Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2304 The truth of the law

Rumble

Renara stared blankly ahead, her unfocused eyes devoid of clarity, as though her consciousness still lingered somewhere far beyond the physical world. The thick rope had begun descending slowly, inch by inch, yet her vacant gaze had still not regained its focus, her mind remaining immersed in the countless revelations she had just witnessed.

She murmured, "...No wonder," her expression carrying unmistakable traces of fear mixed with astonishment. "All those engravings covering the rope... all those patterns we've never understood, the countless markings we dismissed simply because none of us could interpret them... they're all just other applications of the Energy Conversion Law, abilities that every single one of us is capable of using, yet none of us ever realized they even existed."

"...No wonder some members of the Nine Halls displayed such unique abilities. Like Elinor and her power of seduction, which we always believed came from her extraordinary beauty and our alluring bloodline. Just by looking into the eyes of someone with a weak will, they would immediately fall in love with her... but in reality, she was manipulating the energy within the brain's nerve cells and the limbic system to generate signals corresponding to emotions that were never actually real, making the victim believe those feelings belonged to them when they had merely been artificially created?"

"...My grandfather was famous for taking only a tiny amount of energy and turning it into an enormous explosion. Time and time again he escaped hopeless situations and achieved legendary victories that way, accomplishing feats no one believed possible with such limited power. He built our Empire through that astonishing and unbelievable ability... but that wasn't an ability belonging to the Hall of Explosion at all. It was another application entirely... energy amplification? He wasn't creating greater destruction through superior explosions—he was increasing the energy itself before releasing it?"

"My heavens... all this time, all of us have been using the very same Law, only in different ways? But why?... Was it because Savage Zavaros told my grandfather that our bloodline granted affinity with nine Laws? Or because the fox possessed nine Laws, so we confined ourselves to those nine without ever questioning whether they were truly separate? Or because, according to our books and legends, that foolish beast only ever used nine of them in specific ways, so we simply imitated those techniques and continued doing the same generation after generation, eventually mistaking repeated habits for absolute truth... or what exactly happened?! Where did we first go wrong?"

Rumble.

The thick rope suddenly began falling in free descent, rushing downward like an immense pillar supporting the heavens themselves, its overwhelming presence becoming more imposing with every passing moment, while within the dark sky above, new stars of countless different colors began appearing one after another, as though an invisible veil had finally been lifted from the heavens.

From every star, the tip of a thread started descending. As their numbers multiplied and their magnificent colors spread across the void, the darkness gradually disappeared altogether, replaced by a breathtaking sea of radiant threads stretching endlessly across the sky... yet none of those countless colors could diminish the dazzling brilliance of the golden sun, whose radiance remained supreme, as though everything else merely existed beneath its light.

Renara slowly raised her hand.

"...All this time we were using a single Law. Every one of us has always been using the same Law in different ways. The affinity itself was only psychological. One person naturally loved frost, so they joined that Hall. Another loved speed, so from childhood they headed toward the Hall of Momentum. We convinced ourselves those preferences reflected different Laws when they merely reflected different inclinations toward the same foundation... How did we never realize this when a child born to parents from one Hall would eventually join an entirely different Hall? How did we overlook it when so many people demonstrated the ability to use several of those Laws comfortably at the same time, without suffering any conflict whatsoever between them?!"

Then she laughed.

"We even gave the Halls completely misleading names... the Hall of Earth for vibrating energy, the Hall of Artillery for explosive expansion, the Hall of Wind for momentum, even the Hall of Lightning for energy discharge, and the Hall of Blades for energy separation... little by little we drifted farther away, borrowing names from completely different Paths to describe the exact same thing, burying the truth beneath generations of assumptions until none of us questioned it anymore... the very same thing!"

Finally, she slowly lifted her head toward the sky, her eyes following the endless rope extending upward beyond sight.

"The Energy Conversion Law... what exactly is your origin, and just how powerful are you? And why don't you have any Minor Laws? The same rope carries every engraving, yet not a single other rope—or even another thread—from the same Path appears. Nothing like this exists in the memoirs of any other Monarch... what makes you so special? Why are you unlike every other Path ever recorded, and what secret are you hiding that forced every application of your power onto a single rope instead of dividing them into separate branches like every other Law?"

"...?" Renara gradually regained her focus as she slowly raised her head completely, only for the concentration on her face to dissolve into pure astonishment the instant her eyes adjusted to the transformed world before her.

The darkness had vanished entirely, replaced by an overwhelming multitude of delicate, multicolored threads stretching endlessly in every direction around her. Some shimmered softly, others glowed with astonishing brilliance, while countless more intertwined without ever becoming tangled, forming a breathtaking sight unlike anything she had ever imagined. Every thread appeared to possess its own rhythm and presence, as though each one represented a distinct principle woven into the fabric of the universe itself.

The strangest thing of all was that golden sun. Its radiance had not diminished in the slightest despite the appearance of that magnificent scene. Instead, its extraordinary light still seemed to exist solely for itself, remaining the absolute center of everything around it, as though the countless threads filling the heavens were nothing more than decorations surrounding its existence...

Not a single thread existed anywhere near the sun. Instead, a black halo surrounded it, and that halo was, in truth, nothing more than a piece of the original sky itself—a region where none of the threads dared to appear. Even the nearest threads trembled continuously while trying to move farther away, as though an invisible storm of unimaginable force constantly pushed them back, refusing to allow anything to approach the golden sun regardless of how close they naturally drifted.

"That sun... it never appeared in any of the memoirs the Shadow Swords collected for me regarding breakthrough experiences." Renara frowned deeply, searching through every account she had ever read and failing to recall even the slightest mention of such a phenomenon, making the golden sun seem even more mysterious than the endless threads themselves.

At that exact moment, an extremely fine thread slowly drifted toward the center of her forehead.

"Ah!" Renara instinctively tried to resist. She immediately swung her hand toward it with force, her body reacting before her mind had time to process what was happening, but her fingers passed through the thread effortlessly, as though it possessed no physical existence whatsoever. The thread continued forward undisturbed until it gently touched her forehead with a sensation so light that it almost felt imaginary.

"....!!"

A brilliant light flashed within Renara's eyes, and her mouth instinctively opened for a brief moment as an immense amount of understanding flooded into her mind all at once, countless pieces of previously disconnected knowledge suddenly arranging themselves into a coherent whole without requiring conscious thought.

Then the thread quietly withdrew, returning to its original place among the countless others as though nothing had happened, immediately blending back into the endless sea of colorful threads surrounding her.

"Ha..." A smile slowly spread across Renara's face as she lowered her gaze to examine her own hands, feeling the subtle changes taking place throughout her body. "Hahaha!!"

She finally understood what was happening.

Her breakthrough into the Law Dominator domain had begun, and everything occurring around her was simply part of the natural process of that advancement.

"I suppose I need to study the Major Energy Conversion Law after all. I've been using it my entire life without ever realizing what it truly was, blindly relying on fragments of its potential while remaining completely ignorant of its actual foundation." Renara laughed happily, the excitement in her voice becoming impossible to conceal as years of confusion finally gave way to understanding.

Hum—

Another thread gently touched her forehead before quietly retreating to its place among the countless others, moving with the same calm precision as the first.

This time Renara paid no attention to the process itself. Instead, she focused entirely on examining the changes taking place within her, carefully observing every subtle transformation that accompanied each new thread, comparing them one after another in an attempt to understand what each one contributed to her breakthrough.

Then, several minutes later, after numerous threads had successively touched her forehead and withdrawn again, each one leaving behind another faint trace of comprehension and resonance, she suddenly opened her eyes wide in a mixture of astonishment and fear.

"This...?"

She immediately stopped what she was doing and unconsciously took a step backward, as though the realization itself had shaken her more than the breakthrough ever could.

"Twenty percent... I'm receiving support from the universe's Minor Laws at a full twenty percent all at once. That means by the end of my breakthrough, I'll receive support from the Energy Conversion Law equal to thirty percent!!"

Most Guardians and Monarchs had recorded receiving ten percent support during their very first breakthrough, considering that amount perfectly normal for even exceptionally talented cultivators. Only a relatively small number claimed that the initial support had reached twenty percent, and every one of those individuals had eventually become renowned figures whose names echoed throughout history, their achievements far surpassing ordinary expectations.

Only an extremely small handful of truly influential Behemoths had ever reached thirty percent support during their very first breakthrough, individuals whose influence had reshaped entire eras and whose names remained legendary even countless years after their rise.

Didn't that mean that after completing all of her future breakthroughs as a Mid Monarch, and later as a High Monarch, she might ultimately reach sixty percent—or perhaps even seventy percent—support if the same pattern continued throughout every stage of advancement?

That would place her far above the average Behemoth...

And naturally, far above every known and unknown Monarch or Guardian in existence, leaving only the rarest monsters in history capable of comparing with such overwhelming resonance.

"Hehehe..." Renara placed both hands upon her white-golden hair, unable to suppress the smile spreading across her face as excitement and disbelief intertwined within her heart.

"I wonder what His Majesty's reaction will be when he sees this."

"I'll congratulate you, of course."

"........?!?"