Lord of the Truth

He has 810,000 essence units prepared?

He was. But after burning away thirty-three thousand units in that reckless pursuit of the specter, Robin's soul domain now held a hollow gap. The framework itself still stood at its full capacity—810,000 units of soul—but the actual liquid energy within it had been reduced to the equivalent of 777,000.

Thirty-three thousand essence soul units… erased in an instant, gone without a trace. The loss wasn't just a number—it was an abyss carved into his foundation. To restore such a loss, Robin would need to gorge himself on initial souls, creatures so rare and dangerous that even seasoned Soul Masters dreaded the hunt.

And if those initial souls could not be found? Then the only alternative would be to absorb 330,000 ordinary soul units and compress them down into the dense purity of cores. A task not measured in days, nor weeks—but in months, even years of endless labor. Countless hours spent sitting cross-legged, breathing in the thin trickle of spiritual energy from the atmosphere, then still more years spent refining and pressing those units into the crystalline essence required to replace what he had squandered.

All of that—simply for the price of chasing one specter.

And now…

Now, he had brought out Lonta and Cilibos, each radiating with the strength of exactly seventy thousand soul units, and Butt-Kicker, surging with three thousand more. Together, 143,000 units of free soul force now danced on the battlefield in Robin's name.

That force was not lost—not yet. If they survived the conflict intact, those units would eventually cycle back into Robin's domain. But if they fell, if they were shattered, if they were consumed by a foreign power or scattered to the void… the loss would be unbearable.

It would be a wound too deep, a price far too heavy to pay.

Robin knew this well. Right now, his journey was toward expanding his domain structure to a million units. He needed 190,000 more core units, carefully frozen and woven into the skeletal lattice of his soul domain. And once that was done? He would still need an entire million more—pure, untainted cores—to compress into his first Royal Purple Star.

How could he possibly throw away even a single unit carelessly, when the road ahead demanded such monstrous sums?

This was the truth of why Royal Soul Masters were so rarely seen in battle. A Nexus State cultivator could drain themselves empty and then refill within days. But a Royal Soul Master… they would need years to replenish, or else they would hunt specters across barren lands, grinding down corruption, tempering essence, fighting every moment for scraps of strength.

Perhaps that was why someone like Barok, despite his bloodlust and ferocity, had chosen the path of close combat. For a man who thrived on battle yet could not afford to waste the treasure of soul force, his fists and blades were the only answer.

"...." Robin turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing as they followed the clash of Lonta in the distance. A faint smile crept across his face, a shadow of approval.

Every second that a soul creature lingered outside the domain was a steady drain, a bleeding of units into the void. But Lonta had not been struck yet, had not suffered injury. That meant the consumption was limited to the baseline cost of existence. For now, the loss was tolerable.

Seventy thousand—that was Lonta's current capacity. A staggering figure, etched into his information when he had been reforged by the blaze of the Nihari Spirit Sun.

Did that mean Lonta was always carrying seventy thousand units, walking inside the soul domain with that power brimming inside him? No.

Soul creatures, in their truest essence, were nothing but information. They were records—blueprints of forms, echoes of memories, and the defining data of capacity. The capacity was the anchor, the declaration of how much they could carry when called.

Lonta's record had been rewritten. His ceiling was now seventy thousand. But Robin could summon him with far less—ten thousand, a thousand, even ten units. There was no rule against it. He was, after all, just a vessel. A skin shaped from soul units, animated by fragments of memory.

And Lonta himself? The real Lonta had died long ago, centuries past, his flesh rotted, his soul dispersed. What remained was neither strong nor weak—it was simply a shadow bound to Robin's will. If Robin chose, he could wave his hand and erase Lonta's data entirely, delete his existence from the structure of the domain in the time it took to draw breath.

BOOOOOOOM!

The battlefield convulsed. The clash of Lonta and Cilibos against the two World Cataclysms became a storm of violence, louder and sharper than thunder. Mountains of black stone shattered like glass under their strikes, the land itself breaking apart as their power scarred the terrain.

Robin stood apart, hands at his sides, offering no command. He did not guide them, did not tighten their strings like puppets. He let them fight. He trusted in the combat instincts they had carried into death, instincts honed in life-and-death battles that had carved their legends long before they became his spirits.

And now, on this battlefield, the art of the demi-serpents was on full display. Their coils struck like whips, their bodies moved like rivers of steel, and the soul force woven through their strikes sang of centuries of experience.

It was not Robin who fought. It was the remaining of the soul creatures battle memory kicking in.

But… both of them had died as warriors no higher than level 48 or 49, long before they could ever comprehend the kind of power they were now wielding. They had never tasted wars that shook planets, never stood on battlefields where one strike could shatter mountains or where a single mistake meant obliteration.

Their enemies, however, had. They carried scars of greater wars, instincts honed against opponents of equal might, and that difference began to show. Slowly, inevitably, the cracks widened. The two soul creatures, despite their raw strength, began to accumulate cuts, bruises, and wounds, their borrowed forms pushed closer to the edge.

"...." Robin exhaled slowly, a weary sound that carried neither panic nor urgency. With a flick of his hand, a gate shimmered into being beside him, light spilling out in arcs of white and gold. "Use these," he commanded, his voice calm but firm, "and finish it quickly. Do not break them!"

Whoosh Whoosh

From the gate drifted two crescent-shaped blades, elegant yet savage, infused with bound energy. They curved through the air, each seeking its master as if alive.

Bang!

"Th–thank you!" Cilibos's voice rang out as his hand closed around the weapon. Thirty thousand soul units thrummed within it, the sheer weight of energy making the blade glow faintly. Without hesitation, he struck, the force of his attack splitting the air with a deafening crack.

"Damn it!" his foe spat, stumbling backward, teeth clenched. Before, it had been a grueling struggle just to endure the blows of a soul creature wielding seventy thousand units. But now that same creature held a weapon empowered by thirty thousand more—its weight crushed him, its speed overwhelmed him. The balance shifted sharply, and fear flickered in his eyes.

On Lonta's side, the shift was mirrored. His movements quickened, his strikes gained a sharper edge the instant his hand gripped the crescent blade. His opponent faltered, taken aback by the sudden rise in force. Yet the shock did not last. Within moments, the World Cataclysm adjusted, finding his footing again, pressing back, dragging the clash once more into a dead-even grind.

"..." Robin's gaze left the sky and drifted downward to the chaos on the ground, where Butt-Kicker tore into dozens at once. His movements were brutal but efficient, his body a storm of muscle and soul force. Each strike sent enemies flying, bodies cartwheeling through the air like broken dolls, blood trailing in crimson arcs. The sound of cracking bones echoed with every impact. Yet he was not untouchable. For every enemy that fell, three more struck back, their blades and fists tearing chunks from his form. He had already drained nearly a thousand units from Robin's domain just to sustain his body, burning through energy with every clash, every breath.

"You failed teacher! If you dare—withdraw that soul creature and face me yourself! Let's see what happens then!!" Kazarin's roar split the din of battle. His face no longer resembled a human's—only a swollen, mangled mass of flesh and blood. His lips barely formed the words, his voice slurred, almost incomprehensible, but the hatred within them was sharp enough to stab.

"Arghh…" Robin sighed, shaking his head, his eyes half-lidded. The bleeding of units from his domain continued, steady and merciless, each drop a small but constant pain gnawing at his reserves.

Still… this was preferable to summoning Pythor. To bring that monstrous soul creature into being would instantly devour hundreds of units, and every motion of its colossal form would drain hundreds more. Pythor was a weapon that could crush an average World Catalysms—but not without leaving Robin gutted, crippled in resources. He could not pay that price here.

"Tsk~ I need to end this meaningless fight anyway…" Robin muttered under his breath.

His hand lifted lazily, yet the air quaked as another gate unfolded in front of him, vast and radiant. From its depths surged an aura so fierce that Kazarin and his companions froze in place, the blood in their veins turning to ice.

But at that very moment—

Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh

Three figures materialized at Robin's side, their arrivals swift and silent as death. Their voices overlapped, a chorus that echoed in unison:

"Your Majesty, where did you vanish to so suddenly?"

Robin's lips curled into the faintest smile, and with a casual flick of his wrist the gate closed, the overwhelming aura vanishing like mist. Who else could they be but Latania, Wade, and Malik, his loyal companions?

With nothing more than a tilt of his head toward the battlefield, Robin gave his command. His words were simple, quiet, yet they carried the weight of absolute authority.

"Bind them all. I want them alive."

And with that, he closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and allowed himself the rarest of luxuries—a single moment of stillness amid the storm.