Lord of the Truth

Chapter 1866 The unusual pattern

On that day, Helen appeared on the planet Hedrick and his aides had taken as a temporary base until the enemies arrived, unwilling to reveal Shatharʼs true location to anyone.

She appeared entirely alone, not even accompanied by a small battleship or an escort force, and she descended with such a powerful, suffocating aura that the residents of the palace fell into a deep and almost reverent silence the moment she landed... an aura belonging unmistakably to a peak Nexus State expert.

The sensation of pure, unrestrained destructive force radiating from her and shaking everything around her made bodies tremble uncontrollably... the very air shivered, and even solid stone seemed to recoil in instinctive fear.

Hedrick, who had neither seen nor heard a single update about Helen since the strange meeting she arranged with his siblings, went out personally to receive her.

He did not notice the unnaturally calm expression settling on her face, an expression so smooth and steady it resembled the surface of a summer lake under clear skies, while beneath that surface a colossal beast quietly waited to surface at any moment.

No - he did not care about any of that. He simply revealed a faint, knowing smile the moment he sensed her newfound strength, then gestured for her to come inside.

But as she stood before the palace gates, she spoke abruptly, her voice steady and unwavering:

”I want to fight. Assign me to one of your armadas - the one that engages in battle the most.”

Hedrick tried to urge her to enter first, tried to begin even the smallest, most casual conversation to understand her state of mind, but all his attempts were meaningless.

She wanted only one thing to go directly to her new battlefield, her new post.

In front of that small but fiercely stubborn girl, Hedrick fell silent for a long moment, then finally nodded slowly:

”In truth, I have been thinking about something for a long time. I have finally resolved it... Currently, aside from the Note armada, I have four other armadas under my command, but only three marshals. One armada remains without a leader. I was planning to assign it to the Royal Soul Master, Draise, but you arrived at exactly the right moment...”

Then he handed her Robinʼs orb with deliberate care.

”Here are the coordinates and authorization. Go and assume your position as marshal of my last armada.”

Helen stared at Hedrickʼs face for several long seconds, as if entire oceans of words were trapped in her throat, unable to escape or find form... then, without a single moment of hesitation, without uttering a single syllable, without even offering the slightest gesture, she launched herself toward the coordinates she had received.

Hedrick noticed nothing or rather, he refused to notice anything. He already had enough weighing on his heart and mind.

He felt relieved that the dangerous leadership gap in his youngest armada had finally been filled.

And then he returned to the palace and immediately began forming a command council of veteran generals and seasoned officers to support Helen in strategic decision-making!!

Then he returned once again to negotiate with Theo for a number of interstellar communication-network gates meant to serve his newly expanded fleets... but this time, he failed to stir Theoʼs emotions or trigger his generosity like what he did with the Empires and traders; he was forced to pay with planetary-grade equipment to secure what he needed.

And the days passed quickly, as if pushed forward by invisible winds...

At the beginning of year 28, a massive and intimidating armada entered the Mid Sector 101.

Two thousand newly-built fleets - weapons the cursed Darvion Galaxy had never used in any war since their construction because they simply had no worthy enemy now advanced together in perfect formation.

Alongside them came another four hundred fleets or so, the battered but surviving remnants of the two armadas that had fled to hide in the border region after countless units were destroyed for lingering too long in that perilous place.

If they had opened a space passage and moved quickly without pause, the losses would have fallen to the lowest possible level, almost negligible compared to what actually happened. But because Zaryon stubbornly refused to return to the Mid Sector 101 and instead remained stationed in the border region in a state of complete stillness, he ended up losing more than sixty fleets during that short, disastrous period - fleets swallowed by violent spatial whirlwinds, and even a few devoured by a young space beast that appeared for barely an hour before vanishing without a trace!

...The 2,400 incoming fleets carried millions upon millions of soldiers, vast numbers of trained crews, and twelve individuals possessing the terrifying strength of the Law Domination Realm. The combined force was powerful enough to invade an entire sector without question - a war machine built for overwhelming conquest.

As for Hedrick, he had already mobilized and spread out his forces. He followed the same general plan as before and dispersed his armadas strategically across the region. But this time, the armadas were not circling the Cosmic Hammer Starfield. Instead, they were scattered across the space of several cosmic fields, each positioned carefully, waiting for Lord Hedrick to teleport to one of them at the exact critical moment.

Now all they had to do was wait - wait patiently for the massive armada of 2,400 fleets to inevitably separate. It was impossible for them to remain as a single unified cluster. No planet could handle such an overwhelming concentration of vessel movement, and no star system had the logistical capacity to support them. Eventually, they would have to split apart to search for Hedrick, who kept jumping unpredictably from place to place, leaving no fixed location behind to trace.

At that moment, the long-awaited game would begin once more. At that moment, he would finally have a real chance!!

But something strange - astonishingly strange - happened...

That enormous armada continued its deep penetration into the Mid Sector 101 without stopping, until they reached a starfield located right at the heart of the sector. They selected a random solar system with twenty-two planets. Without hesitation, they exterminated the populations of every living planet, wiping out entire civilizations in mere hours, and their soldiers descended upon the empty worlds.

Then they installed utilization arrays on the lifeless planets, converting them into functional outposts, and fleets along with their pilots landed to claim them

as operational surfaces.

After that, the occupying forces took residence in the cities that once belonged to the native inhabitants. Commanders descended upon the palaces of local rulers, and large numbers of soldiers began renovating and expanding these structures - turning them into colossal fortresses more fitting to the taste and pride of their leaders. Meanwhile, other units began deploying layer after layer of defensive and scouting arrays, leaving every observer in the sector bewildered and unable to understand their intentions!

Hedrick continued watching, tense and increasingly anxious, waiting for them to move, waiting for them to split, convinced they merely wished to rest after their long journey or establish a temporary central base of operations - a place for gathering, decision-making, and a secure point for returning after completing patrol missions...

But months passed, and the construction continued relentlessly across those

planets. The forces of the cursed Darvion Galaxy installed layer upon layer of sinister and cursed arrays - defenses, early-warning detectors, morale-breaking arrays, vitality-draining formations, and many more tools of suppression and control!

Yet this bizarre period did not last forever. Six months after their arrival,

movement finally began...

Small armadas began launching outward to attack nearby planets, seizing them

one after another with ruthless efficiency.

It did not matter whether the target planet was free, commercial, a planetary kingdom, or even a proud empire - they attacked without the slightest discrimination or hesitation.

The only variable was the number of fleets assigned to each strike force, which

grew larger or smaller depending on the difficulty and scale of the planet they

intended to conquer.

During the first year of their arrival - year 29 - seventy planets surrounding that solar system were invaded. Every single inhabitant was killed, every resource was stripped and looted, and new settlements were built along the path of this expanding wave of domination.