Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2409 Temporal change

Mid Sector 93 — Next to the Buffer Zone

Silence~

The space of the sector was strangely, almost unnaturally silent at that moment, without even the slightest disturbance seeming capable of breaking the oppressive stillness hanging over the vast region.

Not because it was empty, no, far from it... Quite the opposite, in fact. That particular region had never before been this crowded or occupied by such an enormous concentration of forces gathered together in one place.

At this moment, no fewer than 3,000 armadas were positioned in a purely offensive formation, an enormous fleet consisting of more than a million vessels of varying shapes and sizes spread across the surrounding space, every one of them waiting in readiness to pounce the instant the order was given.

And before that enormous fleet, whose vessels were uniformly colored a pale yellow, stood Arkail alongside nearly forty of his sons, all of them floating leisurely through the sectorʼs space as though the tremendous military force gathered behind and before them wasnʼt enough to disturb their composure.

Every one of their eyes gleamed with unmistakable hostility, and every one of them was clearly prepared to enter battle at any moment, their postures and expressions leaving absolutely no doubt about their intentions...

Especially Arkail himself, whose hostility was even more apparent than that of all his sons!

And who exactly was all that hostility directed toward? A force standing opposite them that was certainly no less powerful or prepared for battle!

”Arkail!” A man standing some distance away at what could be considered a safe distance shouted loudly enough for his voice to carry clearly across the battlefield, ”This isnʼt your play ground, this isnʼt how you conducted yourself for tens of millions of years. Stop embarrassing yourself and turn around and go back on your own two feet while you still can, before I send you back in a coffin!”

That person possessed an enormous and exceptionally imposing build. He was unmistakably human, yet his height approached two and a half meters, while his heavily developed, bulging muscles remained clearly visible even beneath the folds of the loose royal robe covering his massive body.

His face was somewhat square in shape, and every part of his expression radiated raw strength and stern seriousness. In one hand, he firmly held a scepter topped by a massive sphere, around which an obscure and suspicious force continuously gathered alongside an aura terrifying enough to make its extraordinary nature obvious.

Behind him stood around fifty people as well, each possessing a powerful aura and displaying an equally obvious readiness for battle. Every one of them wore similarly loose robes, though they had tightly bound the fabric around their waists so that it wouldnʼt hinder their movements once the fighting began.

And behind those individuals stretched an enormous fleet, one noticeably larger than the force Arkail himself had brought. Even with nothing more than the naked eye, one could easily make out five thousand armadas extending through the surrounding space, all of them unified in color and arranged within the same coordinated defensive formation.

Beside them were another three thousand armadas at last, though unlike the previous force, their colors varied greatly and their fleet formations were clearly different from one another, making their separate origins obvious at a glance. There were even several individuals standing specifically before those fleets rather than remaining within them, each of them staring toward Arkail and his sons with undisguised hatred written across their faces.

In other words, the total military force currently assembled against Arkail had reached a staggering eight thousand armadas altogether, while the force standing on his side amounted to only the three thousand armadas he had personally brought with him.

...There was also a certain orange vessel slowly moving ahead of the fighter fleet, advancing at an unhurried pace among all those gathered forces, and Arkailʼs sons were keeping a particularly close eye on that vessel, their attention repeatedly returning to it despite everything else surrounding them.

”Send me back in a coffin?” Arkailʼs eyes flashed sharply as he repeated those words, his expression showing no trace of intimidation despite the overwhelming force gathered against him. ”The last person who said similar words to me failed to fulfill his promise, and you wonʼt fulfill yours today either, Gravus!”

...After Renara announced her complete control over the Talisman Galaxy and Zargul fled, followed later on that very same day by the greatest and bloodiest battle of the modern era between Hedrick and Darvion, a battle that ultimately ended with the latterʼs death... Arkail finally realized that neutrality had become a luxury he could no longer afford to enjoy. Playing hard to get was no longer logical under the rapidly changing circumstances, while attempting to draw closer slowly to either Robin or the Syndicate without truly choosing a side had become outright ridiculous.

He had to make a decision.

So, on that very same day and without allowing himself additional time for hesitation, he sent his entire army eastward toward Mid Sector 95. He didnʼt wait for his forces to complete their journey, instead gathering all of his first-rank sons and heading directly toward the Major Space Gate, using it to cross the enormous distance within only a few hours until he reached the Syndicateʼs reinforcements, whereupon he confronted the entire advancing force on his own without waiting for his army to arrive.

During that battle, the true strength Arkail and his sons had spent so long doing everything within their power to conceal was finally exposed before everyone. In that battle, Arkail and his sons alone faced one and a half million combat vessels carrying millions upon millions of cannons, hundreds of Nexus States, and more than twenty Dominators gathered among their ranks... and despite that tremendous numerical and military superiority, Arkail and his sons utterly crushed them and handed them a devastating defeat.

Only three of Arkailʼs sons were injured during that overwhelming confrontation, and even those three were forced to undergo continuous treatment and recovery for three consecutive years before their conditions fully stabilized... In return for those injuries, however, ten Dominators on the Syndicateʼs side were killed outright, while a full thousand armadas were destroyed during the battle before the remaining forces finally lost their ability and willingness to continue resisting and began retreating in defeat.

But even such a result wasnʼt enough to satisfy Arkail, who continued pursuing the retreating forces instead of allowing them to escape safely. Together, he and his sons maintained the chase and brought down another thousand armadas along the way, as well as an additional Monarch, before they finally succeeded in driving every last one of the Syndicateʼs remaining forces toward Mid Sector 92... in other words, directly toward the sector belonging to the Gravity Behemoth, Gravus.

That prolonged and increasingly fierce pursuit wasnʼt without a price, as another ten of Arkailʼs sons were injured during the repeated confrontations, while Arkail himself became noticeably exhausted after a particular battle in which he found himself standing alone against nearly a million cannons simultaneously. Because of that accumulated exhaustion and the injuries suffered by his sons, they finally stopped their advance in Mid Sector 93... firstly in order to secure the sector and make certain that the defeated fleet wouldnʼt simply return after they left, and secondly to give themselves enough time to recover and properly tend to their injuries.

The forces belonging to the Temporal Behemoth Arkail, however, hadnʼt remained idle and stationary like Arkail and his injured sons during that period...

Over the course of those ten years, the forces under the Temporal Behemoth steadily traveled the entire road from Mid Sector 96 all the way to Mid Sector 93, and in every sector they entered along that path, they left behind a full thousand armadas before formally announcing the annexation of that sector under Lord Robinʼs sovereignty.

Under the leadership and direct command of Arkailʼs second-rank sons, the thousand armadas stationed in Mid Sector 95 and the other thousand stationed in Mid Sector 94 attacked any empire that openly objected to the annexation decision or attempted to resist it, while also launching attacks against the Syndicateʼs own headquarters scattered throughout those sectors.

At the same time, they opened and secured routes that allowed Marshal Aroʼs Note-4 vessels to roam freely throughout the sectors without obstruction, secured new headquarters from which the Shadow Swords could operate safely, and established official headquarters belonging to the Grave Empire where the various powers wishing to approach them and formally declare their allegiance could go and complete the process.

This sudden transformation in the situation, along with the shocking declaration accompanying it, sent yet another tremendous wave of uproar throughout the entire universe, adding even more confusion and speculation to everything that had already happened recently...

After Lord Hedrick and Lady Renara and everything those two had done, Temporal Arkail was now openly moving through the Mid Sectors and announcing the subjugation and annexation of entire sectors in Lord Robinʼs name!!

And that, of course, was without even mentioning everything that had happened with Zavaros and Kiryan...

No one knew exactly what was happening behind the scenes or what agreements had been made away from the public eye, but everyone understood that something enormous was undoubtedly taking place, and that all of these individuals couldnʼt possibly have simply awakened one morning and independently decided to start working for another person without some major reason behind it... especially when that person was widely known throughout the universe as nothing more than a Truth Chosen!!

The rumors surrounding Robin were no longer merely spreading rapidly from one person and one region to another; they had transformed into something resembling raging waves sweeping through the universe without pause. Simply listening for ten minutes to everything being said about him was enough to make an ordinary person cover their ears and walk away, unable to tolerate the sheer absurdity and exaggeration of many of those claims.

Most of those rumors, naturally, were negative in nature.

And the most famous and widely circulated among them concerned his suspicious relationship with the Red Plague, a rumor supported by actual recordings showing a tremendous number of those things entering the mysterious planet Donara... the same strange planet around which increasingly terrifying theories had begun to emerge and spread.

More and more eyes throughout the universe turned toward Robin with a mixture of fear, suspicion, and anticipation. A terrifying new power had appeared before everyone, a power that was steadily attempting to extend its influence over the sectors one after another, and no one yet knew whether this rising force would ultimately prove benevolent like the Star Academies and the Soul Society, or whether its rise would instead usher in an entirely new age of oppression and domination like the Syndicate and the Tyrant.