Rio was left speechless by that sudden plot twist and glanced at Snegnar before saying.
"Er... I guess, I know why you were crying now; it turns out your companions are not really that reliable..."
Rio glanced the other four S-rankers that hadn’t tried to escape and spoke,
"Well, at least the rest of them are not such cowards..."
Hearing Rio’s words, all four of them made a look that seemed to show they were in deep conflict.
The four of them make a smile as ugly as if they were about to cry.
"Uh... Honourable Mr. Rio... C-can I leave? actually, I am not even with these people; they just took my little daughter hostage and I was just forced to work with them..."
"No Mr. Rio, he’s telling a lie... actually, I am the one whose mother is in the hospital and I need to go back to her, but these people took her hostage..."
The four of them suddenly started to make excuses all of a sudden, which caused Rio to feel confused.
"What? If you guys are all reluctant to fight, why did you even come here? And if you are really afraid, why don’t you escape? you guys are such weirdos..."
Hearing Rio’s remarks, the four of them shivered and one of them spoke awkwardly.
"Err... actually... uh, I didn’t know that this dumb idiot Snegnar was caught by a lunat.. ahem! I-I mean, I didn’t know he was your target..."
"I-if we knew that it was you targeting him, we wouldn’t have come here..."
Then, the other one spoke with a trembling voice.
"Also... isn’t it pointless to try to escape from you... I heard that the last one who tried that ended up getting tortured even more horribly..."
The man was actually right.
Rio’s last target was far too overconfident of his speed and escaping abilities; he tried to run from Rio, forgetting that Rio’s other abilities are secondary—his main skill is still being fast!
He has the word ’Flash’ as his family name; obviously, it’s pointless to try to compete with him in a contest of speed.
As a result, the overconfident guy was stalked by Rio for an entire week.
Rio purposely kept letting him escape, and every time he tried to relax, Rio would appear and torture him over and over before letting him go again.
He repeated this process over and over and tortured the poor guy for over a week before the guy himself committed suic*de as he could not endure it anymore.
Then Rio went over and shattered his soul just in case to prevent any escape methods that involved soul transfer.
This incident spread all over in the black markets, and nearly all criminals know about it by now.
The four unfortunate guys knew about this matter, and the person who escaped didn’t.
That’s why they didn’t try to escape.
In their opinion, it’s better to fight Rio in their peak condition when they are all together rather than splitting up and wasting their strength by escaping.
They knew that Rio is the type of lunatic creep who will keep stalking them until the ends of hell and likely won’t let them go even if they turn into ashes; that’s why it was futile to escape.
’Oh, these ones are smart, all those who tried to escape... I shattered their souls. Good, I like them. I will let them keep their souls intact...’
"Actually, I was just itching to have a decent warm-up; this guy isn’t enough. You all came at the right time."
"Don’t worry, you have impressed me with your bravery; I will not torture you and will send you to afterlife directly..."
[Sword Intent: Mana Overload!]
Rio pushed a massive amount of sword intent into Snegnar’s body through his hand, which was holding onto Snegnar’s neck.
He used his sword intent to drive Snegnar’s mana crazy and caused it to overload beyond control while also using his sword intent to do immense internal damage.
*BOOOM!!!*
Due to that crazy overload, Snegnar’s body burst apart, similar to how a balloon pops when being filled with too much air.
His body first inflated in size, causing tremendous pain, and then blew up while dealing maximum pain.
Snegnar died such a horrible death that the four individuals who saw this happening shivered like crazy.
They finally understood why Rio was being considered a literal ’Terror Incarnate’ by many shady organizations and criminals.
He’s way too horrible and merciless; the way he kills people is way too cruel and mind-breaking. Just seeing it in person can cause you to lose your sanity.
"I just learned a new skill from my research; let me try it out..."
[Sword Intent!]
[Sword Sage’s Enlightenment: Cage of Miasmic Meltdown!]
Rio raised his sword upwards and released a massive amount of miasmic corruption from it.
The miasmic corruption shockingly spread in a very controlled manner and formed a massive closed spherical cage-like area in the sky, confining all five of them together.
Then the entire area inside the sphere started to fill itself with miasma.
All four of the S-rankers felt panicked and tried to use their mana and abilities to break out of that miasmic cage, but it was far too solid.
Moreover, the miasma was so dense that they could not even make a small gap in the cage with their mana output despite using all of their might.
Rio’s ability to reinforce his miasmic cage was so fast and efficient that the four of them together could not even compete with it even when combined together.
The density of miasma started to increase inside the cage at a very fast speed, and the four of them felt immense pressure, and several debuffs suppressed them instantly.
"Hmm, this skill is indeed very good for crowd controlling... Snegnar was using his threads like a weapon to do crowd control..."
"Although that guy was weak and pathetic, he was still an S-ranker after all, and his way of using his mana gave a new inspiration..."
"If I spread miasma in small thread-like manner and make a net, not only will I be able to deploy it at a fast speed, I can make its damage resistance ability increase by piling up many layers of this miasmic net..."
Rio not only took inspiration from Snegnar’s skill and copied it but also improved it by adding the properties of a spider’s ability to confine its opponents and the properties of miasma to debuff and weaken the affected beings.
Sword Intent even gave an advance boost, making it impossible for the four of them to break out.
Unless a legendary skill is used or an SS-ranker interferes, it is nearly impossible to counter this net.
"AHHHHH!!! Let me go!!! NOOO!!! IT’S CORRUPTING MEE!!!!!"
"AHHHH!!! MY HAND!! IT’S MELTING!!!"
"AHHHHH!!!! SAVE ME!!!! I BEG YOU!!!! PLEASE!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!"
The four of them were just low-level S-rankers; they only knew how to bully the weak and had no actual combat skills to deal with strong S-rankers like Rio.
They tried to attack Rio desperately, but their weapons shattered after coming in touch with Rio’s sword intent that was covering his entire body.
They tried to puncture a hole in the cage to escape but couldn’t; they tried to protect themselves from miasmic corruption, but Sword Intent pierced their defenses almost instantly.
Which not only made them even more defenseless due to their mana going haywire, but also miasma entered their body and started to corrode them from the inside out.
Their hands, legs, and their entire body started to melt and turn into pitch-black miasmic filth.
Unbearable pain and horror spread in their minds as they ran everywhere frantically to try and survive, but it was futile.
Rio just stood on the spot and didn’t even do anything; he just watched them struggle as he continuously changed and optimized this newly learned skill.