Reborn as an Extra

Chapter 584: Raika and The Lyre of Faith. Part-7.

Even though he was hit by a severe wound, Rio was already quite immune to pain, and he was incapable of feeling fear and intimidation, so he wasn’t afraid either.

But Rio was definitely surprised by how amazingly Raika had copied all the skills of the people that Rio knew.

’He’s able to know everything about me for some reason... but how...’

Rio then remembered that Raika didn’t seem to know about the existence of ’True Immunity,’ and he was also surprised when Rio nullified his control over miasma so easily.

’He’s not able to know everything if I look at it this way... but what makes him unable to know about ’True Immunity,’ though?...’

’Is it because this skill is not something anyone can sense or predict?’

Ever since Rio first got ’True Immunity,’ he’s been surprised by its ability to deal with many dangerous situations easily!

Fade originally had the same ’True Immunity’ in the original novel, but his version of ’True Immunity’ was never this powerful, and it was never able to do all the things that Rio’s one does.

It’s almost as if Rio has an upgraded version of it compared to Fade from the original novel.

’Think, Rio, think... I need to figure out this guy’s secrets or I will lose...’

While guarding and expecting the next move from Raika, Rio focused healing magic and stopped the blood loss as he barely managed to patch up that severe wound.

S-rankers are extremely durable beings, and they have an insanely powerful vitality; one or two holes in the body won’t kill them, and unless their brain and soul are crushed, they won’t easily die in the truest sense.

’Phew~ Focus...’

Although it seemed as if a lot of time had passed since he was punched and blasted off, only a few milliseconds had passed until now.

Everything was happening so fast that if it was any other S-ranker, they would have already died by now from Raika’s first move.

’Miasma sense, mana detection and sword intent sensing ability... none of them are working on him...’

’But there is one way I can barely deal with him.

[Sword Intent: Defensive Approach!]

Rio used sword intent and controlled the miasma around him to immediately create a massive invisible zone around him where no miasma would enter.

Rio actively distanced himself from miasma and made a ten-meter zone around him with no mana or miasma in the area.

And by increasing his mental concentration to the maximum, Rio focused his sword intent and mental power in that ten-meter zone.

[Echo of Paradise: Dragon’s Symphony: Star Toss!]

The very next moment, Raika appeared right beside Rio and tried to grab Rio’s arm to toss him with immense force and injure him, but this time, Rio finally managed to react on time!

[Handling!]

Rio accurately pinpointed the trajectory of the hand and used a counter-strike to redirect the trajectory of the hand with his powerful parrying skill, ’Handling.’

*BOOOOOM!*

The hand that had stretched to grab Rio ended up losing its target and went in the wrong direction!

"What!?"

For the first time, Rio managed to react to Raika’s attack, causing him to be shocked.

"It’s only been a few seconds since we started fighting, and you are already adapting to me!?"

"Monster!"

Ignoring Raika’s shock, Rio placed his sword around his waist and closed his eyes before taking his stance.

[Elemental Sword Art: Thunder Type: Thousand Bolts of Disintegration!]

Before Rio could swing his sword, Raika once again disappeared and reappeared far away, but to his shock, Rio changed the trajectory of his sword mid-swing.

He rushed exactly to the location where Raika had reappeared and did thousands of swings covered in dense thunder elementals in a matter of a fraction of a second.

*BOOOOOM!!!!*

The power of those concentrated thunder swings was so powerful that the miasmic crystal floor was shattered and the miasmic fog in the entire area was blown away from the sheer power of those swings!

Raika was so taken aback by this sudden change in Rio that he couldn’t react on time, and all the thousand swings landed on him!

He hurriedly raised his hands and tried to defend himself, but both of his hands were chopped off in a single instant.

Just when the situation was getting desperate for him, Raika disappeared from the spot and reappeared an entire kilometer away in the sky!

But to Rio’s surprise, he was completely uninjured after he reappeared!

All the injuries that Rio inflicted on him using those quick attacks were completely nonexistent, as if he never even got hit by them.

"You really took me by surprise there... I see, so you are now resorting to the use of your instincts to attack me... that’s a clever strategy, hehe~"

Hearing Raika’s voice from far away, Rio opened his eyes but didn’t reply as a frown appeared on his face.

’How is he still unharmed... I didn’t sense him using any healing magic at all... is he using clones of himself?’

’No clones need to teleported and they also have to follow strict rules and ’laws’ of the ’world’...’

Rio once fought Alverto’s clone, and even that clone had to be teleported inside the dungeon before it could start fighting.

It couldn’t just disappear and reappear randomly, and it couldn’t just heal itself without the use of any skills or items.

Thus, Rio ruled out that Raika was using any clones or body doubles at all; he was using something completely different.

’It’s not illusion, not a world authority, not a legendary skill and not a clone either...’

Staring into Raika’s eyes, Rio spoke.

"A Projection."

Hearing that word from Rio’s mouth, the smile on Raika’s face deepened as he started laughing loudly.

"AHAHAHAHAH!!!! YOU REALLY ARE SOMETHING, RIO FLASH!!!!"

"NO WONDER YOU ARE SUCH A BIZARRE AND WEIRD BEING! YOU ARE A MONSTER!"

The reason why Rio reached that conclusion was because he had run many tests and experiments.

Raika was unaffected by any kind of detection ability, and he wasn’t using any teleportation or movement art either.

Rio had, one by one, eliminated every possibility, but the final nail in the coffin was the fact that Raika was able to use both miasma and mana while also completely ignoring all damage inflicted upon him.

This only meant one thing.

Raika was a ’projection’ of some powerful being.

He was a projection someone was using, and a projection can obviously take any shape and form and can obviously make itself disappear from existence as if it never even existed.

A projection can also reappear anywhere its user wants it to and can also use any kind of power, as its own strength is only limited by the power of the main body and the imagination of the user.

The biggest reason why Rio became certain of his conclusion was because Rio managed to land his first hits on him when he used his own pure instincts to predict the danger around him.

Ever since Rio entered the spirit realm, the miasma inside the spirit realm had been heavily suppressing his instincts and his own intuition.

Even the cube of possibilities was heavily suppressed, and even it wasn’t able to predict where Raika was going to reappear next.

Rio had tried all methods, but he couldn’t sense Raika.

So, instead of wasting any more time on trying to sense the presence of a projection that could easily come into existence and disappear from existence itself, Rio focused on himself.

He decided to devise a temporary method to trick miasma and restore his intuition and instincts.

He eliminated the interference of miasma by using his sword intent in a defensive formation and distancing himself from miasma entirely.

In this way, Rio will not be able to use miasma as his energy source anymore and will have to rely on his own mana to use his skill, but by doing this, Rio regained his instincts and intuition.

As long as Raika appeared in Rio’s ten-meter range or tried to do anything harmful towards him, Rio would be able to predict it using his intuition and instincts that would warn him of danger.

And as a projection does not have a soul of its own, soul-type attacks were useless on it; that’s the main reason why Rio’s previous soul-type attack was easily stopped by Raika.

’Everything is starting to make sense now... I finally understand why he was able to keep appearing in front of me as I travelled through the spirit realm...’

Raika even appeared inside the cage that had confined Ellie for a millennium!

It was not because he was controlling miasma like Rio or using some powerful ability to penetrate into that cage.

He was simply using a projection to directly appear inside the cage.

As long as the user knows about the coordinates of a particular location, they can easily make their projection appear at those coordinates without any trouble!

’But I still can’t understand one thing...’

"Who are you?"

Rio asked the same question once again, but Raika, once again, didn’t reply honestly.

"I am Raika, The Master of the Holy Lyre of Eternal Faith! I am just a humble travelling bard!"

"And all I want is to be your friend, greatest ’Anomaly’ in the universe, Rio Flash."

Rio wasn’t even surprised anymore that Raika knew about Rio being an ’Anomaly’ in this universe.

King Allen knew about it, and the shadow dragon king also knew about it; it wasn’t surprising anymore that some other powerful ancient being might also know about him.

’Sigh... it’s really problematic that I am such a popular person and everyone wants to make trouble for me...’