*MMMMHHHHHHH!!!!!*
Snegnar could not even scream or resist; thus, he was moaning in pain with his eyes, ears, and nose bleeding continuously.
Every time he tried to use his power to resist, Rio’s sword intent, which was running amok in his entire body, would get in the way and make his mana control go haywire.
The main reason why Rio’s attacks are so lethal and effective against his opponents is mainly because his sword intent is extremely violent in nature.
The moment it enters someone’s body, it spreads crazily like a virus; you need to use an immense amount of mana to suppress its spreading effects, but Sword Intent even makes your mana control go haywire.
Thus, trapping you in a vicious cycle of continuous struggle against it.
The moment Rio sneaked near Snegnar and stabbed him with that ’mental damage’ attack, Snegnar had already lost the battle.
Every struggle after that was already futile.
"Don’t struggle like that; you are just exhausting yourself... If you really wanted to struggle, you should have not let me sneak so close to you beforehand..."
"But then again... it’s really difficult to detect my presence with my multi-layer protections..."
Rio had transformed his sword into a small dagger to be able to better stab Snegnar over and over.
Despite stabbing Snegnar over and over, not only his clothes but even his dagger was still spotless; it wasn’t even covered in blood, mainly because it was coated with sword intent and never got smeared with blood at all.
Rio’s entire body was covered in sword intent, and he was even wearing his shadow robe; moreover, he was using the stealth skills of an assassin.
All these three factors not only worked perfectly in sync with each other, but they also boosted each other’s powers, making Rio’s ability to hide his presence reach extreme levels.
"In fact,... I doubt whether even SS-rankers will be able to detect me unless they get absolutely serious..."
SS-rankers might be considered demi-gods, but they are also not invincible beings.
Even SS-rankers are incapable of keeping their ’world authority’ in a constant active state around them, as that would put a massive mental burden on them.
And it’s near impossible to detect Rio’s presence with just basic mana detection.
*MMMMHHHHHHHHH!!!!*
In other words, it would still be possible for Rio to sneak around an SS-ranker in some lucky scenarios.
"But the closer I would get to an SS-ranker... the more likely I would end up getting exposed... after all, their detection doesn’t just work on mana; it’s much deeper..."
"Moreover, they also have a powerful intuition and danger prediction ability that’s almost like a cheat..."
Rio has only reached the early stage of rank S, yet his own intuition has already reached insanely high levels, let alone those powerful and experienced SS-rankers.
*MMMMMMHHHHHHH!!!!*
"Sigh, why am I already thinking about competing with SS-rankers? Aren’t I being too hasty?"
"I should take things slow... this ’Flash’ bloodline in my body is making me way too fast..."
*HHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!!*
"Oh! I nearly forgot to heal you; my bad, I got too engrossed in my own thoughts..."
Rio shook his head and sighed at his own carelessness.
[Code 7 Alert. 5 Angel. Point 3.3.4445.33.1. ’Full Wipe-out’.]
Just as Rio was slowly increasing the proficiency of his skills by practicing them over and over on Snegnar’s steady and resilient body, a circular artifact hanging on his chest got activated.
A series of code words was spoken in a calm voice, and Rio stopped playing with Snegnar.
"Hoh... I didn’t know I will be able to attract so many cuties today. nice, it seems today is my lucky day..."
The circular artifact on Rio’s chest is something that was given to him by the higher-up from the association, and it’s a powerful artifact that can be used for secure communication.
Unless an SS-ranker interferes, nobody can interrupt or hack this communication method, and it’s one of the safest and most secure ways to communicate secret information.
As Rio is currently working for the association, he’s being given live updates on many different matters, which Rio uses along with the information given by Irvin.
’Code 7 Alert’ means that someone has found out Rio’s current location and is about to target him.
The code word ’Angel’ refers to S-rankers, and 5 means that there are five S-rankers about to attack Rio.
The strings of numbers are referring to various instructions and guidelines that Rio has already memorized, and finally there’s the main objective.
’Full Wipe-out’: this means that Rio has permission to kill off all five of those S-rankers who are about to attack him, as they are likely Snegnar’s companions and are trying to rescue him.
"Hehe, I thought you were working alone... but it turns out that you are coward enough to have companions even though you are a criminal..."
"I really thought too highly of you..."
Criminals that are as powerful as Snegnar do not need any companions to keep themselves safe.
People like him are already beyond mortal beings and can survive almost everywhere in this world.
As long as they keep themselves hidden from SS-rankers, they can keep doing crimes over and over without ever being caught.
Moreover, most SS-rankers in the world are busy people who already have tremendous responsibilities on their shoulders, and they don’t always have the time to track down every sewer rat hiding in the corners.
Due to this reason, most S-rank criminals do not have companions; making friends only happens when an S-rank criminal is not confident in his own ability to survive alone and has to work with other weaklings to survive.
There is no real friendship among criminals, and thus stronger criminals prefer staying alone; only weaker ones band together.
Even Irvin is not omnipotent; even he cannot find every secret piece of information about everyone, so Rio didn’t know that Snegnar had friends.
He thought that Snegnar was working alone and was a strong person; that’s why Rio took every caution possible while using his stealth skills to the extreme to avoid detection.
But it turns out, he was simply worrying too much.
"Forget it; it’s better to be cautious even if trying to hunt down mice..."
Rio shook his head and grabbed Snegnar’s neck before dragging him out of the house with him.
He flew in the air while holding Snegnar in one hand and his sword in another.
"Hmm, why are you still crying? You should be happy actually; your friends are such trustworthy people! They came to rescue you!"
Rio’s tone carried a hint of teasing and mockery, but Snegnar had no more strength to even be angry at him anymore. His mana was out of control, and his body was exhausted from constant blood loss.
Even his sea of consciousness had suffered severe damage along with his soul.
He was losing his mind from the constant pain of having his soul damaged by Rio.
*WOOSH!* *BOOOM!*
Just when Snegnar was barely hanging on for dear life, five people came flying towards the two of them at an extremely fast speed.
The five of them were so fast that they were creating sonic booms from just their flying speed alone.
All of their auras were extremely condensed and strong, proving that all five of them were S-rankers; one of them was even a mid-level S-ranker.
The five of them were all people with their names on Rio’s target list, and Rio immediately recognized each one of them.
"Welcome! Welcome! I was jus-"
Before Rio could finish his sentence, the five of them abruptly stopped midway and didn’t come any closer.
Then Rio heard the strongest one among them scream in shock.
"Oh sh*t!! That’s the lunatic creep ’Rio’!!! Run!!! F*ck you Snegnar!! I shouldn’t have come to rescue you!!"
Without even wasting a single second, the man flew away. But this time his flying speed was even faster than before.