Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2001 On a hot plate-1

After that fateful, irreversible decision-one known only to the Pure Kaylis, her eldest son Orion, and later that day, the Supreme Sword Theo- the balance of power on the battlefield of Mid Sector 101 began to shift in at manner both subtle and deeply unsettling.

Movements that had once seemed stagnant suddenly gained momentum, and calculations long considered stable were quietly overturned.

Lord Hedrick soon received confidential intelligence from the Shadow Swords. The message was clear and heavy with consequence: the Pure Kaylis had chosen to formally enter an alliance on their side. Not only would she lend her name-she would fight. And Hedrick was expected to support this decision with action.

He did not hesitate.

Half of his colossal armada disengaged from the ongoing siege against the army of the Savage Behemoth, abandoning a position that had taken immense effort to establish. Those fleets redirected their course toward the remnants of the Cursed Behemoth Darvionʼs forces, striking at the precise moment when Darvionʼs armies were struggling to reorganize their shattered formations and repair their heavily damaged war vessels.

The assault was sudden, violent, and merciless.

On paper, the forces under Lord Hedrick possessed a clear numerical superiority. In reality, however, they were a patchwork of fleets drawn from countless powers-empires, factions, and ancient forces whose cooperation was fragile at best. Coordination between them was a constant struggle, and unity was more illusion than truth.

Even worse, the Nexus States and World Cataclysms embedded within that vast army were far from harmonious. Each power carried old grudges, unresolved blood debts, and eternal rivalries against several others within the same alliance. Every command carried the weight of past hatred.

The only reason that army did not collapse inward was the presence of Lord Hedrick himself, along with the rulers of the Six Millennial Empires-seven Law Dominators who saw beyond petty vendettas and focused solely on the grand design of the war. Their authority was absolute, and their vision forced obedience where trust could not.

Still, even their will had limits.

The price of poor coordination and buried hatred revealed itself during the very first large-scale engagement.

Despite their overwhelming advantage in numbers and firepower, the battle ended with nothing more than forcing the Cursed Behemothʼs forces to retreat slightly farther from the Bright Galaxy. When the smoke cleared and losses were tallied, the truth was unavoidable: it was Lord Hedrickʼs alliance that had paid the heavier price.

In every meaningful measure, they had lost.

The Cursed Behemothʼs armies withdrew to a relatively safe distance, not in panic, but with grim discipline-retreating to tend to wounds that ran deep. Every fleet destroyed now was a serious blow to their strength and morale, yet they still retained cohesion.

The battle earned an unspoken title among those who survived it:

The task failed successfully.

Lord Hedrick and his forces had been defeated, yet their sacrifice was not entirely in vain. At the very least, they succeeded in severing all lines of communication between the Cursed Behemothʼs forces and the remaining mercenaries scattered throughout the Bright Galaxy.

In the aftermath, several fleets were dispatched to assist the Pureheart family. Their mission was twofold: cleanse the galaxy of lingering mercenary forces, and train Pureheartʼs people-many of whom had never known true war-in the proper use of weapons, tactics, and combat vessels.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the battlefield, another storm was gathering.

With half of the massive armada that had besieged them now withdrawn, the forces of the Savage Behemoth realized they could wait no longer. Opportunity had revealed itself, and hesitation would be fatal.

They attacked.

Once again, they shattered the siege with alarming ease. Rather than engaging on all fronts, they focused overwhelming force on a single sector of the encirclement. Faced with catastrophic losses, the fleets responsible for holding that line chose to retreat.

Why should they suffer devastating casualties when their ancient enemies had lost almost nothing? If this continued, their empire would emerge from the war weakened-exposed before those who had waited centuries for such an opening.

That was the logic that guided their withdrawal.

It was also a grave mistake.

Breaking free of the siege on all sides, the Savage Behemothʼs forces did not flee. They had preserved nearly all of their strength, and within the sector itself there was nowhere meaningful to retreat to anyway. Once they reached a safe distance, their fleets halted in unison.

Then they turned back.

Lord Zarion, accompanied by eight Law Dominators, assumed the terrifying forms of Beast Emperors, unleashing devastation upon their foes. Their immense, highly disciplined army moved as one, employing advanced tactics honed through endless warfare.

What followed was not a battle, but a systematic dismantling.

Hedrickʼs already fragile alliance formations were torn apart, isolated, and struck with merciless precision-blow after crushing blow-until the battlefield itself seemed to bend beneath the weight of their assault.

Had Lord Hedrick himself not been present during that brutal siege war, he would have lost no less than half of his forces, perhaps even more. The pressure bearing down on his armies was overwhelming, relentless, and merciless. Yet Hedrick-standing at the forefront alongside three other Law Dominators-managed to halt the catastrophic advance just long enough. That brief window, bought with blood and willpower, allowed the battered army to withdraw before it collapsed entirely into chaos. When the retreat was finally ordered, the four of them followed closely behind, withdrawing under fire, barely escaping annihilation.

After those two decisive and revealing battles... after it became undeniable that Lord Hedrick and the Pure Kaylis had forged an alliance... and after the galaxy witnessed, with brutal clarity, the weakness and internal fragility of Hedrickʼs so-called unified army-the balance of power began to shift dramatically.

The Cursed Behemoth was the first to act.

He issued a sweeping declaration across the sectors, proclaiming that Kaylis had descended into madness-that instead of submitting to judgment, she had annihilated thousands of planets, drowning the stars in blood and fire. According to his decree, she was no longer worthy to bear the title of Behemoth, nor fit to rule over creation. Her removal, he declared, was not only justified-it was necessary.

Without hesitation, he mobilized a massive force: one thousand fully armed fleets, dispatched directly toward Mid Sector 101, led personally by Lord Damir, his eldest son and chosen spear.

In stark contrast, the Savage Behemoth remained utterly silent.

No proclamations.

No reinforcements.

No withdrawal.

Yet beneath that silence, his army changed.

They began to act with a level of arrogance and dominance unseen before, as though the sector already belonged to them. They returned to the campaign of subjugation-not by grinding through borders, but by striking directly at the hearts of empires. One after another, they obliterated capital worlds, erased command centers, and shattered core planets, then advanced onward as a single, colossal war-mass-an unstoppable tide of destruction.

There was no longer even a pretense of caution.

After that battle, no one respected Hedrickʼs army anymore. The truth spread quickly across the stars: that vast force, impressive in number alone, was nothing more than a paper tiger.

And most critically of all-Hedrick himself understood this truth. Acting swiftly, he recalled half of the armada he had previously dispatched to support the Bright Galaxy, leaving behind only a minimal garrison-sufficient for logistical support, training, and symbolic presence, but nothing more.

Then came the restructuring.

The once-monolithic armada was divided into seven smaller armadas, each far easier to maneuver and command. Every fleet contained roughly six hundred war fleets, each placed under the authority of a Law Dominator.

Each Dominator was granted full responsibility for enforcing order and obedience within their own ranks, while ultimate strategic command-the power to deploy, redirect, or sacrifice any of the seven armies-remained solely in Hedrickʼs hands.

As the face of the war shifted once more over the course of a few short, brutal years, the army of the Savage Behemoth continued to advance as a single, unified entity-rolling forward like an avalanche, erasing everything unfortunate enough to stand in its path.

Meanwhile, Hedrick and the other six Law Dominators adopted a vastly different doctrine.

Nearly every day, they launched lightning-fast raids-sudden, precise strikes meant to wound rather than conquer-before retreating immediately. They avoided prolonged engagements at all costs, desperate to prevent another large-scale battle or the nightmare of being encircled in a second siege. Whether the true issue lay in the structural fragility of their coalition, or in the sheer, overwhelming brutality of the Savage Behemothʼs forces, remained unclear. What was clear, however, was this:

They would not survive another battle like the last.

At this stage, the war resembled seven persistent wasps endlessly stabbing a starving lion-small, painful attacks that never ceased. And like any enraged predator, the lion responded.

The Savage Behemothʼs armada was repeatedly forced to halt its advance, turning again and again to hunt down those infuriating, elusive wasps that dared to draw its blood.

This tense and exhausting phase of the war dragged on for nearly five long years... Until, at last, the balance threatened to tip once more-when one thousand additional fleets arrived from the galaxy of the Cursed Behemoth, led personally by the Nine Star Soul Master, Lord Damir himself, descending upon the battlefield like the final weight poised to crush everything beneath it.