Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2092 Designer

Mid Sector 100, Planet Originos-

Behind doors that had remained sealed and heavily fortified for nearly a full century, Jabba gently placed one blood sample aside. Then, paf, he pulled another jar closer and set it before him, his face carrying an eager smile and a burning curiosity, like a child opening one holiday present after another without patience to rest.

Jabba occupied an entire floor of the building by himself. The place was enormous, a vast living space large enough to comfortably house ten separate families if it were divided into apartments.

Yet at this moment, the place felt suffocatingly cramped.

Walking across the room had become a challenge. Every step required careful movement, as the floor was crowded with countless jars of blood and sealed sample vials stacked in rows, piles, and careless clusters. Some were arranged neatly on tables, others piled against walls, while many simply occupied any empty patch of ground.

No... these were not the collections that the army and the Shadow Swords had gathered for him across the past century.

Every ten years, Jabba allowed a small group of guards to enter his chamber for a single task. They would gather all the accumulated samples after he had finished analyzing them with meticulous care. Once removed, they were free to deal with them however they pleased. Jabba did not care what happened to those old samples afterward.

Soon after, a new wave of specimens would arrive.

And the cycle would begin again.

Even so...

After examining thousands upon thousands of samples-no, hundreds of thousands over the decades-

His face still broke into an involuntary smile every time he opened a new jar. The excitement never faded. ”Hm... what do we have here?” Jabba murmured as he read the label attached to the glass container. ”Flood Centipede... Planet Ghtab-4... attacked a battalion of golden soldiers during the planetary invasion and caused massive destruction?”

His smile deepened with interest.

Carefully, with delicate fingers, he opened the jar while making sure the seal broke smoothly and no unexpected reaction would occur. ”Show me your secrets, Mr. Centipede.”

Inside the jar, a thick dark liquid slowly shifted and rolled with the movement of the container. Its color constantly wavered between black and deep oceanic blue, as if the blood itself could not decide which shade it belonged to.

Jabba immediately activated the Eye of Truth.

But nothing shone.

The green Eye of Truth was no longer radiant like it once had been. In the past, activating it caused a clear glow and visible fluctuations of energy.

Now... almost nothing changed.

Yet anyone looking closely into Jabbaʼs eyes would notice that the pupils alone had transformed into a dark green shade that leaned dangerously toward black.

Those Eyes of Truth resembled a dying star in its final moments before collapse. ”...Amazing” Jabba whispered quietly, his voice filled with fascination. ”The density of the stable energy particles isnʼt particularly high... nor is it especially low.”

He leaned forward, bringing the jar closer to his face. ”But the way they behave... thatʼs strange.”

His pupils shifted slightly as he followed the movement of the microscopic structures within the blood. ”Each cluster of particles forms its own independent energy path... completely separate from the others. Itʼs as if each path exists in isolation.”

He paused briefly. ”...Almost like braided strands.”

His fingers tapped lightly on the glass. ”Like braids tying together completely different systems.”

Then his attention moved deeper into the structure. ”The mutable particles...” he murmured. ”Theyʼre supporting this entire formation.”

His brow slowly furrowed. ”Their main function seems to be transferring energy between the braids when needed. They act like bridges that redirect energy from one path to another.”

He tilted his head slightly. ”But why build such a complicated system?”

Jabbaʼs expression turned thoughtful.

This structure was far too elaborate for a simple biological creature.

He began searching through the cluttered room, stepping carefully between stacks of containers until he located a small light disk that had arrived together with the jar. Picking it up, he brushed away a thin layer of dust and activated it.

A projection immediately appeared. (Aaaah!!) (Cut those cursed legs off!!)

Jabbaʼs brows tightened instantly as he watched.

The Flood Centipede had been nearly one hundred meters long while alive. Its elongated body twisted violently as it moved, while dozens upon dozens of legs extended from its sides.

Each leg looked like a sharpened blade.

Long, curved, and deadly.

But that was not the strange part.

Creatures in the universe came in countless bizarre forms. Jabba had studied enough of them to no longer be surprised by unusual anatomy.

The truly strange part... ...was what those legs were doing.

Each individual leg was fighting on its own.

One leg was clashing with a golden officer. Another leg was battling two soldiers simultaneously. A third leg was intercepting attacks while striking back with terrifying precision.

Every leg attacked.

Every leg defended.

Every leg maneuvered and exchanged blows with its own rhythm.

It was as if each limb possessed its own awareness and combat instincts.

As if every leg was a separate creature fighting independently from the rest of the body. ”Now itʼs no wonder the battalion suffered such massive destruction,” Jabba said quietly as he set the projection disk aside and leaned closer toward the jar again, returning his full attention to the dark blood swirling slowly within the glass container. ”So this unique energy-transfer system exists to feed each leg independently?”

He let out a long breath as his thoughts began organizing themselves. ”With this method, the centipede distributes exactly the amount of power required to each limb,” he murmured thoughtfully. ”The legs that arenʼt actively fighting receive no energy at all. Meanwhile, a leg preparing to attack draws a larger portion... and when the attack finishes, the energy shifts again.” His eyes followed the invisible pathways his mind was imagining. ”And so on...”

Jabba slowly nodded to himself. ”...like a self-contained army.” He tapped lightly on the table. ”Each limb acts as an independent combat unit, yet they all share the same energy reserve. Efficiency without waste... coordination without central overload.”

Then his eyebrows rose slowly, as if a distant thought had suddenly surfaced from the depths of his memory. ”The Warlords!!”

He leaned back slightly and rested his chin on his palm. ”The use of Warlords was abandoned because transferring the immense energy of a World Cataclysm and a Nexus State-and controlling it-became impossible within the primary array designed by the Master.”

His fingers began tapping rhythmically against his chin. ”The original array simply couldnʼt distribute that much energy without collapsing under the strain.”

He exhaled slowly. ”And because the Master had far more important matters occupying his attention, he never returned to redesign the War Lords afterward.”

Jabbaʼs eyes slowly brightened with interest. ”But if...”

He leaned forward again. ”If the braid structure were applied to the new array...”

His tapping quickened slightly. ”...and perhaps several World Cataclysms were placed as multiple cores within the array... with the braids flowing between them while the mutable particle system controlled the flow...”

His gaze sharpened. ”...then energy could transfer freely between the cores.”

He sat up straighter. ”The pressure on any single core would be reduced.”

A long silence filled the room. ”...Could that actually work?” ”...Heh~”

Jabba released a slow breath that blended into a quiet, amused laugh. ”Is it possible... that the problem which stumped three Sky Opening Cities...”

He looked back at the jar with growing fascination. ”...the problem that halted the advancement of War Sovereignty Arrays across the entire universe below the level of a World Cataclysm...”

His eyes narrowed slightly. ”...will be solved by a creature called the Flood Centipede?”

He shook his head in disbelief. ”...What an extraordinary design.”

His gaze then drifted slowly around the crowded room.

Everywhere he looked, there were jars.

Hundreds of them.

Perhaps thousands.

And beyond those... the countless other samples that had already been removed and discarded over the decades.

Every single one of them came from the same source.

The same primordial chaos.

Yet none of them resembled the others.

Each creature.

Each cell. Each drop of blood.

Contained a completely different structure.

A different pattern.

A different design.

Each one stood as proof of the brilliance of its creator.

Design...

Design...

Design...

The small smile on Jabbaʼs lips slowly faded away.

Everything shared the same origin.

Everything shared the same creator.

Everything shared the same designer. Only the design itself changed.

What made the centipede a monstrous beast...

And what made him, at this very moment, a thinking being sitting safely in this room studying its blood with advanced intelligence... ...was design.

Nothing else.

If the design changed...

Then what would happen if-

Paah

Jabba suddenly slapped his own forehead. ”There I go again,” he muttered with a small embarrassed laugh. ”Drifting into ridiculous fantasies.”

He shook his head. ”Better return to work.”

A playful grin appeared on his face. ”If I manage to contribute to improving the War Lords, the Master might forget about forcing me to submit an application regarding Sovereign Laws every thousand years.”

He chuckled softly. ”Hehe... heh?”

But when Jabba lowered his gaze back toward the jar-

His expression abruptly froze.

Shock.

Confusion.

Disbelief.

The particles were gone.

He could no longer see them. ”Whatʼs happening?!” Jabba immediately rubbed his eye forcefully, as if trying to clear some invisible obstruction. Then he gathered a surge of energy and pushed it into his eye, activating the focused Eye of Truth the way he had done countless times across the last several hundred years. Nothing happened.

The familiar microscopic universe never appeared. ”What is this? Whatʼs happening?!” Jabba suddenly stood up from his seat, the chair scraping harshly against the floor as he leaned forward, staring intensely at the jar before him.

As if his will alone could force reality to obey.

For the first time in centuries, panic crept into his mind.

At that moment he felt as if something had been torn away from him.

Like losing a limb.

No...

Something far worse. ”...Huh?”

Then suddenly...

He stopped moving.

His breathing slowed. ”What... is... this...?”

His vision had changed again.

But he was no longer seeing particles.

He was no longer seeing cells.

The microscopic structures had vanished completely.

Instead...

He was seeing something else.