’t fight you even if I wanted to..."

Although Raika was openly exposing his weakness, Riya didn’t let her guard down and didn’t believe him at all.

Rio had told them all about his adventures in the spirit realm and had mentioned how Raika had almost messed up his mission by deceiving him.

’No wonder Rio hasn’t returned to us even until now; he’s been fighting an SS-ranker!’

’But if he’s an SS-ranker, how come he hasn’t been able to defeat Rio until now?’

In Riya’s and everyone else’s opinion, Rio was still only an intermediate-level S-ranker.

Only Rio himself knew that he was only just a step away from reaching the realm of demigods; others had no idea about this matter.

"So, are you that powerful being that’s been terrorizing those poor orcs outside? You are the one who’s been harvesting the strings of destinies of this entire planet?"

"What do you want to do? Are you trying to be a second Alverto?"

At Riya’s bombardment of questions, Raika only smiled as he replied calmly.

"I am not trying to do what that idiot Alverto did. He didn’t even know if he would succeed or not, but I know full well that I will succeed, hehe..."

"The strings of destiny I am collecting from this planet are not exactly for my own use, but it’s pretty much the same thing..."

Raika waved his hand, and intense spatial fluctuation burst out as the fabric of space-time shattered near him, and a giant altar appeared.

In the middle of the giant altar, a young man with brownish hair was floating.

Energy fluctuations were so powerful that Riya almost fainted from the impact of such dense energy, and an aura was rushing out from the altar, and golden threads were wrapped around everywhere on the altar and the young man’s body.

A giant crown was floating high above the altar, entangled with hundreds of golden threads of fate and destiny.

Seeing that young man, Riya’s eyes widened in shock.

"Fade Crest!? He’s still alive!? I thought he had died in that explosion back then!"

Hearing Riya’s words, Raika smiled lightly and waved his finger.

With a casual wave of his finger, a wormhole was opened and closed in a matter of a fraction of a second.

"Hehe... Teleporting anywhere without letting others sense my presence and existence is my speciality..."