Lord of the Truth

Chapter 1277 1277: A new start

A few days later — somewhere deep within the untamed stretches of Young Sector 100...

A long, eternal silence...

”....”

Through a narrow strait—barely a slit—hidden within the vast, immeasurable sea of the cosmic void, Robin floated.

His body was frozen, locked in a posture of absolute stillness, as though time itself had abandoned him. It was as if he had been buried alive beneath glacial stars for a million years.

No heartbeat. No breath. No twitch of muscle.

Every biological function within him had come to a complete stop.

And yet—he could see.

He saw everything, as if through a lens behind his closed eyelids.

He saw the endless spirals of galaxies, and the flow of stellar winds like ethereal rivers.

This wasnʼt the first time Robin had experienced such a state.

This helpless, oppressive weight.

This cruel imitation of death.

This sensation of being conscious within a prison of flesh too paralyzed to even twitch a single muscle.

He had tasted it before—once, when he had dared to journey to Nihari for the first time.

Again, when he had crossed into Greenland, leading his army through the veil of stars.

It was a memory engraved in his bones.

Yet this time… he didnʼt panic. He didnʼt even resist.

”…Compared to the fourth stage,” he murmured within the confines of his silent consciousness, ”the fifth stage of the Law of Space exists in an entirely different realm. If I could master it… I might truly be able to soar between nearby planets without ever needing a gate again!”

Even the mere thought filled him with reverence.

But perhaps… it was only natural.

After all, the space gates used across the known universe—the famed constructs of metal and mystery—were etched with inscriptions that only drew upon the fifth and sixth Stages of the Law of Space. That was their limit.

That was the level that made travel possible across hundreds of light-years.

Back within the boundary of the youthful beltʼs worlds, Robin had never once glimpsed anything higher than the fourth stage.

Not because it was hidden.

No—it simply wasnʼt there.

He had wandered, observed, even meditated beneath the looming skies of countless juvenile planets, and yet had seen only the gigantic runes shimmering in the distant heavens—massive, mesmerizing patterns that spoke of laws too complex to name.

But now, here in the abyss between worlds, in this emptiness that only true travelers dared cross… everything had changed.

The moment he left the gravitational cradle of his home system, he had begun to see things differently.

He could now perceive the fifth stage.

He could feel it humming all around him, like invisible threads woven into the very fabric of space itself.

This wasnʼt his first time glimpsing such power though.

Once—during his long, lonely century of cultivation—he had felt the urge to look at something new.

To break the monotony of training and seek wonder.

He had chosen Nihari once more.

He had traveled to the molten shores of the Sea of Lava.

Got neat the Abyss of Echoing Fire.

And there, wrapped in solitude and ash, he had seen it—the fifth stage of the Law of Ashification.

A pure and terrifying force.

Just one glance at that law had accelerated his mastery of the Destruction Path by leaps and bounds.

Still… something gnawed at him.

”This fifth stage is wondrous… but why can I even see it? Is this the natural power of the Eye of Truth? Or... did the golden veil granted to me by the All-Seeing God play a role?”

He recalled the words of Raiden, and before him, the quiet warnings of Evergreen.

They had both spoken of the restrictions that awaited those who transitioned from the Young Belt into the Middle Belt.

Raiden had described it as a strange suffocation.

A hidden boundary.

An invisible ceiling.

A suppression that made cultivation harder.

A fog that rendered it impossible to perceive any law above the fourth stage.

Robin had long questioned the purpose behind such limits.

Werenʼt the belts and planetary soul systems supposed to nurture strength?

Why, then, would they impose such shackles?

But in time, the answer had dawned on him like a slow-burning sun.

If those restrictions did not exist—if the middle belt offered no resistance—then its powerful factions would descend upon the Young Belt like scavengers, scooping up every prodigy like hunters collecting cubs of lions and tigers.

The Young Belt would be bled dry.

No genius would remain.

No kingdom would rise.

No star would dare shine on its own.

But the suppression... it balanced the game.

It made even the most talented individuals less useful in the Middle Belt, no different from common foot soldiers.

And so the dominant strategy had shifted.

Nurture the geniuses at home.

Help them build nations.

Strengthen their kin.

And only when they were ready—truly ready—let them ascend.

Moreover, if one of those talents somehow reached the threshold of a World Cataclysm while still residing in the Middle Belt, the suppression would force their planet to rise immediately.

But what if the rest of that world was still weak? Still unprepared?

Then that world would be devoured.

Transformed into a farm, a colony of suffering.

From any perspective, such chaos would only lead to the death of the Young Belt.

And of every future empire it might ever birth.

No.

Whoever designed this rule... knew exactly what they were doing.

”Hmm?”

Just as Robin began to lose himself in the patterns of the fifth degree—intricate webs of silver lines, impossible loops folded into the dark—he felt something.

A ripple.

A flicker.

Something ahead.

”What… is that?”

It stood before him like a titan of the cosmos—

A colossal wall of sheer, concentrated energy, painted in vivid shades of blazing orange.

Its surface rippled with subtle, ever-shifting waves of power—an infinite veil stretched across the stars.

Robinʼs gaze tried to find an edge, a seam, a limit—above, below, to either side—

But there was none.

It was endless.

”A wall… of raw, undiluted energy?” Robin thought, astonished. ”Itʼs so thick itʼs starting to solidify…? Who… or what could create something like this—out here, in the middle of the void?”

But before he could process the enormity of it—

His heart skipped a beat.

His frozen form, locked in that strange state between motion and stillness, was accelerating.

He was headed directly toward the barrier.

At blinding speed.

And there was no way to stop.

”Oh no... No, no no no no—”

”NOOOOOOOO—!”

FWOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Robin slammed head-first into the wall of energy.

But what he expected to be a shattering, violent collision turned out to be something else entirely.

There was no sound. No tremor. No pain.

It was as if he had plunged into a lake of syrupy light—thick and heavy and slow.

His body, still completely immobilized, felt nothing.

His mind, untouched by trauma, was still intact.

Yet… the sensation was unmistakable.

He was moving.

Still forward—but now at an agonizingly slow pace.

As though the universe itself had slammed its cosmic brakes on his momentum.

”If I had to describe this…” he thought, ”It would be like a tiny insect, flying full force—only to crash into a jar filled with honey.”

But then something else caught his attention.

Even with his eyes sealed shut by the freezing grip of the void, he could see.

From behind the veil of his own eyelids, Robin began to perceive others—

Other travelers. Other beings, all suspended just as he was.

Dozens… hundreds, maybe.

Some were headed in the same direction he was, slowly being pulled through the wall.

Others were coming from the opposite end, struggling to push through from the other side. and all of them—every single one—was frozen.

It hit Robin Immediately

This wall is alive.

It was no ordinary barrier.

It was thinking.

Watching.

Judging.

Robin could feel it examining him—not his body, but his essence, his soul.

And not just him. It was scanning everyone.

He noticed something strange:

After the initial impact, his forward motion had nearly stopped—but now, it was gradually increasing again.

Yet others werenʼt so lucky. Especially those from the other side—they were slowing down, some to the point of complete stillness.

Trapped.

Like bugs caught in amber.

SHHHHHHHHHHHHH…

Days blurred by in silence—time seemed to flow differently here.

A moment felt like a lifetime.

And Robin watched it all.

He saw person after person attempt the crossing—each frozen, each moving at different speeds.

Some were pushed back by unseen forces.

Others were seized by arcs of violent light, their bodies disintegrated without warning.

It wasnʼt just people either—

He saw rings shatter, bracelets crumble, enchanted items burn away into nothingness.

The wall was purging.

Testing every fragment of power that passed through it—

And destroying whatever didnʼt meet its standards.

Most of the destruction was inflicted on travelers coming from the other side, from the Middle Belt.

But not all.

Even some coming from the Young Belt were judged and stopped.

”…This has to be it,” Robin whispered internally, awestruck.

”This wall… itʼs the true boundary. The Great Divider between the Young Belt and the Middle Belt.”

Time passed again.

FWWWWMMMMM—

Only after what felt like two entire weeks did Robin finally feel the grip of the wall loosen.

He was breaking through.

His form began to drift forward faster.

The resistance thinned…

The pressure lightened…

He was free.

The very first thing he wanted to do was turn around—to look back, to understand what he had passed through.

But before he could—before he even had the chance to think—

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

The space tunnel suddenly flared to life.

The current seized him and flung him forward with incredible force—

And in the blink of an eye…

He was gone.

Vanished from the wallʼs reach.

And just like that—

Robin had arrived.

He had officially entered the Middle Belt.