One month after entering the Spirit Realm.
Location: Unknown.
*Step* *Step*
"I am quite close now it seems..."
Rio’s footsteps rang out in the eerily silent environment, and with each footstep sound and each step forward, Rio could feel the pressure on him increasing.
’This is... Dragon’s Aura. I am now only a few hundred kilometres away from that mysterious plateau...’
Rio had been travelling for such a long time that he felt happy after finally getting close to his destination.
’This might have been the longest journey I have ever had in my life, I think...’
Even back when Rio was stuck in the SS-rank Snake ’Karpil’s illusion, he didn’t walk this much.
Back then he had walked for several days, but this time he has not only walked but also flown and has crossed thousands of kilometers of distance by now.
Considering the fact that the space-time fabric inside the spirit realm is much weaker and smaller, it can be assumed that Rio has already travelled enough distance that he might be very far from his solar system.
If he shattered the space-time fabric and created a wormhole, he will exit somewhere much farther away from his original solar system.
’I seriously don’t want to travel all the way back again... thankfully I brought a powerful teleportation scroll with me...’
Teleportation scrolls that can work in the spirit realm are only the highest-level ones, which Alverto once used to have.
Even the human empire only has a few of them, but for this mission, Ashtel gave him one to reduce the difficulty of his mission.
That teleportation scroll is the reason why Rio isn’t afraid of getting lost in the spirit realm or anywhere else; the moment he finds Liam and Ellie, he will teleport back with them directly!
’Unfortunately, the teleportation scroll will only work in the same realm; it’s unable to help me cross realms or I would have used it to directly teleport to the human empire...’
If Rio uses it in the spirit realm, he can only travel to any place he has personally visited inside the spirit realm, and at most he can only teleport to that wormhole’s location from where he originally entered.
’If I can find some other weak node and wormhole nearby, I can exit from there and wherever the wormhole might throw me out to, I can just teleport from there directly to the human empire...’
The teleportation scrolls are indeed very powerful objects; however, they cannot perform cross-realm teleportation.
Only Alverto, who had the help of a higher being, could have done cross-realm teleportation using predetermined coordinates.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
As Rio walked forward, he arrived at a highly damaged road made of bricks and polished stones, and a familiar melody entered his ears.
Buildings, ruins, and broken roads were actually quite common in the spirit realm; after his first encounter with the broken temple of heavenly luck, Rio came across many other ruins.
During his one-month-long journey, Rio saw many broken buildings and damaged roads, but most of them were too damaged to inspect, and there wasn’t much information Rio could find from them.
But this time, the road was in much better condition compared to the previous ones that Rio saw.
As the pressure on Rio increased with each step forward, the eerie silence was broken by the sweet melody played from a lyre.
Rio brought out his flute and held it in his hand while walking forward with his usual emotionless expression on his face.
’This guy again...’
As Rio closed the distance, he arrived near a half-broken statue placed on a big pedestal, and Raika was sitting near it, playing a melody with his lyre.
The massive statue was nearly as big as a skyscraper even when its entire upper torso was missing and there was only the lower half of its body left intact.
The statue was that of a humanoid person.
Rio could even see some faint engravings of dragons and flying snakes on the boots of the statue as if depicting that the person who wore these boots considered dragons and snakes as pests to be crushed under his boots.
As if noticing Rio’s presence, Raika finished playing his melody and smiled gently as he looked at Rio.
"Oh, you made it here... I thought it might take you much longer than this but you managed to reach here in just a month..."
"I think you might be the first person since the past millennia to make it so deep into the spirit realm and approach the shadow dragons..."
A happy smile spread on Raika’s pretty face as he stroked his smooth and shiny lyre before saying,
"Ah, it’s been such a long... long time since I managed to talk to someone this ’Freely’... It’s rare for me to be able to stay out of that focused ’gaze’ governing my every move..."
"I really would prefer to stay like this... what do you think, Rio Flash? Why do you think people become so ’free’ when they are near you?"
Rio frowned at Raika’s words and didn’t reply to his question.
’Is it because I am an anomaly and I change the strings of destiny related to others consciously or subconsciously just by existing near them?...’
Although Rio knew the answer, he wasn’t going to say it out loud, as he didn’t want to talk to this unknown stranger at all.
’I have met many strangers and I have trusted many of them before too... but for some odd reason, I feel repulsed from the very sight of this guy...’
’Almost as if I don’t want to trust or listen him from the very bottom of my soul... it’s very strange... this is the first time I have felt so much ’caution’ and ’repulsion’ against someone...’
Rio met Kehrid and Kifrid only once, and he was a total stranger to them, yet he ended up trusting them and stayed in their house for an entire night.
Kehrid was an SS-ranker and could have caused trouble for Rio, yet Rio didn’t feel the need to guard himself too much when near him.
But the same kind of situation isn’t true near Raika.
Rio feels as if he needs to keep his guard up at all times if he doesn’t want to get in trouble.
"What exactly are you? And what do you want from me?..."
Meeting Raika once might have been a coincidence, but twice? That was deliberate.
Raika was someway or other, able to track him.
’But how is that even possible... if he was using any skill or technique to track me, ’True Immunity’ would have been triggered and his skills would not have worked on me...’
’It’s impossible to even look at the strings of destiny related to me too, as I am an ’Anomaly’... so how is this guy able to track me?’
Raika likely appeared in the temple back then and near this statue now only after he confirmed that Rio was about to appear there too.
He was targeting Rio somehow, and Rio could not understand how this weirdo was able to do such a thing so easily.
"What am I? Didn’t I tell you already... I am just a humble travelling bard... as for what I want from you?..."
"Hehe... you also know that better than anyone, don’t you... I want to befriend you, Rio... I want you to walk on a ’path’ of a ’hero’!"