Lord of the Truth

Chapter 1576: Ba-dum!

Poff

”.....” Robin’s eyes followed Jabba’s body as it descended with unbearable slowness, as if the very air had thickened, fighting against gravity itself to prolong the fall.

From the moment of that single slap to the instant his student’s frame struck the stone floor, only a fleeting second had passed. Yet to Robin, that second stretched into an eternity, a cruel mockery of time itself, as though the universe had frozen its gears just to force him to witness every fragment of the descent.

Jabba’s eyes remained open, glazed and hollow, and that ridiculous, vacant smile still clung stubbornly to his lips—turning the moment into a grotesque mixture of absurdity and dread.

”...Jabba?” Robin whispered hesitantly, his voice trembling against the suffocating silence. He nudged his disciple’s body twice with a faint push, almost playful in its gentleness, expecting—hoping—for some kind of reaction. None came. His voice rose slightly, breaking the oppressive air of the cavern: ”Hey, what’s wrong? Did the curse finally wear you down after all these years?”

Only emptiness answered him... a vast void where sound died quickly, leaving behind only the echo of Robin’s ragged breathing rattling against the cavern walls.

”Jabba...” Robin’s tone hardened, his hesitation fading into urgency. He moved faster now, his expression twisting as curiosity and confusion collapsed into the heavy shadow of fear. He eased his disciple onto his back with uncharacteristic care, then began slapping his cheeks lightly, desperately, as though those small strikes could summon life back into his dull eyes. ”Hey! Do you hear me? Answer me!”

Tension throbbed inside him like a drumbeat. His fingers quivered against Jabba’s skin, betraying the truth he tried to deny: his heart was unraveling, and the façade of composure was gone.

”...What’s happening to you?” His voice cracked, his words frayed with fear. ”I can still hear your heartbeat... it’s faint, so faint, but it’s still there, still alive... So why—what is—”

Bad-WHUMMMMMM.....

The frail rhythm, that delicate whisper of life, stopped altogether. Jabba’s heart... silenced!

”JABBAAA!!” The cry tore out of Robin’s chest like a flood breaking through shattered gates, a raw scream that thundered across the cavern, shaking its foundations, making the stones themselves tremble in mourning. In that instant, Robin unleashed the Eye of Truth at its full 100% capacity. A searing radiance burst forth, flooding the cave as though a miniature sun had erupted within the eternal dark, stripping away every shadow and revealing with merciless clarity the broken vessel of his student.

”No... nooo...” The words clawed out of his throat, shredded by grief, each syllable strangled by the iron grip of disbelief.

The scene laid itself bare before him like a gruesome children’s picture book:

The life Vein was torn beyond repair, nothing but a wilted flower whose petals had burst violently from within. The last droplet of life force had vaporized, leaving behind a hollow stillness, and with that final evaporation, the heart was starved. Its silence declared the irreversible decree of bodily death.

The energy gathering center looked as though a small planet had been shattered at its heart. Its walls were cracked, the intricate engravings that upheld the laws of gravity within it withered and fractured, like parched earth splitting under a merciless sun. No apprentice, no matter how frail, should have ever borne such devastation.

The energy gathering center was nothing but catastrophic rubble now, a shadow of what it once was. Even Robin—who had torn apart and rebuilt his own foundations countless times—had never witnessed such annihilation. The only other time he had seen even a fraction of such collapse was when the Cosmic Elder, Zolan, had forcibly interfered with his own energy gathering center.

And then there was the soul domain... a nightmare made manifest. Its outer shell was shattered, bleeding fragments into the void like streams of crimson from an open wound. Each fragment drifted away with dreadful inevitability, heralding the oncoming blood-death—a sign that the primordial soul itself was preparing to depart forever, abandoning the ruined vessel it once inhabited.

Every one of the three mortal thresholds was in ruins, each alone more than sufficient to kill an advanced cultivator. But together... together they told a story that needed no interpretation.

No. This wasn’t the state of a wounded man. This was the unmistakable reality of someone already dead.

”No... no, no, no!!” Robin’s cry tore from his throat like a wounded beast. His body did not wait for thought—instinct, raw and desperate, seized him. He ripped open multiple soul gates all at once, his veins blazing with soul force. In the blink of an eye, waterfalls of luminous energy cascaded outward, racing to envelop Jabba’s domain. They wrapped around it in layers, like infinite bandages spun by unseen hands, and upon those bindings he slammed a seal, heavy and absolute.

The sight resembled a titanic dam, struggling to restrain the surge of an endless ocean. Against all reason, against the hopeless difference in strength, the cracks within Jabba’s soul domain froze in place, as though even time itself had been coerced into stillness.

Yet Robin’s heart roared louder than the torrents of power: ”What is happening... what in the name of hell is happening to you?!”

Only minutes ago, he had spoken with his disciple, sharing laughter, shaping together a fragile vision of tomorrow. And now—that fragile vision shattered before his eyes, collapsing into nothing but a lifeless husk sprawled on stone.

Smack!

Robin’s palm struck his own cheek with a brutal force, as if he could slap away despair itself. He forced his spiraling mind into focus, teeth clenched, eyes burning. ”The life vein... I have to save it... I must!”

But deep inside, he already knew the truth that tore at his sanity: the life vein

was more treacherous than the soul domain itself. Even a pinhole tear in it could spell instant death, despite the brilliance of the greatest healers or the mastery of the most advanced arrays. And what lay before him was no mere tear—it was a complete eruption, a cataclysmic detonation! It was like watching a blade driven slowly into his own chest, knowing with merciless clarity that he was utterly powerless to stop it.
”No array... no cure... no hope.” His voice cracked, trembling with a despair he could no longer hide. His fingers clawed into the ground, trembling so violently that the stone beneath him began to splinter.

Then—

Hoooooooooh~

Golden patterns ignited across his body in a furious storm. They blazed outward in frenzied speed, weaving over his flesh until his entire form glowed like a living constellation. In the next breath, they collapsed inward, condensing into a singular inferno until Robin himself was no longer flesh and blood, but a colossal flame wrought in human shape. His features blurred, erased beneath the crushing aura now radiating from him—an aura so suffocating it strangled the very air, so immense it could make even the heavens hesitate.

Slowly, painfully, as if lifting the weight of mountains, Robin raised his hand. Every vein screamed, every muscle tore with the effort. And then, with a resolve that could cleave destiny itself, he pressed his palm down over Jabba’s silent heart.

Eeeeeeem~

A detonation of golden light erupted from within Jabba’s body, so blinding that the cavern seemed to split apart under its brilliance. It gushed from his eyes, his mouth, his very pores, turning his body into a vessel of radiance.

The spectacle was both terrifying and holy, like a resurrection being forged in real time. The oppressive wave of energy crushed the cavern’s walls until the rocks seemed to groan and bow. Entire armies, had they been here, would have dropped prostrate to the ground without thought, unable to resist the command of such overwhelming force.

Shoooooo...

Seconds passed—only seconds—but each stretched into centuries. The blinding brilliance dimmed, inch by inch, fading from the unbearable to the fragile, until finally it guttered out completely. In its wake lay silence, a silence so dense it felt like existence itself had been smothered.

”Huff... huff... huff...” Robin’s breath tore from him in ragged gasps, each inhale scraping his throat like fire. His skin was drenched in sweat, clinging to his trembling frame. His eyes—red, raw, exhausted—spoke of torment and a weariness deeper than flesh. Yet he refused to collapse. He refused to surrender. Knees crashing into the stone, he leaned beside Jabba, his entire soul balanced on the edge of a single hope.

And then...

Bad-WHUM!

Jabba’s heart stirred—a faint, fragile thrum, but undeniable. That single beat shattered the suffocating silence, breaking the chains of terror that had crushed Robin’s chest.

”Heh... heheh...” The sound tumbled from him in broken laughter, trembling so violently it shook his shoulders. Tears pricked at the edges of his vision. ”You... you think you can just die here, in front of me? You selfish, damned brat...”

But his words dissolved mid-breath. His voice faltered, his eyelids too heavy to resist. The strength he had borrowed, the storm of willpower that had carried him this far, finally abandoned him. His body gave out at last, collapsing forward onto Jabba’s chest.

And there—utterly spent, emptied of everything but raw humanity—Robin’s body surrendered to sleep. He began to snore softly, weakly, like a child who had fought too long against his tears, only to be claimed by a slumber filled with grief.