Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2402 The second

Mid Sector 102—

Clatter

The scene here was nowhere near as calm or orderly as what had happened in Mid Sector 98, with the surrounding space filled with continuous destruction and clashes from every direction.

More than 300 armadas belonging to the Curse Galaxy were currently gathered near the heart of the galaxy, all operating at full power without the slightest restraint, with everything from the smallest vessel to the largest warship firing continuously and pouring attacks into the battlefield without pause.

Among those enormous forces were hundreds of World Cataclysms and Nexus States, along with at least 40 Royal Soul Masters with six stars or fewer participating in the battle... This terrifying formation alone possessed enough concentrated strength to threaten entire empires!

But their opponents were nowhere near them in either overall size or sheer numbers.

Baaaaam!

There were around 20 Rapid Support Vessels moving through the battlefield with astonishing ferocity and momentum. The front of each vessel was constructed from an alloy of rare metals resistant to both energy and soul force, deliberately fashioned into something resembling an enormous hammer, so whenever a Rapid Support Vessel encountered a large vessel or a space beast directly ahead of it... it simply didn't stop.

The twenty vessels continued ramming directly into the large enemy vessels with their reinforced fronts, then immediately using their Instant Portal to escape before they could be surrounded and reappear beside the next selected target, inflicting an enormous amount of damage they could never have come close to achieving if they had simply relied on their cannons to attack from a distance.

Their cannons were instead left entirely to target the incoming shots headed toward the vessels, intercepting and destroying those attacks before they could reach their hulls, while the actual task of attacking enemy vessels was left to the brutal method of ramming them directly.

The Ghost Shadow Vessels weren't holding back either. Although they weren't vessels originally designed for direct close combat and collisions, their constant disappearance from sight combined with their tremendous speed caused enormous problems for the opposing forces and made dealing with their movements extremely difficult.

And amid all of this chaos were more than a thousand Nexus States and World Cataclysms, along with more than 100 Royal Soul Masters who together formed the main fighting force and carried the greatest burden of confronting the enemy experts.

Of course, their number of vessels was noticeably smaller—in fact, it was far smaller when compared directly with the enemy fleet. Although the number and quality of experts tilted the balance toward the expanding True Beginning Empire, the sheer numerical superiority of the enemy armadas repeatedly forced their forces to retreat and reorganize time and again.

But there was one extremely noticeable thing regardless of which side was advancing at any given moment and which side was being forced to retreat... every single armada on the battlefield was completely occupied with its own fighting, and not even one of them was free to withdraw from the confrontation and do something else.

And that... was precisely the entire point of this battle.

Znnnn—

Hedrick calmly swung his sword as he began advancing forward at an unhurried pace, his other hand resting casually behind his back despite the dangerous situation surrounding him.

His head remained perfectly still and continued facing forward, but his eyes moved from right to left every now and then as he carefully observed the positions around him... He was completely surrounded.

Exactly 13 people stood around him at equal distances from one another, maintaining their positions to form a nearly perfect circle around him. Whenever Hedrick advanced, they advanced alongside him while preserving those exact distances, and every single one of them held two Miserable World Arrays in their hands, meaning that a total of 26 Miserable World Arrays were currently pointed directly toward him, each one ready to unleash its tremendous accumulated power at any moment.

Yet Hedrick didn't attack any of them despite the obvious threat they represented. His attention remained fixed entirely on something specific beyond that encirclement... or more accurately, on one particular person.

Once Hedrick finally reached the distance he wanted, he completely ignored the thirteen sons surrounding him as though their existence and the twenty-six arrays aimed at him weren't worth his attention, then revealed a confident smile while looking directly ahead. "You have no idea how happy I am... that you didn't follow in your friend's footsteps and run away."

"Don't call him my friend just because our interests happened to align for a time."

The one who replied was a powerfully built man with long black hair and skin covered from place to place in prominent black veins, while the aura surrounding his body was somehow even darker and more oppressive than the darkness of space around them... It was the Cursed Darvion himself.

"...A Behemoth who abandons the very foundation of his power, his own galaxy, and runs away because of a little girl doesn't deserve that position in the first place, nor does he deserve to continue carrying that title."

"After everything you've personally seen from me, you still insist on calling my colleague a little girl?" Hedrick asked while maintaining that same confident smile, apparently finding Darvion's words more amusing than insulting. "Was losing touch with reality what finally gave you enough courage to stay behind?"

"Children are still children, no matter how much strength they accumulate or how powerful they eventually become." The black veins covering Darvion's body began throbbing visibly as his expression hardened. "And here you are, launching what amounts to a suicidal attack. Instead of remaining patient and continuing to advance cautiously and rationally as you had been doing until now, you gathered every last one of your followers and charged forward in a straight line to attack the heart of the galaxy the moment you heard that your colleague had attacked that fool's galaxy and secured complete control over it this morning."

"...Your entire plan to gradually reduce the numbers of my armadas and sons has collapsed, and it didn't collapse because of anything I did, but because of your own actions. On top of that, you've left the rear of your army completely exposed to an attack that will wipe them out entirely before long... In the end, you're nothing more than an overgrown child."

"Come now, don't speak as though you don't understand the situation yourself." Hedrick spread his arms comfortably, looking completely at ease despite everything Darvion had just said. "Do you seriously expect me to be satisfied when the two of us launched our attacks on the exact same day, yet she reaches the finish line before me? How am I supposed to hold my head up afterward? It's true that I don't have the support of armadas behind me, and it's also true that your followers are more experienced in combat, but in the eyes of everyone watching, she still beat me to it. I can't possibly remain here for another week or two after that. I have to finish you today if I want to save at least some face, so that, at the very least, people can say that both of us finished on the same day just as we started on the same day."

"Child." Darvion grimaced with obvious disdain. "An arrogant child, only exceeded by your master."

"...." Hedrick raised his sword and pointed it directly ahead. "On any other day, I would've gotten angry at you for saying something like that. I would've told you that no one in existence is more arrogant than me, but frankly..." Hedrick paused briefly before giving a small nod of acknowledgment. "When it comes to arrogance, he really does have me beaten."

"I'm not interested in standing here listening to your life story!" Darvion looked toward his sons in a particular sequence, his gaze passing over them one after another as though conveying something without words, then returned his attention to Hedrick while slowly cracking his fingers. "This is your last chance... Retreat out of the galaxy right now, or else."

"Heh."

Hedrick let out a small chuckle without showing the slightest concern, then released his sword and allowed it to float freely in the surrounding space near the heart of the galaxy. He raised both hands and gathered his thick hair together, then tied it carelessly behind his head, fully revealing a serious face and two eyes gleaming with a mesmerizing ruby light above a smile filled with almost blind confidence.

Afterward, he reached out again and wrapped his hand firmly around the hilt of his sword, tightening his grip as he looked directly toward Darvion. "Today, I shall slaughter a Behemoth."

"Dream on!!" Darvion immediately waved his hand.

Zoooo Zoooo Zoooo Zoooo

Twenty-six arrows and a net, a fist and a sword, a stone and a cleaver all flew toward Hedrick at precisely the same moment, converging upon his position from the different directions surrounding him.

BOOOOOOM!

The resulting explosion of energy erupted with such violence that the clothes of the thirteen sons, and even Darvion himself, were sent whipping wildly around their bodies, yet despite the tremendous force raging before them, not a single one of them moved so much as an inch from where they stood.

Every one of them had their dark eyes opened to their absolute limits, while their spiritual senses surged frantically into the raging explosion before them, searching through the chaotic energy with everything they had in an attempt to determine Hedrick's fate.

Swoooosh!

Hedrick didn't leave them trapped in their uncertainty for long. He suddenly shot straight out from within the terrifying explosion of soul force, emerging from its depths while dragging his sword behind him as his body accelerated forward.

He charged with a frightening smile stretched across his face, ignoring everyone else and heading directly toward Darvion himself. "Die! Die and become the first Behemoth to fall dead inside his own galaxy since the Age of the Beast Invasion!!"

Dnng!

The sword pierced straight through Darvion's heart without encountering any meaningful resistance.

".....?" Hedrick immediately felt that something about the situation was strange, his confidence giving way to a trace of suspicion. Everything had happened far too easily.

"Pathetic."

Darvion completely ignored the wound through his heart as though the sword piercing his body meant absolutely nothing to him. Instead, he calmly raised one hand, and a Miserable World Array appeared upon every joint of his five fingers, one after another, until their total number reached fifteen arrays. Then he curled that array-covered hand into a powerful fist and—

BAAAAANG!

Sent Hedrick flying violently backward.