In Hard Mode, Silver is much faster in executing his attacks and will also attack with his Psychic Knife multiple times in succession. Sonic must avoid this, while, at the same time, boosting to catch up with Silver and attack him with the Homing Attack, in which successfully doing so causes Silver to fall to the ground and get crushed by his own ball of debris, ending the fight. While Sonic runs from the giant ball of rubble, Silver will try to crush Sonic with a large container which will not only damage Sonic but due to slowing down, this puts him at significant risk of getting crushed by the Meteor Smash attack (which will cause the player to instantly lose a life even while having Rings). Once Silver has been hit four times, the stage shifts to a front-view perspective behind Sonic, where Silver uses his final, strongest attack known as the Meteor Smash, which has him gather up various debris objects into a large ball, and launches it along the highway behind Sonic, crushing Sonic if he cannot outrun it. While in 3D, Silver can throw a Psychic Knife, a large blade of psychic energy, either horizontally or vertically (similar to the Egg Emperor's slash attack in Sonic Heroes), to try and attack Sonic.If the player takes too long to hit Silver, Silver can either stop with the makeshift ram or re-use it to attack the player again. The player has to jump onto the ram and boost forward to get close to Silver, and attack him with Homing Attack. Silver can use the debris objects to create a large, makeshift ram to charge at the player while the stage transitions into 2D.
In a similar manner to the first attack, Sonic can use his Homing Attack on said objects to attack Silver before he launches the objects at the player one-by-one. While in 3D, Silver can lift several debris objects one at a time into the air while distancing himself away from Sonic.
After a short while, Silver brings down the objects and tries to crush Sonic below, usually smashing one down before the other two, but can switch combinations every time the attack is done.
The player can avoid this by simply with the Quick Step or boosting to destroy it though if the player is quick enough, they can take the offensive by jumping to the air and using the Homing Attack on the object and then at Silver to hit him. At the start and at various points of the fight while in 3D, Silver will pick up a debris object and then launches it directly at Sonic after a short delay.Silver will attack Sonic with a wide variety of Psychokinetic attacks utilizing these objects: However, each debris Sonic runs into will fill the Boost Gauge with energy. Aside from Rings, the road contains various debris including broken cars, highway signs and terrain bits that will leave Sonic temporarily stunned if he runs into them without using the Hop, Slide Attack or Boost. The road is primarily a 3D auto-running stage where the player can perform the Quick Step, though it will transition to a 2D side-scrolling perspective in some of Silver's attacks. The rival battle stage is set upon a seemingly endless highway road in Crisis City, with Silver flying in front of Sonic.