Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2477 Ignorance

”Aaaagh!!” Renara suddenly felt an intense wave of pain and weakness assault her at the same time without the slightest warning, spreading through her arms and body so abruptly that she was forced to cut off her forward charge before completing it and immediately retreat!

”Ugh!!” Renara began examining what had happened to her while continuing to move backward under the Butcherʼs openly hostile gaze, only to discover that her body was now almost completely enveloped in the crimson and yellow mist released by the two swords, with both colors spreading across her far more extensively than they had only moments earlier.

The exact moment that had caused Renara such intense pain was the moment when the two mists had finally eroded through her defenses and forced their way inside, infiltrating all the way into her energy-gathering center, and right now, instead of merely surrounding her arms and body from the outside, both of them were feeding directly from that center with astonishing speed and an almost bottomless, ravenous hunger!

”Get away from me!!” Renara shouted as she continued retreating, deliberately widening the gap between herself and the approaching Butcher while immediately releasing both hilts and trying to throw the two swords away from her, but no matter what she did, it was completely useless.

The two swords had already bound themselves firmly to her arms using the rings formed from their respective mists, and after successfully invading her energy-gathering center, they had effectively become parts of her own body that could no longer simply be separated from her by releasing their hilts. No... if what had become bound to her were merely an arm or a leg, she would have cut it off without the slightest hesitation in a situation like this!

”You!!” Renara shouted toward Marlik while struggling against what was happening inside her body, her expression finally becoming genuinely serious. ”How... how did you do this?!”

”What?” Marlik laughed upon hearing her question, the anger that had covered him earlier now replaced by obvious satisfaction. ”Are you the only one allowed to use your Law?”

Marlik continued advancing toward her with steady, unhurried steps, completely confident from his expression and movements that the battle was already over and that there was no longer any place left for Renara to escape.

He could already feel Renaraʼs enormous energy rapidly draining out of her, escaping from her control in tremendous quantities and flowing directly toward the two swords now attached to her body.

Then he chuckled with obvious amusement, ”Ever since you redirected the collision energy toward me and proudly boasted about Energy Manipulation, I used the Law of Causal Accumulation to gradually create a suitable environment and push you toward taking both swords from me yourself, and in the end, that is exactly what happened.” Then he chuckled again as he watched her condition worsen. ”Hehe, it was like tempting a child with candy and waiting for them to reach out and take it.”

”Donʼt mess with me!!” Renara shouted back at him. ”I checked both swords carefully for any soul imprint or energy imprint before trusting what was happening, and with the Law of Energy Transformation, I can easily find things like that if they exist, but there was absolutely nothing inside either of them!” Then she raised her voice with visible strain as the energy continued draining from her. ”Even at this very moment, I still canʼt sense that either of these swords is bound to you in any way... so how did you make them attack me?!”

”Who said I did anything?” Marlik continued advancing toward her with the same confident smile, showing no intention of rushing now that the situation had developed exactly as he wanted. ”What youʼre holding is Awakened Armament with its own consciousness, its own ambitions, and its own expectations of whoever wields it. If it rejects its wielder, it attacks them directly, and if it accepts them, it begins a process of compatibility and feeding, where you have to supply it with an enormous amount of energy directly from your energy-gathering center, an amount so vast that you would need thousands of continuous years of weakness and absorption to provide it...”

Then he gestured toward her with his head while continuing his explanation, ”Taking the sword from me was an act of stupidity born from ignorance... Either it would reject you and immediately attack you, or it would accept you and begin the compatibility and feeding process right in the middle of the battle, draining your energy and incapacitating you while you were still fighting... From either direction, the matter was already settled the instant you grabbed the first sword.” Then he laughed as his gaze shifted between the two weapons attached to her arms. ”Hehe, but you went even further and took the second one too, sealing your own fate completely.”

As he continued advancing with his voice overflowing with schadenfreude and satisfaction at finally turning the situation around, Marlik cast a deeply spiteful glance toward the two swords that had so readily attached themselves to Renara...

In truth, he would have greatly preferred that they simply reject Renara and attack her the moment she tried to take them. The two swords had spent millions of years alongside him, yet despite all that time, both of them had actually sold him out the moment Renara took hold of them and willingly begun the compatibility and feeding process with her instead...

Ptooey!!

Merely thinking about what the two swords had done made Marlikʼs anger flare even higher than before, and his expression twisted as he stared at Renara and the weapons attached to her. ”Killing you alone wonʼt be enough to atone for your mistakes. Iʼll cut through your joints first!!”

After saying that, Marlik pulled out a small dagger and continued approaching Renara at the same steady pace, while the way his eyes moved over her made it obvious that he had already begun choosing the exact places where he intended to make his cuts.

There was no reason for him to quicken his steps or worry about Renara suddenly escaping anymore, because the speed and sheer amount of energy those two swords were consuming from her energy-gathering center made it impossible for her to gather enough power to flee; in fact, under the current rate of consumption, it was impossible for her to gather even enough power to activate an Instant Space Gate like those for which the elites of the True Beginning Empire had become famous!

”So thatʼs how it is... So thatʼs how it is...” Renara began muttering to herself as she finally understood what had happened and where she had made her mistake. ”My ignorance defeated me.” Then she nodded several times, seemingly accepting that conclusion despite the dangerous situation she was currently trapped in. ”This kind of information isnʼt something I can simply obtain wherever I please whenever I need it. Things like this can only come through experience... Thatʼs fine, Iʼll keep experimenting until I learn everything.”

”There wonʼt be any more experiments for you after today.” Marlik felt a faint trace of unease rising within him after hearing those words and seeing how calmly Renara had accepted her situation, so he immediately quickened his steps instead of wasting any more time and thrust the small dagger straight toward Renaraʼs elbow. ”Thereʼs no escape for you today!”

”There is~” Renara smiled despite the enormous amount of energy still being drained from her body, showing none of the despair Marlik had expected to see from someone trapped in such a situation. ”My Transcendent lord wonʼt let me die so easily.”

Huuuuuuum

At that exact moment, a hexagonal Seal suddenly appeared on Renaraʼs forehead, clearly visible between her brows, and immediately afterward, a brilliant golden light erupted around her and enveloped her entire body from head to toe.

Crack

The arms of crimson and yellow mist that had been penetrating deep into Renaraʼs body suddenly shattered one after another and fell away from her as though they were merely brittle structures made of dried mud, while the misty rings that had been firmly restraining her body vanished at the same time. In the blink of an eye, both swords completely detached themselves from Renara, losing their connection to her body before beginning to drift slowly away through the surrounding space.

Renara did not waste even an instant examining what had happened or waiting to see what Marlik would do next. She immediately turned around and fled with every last bit of strength remaining inside her, putting all the power she could still gather into escaping from that place.

”No!” Marlik roared the moment he realized what was happening. ”Why do you have this much momentum? Nooooooo!!” Marlik hurriedly grabbed both swords before they could drift farther away, then immediately charged after Renara with everything he had, pursuing her almost madly without allowing himself even a moment to hesitate.

But—Bzzzt—before Marlik could close the distance, Renara activated a teleportation array and jumped through it without hesitation, disappearing through the spatial passage before immediately destroying the remnants of the array behind her, causing them to erupt in an explosion powerful enough to erase every remaining trace that could reveal her destination.

”Noooo!” Marlik roared when he saw her disappear completely from his reach. ”No, you fleeing bitch, come back!!” Then Marlik grabbed his head with both hands in sheer frustration, still clutching the two swords as he did so, unable to accept how quickly the situation had slipped out of his grasp. ”What the hell is with this bizarre amount of momentum? Did that damned Seer descend in person to free her?!”

”Damn it...” Marlikʼs face gradually began twisting with anger and frustration as he remained there, because leaving a battle hanging unfinished in this manner was simply not something he was accustomed to doing, nor was it something he could easily accept after already reaching what he had believed was the decisive point.

It had taken him years before he finally began to forget his battle with Robin Burton and stop constantly thinking back to how it had ended, but at least he could console himself over his loss back then with the simple fact that the battle had never actually reached its conclusion. Even if his opponent had been a Candidate who possessed several Master Laws and had shown terrifying abilities, if the battle had continued instead of ending where it did, Marlik could still tell himself that he had a chance.

But now that damned partner of his had done the exact same thing to him and escaped before their battle could reach its proper conclusion!!

”Poooffft—” Marlik suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, his body finally reacting to everything it had endured as he placed one hand against his chest and tried to steady himself...

And when he lowered his gaze toward what he had just coughed up and saw the amount of blood before him, his already terrible expression worsened even further. ”Damn it.”

His internal injuries had accumulated to a severe degree after all the exchanges he had endured against Renara. After all, every single one of those tremendous shocks that had been redirected back into his body during their repeated collisions had contained enough destructive power to kill several Dominators, and he had endured them again and again throughout the battle!

Then he released a long breath, ”Whoo~” forcing himself to put aside the unfinished battle for the moment as he turned his attention toward the greater war around him, his gaze sweeping across a battlefield that had expanded until it covered an entire star field.

Perhaps in his current condition he could no longer reach Renara after she erased the trail of her destination, nor could he continue fighting her with the power he had left... but that did not mean there was nothing else he could do here. He could still kill one of those Behemoths fighting elsewhere on the battlefield and destroy one or two of those Dominatorsʼ formations before he was finished.

Zavaros in particular—that fat worm looked extremely tempting to Marlik right now...

”Donʼt even think about it...”

”...?!” Marlikʼs body jolted the instant he heard that particular voice reaching him from nearby, and he immediately turned his head and looked toward the direction it had come from.

There, within the surrounding space, a pair of ruby-like eyes were staring directly at him with an almost unsettling degree of calmness, watching him without the slightest visible urgency despite everything happening across the battlefield.

”The prodigal son Hedrick. I knew you wouldnʼt stay away from a battlefield like this for long...” Marlik revealed a broad smile as soon as he recognized the owner of those ruby-like eyes, though despite the size of that smile, there was still a trace of unmistakable tension hidden within it. ”Do you want to have a dance too?”