Inside Raika’s Artificial Realm.

Looking at the solidified space-time fabric, Rio could only shake his head in helplessness.

Rio’s legendary skill is very powerful indeed, but the other party is using a high-level world authority in combination with a powerful legendary artifact that excels at controlling the cosmic order.

Raika can create new rules for his realm at his whims! His entire skills set seems to be specifically made in such a way that he would counter Rio accurately!

"In a normal situation, it would have been impossible for me to teleport you to my realm, created through my world authority, but the crown made it possible..."

"Also... you are not the only person who’s been teleported by me; your friends are also at my mercy, Rio, so calm down and let me talk things out with you..."

Hearing Raika’s words, Rio immediately shook his head.

"I don’t need to worry about the safety of my friends at all; they are all strong enough on their own and can survive without me needing to beg for their lives..."

"You cannot make me surrender just by trying to threaten me with their lives..."

Raika’s eyes widened in surprise for a second as he realized that he seemed to have miscalculated the relationship Rio had with his friends gravely.

Despite the fact that Raika threatened him with the lives of his friends, Rio remained unbothered as if he didn’t even care about their lives at all.

"You... you have become more inhumane than I was expecting... that’s tricky; I was betting on you still having some concerns about them to make you obey..."

"But I guess the only way left now is to just beat some sense into you by force..."

The usual smile disappeared from Raika’s face as his expression became cold and his entire body started giving off intense murderous intent.

"Hoh? So, you finally decided to show your true colors after all; I was waiting for just that..."

The entire time, Raika had been fighting him half-heartedly, and that made Rio very uncomfortable.

It was the same in the spirit realm, and it was the same just a while ago.

Raika was actively trying to hold back, likely because he knew that his strength as a powerful SS-rank being was too much for the current Rio to handle.

Rio didn’t like the kind of battles where the enemy would purposely hold back, as it seemed like he was alive only because of Raika’s mercy!

’I hate this feeling of feeling weaker. Sigh, I want to reach rank SS fast!... Only after reaching the realm of demi-gods will I be able to compete with all these threats...’

The gap between a person with a world authority and someone without one was just too massive to ignore.

Even with legendary skill, even with immense talents and affinities, Rio still couldn’t ignore the overwhelming power and authority granted by a ’World Authority’ to an SS-ranker.

If it were a weak early-stage SS-ranker, Rio might have still been able to keep himself safe, but Raika was different.

Just like in the spirit realm, Rio still couldn’t sense the other party’s presence or any kind of energy fluctuation from him at all.

’Don’t tell me... even this SS-rank body is a ’projection’ too? How’s that even possible?...’

Logically speaking, it should be impossible for a mere ’projection’ of someone to be able to exert the strength of rank SS.

Rank SS is clearly the highest ceiling of strength in this world at the moment, and a projection can’t be as strong as the real body no matter what.

Yet, Raika was clearly showing the strength of an SS-ranker despite being in this so-called ’True Avatar’ projection form of his.

’He isn’t stronger than rank SS, and I am sure of it... If he were that strong, he would have already dealt with me easily; he wouldn’t have needed to bother plotting in such tricky ways against me...’

Rio’s intuition, which had become even stronger after reaching the peak of Rank S, was telling him that there was definitely something fishy going on with this fellow called Raika.

’He’s hiding something... I need to find it if I want to win...’

Taking a deep breath, Rio stopped using his mana detection and any other detection ability; instead, he focused his entire mind on his intuition alone, as he knew that only his intuition was capable of countering Raika.

Rio had already fought Raika in the spirit realm once, and he knew that aside from his intuition, there was nothing that could predict or detect Raika’s movements.

[Sword Intent: Maximum Output!]

[Elemental Sword Art: Space Type: Cosmic Jump!]

Using his sword intent and spatial manipulation abilities, Rio compressed the space-time fabric behind him and pushed himself forward with speed, reaching almost the speed of light!

Seeing Rio rush towards him, Raika didn’t bother dodging; he summoned his signature weapon, the holy lyre, beside him and raised his finger towards the sky.

"In this realm, I am god; your struggle is pointless, Rio!" 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

[World Authority: Realm Weaver!]

[By the order of the crown: I hereby command you to freeze!]

Raika used the very ’realm’ itself as a weapon against Rio and used his power to ensure that Rio specifically would not be able to move inside his realm!

As it was Raika’s realm, he was omnipotent and omniscient within his own realm and thus could do almost anything! Rio was inside this realm, and thus its laws would work on him!

[Ding! The ’Laws’ of the ’Realm’ are trying to force you to obey their commands!]

[Ding! Your passive skill ’True Immunity’ has been triggered!]

[Ding! You are immune to the commands and orders of any and every law of the world; nobody is qualified to order you around!]

[Ding! Energy absorption from the opponent’s attack is complete... counterattacking now...]

Before Raika could realize how big of a mistake he had made by trying to control an uncontrollable ’anomaly’ like Rio, a powerful backlash from his own attack hit him!

*Crack!* *Shatter!* *Crack!*

The very laws of the artificial realm were hit hard by Rio’s counterattack and went haywire on the spot!

Cracks appeared in the entire realm as the planet below and everything in the entire solar system blew apart instantly because Raika lost control of his realm in that instant!

*BOOOOM!!!*