Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2107 Successful failure

Ba-doom.

Helenʼs eyes trembled for a brief moment, a faint disturbance rippling across the calm surface of her composure. A thin thread of darkness, foul and suffocating negative energy, began slipping out from them. It crept outward slowly, like a poisonous mist searching for its prey, sliding through the air toward the array... toward Damir, whose smile was now stretching wider and wider until it nearly connected one ear to the other. ”...”

Helen lowered her gaze toward the planet below. Her outward expression remained calm and composed, almost indifferent, as if nothing around her truly mattered.

She had existential problems?

Yes... that was true. Or at least, that was something she had only come to realize recently. Yet it seemed that everyone else had already noticed it long before she did. To them, it was obvious.

Her father, the Behemoth of Destruction Helmor, possessed an unusual and almost cruel method when it came to organizing the rows of his children and determining how each of them would be treated.

The rows from the third to the tenth functioned much like those within the families of other Tyrants. The most talented, the most capable, and those who served their father most faithfully would rise in rank. The incompetent, the lazy, or the ones who failed to prove their worth would slowly descend through the hierarchy.

It was a brutal system, but at least it was simple and familiar.

Except for the first two rows.

For children who possessed overwhelming talent and terrifying potential, Helmor offered something different.

A choice.

The first row was reserved for those who believed they had the strength to take charge of their own destiny, those who believed they could create something of their own with their own hands rather than rely on their fatherʼs shadow. Helmor gave them the opportunity to walk that path.

He even supported them with loans and resources.

Before the universe, they were known as the first row scions, the representatives of Helmor the Destroyer. Because he acknowledged them as such... because he openly declared them to be extensions of his will.

And more importantly, because he wanted more of his children to dare to walk that path.

But the First Row had failed miserably.

No one had managed to build a truly powerful empire except Hedrick.

The internal wars between the siblings had turned into a bloodbath that lasted for ages. In the end, almost the entire First Row generation had been wiped out, leaving only three survivors.

After witnessing that catastrophe, none of the newly talented heirs were willing to take that road anymore.

So what remained as the alternative?

The Second Row.

Unconditional support from Helmor.

They ruled the vital structures of his galaxy and sector, commanding fleets, resources, and territories. They possessed wealth beyond imagination and a status they had never worked to earn.

They were, in truth, the backbone of the Behemoth of Destructionʼs power.

But the price was absolute obedience.

A harsh soul oath of loyalty.

Helmor was the only Behemoth in the universe who forced his children to choose between two extremes. Absolute independence or absolute obedience.

There was no middle ground.

You think you are capable without me? Then go. Try your luck. I will give you loans, I will support you, and I will even declare before the universe that you represent me. Let us see what you can truly accomplish.

But if you wish to benefit from the empire I built with my own hands... then swear the oath. Serve me like a good dog, and never even think of stepping beyond your limits for as long as you live. ...After the internal war, only Helen had the courage to choose the path of the First Row.

Not because she carried a grudge against her father. Not because she hated him. Not because she was ungrateful for everything he had given her.

None of that was the reason.

She simply believed she was better than kneeling.

Better than swearing an oath of obedience.

Better than being treated like a tool the way the children of the Second Row were.

Yes. She was better than that.

In terms of pure talent and the speed of breakthroughs, no one across all generations of the family could surpass her. Her rise through the realms had been terrifyingly fast, almost unnatural.

In fact, when it came to breakthrough speed alone, she even slightly surpassed the legendary Hedrick himself.

So why should she live like a puppet?

Why should someone like her bend her will and accept chains?

That was why she began her journey to establish an empire of her own, just like the other First Row heirs before her. She wanted to carve her own name into the universe with her own hands.

And she refused to take even a single loan from Helmor.

Not one.

Because accepting such help would mean admitting she needed it.

She wanted to prove that she was too great to serve another.

To prove she was superior even to the other First Row heirs.

To prove that she could surpass even her legendary brother Hedrick himself, the one who had lived beneath their fatherʼs immense blessings for an incredibly long time, for tens of thousands of years, until the Destruction

Galaxy had finally taken shape.

But the road of dreams rarely led to a happy ending.

Reality was far colder than ambition.

And dreams, no matter how bright they seemed at the beginning, could crumble in an instant. ...Everything had been shattered.

For thousands of years she had fought wars against a group of insignificant people calling themselves the Ghassan Empire, people whose names she would never have bothered to hear, nor would she have spared even a fleeting moment to glance toward their emperor if she had remained within the galaxyʼs great stage.

Her own people hated her.

Her pitiful army did not even possess a proper uniform. Their armor and banners rarely matched, their equipment varied from world to world, and yet they still fought to the very last breath. Not out of loyalty to her rule or love for the empire she claimed to build, but because their leader always advanced at the front of every battle herself. She did not possess a single complete fleet, nor any respectable planetary armament she could distribute among her generals.

Again and again she had to send them to war with insufficient supplies, forcing them to improvise and bleed for every inch of victory. In truth, she had become a living symbol of administrative failure. Then came the shock of the Rat.

And after it, the even greater shock of learning that she had been working for his son and receiving money from him... money she had never managed to gather throughout her entire life no matter how hard she fought, schemed, or struggled to expand her influence. The Jerboaʼs son had threatened her with a single short task.

Revenge against Robin Burton?

Her brother had warned her not even to think about it because of the Golden

Soul Shard.

But... she had been working for his son?

Should she take revenge on the son as well?

She had a grudge against the son of someone born in the Young Belt?!

In truth, she did not remember a single word the Ratʼs son had said that day.

Most of the time she had not even been listening.

Her mind had been occupied with the mere fact that she was speaking to someone of such status.

Her mind simply could not comprehend that the Ratʼs son would speak to her that he even believed he could humiliate her casually. He in such had even dared to push his filthy energy into her body when she grabbed him by the neck, as if she were nothing more than a toy he could provoke and test. And then he kept talking and talking, explaining things for nearly an hour or something like that, as if he had achieved some tremendous victory simply by forcing her to listen.

No... That was not why she had left the galaxy.

That was not the path she had chosen. That was why she fled.

On that day she left everything behind her. She abandoned her dream of building an empire, abandoned the endless wars and ambitions that had consumed her life, and withdrew from the world for nearly half a century.

She spent those years in isolation. She began rethinking her entire life.

She began studying once again everything her First-Row brothers had achieved since they stepped out from under their fatherʼs shadow and began walking their own paths.

None of them had succeeded.

Hedrick did not even acknowledge himself as a First-Row brother in the first place, His existence preceded all of these arrangements. Only after the incident that happened to him were the children divided into two rows: the first row and the second row.

And his previous circumstances gave him advantages that the rest of them had never possessed. His path had diverged long before the others began their struggles, so he could be set aside.

The truly most successful First-Row brother in terms of numbers had been

Hydras. Hydras managed to establish a millennial empire of 1500 planets within a relatively short period of time. Through sheer strength and relentless expansion he rose to become a Monarch on the Minor Crushing Law. Hydrasʼ intelligence allowed him to gather resources with astonishing speed, while his ruthless discipline allowed him to forge an empire that truly served him without hesitation. His talent enabled him to break through rapidly, so rapidly that he nearly broke through at the same time as Hedrick himself, the brother who was dozens of generations older than him.

Of course, Hedrick had secluded himself for a long time in grieve and had even stopped his training completely for a very long time. Hydras had also benefited greatly from the loan systems of the order and had never positioned himself as an enemy of the established structure. These advantages could not be ignored.

Even so, Hydras had still accomplished something remarkable.

He became the first of the First-Row brothers to succeed on his own path and break through to Monarch relying primarily on himself.

But...

Could his experience truly be called a success?

In the end, their father waged war against him alongside the rest of the brothers.

Dozens of them.

It was said that organization eventually cornered him, surrounding him from all sides, and a tremendous battle erupted against several of their most powerful leaders. The battle shook entire star systems and shattered planets like dust.

Those who witnessed what happened that day all told the same story.

Hydras had been severely injured. Then he vanished.

No one ever saw him again.

But what was certain was that the Heavenly Law issued a silent farewell that day, and the Crushing Law once again became available for a new Monarch to dominate it.

Even the one who had succeeded within the system....

Failed.

So why was she blaming herself?