Rio and Alverto both refused to back off; both of them had their reasons to not take a single step back, and thus a clash was inevitable.
Alverto glanced at Riya and spoke in a calm tone.
"Continue with the ritual; I will stall for time myself..."
He sighed deeply and walked down the giant altar with slow yet steady steps.
"I am surprised that you haven’t already attacked the altar and tried to destroy it..."
Alverto looked into Rio’s dark black eyes; his words carried surprise and doubt in them.
"It’s not that I don’t want to... I have already spread minute amounts of sword intent in this entire place... I can sense that the altar is inside a powerful barrier..."
"I am more surprised by the fact that you willingly walked out of it and didn’t stay inside it..."
Alverto shook his head and replied calmly,
"That altar is the core of the entire ’Spire of Ascension.’ Now that my control over the spire of ascension has weakened, I am using the entirety of the spire’s power to strengthen that barrier..."
Rio smirked at those words and spoke in a mocking tone.
"No, that’s not the whole of it... you are only talking half-truths; I can sense that the power is not only supplying the barrier, it’s also making massive network of connection with the upper floors..."
"I see... you are using this altar and that barrier as a link to all the memory fragments... you are using those memory fragments as anchor for your ’Soul’..."
An irritated look appeared on Alverto’s face after hearing those words.
"Tch, your perception is extremely precise. how are you even able to guess this much by just looking at something once..."
Alverto shook his head and waved his hand a bit in empty air.
With the wave of his hand, a table and two chairs appeared from the ground.
Alverto walked over to one of the chairs and sat down with a calm look on his face.
Then he used the space ring on his finger to summon a glass of wine and started sipping the wine quietly.
Rio didn’t stand on ceremony; he also walked over and sat down on the other chair.
He brought out a tea set and started making tea for himself on the spot.
With his skillful control and abilities, he easily completed the process in just a matter of seconds before throwing all the items beside the teacup back into the space ring.
Alverto didn’t mind Rio’s actions either; he leaned on the back of the chair in a carefree manner while staring above.
The giant hall didn’t seem to have any ceiling at all; looking up, Alverto could see the endless stars in shining in the dark sky.
While staring at those twinkling diamonds in the sky, Alverto asked in a calm tone,
"I have been meaning to ask for a long while now..."
Alverto stopped staring at the stars at that moment and looked straight into Rio’s eyes before asking,
"What exactly are you?"
Rio wasn’t intimidated by Alverto staring at him; he sipped his tea in a calm manner before speaking in a tone filled with doubt.
"Even I myself don’t know, to be honest... sometimes I feel like I do not belong to this reality; sometimes I doubt this reality..."
"I don’t have an answer to your question... but one thing is for sure, right now, I am still ’Human’..."
Alverto wasn’t offended by that vague answer, as if he had expected this from the beginning.
He sighed and started staring at the sky again.
"You have already seen my memories and has survived despite seeing something that shouldn’t be seen..."
"You definitely aren’t just an ordinary human... No, I seriously doubt whether you even are human..."
Alverto placed a palm on his face as if he was contemplating something.
He stayed silent for a while before speaking again.
"You know that I have ’soul resonance,’ right?... That’s the pinnacle-level technique when it comes to all types of soul-related abilities..."
Before Alverto could finish his words, Rio spoke up.
"You noticed that my soul is different back in Oaklum when you first laid your eyes on me, didn’t you?"
Alverto nodded his head at Rio’s words.
"Yes, your soul was much stronger than your body... it was as if an extremely powerful soul was thrust in a weaker body..."
"Moreover, your soul has signs of Cosmic poisoning in it..."
’Cosmic Poisoning’ is a severe condition; when an individual travels into ’Absolute Null’ or goes outside the boundaries of the ’World Barrier,’ they get affected by the condition called ’Cosmic Poisoning.’
The cosmos seems empty and vast, but it’s filled with mana, miasma, radiation, cosmic mutations, and abnormal spatial distortions.
Even SS-rankers can get affected by the chaos created due to mana and miasma colliding on massive scales.
In the vast cosmos, mana and miasma collide and create disturbances that span thousands of light-years of area.
Just coming in contact with such dangerous places can cause immense damage to a person’s soul and body.
Only Peak SS-rankers or people with special abilities are able to deal with such powerful cosmic radiations that are enhanced by mana or miasma.
Rio didn’t know that his soul was affected by this condition until Alverto pointed it out.
’Perhaps before possessing this body, my soul travelled in the cosmos and got affected by cosmic radiations of various levels...’
At this point, he wasn’t even surprised anymore; he already knew that something was definitely wrong with him the very moment he became ’Rio Flash.’
’Cosmic mutation... is that what’s causing me to be emotionless? No... my intuition tells me that there’s more to it...’
Although Rio thought of many things in his mind, he didn’t show anything on his face.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
At Rio question, Alberto spoke, looked in his eyes again, and spoke in a solemn tone.
"I can see that cosmic poisoning isn’t really doing any actual damage to your soul, which is very weird... Logically, your soul should have already collapsed and you should have already died..."
"Yet here you are... I don’t get it... I just can’t put my finger on it but I have a feeling that there’s something really wrong with you..."
Rio laughed wryly at those words.
"If even a demon is saying that something is very wrong with me, then this is really a serious situation, I guess..."
"But like I said before, why tell me all this?"
Alverto sipped his wine and replied slowly,
"It’s simple, I want you to join me... you are strong; you carry some power that even I can’t see through..."
"My instincts tell me that it’s better to make friends with you then become an enemy..."
Rio waved his hand at those words with a look of annoyance.
"If you wanted to be my friend, you shouldn’t have killed my friend... In fact, you should have killed me in Oaklum back then..."
Before Rio could finish those words, Alverto spoke up first.
"I really wanted to the kill you all at that time; I was ready to deal with you... I just couldn’t..."
"My instincts told me that the more time I wasted with your lot, the more dangerous the situation would be, so I only killed the one I wanted and left..."
Alverto clenched his wine glass tightly, and a serious look appeared on his face.
"I needed those ’fragments’ for my goal..."
"You have already seen my memory; you know what my goal is... all I want is salvation for my race..."
"I want to create a ’path’ that can save my people... some sacrifices are important for a better future..."
Rio’s eyes narrowed at those words and he asked in a calm voice,
"What exactly are those fragments in the first place? Why are you so obsessed with them? What deal did you make with that higher being?"
"I have an ocean of questions for you; if I can get a satisfactory answer for them, I might join you or not..."
Rio’s plan was simple; he wanted to kill Alverto for the sake of the original Rio.
The lingering will of the original Rio will disappear once he’s done with Alverto, and he will get a perfect set of ’Emotions’ from the original Rio.
Then he can keep them buried in his sea of consciousness. Once he’s done finding a cure for his disease of fading emotions, he will use those stored ’emotions’ to recreate his own ’emotions’ in his sea of consciousness.
This way, he will be able to get the ’Perfect Sword Intent’ while also having a method to preserve his own emotions.
He will not lose his love for Lia and will also get stronger.
This is a simple plan, but Rio has to complete it in any way possible, as he doesn’t want to let go of his love for Lia but also wants to become stronger.
Rio already knew that Alverto had invited him for this chit-chat because he wanted to buy time to complete his plans.
But Rio himself wasn’t too bothered by this.
Fade and Kira’s life doesn’t matter to him at all, and he’s not too keen on destroying Alverto’s plan right now because that plan isn’t really bringing any harm to him.
Rio is a selfish person; he’s not a ’hero’ after all. He doesn’t care about destroying a villain’s plan as long as it doesn’t concern him.
Thus, Rio sat down calmly and decided to listen to Alverto before deciding what to do later.
Alverto could see Rio’s worth; that’s why he also remained calm and tried to persuade him despite them both being enemies.