Lord of the Truth

Chapter 1577: Starting over

Half a day later—

Amid complete silence, cut off entirely from the outside world, where no sound remained but the faint rhythm of breathing and the sluggish thudding of two hearts for countless hours, the darkness of the cavern seemed eternal. Yet finally, a fragile sound broke through the void:

”...cough...”

Robin, still lying across Jabba’s chest, twitched. His eyelids fluttered slightly before his body jerked, and a faint cough escaped his throat.

Then, without warning, the weak cough erupted into violent spasms. ”Cough... COUGH, cough, cough!!”

His entire body convulsed as his hand shot to his neck, clutching it tightly. His eyes flew wide open in panic, bloodshot veins spreading rapidly as his face shifted from pale to purple-blue. No matter how desperately he fought, no air entered his lungs.

”Haahhh!!!” His chest heaved, but it was useless. He was suffocating.

For a terrifying few moments, Robin’s mind spiraled into chaos, his vision blurring, until realization crashed into him like lightning—

The fresh air he had prepared when he entered the cave... had long since been completely consumed!

HOOOOOM!!

Reacting on pure instinct, a shimmering soul gate burst open beside him. In the next heartbeat, five luminous swords shot out, spinning wildly until they aligned into a perfect circle. Their edges glowed with cutting brilliance as they whirled faster and faster, forming a blazing drill of soul energy.

ZZZZZ~

With an explosive roar, the formation hurled itself against the cave wall, tearing into the stone with unstoppable force. Sparks and shards rained down as the swords gnawed through the rock.

BAAAAAAM!!

The final barrier crumbled, and dazzling daylight cascaded through the breach like a waterfall. A gust of fresh air surged into the cavern.

”—HAAAHH!!!” Robin’s chest expanded violently as he inhaled the oxygen in desperate gulps, like a drowning man breaking the surface after endless hours beneath the sea. Each breath burned, but with every intake of air his body steadied, his color slowly returning to normal.

It was almost ridiculous. A cultivator could rise to level 50, command earth-shaking power, live for thousands of years, and bend entire regions to their will... yet still, in something as simple as holding breath, they were barely superior to mortals. Just a few minutes longer, nothing more. And yet, the instant one crossed the threshold of a World Catastrophe, their very existence transformed, and they could battle in the endless void of space for hours, even days, without ever needing to breathe. That contrast alone was enough to highlight the immeasurable abyss separating the cultivation realms.

”Wait—!” Robin’s heart jolted violently as another thought struck him. He wasn’t alone!

He whirled toward Jabba, terror flashing across his face. Dropping beside him, Robin pressed two trembling fingers against his disciple’s neck.

A faint beat. A weak, fragile rhythm, but steady enough to be recognized as life.

Relief crashed over him like a tidal wave, his shoulders slumping as his breath trembled. ”Still alive... thank the heavens, you’re still alive.”

”...Just what happened to you?” Robin whispered, forcing his voice steady as he leaned in. He carefully extended his perception into Jabba’s body, examining every detail without haste this time. His earlier panic had blinded him, but now his mind was cold, focused.

What he found confirmed his worst fears, but also sparked a glimmer of hope.

Jabba’s soul domain had been sealed—not shattered completely, but locked in place under the Reality Seal.

This was a curse, one of the techniques Robin had stumbled across during his studies in the Soul Society’s ancient archives. At the time, he had dismissed it as impractical, even cruel, but curiosity had led him to create his own version, adjusting it for emergencies. He had never expected that one day... he would be forced to use it on his own disciple.

The Reality Seal was designed to freeze an injury in its exact state, locking time itself upon the wound so that it neither healed nor worsened. To activate it required no less than one hundred thousand units of soul force in a single breath, after which it continuously drained ambient soul energy to sustain itself, effectively lasting forever unless forcibly broken by someone on the level of a Royal Soul Master.

And so, Jabba’s soul domain—cracked, broken, bleeding—would no longer deteriorate. What fragments remained were preserved. His primordial soul still lingered within; faint, flickering, but alive.

Yet his consciousness... that was another matter. The devastating fractures had annihilated his awareness. His initial soul would require years—decades, perhaps centuries—to be born once more.

For now, he was alive. His soul remained bound to his body, and the vital functions of that body persisted, though only barely. His chest rose and fell shallowly, his heart continued to beat, but it was the barest shadow of life... He had fallen into a coma.

As for the center of his energy convergence, just one glance was enough to reach a single conclusion... it was truly fortunate that Jabba remained unconscious in a coma.

Robin himself had once suffered paralysis after his desperate clash against the Warlords of Hovenheim, his body ravaged by the collision of ascending layers of energy. But Jabba’s case was even more harrowing—he had been dragged back to absolute zero, and the very walls of his energy core were still trembling with unstable elevation.

Even if his awareness had somehow survived intact, the pain would have been unbearable, a merciless torture like a hundred blades stabbing through his liver without pause. The result would have been complete paralysis, a body unable to move even a finger, and a mind drowned in endless agony.

The cruelest and yet most hopeful part of all was the life vein. When Robin first examined it, the life vein had been nothing more than a shattered ruin, already detonated, offering no possibility of survival. At that moment, death had seemed inevitable. Yet now... although it was still gravely damaged, it had somehow sealed.

The fatal rupture was closed; no longer did life force pour out like sand through a broken vessel. The artery had even refilled by nearly a quarter. That fraction was not the overflowing vitality Jabba once possessed, but it was more than enough to anchor him to existence for a very long time, so long as it could be maintained.

Driven by desperation, Robin had acted instantly. To keep Jabba alive even a moment longer, he invoked the Master Law of Creation, channeling its immense authority at the cost of what little remained of his own cultivation. He burned away his last eleven levels without hesitation, pouring everything into repairing the artery, patching its fissures, and replenishing its flow with every shred of energy he could muster. Against all odds, the gamble had succeeded.

It was true that Robin’s own strength collapsed back to zero before the treatment could be completed, before the lifeblood artery could be fully restored or completely refilled—but what had been achieved was enough. Enough to give Jabba a chance. Enough to snatch him away from death’s grasp.

”Tsk~” Robin exhaled, leaning back against the jagged wall behind him, his palm rotating idly as if testing the flow of emptiness within himself. ”Part of me keeps wishing I could find a permanent solution to this endless cycle of losing levels day after day... and another part of me wonders if perhaps falling back to zero every single hour would be the greatest blessing of all.”

His gaze shifted sideways, settling on Jabba’s unconscious figure stretched beside him. The young man’s chest rose and fell in faint, fragile movements, proof of a body still clinging to life. ”What happened to you, truly? Was it the Curse of Eternal Stillness? No... something like that could never inflict such devastation. Did you actually attempt to end your own life? I would have felt it immediately if you had chosen suicide in front of me. No... this leakage, this collapse, it had been taking place from the very moment I lifted that curse from you. That is why I failed to notice sooner.”

Robin’s eyes lowered toward the floor, where layer upon layer of incomprehensibly complex runes and runes had been carved into the stone. He let out a long sigh. ”Did you bite into a piece of meat too large to swallow, my little friend? Did you reach too far, too soon?”

Silence fell between them, heavy and unbroken, stretching out like an ocean of stillness. Only after what felt like an eternity did Robin raise his hand once again. Slowly, deliberately, he opened a soul gate. Oooooom...

Step.Step.

From within emerged soul-creatures, towering figures whose presence carried the oppressive weight of forgotten eras. Each of them bore the strength of the likes of Celibos, Lonta, and Pythor. After the massacre that had ravaged Robin’s soul domain, no weaklings remained; only the seasoned entities of terrifying power had survived his command. One after another they appeared, until their number reached twenty. Robin gestured calmly toward the rough breach that the spinning swords had torn earlier.

”Widen that passage. Carve out a proper entrance worthy of our stay. Then begin hunting and prepare a fire for roasting. When you finish, return here for further orders. It is clear that we will be remaining in this place for quite some time.”

”Understood, Owner,” they all intoned in unison, their voices resonating like a chant. They had all, without exception, taken to addressing him with the title Owner, a habit learned from Nihari, who repeated it like a sacred mantra.

When their footsteps faded into the distance, Robin turned once more toward Jabba. His disciple’s face was pale, his body so still that it was impossible to tell whether he was alive or dead. Reaching forward, Robin gently closed Jabba’s eyes and mouth, softening the harshness of his expression into something more serene. His sigh was heavy, carrying both exhaustion and sorrow.

”I would have loved to begin a new research with you... not on you.”