Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2502 Break-2

Mid Sector 666—

”Graaaaaaah!!”

Hundreds of thousands of undead ran forward without awareness, thought, or any will of their own, their bodies simply rushing onward as though nothing else mattered.

They emerged in vast numbers from beneath the ground and fell from atop the plateaus, burst violently out from the depths of the lake, and rushed forth in dense masses from a pitch-black, barren gate, converging toward the same place from every direction.

A similar number of ghosts continuously flickered in and out of existence among them, their vague forms appearing for moments before vanishing again, while their faces were even uglier, more twisted, and more terrifying than those of the undead themselves.

And amid all of this overwhelming flood of corpses and ghosts, there was a person—no, rather, calling it a person would be wrong; there was a thing...

There stood an enormous skeleton nearly six meters tall, its entire towering body covered in black cloth that was torn and ragged around the edges, while a hood concealed the upper portion of its head. Nothing could be seen of it beneath that dark covering except its bare skeletal face and two green pearls gleaming eerily where its eyes should have been.

(”Jodaaa Heer Raaat—”) The skeleton raised one of its limbs and pointed directly toward the young man standing before it, then spoke in a strange, incomprehensible language that even the translation technologies were completely unable to detect or interpret.

As soon as those strange words left it, the undead rushing forward became noticeably faster and considerably more ferocious in their movements.

Far in the distance, beyond the chaotic flood surrounding Caesar, stood three semi-transparent fiery creatures of different heights and shapes, their strange bodies burning while remaining partially translucent as they silently watched everything taking place before them.

”Shut the fuck up already!”

Facing the enormous flood of corpses rushing directly toward him from every direction, Caesar didnʼt retreat even a single step. Instead, he leaned forward and began running straight through the approaching horde in the direction of the enormous skeleton standing beyond them.

Then, whoosh, he pulled out an enormous black scythe, its long shaft bearing three crimson pearls that stood out sharply against its darkness—the Scythe of Stillness, the gift of his father.

And without slowing his advance, he began swinging it repeatedly before him. Whoosh

Every swing released several blades of energy so intensely black that they seemed almost solid. Whenever one of those blades touched an undead, it instantly reduced its entire body to a mass of ash, as though the body that had somehow endured for millions of years had suddenly stopped trying to preserve itself and simply surrendered to the passage of time.

And whenever that same dark energy touched one of the ghosts drifting among the undead, its repulsive green body immediately dispersed and dissolved into the surrounding air, disappearing so thoroughly that it seemed as though it had never existed there in the first place.

Every swing of the Scythe of Stillness cleared a long path through the dense savagery and horror filling the space before Caesar, reducing everything caught within that path into scattered dust and heavy air while allowing him to continue advancing through the horde.

Disturbance

”Argh!!” Caesar suddenly lost his balance beneath the unexpected disturbance and fell to the ground. ”What happened all of a sudden?!”

”Hwaaaaaaaa!!”

Caesar had neither the time to answer his own question nor the opportunity to stop and contemplate what was happening around him. The undead surrounding him had fallen as well beneath the same disturbance, yet even after losing their footing, they continued charging toward him on their knees and hands in a horrifying manner, refusing to stop their advance.

”Useless creatures, die!!” Caesar swung the scythe several times while he was still sitting on the ground, sending the black blades sweeping through his immediate surroundings until everything around him had been cleared away, then he pushed himself back to his feet and continued advancing, his entire body blazing with a deep, dark black aura.

Before coming to this galaxy, merely a single swing of this kind would have been enough to drain him until his face turned pale and his body became weak, yet by now, during this battle alone, he had already used such attacks at least twenty times without encountering any real problem.

”Doon Bagoot—” The enormous skeleton shouted in its incomprehensible language, a powerful suppressive aura spreading from its towering body as it watched Caesar rapidly approaching through the undead.

Then, whoosh, it too pulled out an enormous scythe whose sheer size nearly matched the skeletonʼs own massive body.

And swung—

BOOOOOOOOOOM

The enormous skeletonʼs scythe collided directly with Caesarʼs Scythe of Stillness, and the impact instantly produced massive black waves that swept outward and slammed into the army surrounding the two of them, causing hundreds of thousands of undead and ghosts throughout the surrounding area to crash to the ground together.

”Arghh!!” Caesar was forced down onto one knee beneath the weight of the collision, gritting his teeth tightly as he resisted the tremendous force pressing against him.

That blow he had just received was powerful enough that, had an ordinary person at the peak of the Nexus State taken it directly, they would have immediately lost their life.

But from Caesarʼs own perception, what he had felt wasnʼt an amount of energy or physical strength equivalent to the peak of the Nexus State. Instead, what had struck him was a terrifyingly dense mass of death energy that had accumulated within that skeleton over a countless number of years, piling up within its body until it had reached this horrifying degree.

Even so, Caesar managed to withstand the blow without being crushed beneath it, then— ”Hyaaaaaaaaah!!” Caesar roared as he pushed upward with all his strength, forcibly sending the enormous skeletonʼs scythe flying away from their point of collision.

Then Caesar himself, whoosh, immediately pulled the Scythe of Stillness back into his spatial ring and leaped upward toward the towering skeleton. With both hands, he seized its enormous skull directly, his fingers penetrating deeply into the pitch-black darkness and terrifying black aura gathered beneath its hood, yet despite directly touching that frightening concentration of darkness, he seemed completely unaffected by it.

Then he pulled his head back with force and—Bam!—drove his forehead directly into the skeletonʼs skull. ”And what if youʼre an undead General?!”

”Haaaaaaaaaaaa—!!” The enormous skeleton released a violent, agonized cry as the impact struck it, its towering frame staggering backward and forcing it to take a full step away from Caesar.

It no longer had a living body left that could experience ordinary physical pain, nor flesh that could be wounded by such an attack, but that collision had been a direct blow to its very existence, a strike that bypassed what remained of its physical form and slammed directly into the death power it had gathered and accumulated throughout the entirety of its long life.

Bam! Caesar pulled his head back and slammed it forward once again without releasing his grip on the skeletonʼs skull. ”I didnʼt endure studying the Major Law of Death itself just to be stopped halfway by some undead General!”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Poof

Within only a few seconds, the towering black robe that had covered the skeleton was completely empty, its former occupant having disappeared as a mass of ash spilled down from within the cloth. Huuuum At the same moment, a powerful wave of dense black power spread outward and immediately dominated the entire surrounding region.

But then—Inhale—Caesar drew all of that black power directly into his body in a single deep breath, refusing to allow even that accumulated death power to disperse around him.

His veins immediately began turning black and became increasingly prominent beneath his skin, their dark outlines spreading visibly across his body. Even his arteries and the smallest capillaries gradually blackened, including the tiny vessels within his eyes, until Caesarʼs appearance became even more terrifying than that of the enormous skeleton he had just destroyed, while the aura emanating from his body grew considerably more intense.

Then—Exhale—Caesar slowly released a gentle stream of air from his mouth, and as he did, his body gradually began adapting to the new death power he had just absorbed and assimilating it little by little, while the intensely pitch-black coloration that had spread throughout his veins and eyes slowly began to recede.

Mortexʼs voice echoed inside Caesarʼs head, carrying his reaction to everything that had just happened.

Craaaaaaaaaack

At that exact moment, the entire planet suddenly shook with tremendous violence while the sky overhead began visibly changing, and the unexpected disturbance caused Caesar to lose his balance and fall straight onto his backside. His expression immediately became one of utter shock, looking almost as though someone had suddenly struck him over the head with a metal rod. ”That terrifying power...”

Mortexʼs voice immediately rang out inside his head with unmistakable urgency.

”Canʼt you figure out whatʼs causing it?!” Caesar quickly asked as he tried to understand the sudden disturbance shaking everything around him.

His eyes automatically moved toward a certain direction, searching for the three creatures that had been silently observing him only moments earlier, and sure enough, none of them could be found anymore. The three had vanished in terror the moment the strange wave began striking the planet, leaving no trace of their previous presence behind.

”....” Caesar gave a small nod at Mortexʼs answer, then calmly stood up and began brushing the dust from his body without bothering to look upward again. ”Maybe I donʼt know whatʼs causing it, but I know who... Iʼve felt a similar aura from my father once before, and judging from what Iʼm feeling now... it seems heʼs truly angry.”

Mortex sounded as though he was on the verge of crying as he questioned the absurd conclusion Caesar had just reached so casually.

”...He wonʼt destroy the universe while weʼre still inside it.” Caesar brought out the small spacecraft and immediately jumped inside without showing any intention of changing his plans. ”At least not before saying goodbye to me, so thereʼs no need for us to worry.”

Mortex quickly asked, because faced with the possibility of the entire universe being destroyed, the mission of reaching the heart of the Necrofortress Galaxy suddenly seemed utterly trivial in comparison.

”No.” Caesar closed the spacecraftʼs canopy after entering and settled himself inside, his expression remaining firm. ”He said it himself... What right do I have to interfere in matters at this level?”

Then, with his resolve completely firm, Caesar gritted his teeth and focused once again on the goal ahead of him. ”Onward to the heart of the galaxy!!”