Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2156 The confusing defense

The shock that struck the entire universe that day was beyond anything that could be measured, beyond anything that could be easily understood or even rationalized by the countless observers who followed the shifting tides of power across the sectors.

A millennial empire... an existence that had stood for millions of years, with roots sunk deep into its sector and influence spreading across countless systems... becoming subordinate to another empire without a war?

And not just any empire, but the Grave Empire, one that had only come into existence a few short centuries ago? An empire that, on the surface, did not even possess a proper, officially recognized ruler, but instead was led by nothing more than a Nexus State figure known as the Silent Emperor?!

The absurdity of it all made it feel like a rumor at first... like some poorly crafted lie meant to shake the balance of power.

Of course, the major powers were not ignorant. They were fully aware that the Grave Empire had ties to Lord Robin, the coming Great Truth Chosen, a figure whose name had already begun to carve itself into the foundation of the universe itself... but even so, was that truly enough reason for a millennial empire to bow its head?

Was that enough to abandon pride, history, and sovereignty without even drawing a blade?

It is worth remembering that even a single millennial empire, such as the Crumbled Dreams Empire, had brought two Behemoths to their knees, inflicting upon them a level of suffering that will echo for ages, and denying them any chance of conquering its sector.

Such was the weight of a millennial empire.

And yet... one had simply submitted.

The news was undeniably shocking, shaking the structure of countless alliances and calculations. No one knew the real reason behind it, nor the hidden terms of the agreement, nor the true intent behind such a move... but naturally, no one received it the way the Sorcerer Behemoth himself did.

Because for him... this was not just news.

It was the final piece of a puzzle.

Now, the full picture had become clear before his eyes.

Aro had made a secret deal with the Empire of Vast Ice while declaring war openly. The declaration of war itself had been nothing more than it... bail that forced the Sorcerer Behemoth to withdraw his remaining forces from Mid Sector 98 and throw them into the conflict in Mid Sector 97, stretching his defenses into nothing.

And at that exact moment... Aro struck.

He seized the opportunity without hesitation and launched his attack on Mid Sector 98, targeting the exposed heart of Zargolʼs influence.

Then, as if that were not enough, he tightened the trap further.

He left instructions for the Empire of Vast Ice to continue playing their role, to manipulate the Sorcerer Behemoth, to draw from him as many resources as possible, to bleed him dry while keeping him distracted, while keeping him uncertain, while stealing from him something far more valuable than resources... time.

Precious, irreplaceable time.

From the very beginning... Zargol had not been reacting to events.

He had been guided by them.

No... more accurately... he had been dancing to the rhythm of Aroʼs schemes, step by step, unknowingly following a path that had already been laid out before him.

And that realization burned.

It burned deeper than any battlefield loss, deeper than any destruction of fleets or planets.

Because it was not just defeat.

It was humiliation.

And it came at a price.

Nearly 15 billion pearls... lost in support of the Millennial Empire of Vast Ice.

A fortune that could sustain wars for ages, wasted in a single miscalculation.

The universe laughed.

And Zargol heard it.

He roared in fury that day, his rage shaking the very foundations of his domain. For the first time in a long while, he abandoned calculation, abandoned caution, abandoned the cold, strategic thinking that had kept him at the top for so long. He did not consider supporting the Empire of Continuous Chaos.

He did not consider proxy warfare.

He did not consider balance or consequence.

He chose destruction.

Zargol issued direct orders to his son stationed in Mid Sector 99 to destroy both the Empire of Vast Ice and the Grave Empire, and within the same message, he promised him to find ways to resolve the negative karma that would inevitably accumulate from such reckless slaughter.

It was a desperate promise... and a hollow one.

His son knew it.

He was fully aware that Hedrick and Kaylis were allied, both supported by Lord Robin. And no one can help him to that level expect for Kaylis and her scions!

There was no real confidence in that order... no belief in its success.

But obedience did not require belief.

So he moved to attack.

And Zargol did not stop there.

He sent more of his sons, one after another, reinforcing the strike, building a force that could crush resistance through sheer overwhelming power.

At the peak of his rage, he nearly dispatched all of his sons and generals, ready to gamble everything in a single, catastrophic move...

But reality intervened.

The presence of the Temporal Behemoth Arkaile, stationed with his army and most of his sons at the borders of Mid Sector 98, forced Zargol to restrain himself.

He feared that if he emptied his defenses and committed fully against the Grave Empire, Arkaile would mirror the move, using a major space portal and striking directly into his galaxy.

And that... would be the end.

Thus, he limited himself.

Four sons were sent.

Four... added to the one already there...

Five royal soul masters in total.

Each one a monster in their own right.

The weakest among them possessed seven purple stars.

The strongest... stood at the edge of ninth.

A force like this was not meant for war.

It was meant for annihilation.

By the end of the first year since Aroʼs entry into the buffer zone with his fleet, the five brothers moved as one.

Their attack was precise.

Their timing was perfect.

They struck the capital of the Grave Empire and the capital of the Empire of

Vast Ice at the exact same moment, a synchronized blow meant to shatter both powers before they could react.

To end it all in a single day.

But Aro... Aro had never been a man who left such things to chance.

The five brothers were met with multiple layers of ancient arrays... arrays that had once been used by the ancients during the Anti-Life Wars to defend themselves against space beasts and the Blue Plague. These were not ordinary defensive formations, but relics of an era when survival itself required overwhelming measures. Each one of them was valued at billions, irreplaceable, unavailable in any market, and no longer reproducible in the current age no matter how advanced a civilization might be.

Nicopolis and Zrajan, the capitals of the Grave Empire and the Empire of Vast Ice, each possessed five of these arrays, stacked in dense, overlapping layers, forming a defensive system that resembled an impenetrable shell rather than a conventional barrier.

On that day, three of the brothers attacked the planet Zrajan, while the other two targeted Nicopolis, coordinating their assault with precision, intending to break both capitals at once and cripple the two empires beyond recovery. They encountered no direct resistance. No fleets came out to meet them, no generals stood in their way, no desperate counterattacks were launched to slow them down.

At first, it felt like victory had already been handed to them. But what followed... shattered that illusion completely.

Every time they broke through one of the five layers, they were immediately forced to deal with the remaining layers beneath it. And every time they spent time working through those layers, pouring their power into dismantling the defenses... the first layer they had destroyed would already be repaired and restored to full operation.

The cycle repeated.

Break one... fight through the rest... and the first returns.

Again.

And again.

And again.

For soul masters who considered attrition their greatest enemy, who measured battles in terms of efficiency and sustainability, this was nothing short of a nightmare... an endless drain on their strength, their focus, and even their will.

And worse... it was controlled.

Deliberate.

They realized quickly that if they continued, they would not break the capitals... they would exhaust themselves instead.

So they withdrew.

Reluctantly.

And turned their fury outward.

Within three months, they annihilated the populations of seven planets, reducing thriving worlds into silent husks, and destroyed three more entirely, shattering them beyond recovery.

Yet even in their destruction, they felt no satisfaction.

Only frustration.

Every meaningful target they sought was protected by layers upon layers of those ancient arrays, defenses so absurdly resilient that even beings of their level felt as if they were clawing at something immovable.

It drove them closer to madness. Where had the Grave Empire obtained such a stockpile?

How could an empire so young possess defenses that even ancient powers would struggle to gather?

But as they continued their assaults, repeating the same pattern across different worlds, they began to notice something strange... something that unsettled them far more than the arrays themselves.

On one particular planet, there was only a single defensive layer. The royal soul master attacking it pressed forward confidently, believing he had finally found a weak point. Within an hour, he was already close to breaking through...

And then-

Another layer appeared.

A second array activated out of nowhere.

This time, however... he saw it.

He saw soldiers of the Grave Empire moving across the planet at incredible speed, installing components of that array in multiple locations simultaneously, linking them together with terrifying coordination.

In less than an hour...

An ancient array had been rebuilt and activated. These were not small formations or temporary defenses.

These were massive ancient arrays... relics that had once taken decades to relocate in the ancient era, anchored to worlds and stars themselves.

And yet here... they were being dismantled, transported, and reassembled with terrifying ease.

The implications were horrifying.

The Grave Empire did not possess countless ancient arrays... they likely had only a handful, perhaps ten at most.

But they did not need more.

They were rotating them.

Constantly.

Predicting targets, anticipating attacks, reinforcing key locations just in time, creating the illusion of an endless supply.

This realization hit like a blow.

The brother who witnessed it immediately abandoned his assault and rushed to inform the others, understanding that this changed everything.

This was not a defensive system...

It was a strategy.

And it meant something far worse. Had they, until now, destroyed nothing but worthless planets? Had they been wasting their strength, their time, and accumulating massive amounts of negative karma... all for targets the enemy did not even value? Were the Grave Empire and the Empire of Vast Ice simply letting them burn themselves out on meaningless victories?

The thought alone was enough to shake even beings of their level. As the four brothers gathered, trying to process this revelation, attempting to track the movement of the arrays, to predict where they would appear next, to regain even a fragment of control over the situation... Another piece of shocking news arrived.

The Nexus State experts and royal soul masters that Aro had previously deployed into Mid Sector 98... had returned to appear. They did not regroup.

They did not concentrate their forces.

Instead...

They struck everywhere.

Sixty different locations across the entire sector were attacked at the exact same moment, each strike precise, each target carefully chosen to disrupt, destabilize, and confuse.

Supply lines were hit. Communication nodes were destroyed. Key strongholds were shaken.

And before any meaningful response could be organized...

Once again, they vanished.