Rio opened his eyes slowly and found himself sitting on a chair.
He glanced around and noticed that he was on a tall mountain’s peak; beside him was a table and another chair.
On the small table, a cup filled with warm tea was placed, and on the other chair, a man with reddish-black hair and pupils was sitting with a peaceful expression on his face.
The man looked middle-aged, and he was sipping tea with a gentle smile on his face.
He noticed Rio and smiled with a happy look on his face.
"It’s been a while... err... I am not really good at talking with children, so forgive if I co off as rude... well... err... where do I even start..."
The man scratched the back of his neck with an awkward look on his face, as he couldn’t find appropriate words to say.
Cold wind blew all over the area. Rio ignored the thick snow piled up around them and looked up only to find that the sky was covered in dark clouds and it was snowing heavily.
’This place... I see, when that mysterious skull shattered, I got a mory fragnt and so lingering soul fragnts from it...’
’I am in the fading sea of consciousness temporarily created from those mory fragnts and soul fragnts...’
Rio sighed deeply and took a sip from the tea before looking at the strange man and speaking in a calm tone.
"Yeah, it’s been a while... Legendary Assassin Kevin Flash, or should I say... Father?"
Hearing Rio’s words, the other party felt even more awkward and replied in a hesitant tone,
"Err... d-don’t be so tough on your old man... my fragile old heart will get hurt, you know-"
Rio ignored the other party’s exaggerated words and glared at him fiercely.
"I can’t make sense of this situation... how am I eting my dead father all of a sudden... This is very weird. Am I having a nightmare or sothing?"
"I would have preferred to dream about my loving mother caring about instead... tch, did it have to be this slly old fart..."
Rio didn’t hold back at all; he dished out trendous emotional damage, and the other party clenched his chest in defeat at those words.
"Ugh... how do I explain this... Well, I believe you have seen that Demon Prince’s mories, right?"
"That guy has a ’Legendary Skill’ called ’Soul Resonance’; he can control souls..."
Rio narrowed his eyes at those words and spoke in a calm tone.
"So what you are saying is that after killing you, he managed to get your soul and placed it in so random skeleton and then made you his subordinate..."
"He even gave you the na ’Seven’... then you fought and got defeated..."
"What I don’t understand is why Riko Embeth was carrying your skull around..."
Kevin sighed at Rio question and replied honestly,
"D-don’t stare at with such intense eyes... I ca to my senses and temporarily gained control of that destroyed skeleton body after my connection with Alverto weakened..."
"Then I found that girl in an injured state... I have a technique that can pass the vitality in my body to others..."
Kevin sighed before speaking again.
"I willingly gave the remaining vitality in that dying body to that girl... this way, she managed to get up on her feet again to take revenge and I managed to get a ride to your side..."
Kevin soul was already in a weakened state, and he couldn’t keep his body intact for too long, so he used all the vitality to help Riko.
Riko woke up, but she was already near death, so she was in a deranged state and had already lost her mind; she easily agreed to carry Kevin’s head and deliver it to Rio.
Riko was in such a bad state that she didn’t even question why a random unknown skeleton was helping her; she just wanted a push to gain her mobility back, and she didn’t mind being helped with that.
Rio had already caused many lower floors to shatter and weaken; even floors 2 and 1 had their primary functions shattered by him.
So, Riko didn’t have to watch that long mory of Alverto, and she directly reached Floor 0 with ease.
The skull told her that the Altar was Alverto’s main goal and she could take revenge if she destroyed it.
Fortunately for her, Alverto was forced by Rio to relocate the barrier surrounding the altar, which made it defenseless, and Riko was able to easily reach the altar.
She threw the skull to Rio at the final mont and then self-detonated to cause Alverto’s plan to fail.
She took her revenge and managed to go into the afterlife to et Zach again. Her plan succeeded, and she completed her ’path’ of ’revenge,’ which finally liberated her ’soul.’
Rio barely managed to survive the explosion afterwards because he was inside the barrier created from the concentrated power of the Spire of Ascension.
As everything exploded, that barrier also slowly broke apart with the fading power.
Rio had to use his sword intent at full power along with his shadow cloak to barely survive that disaster.
Thankfully he had enough mana to keep the shadow cloak functional for a while and tank the explosion.
Although he suffered severe injuries, he managed to make his way out of that dangerous situation and rush towards Lia’s side.
If he wasn’t an S-ranker or wasn’t inside that barrier, he might have died in that mont.
The skull that Riko threw at him turned out to be carrying his father’s mories and soul fragnts.
"No wonder you were able to keep up with in terms of speed and swordsmanship... this much is expected from a legendary assassin, I guess..."
Rio had never t anyone who was so good at swordsmanship before; Kevin’s sword technique, ’Sky-splitter sword art,’ was a masterpiece, and even Rio was impressed by it.
"I see, your nickna, Kevin the ’Soul Splitter,’ ca from not only the unique sword in your hand, but also because you had a powerful technique to back it up..."
Hearing Rio’s words of praise, Kevin coughed lightly to hide his embarrassnt.
"W-well, I could have shown you more of it if I was in my body; that skeleton body was too difficult to use and I couldn’t even exert half of my strength..."
"Sky-splitter sword art was sothing I stole from the orcs, by the way..."
The corner of Rio’s mouth twitched after hearing that.
’Does stealing run in the genes of the ’Flash’ family mbers... even I have been stealing things right and left...’
Rio sighed to himself and asked,
"So... What did you want to say so badly that you even went to such lengths to et ?..."
Kevin sighed at that question, and his expression beca awkward once again.
He never once had a proper conversation with his son before, and now that his son is fully grown up, it’s way too awkward to suddenly co and talk to him.
"I just... I just wanted to say that I truly did care about your mother... I liked her from the bottom of my heart... I never wanted to leave her and you behind..."
"It’s just that I couldn’t stay... My lifelong goal and ambition was to beco the greatest assassin in the entire world..."
"To prove that to the world, I had to show that I could even sneak into the demon castle and co back alive... It was my ’Path’ and my ambition that led to do it..."
Kevin looked Rio in the eye and spoke in a solemn voice.
"You might hate ... Alicia also didn’t like this... but I couldn’t abandon my ’Path’... without my ambition I wouldn’t have been ’’ anymore..."
Rio had expected this reply.
The original Rio’s mother wasn’t a strong awakener; she never reached rank A and never even knew about what a ’Path’ is, so she couldn’t understand Kevin’s actions no matter what.
To an ordinary person, the actions of a high-rank awakener are bizarre and weird most of the ti.
Alicia could not accept Kevin abandoning her for nearly a decade, and Kevin also couldn’t explain his reasoning properly to her either.
It was a sad yet understandable outco that they could never make up again.
In his final ti, Kevin could only live by himself and couldn’t even talk to his son because he knew Alicia would have hated it if she saw him contacting Rio secretly without her permission.
He didn’t want to escalate things anymore than they already had.
"You have walked a long way Rio... In fact I think that you will go even further. I am truly proud of you, my son..."
"I just wanted to say to you that... if possible, please forgive ... Also, if possible, try to keep those you care close to you..."
"Don’t make a mistake like ... I hope you will be happy in the future; it might be late but..."
Kevin stood up from his seat as he spoke in a proud tone.
"Alicia may not have told you, but the na ’Rio’ ans ’Infinite Possibilities’ in an ancient language... I chose that na; I hoped that you will have infinite possibilities in the future..."
"And you will live a future that will give you infinite possibilities to be happy and carefree, unlike ..."
Kevin walked over and patted Rio on the head as his figure slowly turned illusory and started to disappear.
"Thank you for being my son; thank you for making your mother and so proud of you..."
With a gentle smile on his face, the illusory figure completely disappeared, and the mory fragnt collapsed as that remaining soul fragnt lost all power.
Rio couldn’t help but sigh and give a light smile in return before Kevin disappeared to show that he acknowledged his words.
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