Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2277 Self-description

”...Why is there a golden lock above your head?” Robin asked with a trace of curiosity and genuine interest as he remained seated where he was, showing no intention of standing despite the unusual circumstances unfolding before him.

”A lock above my head?!” Althera immediately began waving both hands above her head as though she were trying to catch an invisible insect hovering just beyond her sight, repeatedly attempting to tilt her neck back and look upward, but accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Unable to see anything herself, she turned toward Glatheon. ”Do you see anything?”

”....” Glatheon knitted his brows together deeply and stared above her head for several moments before slowly shaking his head. ”..No, I donʼt see anything at all.”

”Nothing?” Althera turned back toward Robin with growing disbelief and irritation. ”Do you actually see something, or are you trying to mock me because I lost all my power and can no longer examine myself properly or verify things with my own senses?”

”And why would I lie about something so trivial?” Robin showed a faint smile before casually pointing above her head once more. ”Itʼs right there. In fact, itʼs difficult to miss from where Iʼm sitting.”

”Forget the lock,” Althera waved her hand dismissively, clearly placing far less importance on an invisible object than on her current condition. ”What happened to me?!” Then her voice rose even further as panic continued to build inside her. ”Why has my Energy Gathering Center reverted as though I had just been born and never cultivated a single day in my life?”

”...I think the Energy Gathering issue is the last thing you should be concerned about.” Robin folded his arms before his chest while continuing to study her carefully, his eyes glowing with a faint golden radiance as he stared directly toward her forehead and beyond it, as though observing layers hidden from ordinary perception. ”There are strange things happening inside your Soul Domain, things that donʼt resemble anything Iʼve encountered before. Can you feel them?”

”...?” Althera jolted slightly before straightening her posture and sitting upright.

Since she was not a Royal Soul Master, she possessed only a single consciousness rather than multiple independent streams of awareness. Whenever she wished to inspect her Soul Domain or examine the state of her soul, she had no choice but to withdraw that one and only consciousness inward, temporarily abandoning awareness of her surroundings and leaving her physical body sitting motionless like a statue.

Fortunately, the inspection itself did not require much time.

Only a short while later, Altheraʼs eyes snapped open again and she shouted, ”T-There isnʼt a single imprint of the Fundamental Repetition Law left in my Soul Domain! Not one! The efforts, comprehension, accumulation, and refinement of hundreds of thousands of years have been completely erased as though they never existed in the first place!!”

The disappearance of an Energy Focus and the regression of an Energy Gathering Center back to its pre-training state was undoubtedly alarming and terrifying, enough to drive many cultivators into despair, but such things had occurred before under certain rare circumstances. In those situations, the victim merely had to begin cultivating again from the start, and because the law itself had already been deeply engraved into the soul at advanced levels through countless years of effort, retraining generally required very little time compared to the original process.

But now...

Even that final consolation appeared to have been taken away from her as well.

As for Robin, he remained completely calm in the face of Altheraʼs increasingly frantic cries and emotional outbursts.

Silent.

Observing.

Studying.

He had not even bothered to rise from his seat.

To Althera, this was a catastrophe capable of overturning her entire life, destroying the foundation of everything she had worked toward for countless years and forcing her to confront the possibility of losing nearly all of her achievements. To Robin, however, it was simply an exceptionally valuable phenomenon worthy of careful observation and analysis.

Althera held little significance to him on a personal level, and even from the perspective of the academies she was not indispensable. Furthermore, when the disaster had occurred, her first response had been to place the blame upon him rather than approach him as an ally.

As a result, the relationship between them remained entirely practical and transactional. There was no deep friendship, emotional attachment, or personal obligation compelling him to leap to his feet and exhaust every possible resource on her behalf before understanding exactly what had happened.

”Hmm, that is indeed dreadful, and I certainly understand why you are reacting that way, but that wasnʼt actually what I meant when I mentioned what was happening inside your Soul Domain,” Robin nodded twice while maintaining his focus on her. ”I was referring specifically to what is occurring inside the walls themselves. To be honest, itʼs genuinely strange, far stranger than the disappearance of your law imprints. The structure inside your Soul Domain appears abnormal in ways I have never witnessed before, not even in the most unusual cases Iʼve studied. Stop moving around for a moment, and stop talking as well. Perhaps if I examine it carefully enough, Iʼll be able to figure something out.”

”Wait, wait.” Glatheon stepped forward while raising a hand in an attempt to interrupt the direction the discussion had suddenly taken, his expression growing increasingly strained as though he were watching everyone walk past the most important clue in existence. ”Are we really just going to ignore the matter of the lock?!”

”If you could see what Iʼm seeing, youʼd ignore it too,” Robin muttered absentmindedly, still staring intently at Altheraʼs head and Soul Domain with unwavering focus, his attention so completely absorbed by the strange phenomenon before him that even Glatheonʼs urgency seemed incapable of distracting him.

The Soul Domain itself remained exactly as it had been before, at least at first glance, which was why Althera had failed to notice anything unusual even after sending her consciousness inward for inspection and examining every region she could access.

But what was happening inside the walls of the Soul Domain was truly something extraordinary, something so bizarre and fundamentally abnormal that Robin could not recall having seen anything remotely comparable throughout all his studies and observations.

”Forget the domain for a moment, please!” Glatheon pointed emphatically toward Althera, feeling as though Robin was deliberately focusing on the wrong mystery. ”Describe the lock to me!”

”...” Robin tilted his head slightly while continuing to observe. ”Golden, just as I said. Ancient in appearance, carrying a solemn and dignified aura that makes it feel less like an object and more like an immutable law of the universe. It slowly revolves around her head in a clockwise direction along a fixed golden path, as though thereʼs a rail, track, or continuous band suspended above her head and the lock is sliding across it with perfect regularity.” Then he lowered his gaze slightly and patiently examined the rest of her body from top to bottom. ”There are also several faint golden shackles piercing the region of her heart, her Energy Gathering Center, and the other vital areas throughout her body. Theyʼre separate from the lock itself and seem to belong to a different chain entirely, though theyʼre clearly related in purpose.”

”...?!” Althera felt a chill of fear run through her body as she listened.

All of this was happening inside her body, and she could not feel any of it?

No pain.

No pressure.

No warning.

Nothing whatsoever.

Where had all of this been hiding from her?

Only a month ago she had been an ordinary Monarch advancing through life according to familiar rules, and only minutes ago she had become the most powerful Monarch the universe had ever seen, reaching heights that should have been impossible according to common understanding.

Then suddenly everything vanished, her cultivation disappeared, her accumulated comprehension was stripped away, and she found herself restrained by something she could neither see, understand, nor even detect with her own senses.

”Lord Robin... arenʼt you describing the same lock and chains that shattered around you earlier?” Glatheon felt as though he was about to lose his mind from the implications alone. ”I saw you looking upward as they broke apart. You saw them just as I did at the moment they shattered, and the description sounds almost identical.”

”.....” Robin remained silent for several moments while carefully considering the comparison before eventually nodding. ”When I looked at Althera just now, that was the very first thought that crossed my mind. Itʼs the same lock.” Then he shrugged without appearing particularly disturbed by the revelation. ”But what comes after that?”

”What do you mean, what comes after that, Lord Robin?” Glatheon asked quickly, almost unable to believe what he was hearing. ”Arenʼt you eager to find out whatʼs happening? Arenʼt you at least curious about why the exact same phenomenon appeared twice under completely different circumstances?”

”Itʼs not that,” Robin sighed while rubbing his temple briefly. ”The lock and shackles clearly represent restrictions, limitations, or seals of some kind, but what comes after that? How many restrictions are there on us inhabitants of Universe B-14? The restrictions of the Young Belt, the restrictions of the Seventh Grade within the Mid Belt, the restrictions of the Shell, the restrictions of the Void, the seal imposed upon humans when advancing from Martial Emperor to World Catastrophe, or this, or that, or a hundred others that nobody even understands completely...”

Robin shook his head slowly.

”The sheer number of seals, boundaries, restrictions, and invisible limitations imposed upon us is terrifying when you stop to think about it seriously. Chasing after every one of them would only be exhausting. Not exhausting for me as a person, but exhausting to the spirit itself. The mere fact that we live beneath so many restrictions, distortions, and imposed limitations is already discouraging enough without spending centuries cataloging each one individually.”

Then he returned his attention to Altheraʼs forehead as though the subject of the lock had already lost much of its appeal.

”By comparison, I find whatʼs happening inside the walls of Altheraʼs Soul Domain far more intriguing and far more worthy of investigation.”

Then he pointed toward Althera with a smile that reflected genuine fascination.

”At this very moment, millions of strange threads are flowing through the walls of Altheraʼs Soul Domain like countless serpents winding through an immense underground network, and every single one carries a different law pattern. Some are thick, some are thin, some shine brightly while others are faint, yet all of them contain distinct traces of different laws. These are practically all the laws that exist within the universe. Itʼs honestly a breathtaking sight and one of the most extraordinary things Iʼve ever witnessed.”

Then he continued, his interest becoming increasingly apparent as he described the process.

”A large number of them have already settled down and begun to wither while merging into the walls, and all the similar and compatible laws are weaving together into incredibly complex and exceptionally powerful networks before becoming part of the Soul Domain itself. Entire groups of related laws are linking together naturally as though they were designed to do so from the beginning. At this rate, within only a few days all of these threads will become a perfect network and disappear into the walls without leaving the slightest trace behind. By then, even I may no longer be capable of detecting them no matter how carefully I search.”

Then he chuckled in Altheraʼs direction.

”Congratulations. You may have lost your cultivation, but youʼll gain an extraordinarily powerful Soul Domain capable of withstanding tremendous internal explosions and overwhelming external attacks without collapsing. A domain that probably wouldnʼt break apart even if you brought the filth, corruption, and destructive force of the entire world crashing down upon it all at once. You might even acquire the Elastic Domain trait because of the flexibility, resilience, and astonishing strength of those threads, just like mine. Hehe... heh?”

Robinʼs expression immediately darkened.