'Where did this peak S ranker even come from? Even my mana detection didn't see it coming...'
Despite him being at A rank, Rio's mana detection skill is nearly as powerful as a peak S ranker, so it shouldn't be that easy to completely ignore the detection range of his skills. Yet that person in the dark black armor walked over in front of him slowly, and Rio only noticed the other party when the other party had already appeared in front of his eyes.
'There was no mention of Alverto in the original novel, and now another completely unknown S ranker has appeared in front of me again...'
While Rio was still thinking about who the other party was, the figure of the other party moved and disappeared among the falling debris.
'What the!? I lost track of him again!?'
Seeing that the other party was able to erase his presence to this extent and fight in stealth mode, Rio immediately activated his shadow robe and covered himself with it from head to toe.
[Handling!]
*BOOOM!*
As Rio suddenly moved to the left and used 'handling' to parry an incoming attack by pure instinct, a sonic boom rang out in the air, and the other party's blade missed the attack.
Yet the power of the other party's blade was so strong that all the falling debris was sliced in half and the dust was blown away in an instant!
'Twin swords?'
In that moment when Rio parried the other party's attack, he saw the other party holding a sword in each hand.
'What unbelievable speed...'
Rio has always focused on training his speed and agility, and it turns out that this time he has really met an opponent who can keep up with his insane speed.
[Elemental Sword Art: Earth Type: Thousand Defensive Stones!]
Rio made his sword strikes as powerful and steady as a stone and parried the hundreds of slash attacks that came at him with just pure instinct!
The attacks were extremely fast, and as the other party could use stealth, most of them came out of nowhere.
A few of them even hit him directly, but as he was covered with the shadow robe, it didn't affect him.
*Step*
As the other party had noticed that all the attacks hadn't worked on Rio, the other party stopped the continuous attack barrage and stood in front of him with an intimidation aura surrounding him.
"Hoh? You are quite the slippery one, aren't you? If it were anyone else, they would have already been hit nearly a hundred times by slash attacks with such speed..."
"You are only an A-ranker... Yet, you have such speed and agility, how odd..."
The person in the armor couldn't help but be shocked at Rio's skills; thus, he ended up praising him in his weirdly hoarse voice that seemed completely different from what a human can make.
Rio easily figured out that the other party was likely not a human; it's either a demon or some other monster inside that strong-looking armor.
'He has that same quality armor as Alverto... Is he perhaps Alverto's right-hand man or something like that?'
'He can even use a movement art technique...'
"Well, there are all types of oddities in the world; I am just one of them..."
[DarkWing Movement Art!]
[Sword Intent!]
[Elemental Sword Art: Thunder Type: Rushing Thunder Dragon!]
As if a massive thunder dragon had manifested on Rio's sword, his movement speed increased further, and he rushed toward the person, the opponent, like an arrow with extreme
momentum!
*BOOOM!*
His speed was so fast that he easily broke through the sound barrier, and a powerful shockwave passed through wherever he passed by.
Seeing Rio rush towards him at full speed, the armored man became even more excited.
"No wonder he sent me to deal with you specifically! You are indeed very fast and powerful! You even have sword intent! A single touch of it is enough to render most people useless!"
"But this won't work on me, kiddo!"
[Fading Cloud movement art!]
[Sky Splitter Sword Art: Broken momentum thrust!]
The armored man thrust his sword forward at an insane speed, and both of his sword's tips accurately hit Rio's sword and stopped Rio's attack by sheer force!
*BOOOM!*
The power of Rio's attack was so strong that even the air and the elements in the surrounding area trembled like crazy.
A powerful shockwave spread in all directions, and the broken debris flew away in all
directions.
'I-insanity...'
Rio's eyes widened in shock for the first time in a long while; he had put not only 'sword intent' but the 2.5 times stat boost provided by the sword heart in that attack.
Yet, the attack was forcefully stopped midway by the other party's swords.
Not only Rio couldn't move forward a single inch, his momentum was completely broken.
'He saw through my technique in a single glance!?'
Rio jumped away and made some distance from the other party in a hurry.
Ever since the start, when Rio got this elemental sword art from his stealing sessions, no one
has been able to see through his sword technique to such a degree.
This sword art's main ability is that it has hundreds of varieties of techniques and attacks; even if you see through one of them, you can't see through the entire technique.
But this is the first time Rio's attack was seen through to this degree.
'Extremely high combat experience... The other party has been fighting for decades upon decades and has insanely hight combat experience...'
The only plausible answer Rio could come up with at the moment was that the other party has insanely high combat experience in swordsmanship.
'Even when I was training with Jin, I never felt that he saw through my technique to this
degree... but this person did it...'
"Who are you? State your name; a person as skilled as you definitely must be famous..."
Rio raised his sword and pointed it toward the other party.
Today he has met a truly powerful sword master; he must ask the other party's name or this battle will lose its meaning.
The armored person took his stance, and the aura around him condensed to the extreme.
"My name?... I forgot... I have no memories of what I am and who I am... I only know one thing: my current master is Demon Prince Alverto, and he has granted me the code name
'Seven'..."
Rio nodded his head and took his stance.
"I am Rio Flash, A humble swordsman, I look forward to fighting you, Mr. Seven..."
[Sword Intent: Maximum Output!]
[Elemental Sword Art: Fire Type: Flaming Beam of Death!]
Rio raised his sword above his shoulder, and flame elementals condensed on his sword as he
swung his sword in downward motions.
He fired a gigantic arc made of flame elementals at Seven without and then dodged to the side
in an instant.
[Sky Splitter Sword Art: Cannon Thrust!]
Seven completely ignored that flame arc attack and directly came rushing behind Rio to attack
him with a thrust attack, but Rio had already seen that coming, so he jumped to the side and
dodged the attack.
*BOOOM!*
The thrust attack missed the target and hit the ground instead, which caused Seven's sword to
hit the floor made up of mithril and adamantine.
The floor was too strong for an SS ranker to break, and thus his attack bounced off.
This momentarily broke Seven's stance.
That momentary delay was what Rio was aiming for from the very start.
He already knew that slow flame attack wouldn't hit the other party, but he used it so the
other party would come running to attack him.
When it comes to battles, Rio isn't lacking in combat IQ either; he's a battle junkie through
and through who can adapt to any situation!
[Elemental Sword Art: Time Type: Hundred Years Acceleration!]
Taking full advantage of that small delay in Seven's movements, Rio used the time
elementals to increase his sword's speed by a hundred times.
*BOOOM*
*Clank!*
Seven wasn't going to get hit so easily either; he immediately twisted his body to the side and
barely dodged the attack by rolling to the side.
Yet Rio's sword's tip barely grazed his armor on the waist, and the entire armor around his
waist broke apart and turned into powder in an instant!
'Hmm? I am sure that should have hit him in the waist, but it didn't affect him?... What's
going on?'
Rio's sword was covered with time elementals, thus getting hit by it would instantly accelerate time for whatever it hits.
This is the reason why that armor broke apart and turned into powder in an instant as Rio forcefully accelerated time for it, and it became 100 years older in an instant, thus it rusted away to the point that it turned into powder.
"You aren't a demon... No, you aren't even a living creature, it seems... What are you?"
Rio's attack should have hit the other party in the waist, and the other party should have suffered a little bit of bleeding at the very least, but it seemed the other party was completely
fine!
Which is simply too weird.
"Try and find it yourself if you really want to know about it that much!"
[Sky Splitter Sword Art: Wind Dragon's Chokehold!]
Seven waved his two swords and made the wind move in such a way with his miasma that it
seemed as if a dragon made out of wind elements had manifested.
'Wind attack? That isn't going to work on me!'
[Elemental Sword Art: Wind Type: Coiling Serpent Wind!]
To deal with those dragon winds, Rio condensed a serpent wind and deflected the wind attack
to the side easily.
'Things are getting interesting...'