Lord of the Truth

1053  Dispatching soul creatures-2

"Raaawwwr!"

"…?!" Pythor stumbled two steps back, his balance faltering as his heart skipped a beat, nearly sending him sprawling back onto his decorated throne. His eyes widened in shock as a monstrous parade began pouring out of the shimmering silver portal.

From the gleaming silver portal emerged a fleet of otherworldly creatures: towering humans, horned demons, slithering demi-serpents, and colossal beasts whose sheer size made the earth quake beneath them. Some were covered in gleaming silver scales that reflected the sunlight like shattered mirrors, while others bore jagged tusks and twisted horns that screamed destruction.

Each exuded an overwhelming aura, suffocating and fierce—a palpable pressure that rivaled or surpassed mid- to high-level martial emperors. The very air seemed to hum and ripple in their presence, heavy with a sense of impending carnage.

Bam! Bam! Swoosh!

The creatures moved with deadly precision, their formation flawless as they assembled into a horde of one hundred. Once the final figure stepped through, the liquid-like portals shimmered briefly before vanishing without a trace. Then, like an unstoppable tide, the soul creatures surged in the direction the two marshals had disappeared to, their movements shaking the ground with each step.

"One hundred… One hundred martial emperors?!" Pythor's voice trembled for a moment before his disbelief turned to fury. "You… How far has your soul strength risen, exactly? What monstrous level of mastery is this?!" His gaze fixed on Robin, his expression a mixture of rage and disbelief. "What is a soul master like you even doing here, in the Young Planetary Belt?! This is absurd!"

"Oh, come now, Pythor," Robin replied with a teasing grin, the corners of his mouth curling upward. "No need to flatter me. I merely stumbled upon an excellent soul technique, that's all." He gave a carefree shrug, his demeanor calm and mocking as he reached into his spatial ring with a flicker of soul energy.

Shii!

Pythor's frustration boiled over. He gripped his flowing purple robe tightly and tore it from his body with a loud rip, tossing the garment aside in a dramatic flourish. Beneath the robe, his sculpted, alabaster-white physique gleamed in the sunlight. His muscles, carved with precision and glistening like polished diamonds, radiated an otherworldly intensity. The purple ribbons intricately woven into his thick, wild hair caught the breeze, adding a touch of regal ferocity to his appearance.

He strode forward with deliberate confidence, each step reverberating with a tangible promise of destruction. Raising his arms, he tightened his grip on the two black leather whips in his hands, their tips crackling faintly with an ominous energy.

"You've made a fatal mistake, Robin Burton," Pythor growled, his voice dripping with menace. "Sending your so-called trump cards to deal with foot soldiers while I, Pythor, stand before you, ready to end you myself." His eyes burned with fury, and the tension in the air thickened like a storm ready to break.

"Relax, Pythor." Robin smirked, stepping forward with a mocking lightness in his stride. "I still have plenty of tricks up my sleeve. I'm just curious how many of them you'll see before you finally crumble."

Bam!

Pythor's patience snapped. With a sharp crack, his right whip lashed out, faster than the eye could follow, slicing through the air with devastating precision. The sheer force of the strike was enough to obliterate most high-level martial emperors, aiming to cleave Robin in half.

But the whip struck nothing but empty ground. Slash! Its energy carved a jagged trench into the earth, sending rocks and dirt flying in all directions.

"Hm?" Pythor narrowed his eyes, a flicker of confusion flashing across his face. Robin was standing just a step to the right, calm and unscathed, as if he hadn't even moved.

"Hehe, you missed," Robin said, his voice a soft taunt. His relaxed posture and the black spear resting effortlessly in his hand only added to Pythor's irritation.

"Impossible!" Pythor snarled, his jaw tightening as his temper flared. "Pythor doesn't miss! Again!"

With a feral roar, he raised both whips high, the energy crackling along their lengths intensifying. Then, with an earth-shaking force, he struck again.

Bam!

---------------------------------

Swoosh! Swoosh!

"Let's see how long you'll keep hiding, you filthy monster!"

"…"

Sakaar focused his soul sense around him, ignoring everything happening beyond the bounds of his battlefield. His heightened combat instinct told him the moment he had been waiting for was near.

Inside his mind, he began drafting plans for all 400 martial emperors, predicting their next positions, movement patterns, and attack trajectories. He accounted for every minor detail in their actions.

He was preparing himself —and them— for the decisive moment. In just 15 minutes, he would be able to execute his plan smoothly, taking down all his opponents in one fell swoop.

Amid his intense focus, Sakaar heard a voice within his soul domain:

(Sakaar, I've noticed what you're planning, but my soul units are no longer solely directed at Spiritual Creature Hovenheim. I'm afraid you'll need to accelerate your plan. I can't sustain this level of unit depletion for much longer.)

"Hmm?!" The message snapped Sakaar out of his deep concentration. He immediately expanded his soul sense as far as possible. "…Oh no."

The first thing he noticed was that the western walls had been breached, and thousands of infantry from the Great Serpent Empire were pouring in, wave after wave. Their martial emperors hadn't appeared yet; they were busy attempting to completely crush the warlords and demon emperors. Not that their presence was necessary at the moment.

The entry of such a massive force meant they would soon join the inner battles, surrounding and attacking the core strongholds of the True Begining Empire from all directions and with all methods. Under such a siege, compounded by the spatial lockdown preventing any escape, defeat would be inevitable.

The invasion of the city marked the beginning of the end of a war that had already claimed billions of intelligent lives.

"I must—" Sakaar momentarily forgot he was trapped like a rat in a cage and almost leaped down to halt the advancing tide. But Slash! A sword strike sliced the air right in front of his nose, forcing him to stop abruptly.

"Haha! What's wrong? Can't stand staying in the back anymore, monster? This battle is ours to win!" shouted the imperial guard triumphantly.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Several underworld daisies intervened, pushing the imperial guard back swiftly. But Sakaar had learned his lesson. He held his position, his brain operating at maximum speed, starting to overheat as it worked feverishly to find a solution.

Shwooo! Shwooo!

At that moment, Sakaar's focus was pulled slightly eastward, to what looked like a nightmare made real. He saw two figures flying rapidly toward the main battlefield. Their bodies shone silver, but their features were unmistakable— they were undoubtedly from the Durger human race. Specifically:

"…Are those marshals?!" Sakaar's heart skipped a beat.

And it wasn't just them.

"Raaawwwr—!!"

Behind the marshals came dozens of massive beasts. One of them was a mammoth with three horns and two tails, towering nearly twenty meters high. The mammoth crushed houses in Hope City like they were made of sand and swung its long trunk, toppling towers as though they were candy structures.

On the mammoth's back sat several humans and demons. Flying alongside it were more Durger humans.

"What in the actual hell…?!" Sakaar muttered, his disbelief growing.

His astonishment deepened when Shwooo! the two marshals in the lead reached the breach in the wall. Without hesitation, they drew silver weapons from within their bodies and raised them high. Then, Boom! they struck the vanguard of the Great Serpent Empire's soldiers.

"Marshal Lonta?! What are you doing?!"

"Ahhh!!!"

"Fwooo!!"

Reinforcements from the rear didn't delay. The three-horned mammoth and 99 other martial emperors charged in at full speed, crushing everything in their path.