Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2452 Thoughts

"Of course there's evidence!!" Helmor replied immediately, his voice carrying obvious excitement at Robin's question. "To be frank, I never personally asked either of them to provide that evidence because I know very well that obtaining something like that would cost a price I simply couldn't afford, and even they themselves would have to exert considerable effort and spend quite a bit of energy trying to uncover evidence specifically related to what happened to you. After all, you're not some historical figure who died long ago and whose past they can simply dig through at their leisure; you're still alive, you're the current Candidate of this cycle, and the threads of fate connecting you directly to the Seer are still extremely strong."

Then he continued without allowing the opportunity to pass, "But if you were the one who personally asked either of them for that evidence, neither of them would hesitate to help you, and they certainly wouldn't demand any payment from you. Everything they'd do would simply be for the sake of revealing the truth to you about an enemy you all have in common, because both of them have already drunk from the exact same cup you're drinking from now. If you want, we can arrange a meeting with them immediately."

"....." Robin continued staring downward in silence, his gaze moving slowly as he processed Helmor's suggestion rather than responding to it.

They'd both drunk from the same cup, and that alone was supposedly enough reason for them to hand him valuable evidence completely free of charge?

Was this some kind of support group for people suffering from psychological problems, where everyone helped each other simply because they'd experienced similar suffering?

Qarun and Sevar were each sitting at the center of an enormously complicated network composed of power, followers, and countless intertwined interests, so was Robin really supposed to believe that people like them would go out of their way to help him merely because they understood his feelings, sympathized with what he'd experienced, and were genuinely concerned about what might happen to him?

No... They would help him because they wanted to sow discord between him and the Seer, someone who was already their openly declared enemy, and turning the Seer's current Candidate against him would naturally serve exactly what they wanted.

That was precisely what Helmor himself was doing right now with this entire history lesson he'd spent so much time carefully explaining to him.

Were Helmor's words trustworthy enough for Robin to simply accept everything he'd said as the truth? No.

Then would the supposed evidence Qarun and Sevar brought him be trustworthy enough to settle the matter?

No.

What would that evidence even look like in the first place? Would they somehow show him the Seer's fingerprints on the whip that had been used to beat his son? Of course not. The so-called evidence would most likely amount to proof that there had been a possibility of manipulation surrounding a particular event, signs suggesting that something about what happened hadn't occurred naturally.

And even then, neither Qarun nor Sevar would necessarily be capable of determining exactly who had carried out that manipulation or explaining precisely what had happened behind the scenes.

If Causality truly possessed such an absolute ability to peer freely into the past and uncover everything that had happened with perfect clarity, then it would've long since transcended the human barrier and practically deified whoever possessed it, but everything had its limits, and even the mighty Master Laws weren't exceptions to that simple truth.

So in the end, Robin would meet Qarun, and Qarun would perhaps tell him that the place where his wife had suddenly appeared wasn't natural, or that the Flame Empire's declaration of war against the Burton Duchy and the extraordinary brutality they'd displayed weren't natural either... Fine, Robin already knew that those events were suspicious, so what exactly was supposed to come after hearing it from Qarun?

Was he supposed to simply join some club filled with people who were angry at the Seer and begin sharing their grievances with them?

As the pressure created by his increasingly tangled thoughts continued to mount inside his head, Robin slowly raised one hand and began rubbing his forehead, trying to organize everything he'd just heard without allowing Helmor's conclusions to become his own merely because they'd been presented convincingly.

"...It's much simpler than all this excessive thinking you're putting yourself through. What exactly is making you so hesitant about simply hearing the truth?" Helmor reminded him when he saw Robin's reaction. "You won't lose anything whatsoever by listening to what the two of them have to say. Even if you choose to continue following the Seer afterward, you still won't truly gain anything in the end. No matter how many Master Laws he gives you or how many benefits he places in your hands, all of it will eventually come to an end when the cycle itself ends."

"....." Robin finally raised his head slowly and looked toward Helmor again. "What do you think of the Seer, Helmor?"

"What kind of question is that?" Helmor revealed half a smile, apparently finding the answer far too obvious to require much thought. "He's a swindler who drained his own patron dry, then took his place for himself, and now he's dragging this entire universe down into the abyss along with him. At this point, it's merely a matter of time before he becomes a Scrapper or ends up imprisoned, leaving the rest of us as inhabitants of a wandering universe without an owner." Then he raised his head slightly before giving his conclusion, "In short, he's a failure whose luck has finally run out."

"Hmm, that's certainly one way of looking at it..." Robin released a quiet sigh before presenting the same history from another perspective. "What I see is a human who managed to deceive his Transcendent patron until he obtained exactly what he wanted from him and became stronger, who managed to carve his own path into the Land of Eternal Shelter exactly as he'd intended, who managed to form an alliance with other Transcendents against his patron, the Custodian, and then take the entire universe away from him as he wished, who managed to rip away every Seal the Custodian had won from the cycle because of him just as he'd planned, and who somehow completed that entire scheme without ending up imprisoned or sealed himself in the process... He went from being an ordinary human to becoming a Transcendent surrounded by enemies and people who hated him, then entered the wagering during the short interval separating one cycle from the next. When I look at everything he managed to accomplish during that period, that doesn't exactly sound like a failure to me. What do you think?"

"...." Helmor's brows furrowed deeply as he considered Robin's description, unable to simply dismiss the accomplishments he'd listed. "The Seer certainly isn't someone who can be taken lightly. He's pushed Causality to a terrifying level, and because of his attainments in it, he does command a certain degree of respect among the upper ranks..." Then a smile gradually returned to his face as he looked at Robin. "But is any of that really something that should make you afraid of him? In his eyes, you're going to die regardless of what you choose to do. Whether you disobey him or obey every order he gives you, you're finished the moment this cycle reaches its end, so why should you worry so much about what he thinks or account for his reaction?"

"..." Robin gave a slow nod after hearing Helmor's answer, but he didn't respond immediately, continuing to think about everything that had been said.

Setting up the gallows of hostility toward the Seer and condemning him outright without even giving him the slightest opportunity to defend himself or explain his side of what had happened would be sheer stupidity on Robin's part... especially when the only two pieces of information he currently possessed against the Seer had come directly from Helmor and his daughter, two sources that Robin had absolutely no reason to consider trustworthy in the first place.

And if, after investigating everything properly and separating the truth from whatever manipulation might be mixed into it, it turned out that the Seer truly was the one responsible...

Well, in that case, Robin certainly wouldn't hide from him inside some cave called Heaven-Avoidance or seek refuge beneath the protection of another patron simply because he needed someone powerful enough to shield him from the Seer.

If the Seer truly was the one responsible for what had happened, then the matter would cease to be something he could regard from a distance and would instead become personal, extremely personal.

Hiding? Seeking refuge from him?

No, no... if the truth ultimately led where Helmor was implying it did, there would only be blood.

Lots of it.

After several minutes of silence passed while Robin continued organizing his thoughts, he finally spoke again and abruptly shifted the conversation in another direction. "What do you think about the fate of the inhabitants of this universe, Helmor?"

"...?" Helmor was visibly surprised by the sudden change in subject, having expected Robin to continue asking about the Seer and his previous Candidates. "You mean the rehabilitation process that takes place at the end of every cycle? What about it?"

"Rehabilitation, yes..." Robin slowly nodded, keeping his tone calm as he clarified what he meant. "That process in which an incalculable number of humans perish, a number so unimaginably vast that no mathematical name has even been given to it yet, with every single person among those numbers having a name of their own, a family, and a dream they lived their life pursuing... What do you think about that?"

"You're talking as though I'm personally going to be the one killing all of them with my own hands when the cycle reaches its end." Helmor laughed at what he considered the obvious naivety behind the question. "It's an established fact and something that will inevitably happen regardless of what any of us think about it. During the rehabilitation process, every living thing will perish, whether it's intelligent or not, every trace left behind by civilization will completely disappear, and the planets themselves will be returned to the heart of Primordial Chaos so they can be rehabilitated after all the devastation inflicted upon them by humans throughout the cycle."

"...The only ones that survive that process are the Planet Souls, which retain their memories of all the cycles they've experienced and communicate with one another through bonds they establish during the period they spend together within Primordial Chaos. But under the Seer's reign, every one of them has been given strict orders not to utter a single word about anything beyond the current cycle, or about anything related to him."

Then he continued, moving naturally to the other exception, "The other things that survive are the Relics. They're the equipment, weapons, and artifacts that Transcendents secretly cast into the universes over the course of successive cycles, all of them equipment of Grade Seven or above. The Primordial Chaos within the universes is incapable of digesting these Relics along with everything else, so it creates enormous monuments around them over time—pyramids, obelisks, strange walls, and other such structures—and severe conditions are placed upon anyone who wants to solve the puzzle of a Relic and retrieve whatever is hidden inside it, because those things don't actually belong to us in the first place... I'm fairly certain you've already encountered and obtained some of them yourself."

"....." Robin immediately thought of Orphan's Blood and Ghost Valley as Helmor described those Relics, and his thoughts also naturally turned toward the Seraphim Quill.

Then he gave a slow nod after hearing everything Helmor had to say. "I asked you what you thought about the fate of humanity at the end of the cycle, yet somehow the conversation ended up shifting toward weapons and what survives afterward... I think I got my answer."