Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2438 The Swamp

Mid Sector 113—

This was the sector situated directly between the Destruction Galaxy and the Conquest Galaxy, the sector that the Destruction Behemoth had managed to seize with remarkable ease during his initial advance, when a number of his sons appeared throughout all the surrounding sectors and established their presence across the region.

Here, Helmorʼs sons had attacked every Millennial Empire they encountered, killed a number of their leaders during the process, and then subjugated everyone who remained beneath their authority for years through the continuous use of overwhelming force.

There had been no meaningful form of resistance anywhere throughout the sector, nor had there been a war against the forces belonging to another Behemoth that might have challenged Helmorʼs control or forced his sons into a genuine struggle... There had been nothing here but absolute suppression, relentless bullying, and sadistic treatment imposed upon those living beneath their rule.

That situation remained completely unchanged until Lord Hedrick finally made his move nine years ago and managed to drive Helmor and his forces backward toward Mid Sector 113 after advancing against them from Mid Sector 114.

In news that shook everyone throughout the universe when it spread, Hedrick managed to completely destroy the foothold that the Destruction Behemoth had established there, defeat his own father in direct confrontation, and force him backward, at the same time that a squadron consisting of 1,200 Nota Space-4 fleets launched an attack against the fleets of the Destruction Galaxy and surrounded them, putting enough pressure on all of them that they ultimately chose to flee.

Helmor and his sons retreated from the battlefield through the Major Space Gates, while Hedrick, Helen, and the rest of the subordinates accompanying them were prevented from using the Major Space Gate to pursue Helmor and his forces any farther, supposedly to prevent further bloodshed and stop the spread of terrorism.

Thus, an unexpected temporary peace settled over the battlefield after that confrontation, leaving Hedrick standing there without knowing exactly what he should do next or which course of action he should choose under those circumstances.

As both a military commander leading his forces and an avenger who had pursued this conflict for his own reasons, Hedrick wanted to take all the forces under his command and immediately enter the buffer zone, continuing forward without wasting any time so that he could pursue Helmor and his forces at once.

But there was one thing that made him hesitate... He feared that he himself would become bogged down inside that enormous buffer zone for years while attempting to cross it, while Helmor freely used the Major Space Gates to move toward important regions and strike crucial points throughout the Empire. What Hedrick truly feared was that by the time he finally managed to emerge from the buffer zone and reach the other side, Helmor would already have wreaked havoc across those important locations and the entire war might effectively be over!

But it didnʼt take Hedrick very long to make up his mind despite that possibility, and before long he entered Mid Sector 113 with all of his followers anyway, choosing to continue his advance rather than remain where he was...

After all, he was already stationed in Mid Sector 114, a place where there was simply nothing important for him to protect and nothing valuable enough to justify remaining there merely for the sake of guarding it.

What would happen if Helmor suddenly decided to strike Mid Sector 115 or even Mid Sector 100 while Hedrick simply remained sitting where he was in Mid Sector 114? Even if information reached him immediately and he knew exactly what was happening elsewhere, what could he possibly do about it from where he was?

So, helplessness for helplessness and disaster for disaster, Hedrick ultimately decided that he might as well occupy Mid Sector 113 as well and continue pushing Helmorʼs forces even farther backward... placing his hopes in Theo and the other influential figures within the Empire, trusting that those people would be capable of finding a way to deal with the greater problem themselves if such a disaster ever actually occurred.

Fortunately for Hedrick, Helmor ultimately remained exactly where he was in Mid Sector 113.

First, because he would gain no genuine benefit from attacking any other sector at this point; destroying a handful of planets and exposing himself unnecessarily to schemes, traps, and whatever preparations his enemies might have waiting for him would ultimately earn him nothing of real value. Second, because he simply couldnʼt allow himself to be pushed backward any farther than he already had been... So Helmor remained in the sector instead, devoting his efforts to preparing arrays and constructing war plans specifically for Hedrickʼs arrival.

Hedrick, who was absolutely delighted when he saw those preparations and immediately spotted the schemes, traps, and arrays waiting for him the moment he emerged alongside his army, responded in the most direct manner possible and began smashing straight through them without hesitation, destroying anything that stood in his path rather than allowing those preparations to slow him down. In doing so, he allowed his army to break free from every crisis they encountered along the way and gradually begin spreading throughout the sector, while at the same time starting to seek the assistance of the locals who had lived there under Helmorʼs control.

Those same locals who had endured suppression and bullying for years, who had watched their fathers be killed and their armies destroyed at the hands of Helmorʼs sons, and who had personally experienced everything that came with those years of excessive force and domination... refused to help Hedrick.

Under an official call issued by the Star Academies, the locals of Mid Sector 113 began assembling their own armies and mobilizing their available forces, then marched out together to fight Hedrick instead.

The Star Academies themselves didnʼt personally make a move or directly send their own forces into the battle, but under the grand banner of resisting evil and preventing it from spreading... they officially mobilized everyone else against Hedrick, presenting the entire situation in a spectacle supposedly representing peace, goodwill, and the desire to protect others.

Blokan, the Chief Executive of the Cosmic Academies, soon came forward and publicly declared that these powers werenʼt moving of their own free will at all, but were instead acting under direct threats from the Hidden Hand Syndicate. According to him, the declaration issued by the Star Academies was nothing more than a convenient cover for what was actually happening, and those local powers had been threatened that if they refused to mobilize against Hedrick, their secrets would be exposed and their leaders would be assassinated. However, not a single one of those powers ever came forward to publicly confirm Blokanʼs words or support his accusations... and consequently, no one believed Blokan.

Hedrick consequently found himself dragged into a war against practically the entire sector, with Helmor and his army standing at the head of all those enemies, while it wasnʼt long before another piece of troubling news reached him from behind: Mid Sector 114 had begun rebelling once again now that there was no powerful garrison remaining there to keep everything under control. The local powers throughout the sector had started reasserting their independence, and they had even begun conspiring among themselves to prepare an army capable of fighting any enemy that might come toward them.

But Hedrick paid practically no attention to what was happening behind him in Mid Sector 114 and instead continued advancing through the dense forest of enemies he had unexpectedly found himself surrounded by... until yet another piece of news reached him: the alliance of Mid Sector 114 had officially announced that they sought to rid themselves of the evil represented by Robin Burton and his followers, after which their leaders gathered their fleets and headed directly toward Mid Sector 113.

Ever since Hedrick had entered Mid Sector 113, he hadnʼt managed to fight his father even once despite that being the confrontation he actually wanted. In fact, one could even say that Helmor had simply grown bored with the entire situation and left Mid Sector 113 altogether, heading toward Mid Sector 108 to strike Zavaros instead...

Leaving Hedrick behind to discover that he had somehow become trapped in an enormous swamp filled with danger and death, while the person he had actually come here to pursue had simply gone elsewhere.

Enemies stood before him and behind him, above him and below him, to his right and to his left, surrounding him from practically every possible direction and leaving him like someone who had fallen into a pool of thick, sticky tar, struggling inside it without knowing what he was supposed to do!

Hedrick himself could escape from such a crisis with relative ease if he only had to worry about his own safety, but the enormous Nota squadron accompanying him and the numerous followers who had entered the sector at his side had suddenly found themselves facing nearly twenty thousand enemy fleets that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere!

Instead of being allowed to concentrate on the mission and passion that had driven him forward in the first place, Hedrick now found himself trapped in a massive war against the local powers under the leadership of the Star Academies, while his own father, Helmor, had simply gone to another sector to deal with an entirely different front.

The humiliating and bitterly laughable part of the entire situation was that Hedrick couldnʼt even abandon everything and go after him... His available choices had been reduced to remaining exactly where he was and continuing to fight with his men until their last breath, or gathering those men and retreating once again toward Mid Sector 114, perhaps even being forced to withdraw all the way back to Mid Sector 115, thereby losing everything he had managed to accomplish.