Reborn as an Extra Chapter 556: The Unstoppable Bard. Part-1.

For three full days, Rio pressed on with his relentless experiments, traversing thousands of kilometers across the land by soaring at a steady pace.

Since his actions were triggering enormous blasts all around, maintaining any form of concealment became impossible, leading him to abandon the pretense of walking and instead take to the skies at a reasonable velocity.

With his target located at such a great distance, continuing on foot proved utterly impractical, prompting him to opt for flight without delay.

’Ugh... this place is so repulsive; I already want to leave...’

Four days had now passed since Rio first stepped into the spirit realm, and with every moment that ticked by, he stumbled upon yet another grotesque and unsettling abomination.

Strange beings devoid of any skeletal structure slithered across the earth, their ceaseless wails echoing through the air.

Grotesque demonized canines, contorted into figure-eight forms, bounded about like bouncing balls to propel themselves forward; each leap caused their flesh to rupture, unleashing foul miasma that then mended itself anew before death could claim them.

Alligator-like beasts, bloated with countless souls crammed within, hovered aloft solely due to the overwhelming soul energy swelling their forms.

As Rio edged nearer for a better inspection, the creature erupted in a shower of viscous gore, leaving him thoroughly repulsed.

To rid himself of the imaginary grime, Rio submerged in a pool of miasma for a thorough cleanse.

These were merely the horrors Rio had inspected up close on his own; countless other oddities dotted the landscape, yet he lacked the opportunity to study them fully before they detonated.

Following his initial triumph, Rio attempted the soul-stealing technique on additional evil spirits, only to meet with failure each time.

Miasma had evidently detected his exploitation of that ’glitch,’ prompting its swift elimination.

At present, any attempt by Rio to approach a monster or evil spirit too closely resulted in their spontaneous explosion, thwarting his efforts entirely.

Left with no alternative, Rio resorted to distant observations to compile whatever useful information he could.

’Err... with how loud I have been lately, I am sure something big will happen sooner or later but I can’t afford to stop experimenting either...’

Provided no stray SS-ranker of immense power drew near to his position, Rio had no intention of halting his disruptive antics.

In the outer world, honing his miasma-based abilities proved unfeasible for Rio.

Even deploying miasma against those vile offenders had tarnished his image severely; despite their heinous crimes, a vocal minority rallied in their defense.

Rio held no official role in law enforcement or policing, so critics decried his ruthless methods, insisting that criminal trials belonged in the courts alone.

Certain individuals even pushed to bring charges against Rio, though the nation's dire circumstances at the time allowed Raji to quash those efforts on his behalf.

In calmer eras, however, nothing would have prevented those accusers from dragging Rio into endless legal battles and squandering his valuable hours.

This stands as the primary barrier preventing Rio from extensively practicing his miasma arts beyond the spirit realm.

Such a force invites easy misconceptions, and even allies like Raji and Ashtel display unease whenever Rio's use of miasma arises in conversation.

The spirit realm offers the perfect sanctuary for Rio to refine his miasma techniques.

’If possible, I want to have a permanent method of entering inside the spirit realm... but I don’t want to stay here for too long either...’

While the spirit realm serves as an optimal training ground for Rio, it falls short as a long-term residence, far from a haven for rest and leisure.

In this bizarre domain, unpredictability reigns supreme—you can never anticipate the next twist.

Rio once witnessed an SS-rank evil spirit, worm-like in form, devouring its own body in a frenzy while tearing through the surroundings.

Fortunately, Rio excelled at remaining unseen; he skirted past the threat undetected and resumed his trials and tests uninterrupted.

"Ugh! Another failure!... sigh..."

Crafting a synthetic and enduring miasmic crystal posed an immense challenge; it demanded the meticulous restraint of each individual thread of miasmic power, locking them in place until the full structure formed.

By Rio’s calculations, forging even the most basic miasma crystal, no larger than a fingernail, required stabilizing at least several million strands of that energy.

’Well, compared to the first try when I was only able to keep half a million strands stable at one time, I have reached a million now...’

’My miasma control has also improved tremendously; at the current rate of improvement, I will be able to create my first artificial crystal in a month at least...’

Though SS-rankers could accomplish analogous feats with mana crystals quite readily, Rio remained the sole pioneer attempting this with miasma.

The process of forming dense crystals demanded intricate mastery, and success with superior varieties would propel one toward the demi-god threshold!

’When I am able to create high-grade miasma crystals, I would be just one step away from the next realm... the realm of demi-gods!’

Amid his aerial experiments, Rio arrived at a sheer cliffside, forcing him to descend and halt as his path ahead stood obstructed.

’What the heck is going on here?’

Bewilderment etched across Rio’s features as he gazed ahead in utter astonishment.

A vast, desolate expanse stretched before him, swarming with hundreds of thousands of varied abominations locked in ferocious combat.

Glancing skyward, Rio saw the heavens obscured by colossal, freakish aerial beasts clashing in savage aerial warfare.

Scores of those peculiar entities he’d encountered earlier filled the fray, either gnashing with fangs or clawing fiercely, or slamming their hulking frames into one another!

’A battlefield?... why are they fighting each other at such a massive scale...’

Rio scanned the colossal horde of beasts and furrowed his brow upon spotting dozens of S-rankers, thousands of A-rankers, and over forty thousand lesser monsters and evil spirits!

Every one of them battled to the bitter end!

Potent mental pulses erupted from them in all directions, their merged onslaught so overwhelming that the earth itself began to crumble beneath the strain.

Cracks spiderwebbed through the space-time continuum; miasma currents turned turbulent, and wild spatial distortions ravaged the zone, claiming hundreds of lives in mere instants!

Rio squinted toward the heavens, where innumerable rifts and gateways spewed forth more monstrosities, amplifying the bedlam and terror exponentially.

As Rio’s puzzlement deepened, the miasma currents abruptly shifted, causing hundreds of thousands of beasts to snap their gazes toward the distant ridge in unison.

Chills raced over Rio’s skin as he felt the staggering, unified wave of murderous aura emanating from the monstrous legion.

Hundreds of thousands strong, the horde fixed their baleful glares upon Rio, brimming with raw enmity and lethal intent, setting every warning instinct in him ablaze.

Instinctively, Rio’s fingers brushed the flute at his belt as he uttered in a taunting tone.

"Oi oi... I did create a bit of chaos in the spirit realm, but do you really need all that just for me?..."

Drawing his flute and assuming a battle-ready posture, Rio watched as the entire swarm of monsters and evil spirits surged toward him in a unified charge.

"I would have happily accepted this free gift if I had enough time to waste here... if it was any other time and I wasn’t busy, I would have loved to wait continuously fight..."

"But today I don’t have that much time and I am not really in the mood to do a drawn-out battle right now..."

"So, I will have to break through your formation swiftly!"

Eyes free of any doubt, Rio whipped his flute downward in a decisive arc.

Harnessing the rampant spatial instabilities, Rio generated devastating gravitational surges within the fragile space-time weave of the spirit realm, hurling them straight at the enormous beast horde.

This mimicked technique, borrowed from Ashtel’s world authority known as ’Shockwave,’ wreaked such havoc that it plunged the dimensional structure into utter disarray!

The gravitational bursts hurled numerous monsters off course into haphazard paths, while others shattered outright upon impact; their fragile ranks dissolved into pandemonium.

It resembled hurling a rock into a pond—the ripples from the collision disrupted the whole formation, tilting the odds favorably toward Rio.

Grinning at the unfolding chaos, Rio rocketed forward into the beastly onslaught with a sly smile.

"Here I come! Stop me if you can!"