Reborn as an Extra Chapter 584: Raika and The Lyre of Faith. Part-7.

Despite sustaining a grave injury, Rio had long since grown numb to the sting of pain, and with no capacity for fear or dread, he felt no terror in the slightest.

Rio found himself utterly astonished by the way Raika had flawlessly mimicked every technique from those familiar to him.

'For some odd reason, he knows all there is to know about me... but how on earth...'

Rio recalled then that Raika appeared clueless about the 'True Immunity' ability, and he had shown clear shock when Rio effortlessly dispelled his grip on the miasma.

'Looking at it from this angle, he doesn't grasp everything after all... but what exactly blocks him from detecting 'True Immunity'?...'

'Could it be that this ability is beyond anyone's detection or foresight?'

From the moment Rio first acquired 'True Immunity', it had stunned him with how effortlessly it handled countless perilous scenarios!

In the original story, Fade possessed a similar 'True Immunity', yet his paled in comparison to Rio's—never reaching such heights or achieving what Rio's could.

Rio's version seemed like a vastly enhanced iteration of what Fade wielded in the original tale.

'Come on, Rio, rack your brains... I must uncover this fellow's hidden truths, or defeat will be mine...'

As he stayed vigilant against Raika's impending strike, Rio channeled healing magic to stem the bleeding and hastily mended that dire gash.

S-rankers boast tremendous resilience, coupled with an astonishingly robust life force; mere punctures through the flesh won't fell them, and only the utter destruction of brain or soul can truly end them.

'Whew~ Stay sharp...'

Though it felt like ages had dragged on since the punch hurled him away, mere milliseconds had truly elapsed up to this point.

The chaos unfolded at breakneck speed, such that any other S-ranker would have perished outright from Raika's opening assault.

'Miasma sensing, mana detection, and sword intent perception... all of them fail against him...'

'Yet there's one slim method I can employ to counter him.

Rio deployed his sword intent to manipulate the surrounding miasma, forging an enormous unseen barrier around himself that repelled all miasma from entering.

He deliberately pulled away from the miasma, establishing a ten-meter radius free of both mana and miasma.

By pushing his mental focus to its peak, Rio concentrated his sword intent and psychic energy within that ten-meter space.

In the instant that followed, Raika materialized directly at Rio's side, reaching to seize his arm and hurl him with devastating might to cause harm, yet this time Rio responded just in time!

Rio precisely traced the incoming hand's path and countered with a deft strike, employing his masterful parry technique, 'Handling', to divert its course.

The grasping hand missed its mark entirely and veered off target!

"What!?"

For the first time, Rio had parried Raika’s assault successfully, leaving him stunned.

"We've only clashed for mere seconds, and you're already adjusting to my style!?"

"Monster!"

Brushing off Raika’s astonishment, Rio sheathed his sword at his waist, shut his eyes, and assumed his fighting posture.

Before Rio could unleash his blade, Raika vanished once more and rematerialized at a distance, but to his dismay, Rio altered his swing's direction in mid-motion.

He charged straight to where Raika had popped up and unleashed a barrage of thousands of thunder-infused strikes in less than a heartbeat.

The sheer force of those packed thunder blows cracked the miasmic crystal ground apart and scattered the miasmic mist across the whole zone with their raw intensity!

Raika reeled from this abrupt shift in Rio's tactics, too slow to respond, and every one of those thousand strikes connected!

He frantically lifted his arms in a desperate block, but in a flash, both limbs were severed clean off.

As the peril mounted for him, Raika blinked out of sight and resurfaced a full kilometer high in the air!

Yet to Rio’s bewilderment, he emerged there without a single scratch!

All the wounds from Rio's rapid barrage had vanished completely, as though the blows had never connected at all.

"That truly caught me off guard... I get it now, you're tapping into your raw instincts to strike at me... a smart ploy, hehe~"

Catching Raika’s distant words, Rio opened his eyes without a word, a scowl etching across his features.

'How does he remain unscathed... I detected no healing magic from him whatsoever... could he be deploying clones?'

'No, clones require teleportation and must adhere to the world's rigid rules and 'laws'...'

Rio had clashed with Alverto’s clone before, and even that one needed teleportation into the dungeon to engage in battle.

It couldn't just flicker in and out at will or mend itself absent any abilities or artifacts.

Therefore, Rio dismissed the notion that Raika relied on clones or substitutes; something far more unique was at play.

'Not an illusion, not world authority, not a legendary skill, and definitely not a clone...'

Gazing intently into Raika’s eyes, Rio voiced his realization.

That term from Rio’s lips widened the grin on Raika’s face, sparking a booming laugh from him.

"AHAHAHAHAH!!!! YOU TRULY ARE EXTRAORDINARY, RIO FLASH!!!!"

"IT'S NO SURPRISE YOU'RE SUCH AN ODD AND PECULIAR ENTITY! YOU'RE A MONSTER!"

Rio arrived at that deduction through exhaustive trials and analyses.

Raika evaded every form of detection skill, and he employed neither teleportation nor any mobility technique.

Rio systematically ruled out each option, but the clincher was Raika's seamless wielding of both miasma and mana, all while shrugging off every bit of damage dealt to him.

This pointed to just one explanation.

Raika served as a 'projection' from some mighty entity.

He functioned as a projection controlled by another, capable of assuming any form or vanishing into nothingness as if never there.

Such a projection could manifest wherever its controller desired and harness any power, constrained solely by the originator's might and the controller's creativity.

What sealed Rio's certainty was landing those initial blows when he trusted his unadulterated instincts to foresee the threats nearby.

Since stepping into the spirit realm, the pervasive miasma had relentlessly dulled Rio's instincts and gut feelings.

Even the cube of possibilities faced heavy suppression, unable to forecast Raika's next emergence.

Rio had exhausted every approach, yet sensing Raika proved impossible.

Rather than squander more effort detecting a projection that could spawn and dissolve at whim, Rio turned inward.

He crafted a makeshift tactic to bypass the miasma's disruption and revive his instincts and intuition.

By deploying sword intent in a protective array and shunning all miasma, he cleared the interference.

This meant Rio could no longer draw on miasma for energy and had to depend on his mana for skills, but in exchange, he reclaimed his sharpened senses.

Should Raika enter Rio’s ten-meter zone or attempt any threat, Rio's instincts would alert him to the danger in advance.

Since projections lack their own souls, soul-based assaults hold no power over them; that's why Raika had so readily neutralized Rio's earlier soul strike.

'It all clicks into place now... I finally grasp how he kept popping up before me as I journeyed the spirit realm...'

Raika had even shown up within the cage that had imprisoned Ellie for a thousand years!

It wasn't through miasma mastery like Rio's or some barrier-piercing power.

He had merely projected himself straight into the enclosure.

If the controller knows a location's precise coordinates, sending the projection there becomes effortless!

'Still, one puzzle lingers unsolved...'

"Who are you?"

Rio posed the question anew, but Raika evaded a straight answer once more.

"I am Raika, The Master of the Holy Lyre of Eternal Faith! I am just a humble travelling bard!"

"And all I want is to be your friend, greatest ’Anomaly’ in the universe, Rio Flash."

Rio no longer batted an eye at Raika's knowledge of his status as an ’Anomaly’ in this universe.

King Allen was aware, as was the shadow dragon king; it came as no shock that another ancient powerhouse might know of him too.

'Sigh... being this infamous sure draws endless headaches, with everyone itching to stir up chaos for me...'