Lord of the Truth

"...I'm not fighting alone. And the soul units I wield—aren't anything like the ordinary ones!!"

Clatter... Clatter...

The woman in the black dress arched an eyebrow with cold amusement, watching the twin masses of swirling soul force forming above Robin with measured disdain.

"Oh? And what do you plan to do with those little trinkets? Throw them at me like stones and hope for a miracle? That's not a bad idea, for someone like you."

She scoffed, but her tone had shifted—beneath the sarcasm, there was caution.

Each cluster pulsated with unimaginable force, each one a swirling core made up of 100,000 refined soul units.

In the hands of an experienced soul master, a fraction of that could lay waste to nations.

And yet… she stood unfazed. Because to her—

They were still not enough. Not against her. Not yet.

"Don't you dare mock me, woman!" Robin's voice thundered across the landscape, shaking the air as he threw his arms out wide, soul force spiraling around him like a living storm.

"I'm the founder of the True Beginning Empire! I carved it out from nothing but blood, will, and fury! In just thirty-two years, I brought a realm to its knees and forced your so-called followers into summation. Do you think I don't know the scale of the battle I'm facing today?"

He clenched his fists until the veins in his forearms bulged, and the force began to crackle around him like lightning.

"I know you're worn. I know you've come a long way to stand here and finish what was started."

"But now we'll see who has the endurance. We'll see who burns out first. Even if I die today..."

"...I'll drag you into the abyss with me!"

Then the ground quaked.

Not just underfoot — the entire planet Jura began to heave and tremble like it was alive and afraid.

Robin's soul force surged toward the two convergence points he'd created.

They pulsed, grew, then burst upward in an explosion of divine radiance.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAM!

RUUUUMBLE... RUUMBLE...

A deep, earth-shaking resonance rolled through the air, and the sky trembled as if the very heavens were reacting to the power being unleashed.

Every single person on Jura — from the lowest farmer to the highest cultivator — instinctively turned their gaze skyward.

And what they saw froze their hearts:

Two towering pillars of soul force, each one so massive, so densely compressed, that they seemed to pierce the clouds and hold the sky aloft with their sheer presence.

"This..." Juri whispered, her voice hoarse, her breath caught in her chest.

For the first time in hours, the crushing pressure pressing down on her lessened. The black-dressed woman's overwhelming force began to wane — or rather, was being resisted.

Juri's strategy up until now had been simple but monumental:

She funneled every ounce of her sixth-level defensive capability — blending elemental laws like Space, Wind, Waves, and more — to forge an enormous barrier around the planet.

It was a protective wall of heavenly laws.

If it broke, the entire structure of Jura's natural order would collapse.

And now—

Robin was reinforcing that wall.

Juri stared downward, her expression conflicted.

How... how did he know this was exactly what I needed?

How did he know those two points were the weakest in the entire defense net?

Was he really analyzing all this in real-time while facing death from above?

Those golden eyes of his...

For the first time, a dangerous thought slithered into her mind:

Perhaps... just perhaps... this man might one day reach the Path of Glory.

If he survived this day, of course.

"...?"

Far above, the woman in black shifted slightly. Her confident expression faltered.

She had felt it — the sudden, growing resistance.

This Soul Force was enough to crush most Cataclysm Domain Cultivators!

Crack...

She pressed downward again, pouring all her power into one violent strike.

But it felt like punching the roots of a mountain.

No movement. No give. Nothing.

"...!!"

Of course that level of soul force would make a difference.

But why this much?!

This was now the second time she had found herself blindsided, her calculations failing entirely in the face of that man...

The first time had already shaken her deeply—he had shattered her reinforced soul shard, which was fortified by the Shadow of the Calamity Seal Cube.

And he had done that while possessing no more than sixty thousand soul units—a feat that defied every logic.

"...My soul units are nothing like the ordinary ones..."

What did he mean by that, exactly?

That sentence now echoed in her mind like a curse.

"Hmph," she breather with disdain, brushing away her unease.

"I don't care what tricks you've performed, or what heresies you've committed with your soul force... It's all meaningless. You're simply postponing the inevitable, you wretched little rat."

Descending carefully to conserve energy no longer served any purpose.

For the sky below her had hardened—not metaphorically, but literally—as if it had become a massive slab of indestructible stone, held up by two colossal pillars forged from pure soul force.

She couldn't pierce it easily now. But that didn't mean she was helpless.

In a burst of motion, her body became wrapped in swirling gray entropy, an aura thick with the scent of oblivion, of death... the sixth-stage Law of Ashification pulsed through her limbs.

She raised her leg and brought it down hard—

CRAAACK!

The sky shuddered once more.

Cracks re-emerged violently across the celestial dome shielding the planet.

From those fractures poured cascading streams of gray destruction energy, far more concentrated and ravenous than before.

The quantity was staggering—far beyond anything the planet's spirit could possibly repel or balance.

"AHH!!"

Juri let out a sharp cry as she sensed the energy nearing critical mass, about to break through and scorch the planet's surface.

She could feel it—the barrier she had summoned with everything she had, infused with all the resistance of the sixth realm, was about to collapse.

And when it did, there would be nothing left to stop the world from falling into ruin.

"Not while I still stand."

Robin's voice came like a cold wind before a storm.

He raised both arms out wide, fingers trembling from the weight of soul force coursing through him.

Then, with a deep breath, he closed his eyes, as if surrendering himself to a higher force.

"Neri... it's time. Let them see what you truly are."

"At your command!"

VMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Robin's entire body exploded into an ethereal blue glow, his veins lighting up like rivers of celestial fire.

A soft hum filled the air—gentle at first, but it began to resonate, to shake the sky itself.

From the center of his forehead emerged a sphere of fire, no larger than a human eye—burning, blue, alive.

And yet... the space around it began to tremble.

Reality itself recoiled as the sphere floated upward.

Clatter... clatter...

Every meter it ascended, the sphere grew.

Bigger.

Brighter.

Heavier.

By the time it reached the upper skies, it had become a radiant blue star, small in size, but so dense with soul force and cosmic gravity that it illuminated half of Jura—

banishing the shadow of the broken heavens and the choking gray fog that had begun to consume the world.

Up above, the black-cloaked woman narrowed her eyes, lifting a single brow.

The aura of that blue sun reached even her, making her robe flutter from the force.

"Why would he use a planetary Gift now...?" she muttered.

She knew how planetary Gifts worked.

These powers were meant to enhance the vessel, the owner of the planet.

Some gave temporary control over celestial laws.

Some altered the host's physiology.

Others simply offered boosts to perception, speed, or strength.

But all of them shared one common trait—

They were personal. Meant for the host alone.

So why was he casting the Gift into the sky like that?

Was this fool so naive that he believed the Gift could make him powerful enough to defeat her?

"...."

She sighed and shook her head in pity.

What did she expect?

He was just a lowly insect—a creature so insignificant that even awareness of his inferiority was likely beyond him.

Let him feel power one last time. Let him dream of resistance before his final breath.

But then—

Robin pointed a single finger upward.

And, in a slow, deliberate voice, he declared:

"Gift of the Galactic Seed, Niharai... Gravitational Field: Inverted Mode."

"What did you say...?!"

Her voice cracked.

Her entire body stiffened.

"You... You have already refined the spirit of planet Niharai?!"

The moment the truth sank in, her scornful smirk vanished completely.

But she had no time to think.

Because her vision—her entire field of sight—was now dominated by a single color:

Blue.

SHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

The gray torrents of destruction, which had moments ago been raining down with calm malevolence,

ripping apart mountaintops, air, and space alike—

Suddenly reversed.

Exploded upward.

As if the world had flipped.

Every pit of the destructive attack was going back upward.

Toward her.