After separating at Oaklum, Riko travelled to the place where the ’Drift City’ once was.
To know more about Alverto and to investigate more ways to fight him, Riko has put in a lot of effort.
If it was only about her younger brother, Riko could have still been helped, and she wouldn’t necessarily have walked on the ’Path’ of Revenge.
But the incident with Zach left a massive impact on her.
She was just recovering from her depression and had started to see the image of her dead younger brother in Zach, but her reality was shattered once again right in front of her eyes.
She watched it all happen with her own eyes.
As she watched helplessly, both people who were close to her die in such a miserable way, she lost herself to the ’Path’ of Revenge even if she didn’t want to.
In the past year or so, Riko joined a world alliance-affiliated information-gathering secret organization via a chance encounter.
Not only did she find a lot of details and clues about Alverto, but she also found several details on his victims.
As she researched the drift city incident, Riko also found out about Rio’s past and what had happened in the drift city all those years ago.
But one thing seed extrely strange to her.
The incident was described as ’Alverto killed all those people because he wanted to sacrifice them and create a new demon out of them.’.
But this didn’t seem like the case to Riko.
There was definitely sothing missing.
Alverto’s abilities are evident to her; he doesn’t devise simple plans that others can easily decipher and thwart.
He must have had another reason for massacring the entire ’Drift City.’.
Riko couldn’t take revenge for her younger brother, who died an unjust death, because all the culprits, including the orphanage owner, had long died.
But now that she has the opportunity to take revenge for Zach, she can’t let it slip by.
Just after she had told her findings to Rio and Link, she suddenly found herself in the ’Spire of Ascension’ the very next day.
As she made her way downwards, she reached the floor right above the floor on which Alverto and Jin were fighting their duel.
The floor was already riddled with massive holes and was half destroyed by the ti she reached here, and she imdiately sensed Alverto’s aura from below at that very mont.
She has been looking forward to the mont that she can take revenge, so there’s no way she will ever mistake his aura and miss the chance to fight him.
But the battle between Jin and Alverto at that mont was sothing she couldn’t participate in even if she wanted to.
She couldn’t even follow their movents with her eyes as they were using ’ti’ elentals to fight.
The two of them were not only fighting in the ’present’ but their attacks were transcending the ’past’ and the ’future’ too.
That was sothing Riko couldn’t pull off even in her dreams; they were in a league of their own.
But thankfully her chance to enter the battle also ca.
Although Jin lost the battle himself, he succeeded in breaking the connection between Alverto and the Spire of Ascension for the ti being.
This caused Alverto to revert back to his original state.
Now he’s only at the peak of S rank, which ans Riko has a chance to barely fight him.
She glanced at Lia and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Lia! This battle is mine; you should stay back. I have a lot of debt I need to collect from this piece of sh*t today! Kekeke."
Even Lia could sense that after taking that suspicious-looking drug, Riko’s mind seed less focused, and she seed to be in a weirdly battle-crazed state.
[This girl... sigh... To think she would take the ’Burning Ember Pearl’ willingly...]
Hearing those words from Kai, Lia was confused.
’What is a ’Burning Ember Pearl’? So kind of ancient drug you ancient folk used to smoke to get high or sothing?’
[Hey! Don’t slander like that! I never took drugs and stuff! I am a pure-hearted, proud Lion spirit!]
[Moreover, that thing only works on humans anyway...]
As Lia didn’t know about it, Kai started to tell her about the ’Burning Ember Pearl.
[That thing was first made during the demon extinction war by a group of people who had already lost their fighting ability and still wanted to fight...]
[This thing is made out of rare poisonous ingredients that are extrely difficult to find...]
[Injured or weak people used it at that ti to gain power by burning their own life force and used that temporary boost to fight and kill more demons...]
During the thousand-year demon extinction war, everyone’s hatred for demons was at an all-ti high, and everyone wanted to kill a demon or two themselves.
As they say, ’In the face of a common enemy, humanity will unite’.
Even children of those tis were dreaming about becoming strong in the future so that they could go and kill a lot of demons on the battlefields.
It was indeed a dark ti, but that kind of motivation was necessary in those tis of war.
That’s how this ’Burning Ember Pearl’ ca to be.
It was created so that people who wanted to launch a final suicide attack on demons to die a glorious death while fighting demons could have a chance.
Even King Allen Von Reinhart could not stop the people from taking this dangerous drug, as he could not tell people to not think about killing demons in those dark tis.
In the end, the drug was finally banned after the thousand-year demon extinction war was ended by King Allen.
Even then, so people still managed to seal this drug in various hidden places.
To this day, excavation in various places still sotis causes these hidden drugs to resurface.
By joining that secret information-gathering organization, Riko found out about their existence, and she bought one for herself.
She knew that the fated day when she would get to fight Alverto once more would definitely co eventually.
Therefore, she had already begun her preparations.
Although she could not advance to rank S herself, she had made preparations so that she could at least fight Alverto on equal grounds.
Taking the forbidden drug, she not only started to burn her own life force, she even burned her future potential, her dreams, and even ignited the power of the ’path’ of revenge all at once.
The ’Path’ of revenge causes you to lose your ntality and rationality; it even causes your future potential to deviate and beco low sotis.
But still many people choose it because when the ti for ’revenge’ actually cos, this ’Path’ can give you an imnse boost in strength in that decisive mont.
*BOOM!*
Riko’s aura instantly broke through S rank at that mont, and a smirk appeared on her face as she tightly clenched her sword in her hand.
[This girl... She ca here with the intention to die and drag Alverto to hell along with her...]
Hearing Kai’s explanation, a look of seriousness appeared on Lia’s face.
’I see... So this would have been my future if not for him...’
Lia could see herself in Riko at this mont.
She could instinctively feel that if not for Rio, she would have likely walked the sa path of revenge as Riko, and this is how she would have been in the future.
Just like Lia’s love helped Rio keep his humanity and not lose the last bit of his emotions, Rio’s care for her saved her from the darkness of the curse placed by Alverto.
She unconsciously suppressed that curse within herself and eventually destroyed it after awakening Kai’s true powers due to Rio’s help.
’Just how will I ever be able to pay this imnse debt back to you, Rio... You are too unfair...’
Lia stopped glancing at Riko at this mont and focused on Alverto once again.
She knew that Riko was beyond saving at this point; she won’t back off no matter what.
"Senpai, I won’t tell you to stop anymore, but you must not tell to stop either. I also have a lot of debt that I need to collect from this vile demon..."
"It’s first co, first served! Let’s see who kills him first then!"
All these discussions may give the impression that a lot of ti has passed and Alverto hasn’t moved, but in reality, only a few seconds have passed since Lia and Riko jumped down from the upper floor.
The entire conversation only took a few seconds to complete.
"Well, well, well, that spirit of battle is quite impressive, but don’t underestimate too much..."
"I don’t think that a person who can force to lose has been born in this world yet!"
As Lia and Riko prepared for battle, Alverto did the sa.
Despite the fact that the opponents seed quite weak to him, he was still planning to give his all.
For him, everything was already within his plan; he wasn’t feeling the least bit pressured by Riko’s bloodthirsty gaze or Lia’s calm state of mind.
He already knew that Riya was healing Jin right now, but even that didn’t seem to matter much to him right now.
’Even if they heal Jin, he will barely be conscious; he won’t recover beyond the point of moving a little bit...’
As if he could see his imminent success, a smirk appeared on Alverto’s face at that mont.
’My plans are on the right track; everything is under control...’
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