Lord of the Truth

"...Have you ever borne witness to a cosmic war before?"

"...No."

Robin narrowed his eyes slightly, his tone cautious. He couldn't quite grasp the intent behind the question—or why, exactly, they were strolling together toward the edge of the floating cloud. It felt oddly... ceremonial.

The crimson clouds stretched across the horizon like bleeding silk.

The sun—obscured behind curtains of smoke and cloud—cast long shadows across the sky.

Below, radiant meteors blazed upward like defiant arrows piercing the heavens.

The view was breathtaking, poetic even—like a myth captured in motion.

But Robin couldn't help but wonder:

Were men of their power and rank truly meant to stand still and marvel at the skies?

Was this just Hedrick's version of stalling?

Hedrick ignored the unspoken question laced in Robin's voice. Instead, he kept his pace steady, his hands behind his back, and spoke as if recounting a memory carved deep in his soul:

"Wars… they erupt somewhere every day, often without warning. But when millennial empires—the ancient juggernauts of a sector—clash against one another, that's no mere war. That's what we call a cosmic war, even if it's only a minor one."

He tilted his head toward Robin. "A war like that pulls in everyone.

Every power, every clan, every mercenary guild and kingdom gets sucked into the chaos, like blood drawn to a gaping wound."

"It doesn't matter whether they want to fight or not—

The sheer scale, the consequences, the shockwaves—they force the hand of the entire sector."

"Economies collapse. Worlds fall into famine.

And life itself?

It becomes cheaper than dirt."

Robin frowned slightly, unsure whether this was some sort of lecture—or warning.

"And the worst part?" Hedrick's tone dropped lower. "These 'miniature' wars are often just sparks. Sparks that ignite something far greater."

"Because every millennial emperor has connections—alliances, debts, loyalties—outside his own sector.

So when war begins, they send word.

Reinforcements arrive. Blood is spilled.

That blood demands vengeance. More arrive, and more still… until the war stretches beyond borders, and becomes a true cosmic war."

"..."

Robin narrowed his gaze, finally grasping Hedrick's intent.

This wasn't just a story.

This was a glimpse of his future.

"I didn't choose this view as the meeting place by accident, Robin." Hedrick continued, his voice solemn. "I brought you here not just for the beauty, but to show you something I've seen many times—something you, too, will see."

"As long as you possess a planet seed... this will be your destiny."

By now, the two had reached the edge of the great cloud.

Hedrick extended his hand forward, gesturing to the world below.

"Go on.

Take it in.

Fill your sight with what a true cosmic war looks like."

And then came the sound.

Clatter...

CLANG! CLANG!

"...?"

Robin leaned forward instinctively, his brows twitching—

Then, suddenly, his entire body jerked back on reflex.

"What--!"

"Easy," Hedrick's hand pressed gently against Robin's back, keeping him steady.

"We're still inside the Soul Domain. These are just recordings—residual echoes stored in memory."

"Recordings…?"

Robin blinked rapidly, then slowly leaned forward again.

His eyes opened wide.

Wider than they had in decades.

His heart slammed against his ribs, a chaotic drumbeat of awe, confusion, and something else—something he hadn't felt in a long time: dread.

"What... is this place?" he whispered, breath catching.

Robin had seen war.

No—he had breathed war.

He had started wars, ended them, burned cities to the ground and razed armies by the millions.

But never had he seen anything remotely close to this.

Below the cloud, stretching to the ends of sight, was not a battlefield.

It was a world-ending cataclysm.

A war beyond comprehension.

They hovered at a terrifying altitude—so high that lesser men might have fainted just from the view—

And yet, across the horizon not a single inch of land below was untouched by blood.

Not a single pocket of sky above the battlefield was free from movement.

From edge to edge, the entire landscape was alive with combat.

Mountaintops were crumbling into ash.

Rivers hissed into steam.

Oceans had turned black and red, tainted with blood and smoke.

This wasn't a war to claim territory.

This was mutual annihilation.

How many were down there?

Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions?

No.

More.

Far, far more.

There were dozens—maybe hundreds—of different races, each wearing distinct armor, wielding strange weapons, shouting war cries in tongues both ancient and alien.

They were all locked in deadly combat with a singular force—

A legion clad entirely in shimmering silver, their formation flawless, their resolve unshakable.

And somehow… they were holding the line.

"RRRAAAAARRRRR--!!"

Robin's breath caught in his throat.

Across the battlefield, enormous beasts—towering monsters easily fifty meters tall—were locked in savage combat.

They weren't just pets or summons.

They were apex predators, tearing through battalions like blades through silk.

Robin watched, wide-eyed, as one of them swallowed a soldier whole.

He saw another slam a mountain beast into the earth with enough force to split the crust.

The sky shook. The land screamed under their might.

Robin instantly recognized it—those were no ordinary beasts.

There was one particular creature repeating itself in multiple areas across the battlefield.

A massive serpent, its color undulating between shimmering silver and a faint, ghostly blue.

Its body was a grotesque hybrid—one half a muscular, coiled mass of sheer power, the other a bony skeleton lined with jagged, obsidian-like spikes.

Even its enormous head was nothing more than a skull, hollow-eyed and cracked, exuding an aura of death and primal fury.

Robin counted nine of them within his line of sight.

Scattered across different fronts, each one battling entire armies alone, and not faltering in the slightest.

That could mean only one thing—these weren't just summoned beasts.

They were warriors, individuals who had inherited a powerful and condensed bloodline of that monstrous serpent.

Just like Pythor.

Sensing Robin's rising curiosity, Hedrick subtly raised his hand and pointed toward one of the sectors held by the silver-armored forces.

There, amidst a tide of silver banners and gleaming halberds, stood one of those nightmarish serpents.

"That," Hedrick said, his voice low and even, "is the army of the Falling Meteors Empire.

And those serpents… bear the blood of the Beast King Naggarath, a creature born from the Law of Shattering.

It once reached the very summit of the Nexus State Realm before being hunted down and slain.

It cost me dearly to obtain even a fraction of his bloodline… but for them, it was worth it."

"All of them… are at Pythor's level of beast blood density?" Robin whispered, eyes wide with a mix of awe and disbelief.

It was clear they wielded a minor destruction law, and the intensity of their blood was overwhelming.

No, not just Pythor's level… many of them surpassed him.

A significant number of the troops below were clad in complete enchanted armor,

while the serpents themselves bore layered sigils and arcane bindings, with reinforced support gear fused into their bodies.

Those nine serpents—each a calamity on its own—were now engaged in a clash against twenty-two other towering monstrosities.

Beings that were likely also transformed warriors who had achieved the absolute peak of the second path.

Robin felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

-Devastation- didn't even begin to describe what his eyes were beholding.

The red hue bleeding through the clouds wasn't the light of sunset.

It was blood.

Vaporized blood that had risen into the sky in such vast quantities,

it created a red fog that drowned the horizon.

That mist of blood challenged the combined vapors of all oceans and rivers—

a horrifying testament to the scale of slaughter that had unfolded below.

And the light he had once mistaken for a glowing sun beneath the clouds?

It wasn't a sun.

It was a mountain of burning corpses.

A designated crew, dressed in matching uniforms, moved methodically through the field,

gathering the dead and throwing them onto the flames.

Not a single faction tried to stop them.

Every army simply allowed them to do their work—

cleansing the battlefield of rot and disease…

and making room for more dead.

"This…"

The meteors Robin had admired earlier for their haunting beauty?

They were artillery blasts.

Shells fired from massive warships and huge cannons hidden beyond the clouds, deliberately aimed skyward.

Robin craned his neck higher—so far he felt a pop in his spine—

and what he saw made his blood freeze.

"Aa… Aaah…"

Above the atmosphere, a second war raged.

A silent, ferocious clash among fleets of warships—

a celestial battle between world Cataclysms and Nexus State Realm experts,

unfolding in the vacuum of space.

The sheer scale of it was madness.

Thousands of ships filled the skies like a swarm of colossal, metallic leviathans,

their forms shifting between shadows and flashes as they exchanged fire endlessly.

The explosions flickering across the void resembled eternal fireworks,

a chaotic ballet of power and precision with no signs of stopping.

Those upward strikes from the surface weren't random.

They were strategic support fire,

each side attempting to bolster its aerial forces—

because the collapse of Hedrick's generals and fleets above would mean one thing:

Verillion would be annihilated.

All it would take is a single, direct strike

from one hostile Nexus State.