*BOOOOOOOM!!!!*
The moment Rio's attack with Raika collided, he knew that Ellie would be severely affected by this collision and the grand seal might also get destroyed.
Thus, to prevent that from happening, Rio chose to be more on the defensive side and tried to protect the grand seal as much as possible.
Liam was not the only person Rio had promised to bring back safely; he needed to keep Ellie alive too.
Originally, Rio was worried that Ellie might have been affected by corruption and might do something to Liam's soul, and his worry increased when he traversed the spirit realm.
Most of the creatures inside the spirit realm were all corrupted and had no sanity to speak of, and that made Rio's worries increase.
Thankfully, Ellie was smart; although she merged herself with the grand seal and ended up confined to one place, that was a much better fate than being turned into a plaything of miasmic corruption.
