Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2484 The keeper

Mid Sector 80—Galaxy of the Conservation Behemoth

This was a place where it was difficult to tell whether it was truly a throne hall or an enormous library, as the characteristics of both seemed to exist together without either one completely defining the vast place...

The walls themselves were little more than massive supports stretching upward until they reached an open sky rather than any visible ceiling. Clouds could be seen drifting naturally between the books arranged across the upper rows, occasionally passing in front of them and concealing parts of the shelves, while even more rows of books could still be seen far above the clouds themselves.

Anyone who focused on those distant shelves for even a short while would eventually notice something unusual: those books were moving... They would fly out of their places on the shelves on their own, rise through the air toward new positions on higher shelves, or descend toward other positions closer to the ground, constantly changing locations like a gigantic beehive that never truly rested. Only the books near the ground—the closest fifty rows or so—barely moved at all compared to the constant activity taking place above them.

As for the vast floor stretching beneath all those endless shelves, it wasn't filled with luxurious seats, imposing thrones, or platforms prepared for discussing plans and agreements... Instead, cubes protruded directly from the ground at different places, black cubes topped by transparent glass cubes, and at the center of each glass cube rested either a book or a crystalline information sphere.

Only those who had visited this place before and personally tried touching one of those cubes knew just how intense the protection imposed upon every single one of them truly was. Even those visitors didn't necessarily know what those books or crystalline spheres actually contained... but whatever information or objects were preserved inside them, they were worth entire empires at the very least.

And amidst this enormous place, surrounded by those moving books and heavily protected cubes, stood a person—or perhaps it would have been more accurate to call him a thing...

He was taller than the average human and extraordinarily thin, his entire figure appearing narrow and almost withered. His skin was dry and rough like the bark of an old tree, his mouth was small and visibly cracked, and a single glowing eye occupied nearly half of his face... This was Amat, Behemoth of the Fundamental Law of Conservation, the only Behemoth among the Treant creatures.

At this moment... Amat wasn't paying attention to the countless books moving around him or anything else within this enormous place. Instead, he was watching the ten broadcasts of the ongoing war displayed side by side before him.

His single enormous eye didn't move toward the right or left even once as the ten different broadcasts continued simultaneously, yet it was obvious from his stillness that he could see everything being displayed across all of them and calmly analyze everything he saw in complete silence.

This war taking place in Mid Sector 90 wasn't particularly far from him, and it already included support sent by several Behemoths whose territories were located near his own. For example, the Behemoth located in Sector 76 had already sent support to participate in the conflict... but Amat hadn't sent anyone.

In fact, he was the only Behemoth in this entire region who hadn't participated in the war in any way whatsoever, whether by supporting one side or the other.

All his children and disciples had already warned him about the consequences of such a decision. They repeatedly told him that after the Horde finished off Robin Burton and his followers, those forces might turn back toward them and attempt to eliminate them in a fit of anger, or at the very least impose some kind of punishment upon them because they had refused to participate when everyone else had done so... but Amat rejected those warnings and simply continued watching the war.

His reason was simple: he said that he didn't trust Qarun's version of history.

Was Robin Burton truly the absolute evil that everyone was currently portraying him as? Amat didn't know the answer, and he wasn't going to pretend otherwise. Robin Burton had always been an extremely mysterious person whose true circumstances and intentions were difficult to determine from what was publicly known about him.

Amat's absolute love for gathering information and preserving archives had driven him to collect all the known history concerning Robin Burton that he could obtain, paying particular attention to the known period Robin had spent within Dawnlight Star Academy. Yet after going through everything available to him, all he found was that Robin was an extremely arrogant, self-made, vengeful man of terrifying intelligence, and that he truly did follow the entity known as the Seer...

Those traits certainly fit the accusations currently being made against him. After all, a person possessing those characteristics could very well be someone willing to do anything necessary to complete his mission once he had decided upon it.

But Robin Burton was also someone who had stood his ground directly against the Tyrant, the Council of Thrones, and the Syndicate, then deliberately chosen to fight rather than retreat before them... Whatever his actual intentions might be and whatever truth lay behind everything currently happening, that decision alone deserved a certain degree of respect.

As for who ultimately won this war, Amat didn't particularly care about that either. All that truly mattered to him was that Robin Burton's followers continued resisting fiercely enough to weaken those Syndicate bastards and their allies as much as possible, inflicting enough damage upon them that once the war finally ended, they wouldn't think about turning their attention toward bothering him afterward and would instead be forced to remain where they were and content themselves with licking their wounds.

And up until this very moment, Robin Burton's followers were doing an excellent job of accomplishing exactly that...

It was approximately the eighth day since the war had begun, yet they were still holding on despite everything thrown against them. The Butcher Marlik was still restrained and unable to freely do anything he wanted on the battlefield, while the Son of Destruction Hedrick still hadn't moved either, and neither had the 250 Dominators whose involvement remained another unresolved factor in the war...

They were good, much better than many might have expected before the fighting began, and if things continued along this path they might genuinely manage to weaken their opponents as much as Amat hoped they would, but regardless of how impressive their resistance currently appeared...

Their defeat was certain.

Especially if Antares and the Syndicate eventually decided to use the Major Space Gates to send even more reinforcements into the battlefield, increasing the pressure on Robin Burton's side far beyond what they were already enduring.

This war could continue for years, with both sides constantly fighting and gradually destroying each other until their forces were exhausted and countless experts had perished, after which the Archon could simply send another 200 Dominators to wipe everyone remaining from the battlefield... and it would be over.

The end of this enormous war, despite everything currently happening and all the forces involved in it, could truly be that simple.

Qarun couldn't send any more reinforcements... He had already sent every Academy Director he had previously helped and who consequently owed him a favor, as well as those against whom he held something disastrous enough to force their participation. At this point, he had nothing left that he could freely mobilize except his twelve disciples, whom he could move whenever he wished.

The remaining Star Academy Directors weren't fools. They could clearly recognize that what was happening before them was fundamentally a personal war, and they wouldn't willingly involve themselves in such a conflict unless they received an extremely high price in return for taking that risk—a price the exceedingly greedy Qarun would never want to pay unless he absolutely had to.

As for the Syndicate and Antares, however, the situation was completely different, because they still had plenty of followers available and many cards left to play if they truly decided to escalate matters further.

So far, the Syndicate had already mobilized everyone they could reasonably move without causing the cosmic balance of power to become unstable elsewhere. The Archon and the Butcher didn't want to trade whatever gains they might obtain from this war for losing control over entire Sectors they already possessed, because if Robin Burton actually decided to take advantage of their weakened positions and used the Emperor Killer and the Son of Destruction to harvest the heads of large numbers of Syndicate followers, then the prestige the Syndicate had accumulated would be destroyed and its authority over those places would inevitably collapse.

And those two were undoubtedly capable of doing exactly that during the final moments before their deaths, when there would no longer be any reason for them to hold themselves back...

But the Archon and the Butcher still had that card available to them if the situation ever forced their hands: the option of flooding the battlefield with everything they possessed, throwing all the forces they could mobilize into the war at once and simply accepting whatever final outcome resulted from that decision... and that possibility was undoubtedly the greatest danger currently facing Robin Burton and all his followers.

As for the Tyrant, he still hadn't fully loosed the arrows of hostility toward Robin Burton. Even today, despite everything that had happened, he continued allowing some Shadow Swords and some of Robin's followers to travel through the Major Space Gates. Even after the appearance of those strange passages being used by Robin Burton's followers, they still had to rely on the Major Space Gates whenever they wanted to travel toward Sectors beyond 90 and 117.

And Antares was still allowing some of them to use those gates!

But Antares could completely prohibit their passage at any moment if he chose to do so, demand an explanation for the strange passages that had appeared under Robin Burton's control, and even attack him because of their existence... If that happened, yet another catastrophe would descend upon Robin Burton's side, because no one truly knew the extent of the Tyrant's real strength.

And also—

Krssh

"Hmm?" Amat's single eye blinked as the sudden change before him immediately drew his attention.

At that moment, the broadcasts abruptly changed. All ten different views of the ongoing war disappeared at the same time, and in their place appeared a completely different image showing a person sitting calmly on a chair.

"What's happening? Did you fail at something?" Amat asked toward the side in his ancient voice, clearly wondering why all ten broadcasts had suddenly been replaced without warning.

"No, Your Excellency, it's the Soul Society!!" the ten Treants replied simultaneously, all ten of their eyes glowing brightly as they used themselves as mediums to display the live broadcast of reality directly before him.

"The Soul Society did this?" Amat turned his attention back toward the newly displayed broadcast with obvious surprise, carefully examining what had replaced the ten battlefield views. "...These specifications aren't unfamiliar to me..."

Then his single eye suddenly opened to its widest when he heard the voice coming through the broadcast:

<...Your Royal Majesty Highness Robin Burton, hehe, even if you ordered everyone not to gather today, I'll come to you anyway!>

"Robin Burton decided to appear?!" Amat shouted.