Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2443 Cosmic Silence

”Damn it!” Faced with the dark beam rapidly approaching his position and leaving him virtually no room to hesitate, Theo didnʼt waste even a single instant thinking about how he should respond.

He immediately pulled out an Instant Space Gate and activated it without the slightest delay. Bzzzt The gate came to life at once, and Theo jumped directly through it, disappearing from his position while leaving all of the recording equipment he had been using behind.

Hummm

At that very moment, almost immediately after Theo disappeared through the gate, the dark beam plunged deep into the planetʼs ground and continued downward through the soil.

BOOOOOOOOM

The desert planet instantly exploded violently from within, as its core couldnʼt withstand the destructive force for even a fraction of a second after the beam penetrated deeply enough to reach its center. Every living being still present anywhere on the planet could hear the Planet Soul releasing its final agonized scream as the world itself reached its end, before all of them joined it moments later in eternal death.

”That annoying gate!!” Helmor shouted in a low, irritated voice as he stared toward the place where Theo had disappeared. Naturally, he had clearly noticed Theo jumping through the gate before his attack arrived, so he immediately began looking around the surrounding space, using his soul sense, the power of rejection, and practically every other means at his disposal in an attempt to determine exactly where Theo had reappeared.

The Instant Space Gate array was still something exclusively reserved for the leaders of the Shadow Swords and individuals carrying out special missions, and it hadnʼt yet become something distributed freely among everyone beneath them. However, lately, practically everything had somehow become classified as a special mission, and whether they liked it or not, those gates had consequently begun appearing with increasing frequency and becoming increasingly familiar to the upper ranks of the universe, especially after they repeatedly appeared aboard the Rapid Support Vessels!

Everyone among those upper ranks already knew that this strange gate was one of Robinʼs inventions that he had refused to permit for sale, and they also knew enough about its capabilities to understand that it could only be used to travel toward relatively nearby planets, with its maximum range restricted to the boundaries of a single solar system.

But putting that irritating gate itself aside for the moment... Helmorʼs expression gradually began to worsen as his search continued without producing the result he expected.

He had already examined every surrounding planet that Theo could reasonably have reached using that gate, yet all of his efforts proved completely useless... He simply couldnʼt find Theo anywhere.

”How?!” Helmor suddenly shouted, unable to understand how Theo could have vanished despite the limited range of the gate he had just used.

”Have I suddenly become transparent over here?!” Zavarosʼs tremendously deep voice thundered through the surrounding space, clearly unwilling to simply stand there and be ignored while Helmor searched for Theo, and then Swoooooosh a thick torrent of violent purple flames surged toward Helmor.

”Get lost!” Helmor thrust both of his palms directly toward the approaching flames, instantly creating a barrier formed entirely from the power of destruction. That destructive barrier continued advancing directly through the torrent of purple fire without stopping, destroying and erasing the flames in its path as it pushed farther forward, until it eventually reached close to Zavarosʼs enormous mouth before finally exploding beneath the tremendous pressure bearing down upon it.

As for Helmor himself, he took advantage of those few precious seconds created by his defense and flew at tremendous speed toward the nearby group of planets, closing the distance so that he could begin searching them much more intensely than before. He continued examining them until he finally discovered traces belonging to the Law of Space upon the surface of one of those planets, precisely the kind of residual traces that would remain lingering in an area for a short period after a spatial gate had been activated there.

”...?” Helmor tightly furrowed his white eyebrows as his attention settled completely upon those lingering traces of the Law of Space, carefully examining them and confirming what he had found.

He had already used his soul sense to search the area, spread his energy extensively across the planet, and employed practically everything he possessed to inspect it from every angle available to him, yet despite all of that, he couldnʼt sense anything unusual whatsoever... The planet itself was almost completely devoid of any living creatures, and nevertheless, even after confirming that Theoʼs gate had brought him there, Helmor still couldnʼt actually find Theo anywhere. ”Whatʼs going on?”

Dooom

”Damn it!” Helmor abruptly sensed an enormous planetary-scale force rapidly approaching his position, forcing his attention away from the strange disappearance he had been investigating. It was Zavarosʼs tremendously enormous tail sweeping toward him.

Helmor immediately raised both of his palms and placed a powerful barrier of destruction between himself and the incoming tail. Crack One of the enormous scales covering Zavarosʼs body cracked violently beneath the force of their collision, but despite the damage inflicted upon the beast, Helmor himself was sent flying backward with tremendous force from the impact.

”Hmph!” Even while his body was being hurled backward by the overwhelming force of Zavarosʼs strike, Helmor didnʼt forget about Theo or the planet where he had detected those spatial traces, and he immediately fired another destructive beam directly toward that second planet. ”Die this time!”

But almost immediately afterward, Helmorʼs eyes opened to their absolute widest as he saw what happened.

Bzzzt Near the exact location where Helmor had sensed those lingering spatial traces only moments earlier, an Instant Space Gate suddenly opened for the briefest moment before immediately closing again, disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared.

Helmor sensed something passing through that gate, something so faint and elusive that it felt almost like a gentle breeze of air slipping through the opening, but despite focusing his senses upon it, he neither saw nor managed to perceive any other useful detail about whatever had crossed through.

”What exactly is this?!” Helmor shouted, completely abandoning any concern for his ongoing battle with Zavaros as his curiosity and irritation took over, placing all of his attention upon the remaining nearby planets and searching them intensely until he finally detected another Instant Space Gate opening on the surface of a different planet nearby.

Immediately, now taking the entire matter as a purely personal challenge rather than merely an interruption to his battle, Helmor directly shattered the space separating him from that location and appeared upon the surface of the planet, arriving directly in front of the gate without wasting another moment.

Hooooooooom

A terrifying force erupted outward from Helmorʼs body the instant he arrived, spreading rapidly across the surface of the planet as he used it to search every possible location around him.

Until finally, after searching across the surrounding area, Helmorʼs gaze suddenly locked onto one particular direction. ”There.” Then he took a step toward that location while extending one of his hands forward, his fingers spread and curved like the talons of a hawk reaching out to seize its prey.

Bzzzt In that exact direction, another Instant Space Gate suddenly opened.

But—

”Kghhh!” From within Helmorʼs seemingly empty hand, pained sounds suddenly began emerging at that very moment, despite there appearing to be absolutely nothing held within his fingers.

Then, little by little, a personʼs figure slowly became visible within his grasp... It was Theo, and his neck was already firmly trapped inside Helmorʼs hand.

Helmorʼs hand wasnʼt merely gripping Theo physically. It was completely enveloped in the power of destruction along with several large and powerful layers surrounding it, all of them specifically intended to forcibly nullify every Law Theo possessed and prevent him from using them, rather than simply restraining his body.

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR

From high above them came an enormous roar powerful enough to shake the entire atmosphere of the planet, and the force accompanying that tremendous sound triggered massive earthquakes across its surface, causing mountains to collapse under the violent tremors while lakes erupted from the disturbance.

Zavarosʼs enormous face was visible across the distant horizon as he stared downward toward the surface, his sheer size dominating everything within sight, while the planetʼs moon hung upon one of his gigantic horns and thick purple flames escaped continuously from both sides of his mouth, making the terrifying sight resemble a scene taken directly from the end of the world...

Yet Helmor paid absolutely no attention to that horrifying sight despite standing directly within the range of Zavarosʼs flames and being exposed to an attack from above, because he knew perfectly well that Zavaros wouldnʼt dare act while the situation remained like this.

”...What exactly are you using?” Helmor slowly looked Theo up and down while maintaining his grip around his neck, examining him as though trying to understand the nature of what he had just witnessed. ”Spacetime? No... these arenʼt the characteristics of Spacetime.” Then his gaze settled directly upon Theoʼs eyes as he continued questioning him. ”Only the fourth stage... What kind of Law exists beneath Spacetime yet still gives you concealment at this level?”

”....” Despite the pain he was suffering while hanging helplessly within Helmorʼs grasp, Theo managed to reveal a strange smile as he forced the words out. ”A customized merged Law... designed specifically for concealment, of course... Something that only... my father could invent... naturally... just because he wanted... to spoil me alittle... Heh... hehe...”

”....” Helmorʼs expression immediately darkened as he understood the meaning hidden behind Theoʼs words. It was obvious that Theo was deliberately insulting him, describing him indirectly as someone ignorant and incapable, someone who lacked both the knowledge and the means to have anything comparable. ”Weʼll see whoʼll be doing the spoiling once he receives news that youʼve been killed by me.”

ROOOOOOOOOOOAR— Zavaros roared again with even greater urgency, then opened his enormous mouth in obvious alarm as he saw what Helmor was preparing to do. ”Donʼt do it, Helmor! Donʼt do it! You canʼt bear the consequences of this! No one can bear those consequences!!”

”Consequences...” Helmor raised his head slightly and looked upward with a defiant smile spreading across his face, showing no sign whatsoever that Zavarosʼs warning had frightened him or changed his intentions. ”I want to see those consequences.”

The destruction energy surrounding Helmorʼs hand immediately began changing in nature, shifting away from the functions of detection and sealing that had been suppressing Theoʼs Laws and gradually transforming into genuine destructive power meant to truly destroy what remained within his grasp.

”...” When Theo sensed that transformation, when he physically felt his neck beginning to disappear beneath that destructive energy and his entire existence instinctively sensed that death was finally approaching him, he offered no further resistance and simply closed his eyes.

He had already done everything within his power to serve his father, giving everything he could without holding anything back, and even if time itself were turned backward and he were given the opportunity to live through everything again, there was nothing he would choose to change and nothing among his actions that he would regret... He could leave peacefully now.

But for some reason... somehow, despite everything happening around him and despite death already beginning to close around his existence...

Theo suddenly heard a familiar voice:

”Let the boy go.”

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