Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2265 The birth of the fourth

Whoosh

Glacion reached the edge of the cliff. Only a few steps separated him from Pistu, sleeping on his stomach, and Harper, kneeling nearby in complete silence, yet he could go no farther no matter how casually he appeared to be standing there.

He could sense several layers of barriers and arrays overlapping one another, each woven with an astonishing degree of precision and stability, all of which could only be bypassed with a specific key. It might be a badge, a ring, or some other form of identification that he could not immediately identify, but the result was the same regardless of the method used, only certain people were allowed to enter, while everyone else, even beings of considerable power, would remain outside.

So he stopped there without attempting to force his way through and stared directly at Lord Robin.

The distance between them was roughly thirty meters. Robin sat there, still writing something, slowly and steadily, with complete focus and unwavering concentration, as though the entire world and everything happening within it were not worth lifting his head for.

The world was falling apart around him. A strange Guardian like Glacion stood directly before him, and a massive vortex of laws towered overhead, flooding the heavens with overwhelming fluctuations and immense pressure, yet he paid attention to none of it.

”So this is... Lord Robin, the next Great Truth Chosen.”

Then he slowly looked around, his eyes moving between the symbols and the turbulent torrents of laws, studying each fluctuation and each disturbance as though trying to uncover a hidden pattern concealed beneath the chaos.

”Or perhaps I should say... the Chosen of the Master Laws?”

”Ugh...” Serfon raised his head with difficulty and looked toward Robin as well. Standing beside Glacion slightly eased the fluctuations of the laws around him and reduced some of the unbearable pressure weighing down on his body.

”...Yes, thatʼs him, but he looks...”

”He looks like what?” Glacion quickly turned his head downward. Any new piece of information could become another fragment of the final picture he was trying to assemble within his mind, and he had long since learned that the smallest details often carried the greatest value.

”He looks... injured...” Serfon said with difficulty as he wiped the blood from his mouth. ”Even after the disaster of the Coronation Day... he looked better than this... Iʼll never forget how he looked... that day...”

”Injured?” Glacion turned back toward Robin, his brows tightly furrowed and his gaze becoming considerably sharper.

He had never seen Robin before, so he did not know what his best condition looked like. Outwardly, there seemed to be no wounds or injuries on him, no obvious signs of battle, and no visible scars that would explain such a statement.

But nothing on this planet was logical anyway.

If the truth of his injury were combined with all these Space Beasts, Holakʼs words about fighting a Space Beast Ancestor, and this phenomenon involving the Master Laws that continued to dominate the sky above them...

Glacionʼs heart pounded violently.

Lord Robin used the Master Laws to stop an invasion by a Space Beast Ancestor... and survived?!

Then he looked around like a madman once more, his eyes darting from one impossible sight to another.

Dozens of Royal Soul Masters.

Thousands of Black Wasps.

Numerous Note swarms circling the planet in organized formations.

Creation at the Third Level.

Causality at the Third Level.

Balance at the Second Level.

And, of course, Truth at the Fourth Level as he is still a Martial Emperor.

Were these things truly enough to fight a Space Beast Ancestor?

The Ancestor that had driven Athena away, shattered countless expectations, and turned the Elder Cosmic into an old man?

No, there had to be another mi—

DOOOOOOOOM

The golden light suddenly intensified.

If the surroundings had previously been golden as though the planet were near three suns and bathed beneath their combined radiance, now it felt as though they were standing upon the surface of the sun itself, engulfed by a brilliance so overwhelming that even space seemed unable to contain it.

”....!!!”

Glacion held his breath and opened his eyes as wide as they could go, not daring to raise his head quickly to see what was happening.

For the first time in millions of years...

He felt fear.

At this moment, Glacion felt like a tiny insect standing beneath a vast and incomprehensible existence, while above him loomed a colossal being that was about to step on him with a shoe without even noticing he existed in the first place, the difference between them so absurdly great that resistance itself felt meaningless.

Without moving his body, he cast a sideways glance toward the battlefield where Holak was leading the fight against the Space Beasts, a battlefield that had moments ago been filled with roars, explosions, and violent clashes of power.

The battlefield had suddenly fallen silent.

Their situation at that moment was no better than his, as expected.

All the enthusiasm Holak had ignited within them through force of will and sheer presence, all the fear he had used to push them into action despite their instincts, and all their attempts to regain control over themselves and preserve a shred of composure became completely meaningless in that instant. Every single one of them returned to their knees as though an invisible hand had pushed them down from above, while some lost consciousness entirely, their minds and spirits unable to endure the overwhelming pressure descending upon the planet and flooding every corner of the surrounding space.

Holak was the only one who remained standing.

He stood there clenching his fists so tightly that the muscles in his arms trembled and grinding his teeth in anger, most likely because of his helplessness and the crushing sense of weakness he felt in the face of what was happening, a feeling that someone of his status and temperament undoubtedly despised more than anything else. Then he turned only his head toward Robin, looking up the mountain with a strange gaze filled with respect and reproach at the same time, as though he admired what stood before him while simultaneously resenting the impossible distance separating him from it.

”...?!” Glacion was startled by Holakʼs reaction.

So he gathered every bit of courage, experience, discipline, and willpower he possessed to fight against the instinct buried deep within his being that was screaming at him to remain still and not move, an instinct older than reason itself that warned him that drawing attention to himself beneath such a presence could only end badly.

And he looked up, slowly, as if afraid to break his neck.

It was a cube.

A cube moving slowly through the heavens with an almost indifferent majesty, covered with uneven longitudinal and horizontal bands that crossed one another in patterns that seemed random at first glance yet somehow carried an indescribable sense of order. No matter which angle one observed it from, a different shape appeared, a different arrangement of lines revealed itself, and a different structure emerged from the same object, as though its form were constantly changing without actually changing at all, refusing to settle into a single definition that the eye could comfortably accept.

That cube pressed down upon them with terrifying force. It pressed upon the entire planet, upon the mountains, the skies, the oceans, and every living creature beneath it, as though a volcanic sphere had been placed atop a tiny piece of ice that it wished to destroy and crush through its mere existence alone, and yet it remained high above, moving with extreme slowness, silently observing everything beneath it without displaying the slightest urgency or aggression.

A lattice-like cube, with five different geometric figures drawn upon each of its faces, figures that the human mind could neither fully comprehend nor completely follow in all their details no matter how carefully one stared at them. Their lines seemed to connect and disconnect simultaneously, their angles appeared both fixed and fluid, and their structure resembled a challenge issued directly to logic itself, as though their very existence were a direct challenge to anyone who attempted to understand them.

”...Five...” Glacionʼs mind was struck like a bolt of lightning.

Could it be that what he was seeing right now was Fifth Grade Spacetime?

The Fifth Grade?!

When the Ruler of Chaos possessed Fifth Grade Primordial Chaos, she truly stood against every Behemoth of her era without exception. She snapped necks whenever she wished and trampled heads whenever she pleased, and no matter how many enemies united against her, no matter how elaborate their plans became or how many traps they prepared, they could never eliminate her.

At the Fifth Grade, Athena taught the universe the meaning of true tyranny.

At the Fifth Grade, the Elder Cosmic fought the Space Beasts of the First Wave, slew adult Space Beasts that entire civilizations feared to face, united an entire front against them despite the endless conflicts dividing the powers of the era, and led a number of Behemoths in the defense of humanity.

At the Fifth Grade, Zulan managed to convince the powers of the universe to fight beneath his banner, gathering forces that should never have been capable of standing together and transforming scattered interests into a single overwhelming will.

At the Fifth Grade, the Archon fought three Behemoths and emerged victorious with the Fifth Grade of Causality, then declared an end to the hunt and war that had never ceased for a single day in pursuit of his head, after which he began laying the true foundations of The Syndicate, foundations that would eventually spread throughout countless regions of the universe.

At the Fifth Grade, Sevar seized the universe by the throat through a colossal criminal organization whose influence reached farther than most empires could dream of, and no one was able to force him to loosen his grip no matter how much they hated his existence.

The true beginning of the legend of the Three and the start of their genuine rise all began at the Fifth Grade, and because they became nearly invincible upon reaching it, possessing a level of security and personal power that very few beings in history could ever hope to attain, they were able to live long enough to advance to the Sixth Grade and continue their ascent beyond the limits that trapped ordinary geniuses... and even if they had never reached the Sixth, they still would have remained at the summit, towering above the countless figures who came and went throughout the ages.

”....” Glacion stared into Robinʼs golden eyes with a trembling body, an unfocused gaze, and a mind struggling to reconcile everything it was witnessing with everything it believed it knew about the universe.

He had witnessed the birth of the Fourth.