Before Rio could question him, Raika got up from his seat and looked at the statue.
"Forget about me... You have made it here with such great difficulty; wouldn’t it be nice to know more about this location?"
Raika used his thin fingers to play a sad melody and sang in a sweet and gentle tone.
...
{There was once a dragon~
Capable of turning into any lifeform~
There was once a dragon~
Capable of mimicking every shape and form~
~~~~~~
Ambition led him to the wrong path~
World told him to be a protector~
No one could withstand its wrath~
And so~~ He became the worst Destructor~
Causing everyone to fall apart~
~~~~~~~
Ohh~ the dragon betrayed everyone~~
Ohh~ the king of humanity lost everyone~~
Ohh~ the demons killed everyone~~
~~~~~~~
The world wept, the sky wept, the earth broke apart.
The king wept, the mother wept, hope shattered and fell apart.
The worst fate fell on the dragon, and its kingdom broke apart.
The ambition, the dream, the desire—everything fell apart.
}
...(I don’t really have any musical talent so make do with this random rhyme I made...)
The song was talking about the history of the ’Shadow Dragons’; it was a song Rio once heard Ellie sing as a lullaby to put Liam to sleep when he was injured and suffering from insomnia.
It was a song that carried the tale of the Shadow Dragon King, who betrayed humanity, broke the world alliance pact, and caused immense damage to everyone.
Due to his and his subordinate’s betrayal, the world alliance once nearly collapsed, and demons nearly won the thousand-year demon extinction race.
If at that time, King Allen had died, that ’thousand-year demon extinction’ war would have been called ’the world destruction war’ instead.
No, perhaps there might not have been anyone left to even name the war anymore; it would have been the end of all beings in this solar system.
The final line of the song, ’the worst fate that fell on the dragon,’ was obviously mentioning the fact that the dragon king and all his subordinates were banished to the spirit realm.
They were banished to a place of eternal punishment and torture; their fate was crueler than even being killed on the spot.
’Don’t tell me...’
Rio looked at the half-broken statue and as if noticing his gaze, Raika chuckled and spoke out calmly,
"Yes! You have guessed it right; this is the statue of that unfortunate dragon, yes! This is the statue of that ambitious shadow dragon king, ’Mayur Perperum’!"
"This is the statue of the king of shadow dragons who led his subordinates toward a fate crueler than death itself!"
Rio frowned at Raika’s words and asked,
"Who even made a statue for someone like him? Don’t tell me his subordinates still believed him to be innocent and made a statue for him regardless of the fact that he got banished?"
After the great betrayal caused by the king of shadow dragons and his subordinates, most of the shadow dragons were banished, and those who refused to leave were either killed off or left the solar system.
Rio has been to the dragon valley, and there are dozens of different types of dragons living there.
Red dragons that control fire, blue dragons that control water, green dragons that control earth and wood, etc., and each of them has a king of their own, and then there’s one unified king of the entire race that rules above them all.
This is the basic hierarchy of the dragon race.
The shadow dragons were already very few in number to begin with; there were barely around a hundred of them, and most of them were direct subordinates of their king.
So obviously, banishing them wiped out the entire shadow dragon race from the outside world.
"Hehe, what do you think happened to the shadow dragons after they were forced to stay in the spirit realm for centuries?"
Raika had an amused look on his face as he talked about the history of the shadow dragon race.
"The entire spirit realm is filled with miasma... obviously their fate would have been very bad..."
Rio knew that as a Shadow Dragon and a being very close to dark elementals, Ellie was highly resistant to miasma and corruption, but even then, she was not completely immune to it.
Miasma is very persistent and patient when it comes to destroying a person’s life and existence.
No matter how much resistance and strength you have, given enough time and opportunities, miasma can still make a powerful person’s life horrible and make a mockery of them eventually.
For most beings, just touching miasma once directly is enough for them to die a horrible death of pain and suffering, and shadow dragons have stayed in a place filled with miasma for more than an entire millennium!
This is also the main reason why everyone was often worried about Liam keeping a shadow dragon close to him.
No one knew what was going on with Ellie’s real body, and she was basically a ticking time bomb that might go berserk at any point.
But that wasn’t the main problem either; after being reminded of this song by Raika, Rio was now worried about something completely different.
’Don’t tell me that the big and powerful shadow dragon which I saw sleeping above a plateau in the memories of that evil spirit...’
’Is that actually the so called ’Betrayer King of Shadow Dragons’!?... I hope this isn’t true...’
If such a thing turned out to be true, Rio might never be able to save Liam and Ellie.
If it was a weak SS-ranker, Rio could still have tried to make some adjustments to his plan by taking Liam and Ellie and running away!
But if the shadow dragon who’s got the information about the two of them is a deranged betrayer of the world alliance, getting the information out of him will be near impossible.
’Moreover, he might be heavily influenced by miasmic corruption and might attack me the moment I get close to it like that monster wave...’
’This mission has really become quite difficult...’
Rio wouldn’t have given a single f*ck about any sleeping shadow dragon or something like that if he himself was an SS-ranker, but the current him can’t deal with something of that level.
"Why are you telling me all this? What will you get out of this?"
At Rio’s question, Raika smiled gently, ran his slender fingers across the lyre in his hand and spoke.
"I get your friendship, what else!... hehe, well, I have already told you what I needed to!"
"We will meet again soon, my precious friend, Rio Flash~"
Before Rio could stop him or do anything, Raika once again disappeared.
He literally disappeared out of existence, and no matter what Rio tried to do, he couldn’t find a single trace of him at all.
"What even is this guy?... How is he appearing and disappearing out of nowhere like that?..."
If it was some kind of elemental skill, or any other type of skill, Rio could have already learned it and copied it by now.
But Rio could not sense any disturbance in the flow of miasma or the elementals in the area at all!
There were no spatial fluctuation disturbances, and even the space-time fabric was extremely stable here, which means that Raika didn’t use teleportation or spatial manipulation either!
’What kind of bizarre ability is this?... Not being able to sense his soul fluctuations and mental signatures is making this even more difficult...’
Even Ashtel Rex leaves behind some traces of spatial fluctuations when he teleports, but this bizarre guy was completely shattering Rio’s worldview with his bizarre powers.
’Is it the power of that strange lyre in his hand?’
Just like how Rio’s sword is a legendary weapon, other legendary artifacts exist in this vast universe without a doubt.
Rio’s sword’s sole function is destruction and violence, but it’s possible that Raika’s strange lyre might have some powerful hidden skill or ability that can conceal his presence and teleport him from place to place.
’If he can teleport... he might become the biggest problem in my way when I try to take Liam and Ellie and try to escape using teleportation scroll...’
If Raika can teleport to any place easily, it’s possible he will be able to keep tracking Rio some way or other and might become a problem in the future.
’I need to do something about this guy sooner or later...’
These two encounters were not in vain; Rio had already tried most of the standard detection methods on Raika, and most of them had failed.
Although he failed to detect anything, he had started to narrow down the problems; he might understand something in the next encounter.
Rio shook his head, looked at the broken statue one more time, and then started walking towards his destination once again.
’Although it might be dangerous... I don’t really have any other choice right now...’
This is the main reason why Rio promised he would bring Liam and Ellie back before he took this mission.
When a person is bound by promises and has to accomplish a task no matter what, they are able to try their very best!
This is the reason why Rio eliminated all possibilities of retreating before he even started the mission; having a mentality of never retreating was very important in this mission.
’Although I don’t want to die, as I have a lot of things left to accomplish in this life... I can’t improve unless I take some risks...’
The face of a particular golden-haired girl flashed in his mind as he smiled, and a newfound sense of determination pushed him forward.
’I will not lose; Lia is waiting for me. I will succeed and return home soon...’