Riona

Riona is the former queen and effective ruler of the Skadi Kingdom, Amaya's mother, Thyra's former masked master, and one of Nux's wives. She first appears to be the woman who sold her twelve-year-old daughter for political gain. The later revelation that she constructed that cruelty to save Amaya from execution defines both her tragedy and her development: after years of protecting from a distance, she chooses a Law that carries her directly to Amaya or Nux when they face mortal danger, even when taking the attack costs her a century of unconsciousness.

Biography

The masked queen and the daughter she sent away

Riona enters the story through two hostile identities. Amaya knows her as the mother who sent her to Ricardus at twelve and believes she was sold for advantage; Thyra knows a masked assassin called “Master,” a severe trainer who demanded obedience and appeared cold even toward dead subordinates. The mask conceals Riona Skadi, Queen of Skadi and the kingdom's actual decision-maker despite the king's public title. Her cultivated cruelty is convincing enough that even those closest to her describe her as selfish and emotionless. (Chapters 465–468)

Her apparent abandonment is eventually revealed as a desperate protection scheme. Amaya's Devouring Mist Physique was treated in Skadi as a curse whose bearer had to be killed. Riona could not hide the child indefinitely from Emperor Amletus, so she made the removal look self-serving and sent Amaya to Skyfall, outside his immediate reach. She assigned her loyal subordinate Kelton to protect and observe her, concealed Amaya's secrets from Skadi, and maintained the hateful persona because secret tenderness or contact could expose the deception. Kelton says Riona values Amaya above her own life. The plan succeeds at keeping Amaya alive, but it requires Amaya to grow up believing her mother discarded her. (Chapters 469–471)

Believing Amaya dead, Riona prepares personal vengeance against Raguel, whom she holds responsible. Nux and Thyra force her to face what her protection cost, and provocation about Amaya breaks the composure on which her political identity depends. When Amaya appears alive, Riona collapses emotionally; Amaya remains cold and has every reason not to accept an explanation immediately. Nux insists that reconciliation is Amaya's choice, preventing Riona's sacrifice from becoming a claim on forgiveness. Amaya grants a chance rather than instant absolution, and their first awkward embrace begins a relationship that must be rebuilt through presence instead of another hidden plan. (Chapters 469–474)

Choosing Amaya over Skadi

Riona's next decisions make her priorities public. She helps Amaya and Nux move against Raguel and abandons the Skadi court's plans when they conflict with her daughter's safety. During the confrontation with Amletus, she declares that she stands only on Amaya's side and tries to shield her, taking a blow before Nux kills the emperor. The action does not erase the lost childhood, but it ends the ambiguity over whether Riona will again choose kingdom or reputation over her daughter. (Chapters 481–583)

The family then compels a more complete truth. Nux places a Slave Seal on Riona, and Amaya uses the resulting command to demand an honest account of her motives. The answer confirms that Riona's choices were made to preserve Amaya rather than profit from her. This is coercive verification, not evidence that Riona freely welcomed every part of her new situation, but it gives Amaya the certainty needed to reopen their bond. She permits direct mental communication, and Riona eagerly overuses it, replacing years of enforced silence with almost constant contact. (Chapters 581–583)

Riona does not immediately cease being a ruler or strategist. She helps the family assess the evacuation of the Forgotten Continent and understands the burdens attached to sheltering a displaced population. In Yrniel she becomes part of ExceedoGenesis while retaining the habits of someone trained to manage threats through intelligence and preparation. The decisive change is that family is no longer the secret exception to her public role; it becomes the principle around which she reorganizes that role. (Chapters 703–712)

Stewardship and a new place in the family

When Nux and most of the clan are absent for roughly a century and a half, Riona keeps ExceedoGenesis functioning through attrition. Sealed members cannot remain active, older members die, and only thirty-two active members remain, but the clan survives under protection from the Lust State and Bloodheart House. Riona also preserves a challenge letter until Nux returns, combining practical administration with the sharp, slightly vindictive humor that appears once she no longer needs to perform emotionlessness. The assignment shows that her political skill can maintain a household rather than merely control a kingdom. (Chapters 869 and 1126–1127)

She also accepts limits in cultivation. In the Human Trial she reaches only the seventeenth wave and receives a High-level bloodline rather than the stronger results achieved by some companions. Her strategy relies on resting between waves instead of forcing a dramatic failure, an extension of the patience that made her an effective ruler. The trial strengthens her foundation but does not suddenly make her the family's premier fighter. (Chapter 1208)

Her relationship with Nux develops inside this already complicated family. She attends Amaya's marriage and is increasingly included in the household's intimacy and counsel. In Chapter 1236, Amaya and Nux openly press the issue while Riona protests that becoming involved with her daughter's husband is improper; that scene alone does not establish unpressured consent. Her later actions do: she calls Nux her husband, adopts the name Riona Leander, chooses a Law devoted to protecting him as well as Amaya, and openly reciprocates his affection. By then the former queen has become his wife and one of the advisers he expects to correct him rather than submit silently to his judgment. (Chapters 998, 1134, 1236, 1372–1373, and 1721)

The Law that closes every distance

Riona's Law grows from the regret at the center of her life. Asked what she most wishes she could change, she returns to sending Amaya away, missing her childhood, and being unable to stand beside her when protection was needed. She answers the second question—how to prevent that regret from recurring—by choosing defense over another offensive path. The Law of Last Protection is meant to ensure that when Amaya or Nux faces a serious threat, distance can no longer make Riona absent. She also gives up private time with Nux to help him think through his own Law, turning her insight outward at the moment of her own advancement. Forming the path takes her directly from Great Sage to Saint without a Semi-Saint interval. (Chapters 1372–1373)

The Law's decisive test comes when the Main Universe attacks Lane and Nux with a force that vaporizes all energy and matter across hundreds or thousands of kilometers. It activates without advance warning, transports Riona to Nux, and blocks the attack despite her Divine-level power being vastly too weak by ordinary measures. The protection fulfills its stated promise once—appear and stop an attack regardless of its strength—but the Law must “outperform” itself to do so. Riona collapses, and the Universe immediately tries to devour her for interfering. Nux severs her connection to the Main Universe and makes himself her new anchor before it can succeed. (Chapters 1658–1659)

The cost is not cosmetic. Riona remains unconscious for one hundred years while the family cares for her, and Nux's guilt over nearly losing her destabilizes him. The local text of Chapter 1659 is duplicated and breaks off while naming an additional “price,” so its exact wording cannot be recovered from the supplied record. Later evidence shows the Law still exists: Nux remains concerned that it could forcibly bring Riona into another lethal situation. Its demonstrated lasting limit is therefore best stated conservatively: an impossible interception can overwhelm her body and remove her from action for a century, while any further permanent penalty is unexplained in the corpus. She awakens, remembers choosing to shield her husband, and comforts Nux before asking for any account of what she missed. (Chapters 1659–1703 and 1743)

Counsel beyond Yrniel

After recovery, Riona resumes the role of a mobile adviser. She accompanies Nux in Nexus, analyzes political incentives behind mercenary missions, and helps infer why Supreme Worlds might permit threats to grow until weaker worlds become dependent on them. Seeing Nux reach similar deductions without her briefly makes her fear she is becoming unnecessary. Rather than hide the insecurity behind her old queenly mask, she says so. Nux answers that knowledge does not replace her judgment and asks her to remain the person who corrects him when he is wrong. Riona accepts both the reassurance and the responsibility, promising to protect him while acknowledging that neither of them is infallible. (Chapters 1721–1739)

Her connection to the old Universe has already been severed, and her Law occupies a dedicated space in Nux's universe. This makes her communication with him and the other connected wives stable across worlds, but it also means her former conventional route of cultivation no longer has the same cosmic foundation. The corpus continues to identify the original wives as Complete Divines and does not establish a later standard stage for Riona. Her value in the wars with Supreme Worlds is correspondingly strategic and protective rather than presented as a new escalation in raw cultivation. (Chapters 1692, 1739, and 1942–1943)

Riona often acts as a brake on the family's most destructive impulses. She notices gaps in enemy narratives, questions why stronger powers arrange unwinnable missions, calms Amaya when Shadow is absent, and later restrains her daughter from attacking her own sisters. Her advice to Astaria during the Infinity conflict rejects simplistic categories of right and wrong in favor of consequences and chosen loyalties. These judgments are not always the final plan—Amaya and Nux frequently lead the strategy—but they show Riona using the political realism once devoted to Skadi in service of a family that can threaten entire cosmic factions. (Chapters 1875, 1953, 2078–2268, and 2356)

Motherhood after the apparent end

The repaired relationship with Amaya reaches its severest test when Nux appears to be erased by the Infinities. Amaya begins to lose control and describes being unable to breathe; Riona does not respond with calculation or demand composure. She holds her daughter and grieves with her, offering the physical presence she had once believed distance and deception made impossible. When signs of Nux's return appear, both mother and daughter are present to see the family choose hope over certainty. (Chapters 2387–2390)

By the end of the supplied corpus, Riona and Nux have a son, Caelum. She stands with him among the other Leander mothers and children when the extended family reunites and returns to Yrniel. Her final state answers the regret that created her Law in a quieter way: she is alive, beside both generations of her family, no longer ruling them from behind a mask or protecting them through deliberate estrangement. (Chapters 2405–2407)

Appearance and personality

Unmasked, Riona is described as a mature version of Amaya: raven hair, black eyes, thin eyebrows, red lips, a lean figure, and a composed, mature charm. The resemblance makes their relationship visually unmistakable even when their behavior is hostile. Her earlier assassin identity conceals this face behind a mask and reinforces the severe persona through which Thyra knows her. (Chapters 465–468)

Riona is intelligent, controlled, politically experienced, and capable of maintaining a deception for years under enormous emotional pressure. Those strengths also create her greatest failure. She assumes that protection must be designed unilaterally and accepts being hated without giving Amaya any choice in the sacrifice. After reconciliation, the same discipline becomes patience, administration, threat analysis, and defense, while her sharper humor and desire for affection become visible. (Chapters 469–474, 1126–1127, and 1739)

Her emotional development is not a transformation from unfeeling to loving; later revelations show that love always motivated her. What changes is her willingness to be seen loving, to admit insecurity, and to remain present after making a painful choice. She can still be strict—particularly when stopping Amaya from harming family—and she remains realistic about power and politics. Yet when Amaya breaks under grief, Riona's answer is an embrace rather than another protective lie. (Chapters 581–583, 1739, 2356, and 2387)

Abilities and cultivation

Law of Last Protection

Riona forms this non-Absolute Law from two explicit anchors: regret over being absent from Amaya's childhood and the resolve never again to be unable to protect Amaya or Nux. When either valid target faces a serious threat, the Law can activate and transport Riona across an otherwise irrelevant distance to the target. It then lets her block one attack regardless of its strength and also strengthens her ordinary defensive ability. The corpus demonstrates automatic activation when Nux is in mortal danger; it does not define a precise threat threshold, maximum distance, cooldown, whether Riona can refuse activation, or whether both targets can be protected simultaneously. (Chapters 1372–1373 and 1658)

Its “regardless of strength” clause is demonstrated once against a Universal attack that creates a true void over hundreds or thousands of kilometers. The block succeeds, but Riona's own power is not raised permanently to that level. Instead, forcing the Law beyond what her Divine body can sustain renders her unconscious for a century. A corrupted sentence in the normalized Chapter 1659 prevents certainty about another stated price. Later chapters still treat the Law as active and dangerous enough that Nux avoids injury in Umbrasol lest it pull Riona into the Death Energy, so the article does not infer that the Law was destroyed. The strongest counter established by the corpus is indirect: threaten a target with force so far beyond Riona that fulfilling the protection incapacitates her. (Chapters 1658–1703 and 1747)

After Nux severs Riona from the Main Universe, Last Protection becomes part of his universe. Because it is a dependent Law, his acquired version mutates: where Riona can protect Amaya and Nux, his version can protect the wives already connected to him. That derivative ability is not a separate feat performed by Riona, and the source never shows her repeatedly blocking attacks of the same Universal scale. Her latest state is as the living origin and user of Last Protection, with its continued existence supported but its post-severance ceiling untested. (Chapters 1659, 1743, and 1814)

Cultivation and bloodline

Riona begins as a high-ranking cultivator capable of ruling and operating as an assassin within Skadi. The Human Trial later grants her a High-level bloodline after she reaches wave seventeen, using rest intervals to extend her progress. She subsequently advances with the Leander family, forms her Law while moving directly from Great Sage to Saint, and reaches Complete Divine. The supplied corpus does not name a later conventional stage after she is severed from the Main Universe, so “Complete Divine” is her latest explicit formal cultivation rather than a claim about her total effectiveness. (Chapters 465–468, 1208, 1372–1373, and 1692)

The bloodline's specific racial techniques are not described in Riona's evidence. It should therefore be treated as a cultivation-quality upgrade rather than credited with unsupported elements, transformations, or innate powers. Likewise, the leap past Semi Saint is attributed to forming her Path and Law, not shown as a general ability to skip future stages. (Chapters 1208 and 1373)

Assassin training and combat

As Thyra's masked master, Riona has assassin training, concealment habits, and experience directing covert subordinates. She can attack decisively when emotionally provoked and tries to shield Amaya physically during the confrontation with Amletus. These scenes establish competence and courage, but the packet does not provide named assassin techniques, quantified range, or a late-corpus duel from which to infer her ranking among the family's combat specialists. Her later combat identity is explicitly defensive through Last Protection. (Chapters 465–474 and 581–583)

Strategy, governance, and communication

Riona is one of the family's experienced political analysts. She covertly rules Skadi, maintains ExceedoGenesis through a long absence, reads incentives behind Supreme World policy, and challenges plans whose public explanations do not match their beneficiaries. Her reasoning is demonstrated and fallible: Nux sometimes reaches an answer first, and Riona openly worries about that change before accepting that advice is more than supplying facts. (Chapters 465–468, 1126–1127, and 1739)

The telepathic channels she uses have different origins. Amaya first permits a connection after their reconciliation, while the later cross-world family channel comes from being anchored in Nux's universe. Neither is an innate mind-reading power of Riona's, and the corpus does not show her extracting unwilling memories. Their practical application is immediate counsel across distance, including analysis while she is inside Nux's universe or shadow. (Chapters 581–583 and 1739)

Power progression

Relationships

• Amaya: Riona sends Amaya away to save her from Skadi's execution law and accepts being hated to preserve the disguise. Their reconciliation is gradual; Riona's Law, later counsel, and response to grief all center on replacing distant protection with presence.
• Nux: Nux first confronts Riona over what she did to Amaya and later becomes her husband and metaphysical anchor. Riona protects him from a Universal attack and serves as an adviser expected to challenge his errors.
• Thyra: Riona trained Thyra as the masked “Master,” using a severe discipline that concealed personal feeling. Thyra becomes one of the people who exposes the difference between Riona's cruel presentation and her buried attachments.
• Kelton: Riona's loyal subordinate, assigned to protect and observe Amaya in Skyfall. His testimony reveals the motive behind Riona's apparent betrayal.
• Caelum: Riona and Nux's son. He appears with her among the Leander children at the family's late reunion.
• Felberta: A sister-wife and senior family anchor. Felberta helps manage the crisis after Riona's collapse and is present when she awakens after a century.

Items

No separately cataloged notable item is associated with Riona in the generated item manifest.