Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2439 Three conditions

Mid Sector 99 — Sacred Covenant Academy

"..." Blokan, the Chief Executive of the Cosmic Academies and the person directly responsible for appointing Academy Directors throughout their entire system, was sitting quietly in his comfortable chair with his back and neck resting fully against it, allowing his body to sink into the support behind him as though he no longer had the energy or desire to maintain a more proper posture.

But despite how comfortably his body rested in the chair, the expression covering Blokan's face at this moment showed absolutely no sign of comfort or relaxation. Instead, that tired expression looked much closer to complete surrender, as though the situation had already drained away whatever enthusiasm he might once have possessed for trying to solve it.

"No, no, no." Another person was sitting directly in front of Blokan, Glatheon, whose tense posture and visibly agitated expression formed a sharp contrast with Blokan's exhausted stillness. "Don't keep that strange expression on your face. Wake up and think of something with me!!"

In Glatheon's eyes, Blokan was practically the only person available to him who possessed enough wisdom, sufficiently long years of experience, and enough intelligence to sit down beside him and genuinely exchange experiences, ideas, and advice, then use all of that to agree upon some sort of general roadmap that might help save them from everything currently happening around them.

As for all the other officials occupying important positions throughout the Empire, they were either far too young to possess the kind of broad experience Glatheon currently needed, or they were highly specialized in one particular field and therefore lacked the broader wisdom necessary to look at the entire situation as a whole.

"Think about what, exactly...?" Blokan finally asked in a weary voice, barely changing his relaxed posture as he looked toward Glatheon. "What is there left that you haven't already done, Glatheon? Do you want to make another recording, except this time you'll cry in it?"

Ever since Qarun's declaration spread, everyone who possessed the ability to do something about the resulting situation had already started doing whatever they possibly could, each of them attempting to confront the consequences from whatever position and with whatever means were available to them.

Blokan himself had continued jumping from one Behemoth Galaxy to another in an attempt to recruit new Academy Directors and bring them into the Cosmic Academies, but the overwhelming majority of those missions ended in complete failure. Out of every hundred people he approached, only one would agree to the contract and return with him, while even among the Academy Directors who had previously agreed to join them before everything changed, some simply abandoned their positions and declared that this situation wasn't what they had originally agreed to, while others who had already signed long-term contracts chose to enter seclusion and completely stopped performing their duties.

As a result, the entire Cosmic Academies system had practically been paralyzed, with its normal operations suffering everywhere at once, while the Plague began spreading throughout the sectors where those Academies were present because of the growing lack of attention and proper follow-up... and naturally, the fact that the Plague was spreading in those same regions only intensified the accusations being directed against them even further.

And Glatheon, in his position as the Internal Affairs Advisor, had already done practically everything within his power as well... He had personally contacted every party connected to the ongoing conflict that he could reach, whether those parties were directly involved in what was happening or merely connected to it indirectly.

He had gone personally to the Relativity Behemoth in an attempt to speak with him, only to be driven away before he was even given the opportunity to meet him face-to-face.

He had also traveled to the rebel forces throughout Mid Sectors 106, 107, 108, 114, 113, 116, and 117, attempting again and again to establish agreements with them and calm the deteriorating situations throughout those sectors, but every single attempt made after Qarun's declaration ended in failure. The hostility he encountered had become so severe that, on several separate occasions, Glatheon himself had actually been forced to fight with his own hands.

Glatheon had even released a heavily promoted recording throughout the Soul Society in which he openly spoke about the schemes being carried out by the Great Powers to bring down Lord Robin because of how rapidly he had risen, while explaining that everything currently being said and spread about him was nothing but lies... But despite all the effort placed behind that recording and everything Glatheon said within it, the recording produced virtually no noticeable effect whatsoever on the surrounding situation.

"I'll cry in it if that'll help!!" Glatheon immediately raised his voice, clearly willing to go that far if doing so had even the slightest chance of improving their current situation.

"Tsk~" Blokan merely shook his head at Glatheon's response, showing no sign that he considered such an idea useful in the slightest. "You could dance in the recording and it still wouldn't matter or change anything." Then he turned his gaze away and continued in a tired voice, "There are three main points in Qarun's declaration, and all three of them have to be properly addressed with convincing evidence if we want to have any real chance of changing public opinion."

Then Blokan continued explaining his thoughts, "First is the matter of killing the Cosmic Elder. Unfortunately, Lord Robin himself was the one who spent decades promoting the Cosmic Elder's importance and spreading stories of his heroic deeds throughout the universe, and now all of that effort has come back against us in the form of terrifying losses and an extremely terrible reputation. At this point, only irrefutable proof that we weren't responsible for killing him could free us from this accusation, something decisive enough that no one could argue against it, such as the Cosmic Elder himself personally coming out and denying the entire matter."

"...Second is our relationship with the Crimson Plague. You deliberately didn't speak about that particular accusation in any of your recordings, and unfortunately, we can't properly address it now either. What exactly are we supposed to tell everyone when containers carrying imps continue arriving at Planet Donara every single day? The Shadow Swords and Imperial Guards are certainly doing a good job of protecting them from prying eyes and keeping what happens there concealed, but their efforts still aren't good enough... The Soul Society screwed all of us over with those innovative recording devices they suddenly started selling coincidentally, and with those devices now being used against us, trying to wriggle our way out of this accusation through words alone has become completely pointless."

"Can't—?!" Glatheon almost shouted something in response as the obvious answer came to his mind, but before the words could fully leave his mouth, he forcefully stopped himself and swallowed them back.

What Glatheon had wanted to say was simple: Couldn't they just reveal the truth that the Crimson Plague on Donara was only hunting Space Beasts? If they could show that clearly, it should be enough by itself to put an end to this particular problem and silence that accusation... But almost immediately, an even greater problem would emerge from that explanation, because everyone would naturally begin asking the next questions: How exactly were those imps hunting the Space Beasts? And what precisely was the secret behind that mysterious gate?

10:24

To an observer, the gate appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary Space Gate, and even to those secretly recording what happened around it, everything they saw merely made it look as though some unknown person standing on the other side was sending those corpses through, which meant its true secret was still relatively safe for the time being... In fact, even if one of those people recording the area made a mistake and released footage clearly showing Space Beast corpses emerging from the gate before the imps gathered around and ate them, the problem still wouldn't disappear. Instead, people would simply begin asking why Lord Robin possessed such an enormous number of Space Beast corpses in the first place, and why he was deliberately strengthening the imps to such an extraordinary degree if he didn't ultimately intend to use them to control the universe!

But if they openly explained that the Space Beasts were actually being hunted on the other side, then they would inevitably have to reveal the origin of the Spacetime Passage itself and explain exactly where that passage led. Once that happened, the damage to their reputation would immediately become the least of their problems... because at that point, they would have to directly deal with Antares and the others regarding ownership of the passage itself.

"The third accusation is Lord Robin's alleged allegiance to the Seer." Blokan completely ignored the increasingly troubled expression on Glatheon's face and continued laying out the situation before him. "And in my opinion, this one will be the hardest accusation of all to deal with. Qarun did an excellent job gathering all that evidence together and arranging it in a convincing manner, and the recordings circulating everywhere that clearly show Lord Robin's eyes glowing golden are more than enough proof of how difficult this accusation will be to dismiss. Somehow, we have to disprove the claim that Lord Robin and Sevar are brothers serving beneath the same master, because if we can't eliminate that connection in people's minds, then everything else we try to do will ultimately be pointless."

Then Blokan finally turned his exhausted gaze back toward Glatheon, looking at him as though he genuinely wanted to hear what solution the other man could possibly offer. "Please, enlighten me... What exactly do you have that can eliminate all of these accusations? Without sufficient and logically convincing answers that directly address them, what do we even have left to tell people? Go ahead and attack Qarun's reputation as much as you like and expose everything you can about him, but after you've finished doing that, what changes? Instead of everyone seeing one bad person, there'll simply be two bad people."

"....." Glatheon lowered his gaze toward the ground and remained silent for a moment, clearly unable to provide the answers Blokan was asking for. "...Do we really have to defend ourselves against any of this in the first place? The Syndicate has been violating the universe for tens of millions of years, yet no gathering remotely similar to this has ever formed against them despite everything they've done. When was the last time an alliance of this scale mobilized together specifically to destroy a Syndicate headquarters inside a sector?"

"Heh~" Blokan finally looked at him and gave him a small wink, as though Glatheon's question itself had revealed the problem in his understanding. "Do you really not understand how the Syndicate operates?"