Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2485 The Thousand year's birthday!

Donara—Above the Mountain

"...You can't keep me away, Your Maaaaajesty~" Billy approached from behind, his steps noticeably unsteady as his legs barely managed to carry him forward toward the person sitting ahead.

He continued forward at the same slow pace despite the growing pressure in his chest, almost fainting from the sheer stupidity of what he was doing and from imagining what might happen once Robin eventually found out what was actually going on... yet he forced himself to keep walking until he finally crossed the remaining distance and reached Robin's side.

Then, after finally arriving beside him, Billy simply stood there, stunned for a moment as he stared at the person before him.

Robin looked... somewhat different from the image Billy remembered.

His golden hair was neither particularly long nor short, merely long enough to be smoothly slicked back without a single unruly strand disturbing its appearance, giving him a clean, masculine style befitting a king, while even his naturally handsome yet sharp and unmistakably masculine facial features seemed to reinforce exactly the same impression.

He also had a short golden beard covering the lower part of his face, its longest hairs no longer than a finger joint, neatly groomed and obviously given special attention today of all days. The same unusual care could be seen in his white robe embroidered with gold, an extraordinarily expensive robe whose price alone could probably solve the problems of entire Millennial Empires.

Yet despite his appearance and the absurd value of what he wore, Robin was sitting on a simple white chair resembling one of those cheap garden chairs, neither enormous nor luxurious in any conceivable way, without anything about the chair itself deserving attention, yet at this particular moment it somehow looked beneath him like a true throne.

Robin had his right ankle resting comfortably over his left leg in a relaxed posture, holding a glass filled with a thick, tar-like black liquid in his right hand, while his left hand rested casually and naturally upon his thigh without the slightest trace of tension.

But despite everything Billy had just noticed about Robin's appearance, none of those things were what drew his attention the most, nor were they the true reason he had suddenly frozen in place and found himself staring in bewilderment... What truly caught him was that gaze.

Robin wasn't looking toward Billy or toward anything close to him. Instead, he was gazing straight ahead toward the distant horizon stretching above the clouds, his relaxed eyes only half-open as though there was nothing before him capable of demanding his full attention, while a faint, satisfied smile rested naturally upon his face.

That bearing, that relaxed posture, and those calm, satisfied expressions when placed together...

For a brief moment, Billy genuinely felt as though he were standing before someone who had already ruled the entire universe, finished everything there was to accomplish within it, and simply had nothing left to do.

"...Who am I to drive you away, Billy?" Robin's small smile widened slightly when he finally spoke, then without even turning his head to look toward him, he casually gestured for Billy to take a seat beside him. "I've been waiting for you, actually."

"Waiting for me?" Billy quickly sat down after hearing that, already forgetting completely that he was still running the broadcast after finally finding himself in Robin's presence again for the first time in all those years, his attention entirely occupied by the man beside him. "You knew I was coming even after you threatened everyone to stay where they were and focus on the war?"

"I was certain." Robin replied calmly, as though Billy's arrival had never been in question to begin with. "While my children and followers are afraid of seeing so much as a single crease form between my brows, you're the only one who isn't afraid of punishment and isn't afraid of my anger. Besides, you'd never allow an opportunity like this to pass when you could use it as an excuse to run away from your responsibilities and take yourself a short vacation, haha."

Only then did Robin finally turn his eyes slightly and give Billy a sidelong glance as an old memory surfaced in his mind. "Do you remember when you brought a cake to celebrate my 187th birthday with me? Back then, we were barely trying to secure control over Planet Jura and everything around us was already in crisis, yet despite all of that, you abandoned all your responsibilities and came carrying a cake."

"Hey!" Billy immediately furrowed his brows sharply at the accusation. "Who's running away from his responsibilities?!" His face began growing increasingly red as he defended himself, both from embarrassment and annoyance. "Is it my fault that I didn't want you spending your thousandth birthday alone?! Someone of your status should've held a celebration large enough to shake the entire universe and stop every war for the entire day. This isn't some ordinary occasion, man!"

"You came, and that's that." Robin clearly had no intention of continuing that argument, simply extending his left hand toward Billy with the same relaxed attitude as before. "Where's my cake?"

"Tsk~ You're seriously irritating." Billy grumbled as he swept his spiritual sense through his ring, then immediately began taking out what he needed and preparing the table beside Robin for the small birthday celebration he had come all this way to hold.

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The Grand Hall—Soul Society

"What the hell is going on?!" someone shouted among the enormous crowd, his voice immediately joining countless others that were already beginning to rise throughout the Grand Hall.

"Why did we suddenly switch from watching the war to some kind of reality show?!"

"Is there something wrong with the Soul Society? Did something malfunction?!"

"Fix it! Fix it, you money-sucking bastards! I already paid in advance for an extra hour!!"

Among the hundreds of billions standing there to watch, nearly half didn't even bother trying to listen to what was being said in the new broadcast and had already begun shouting loudly and demanding that the war broadcasts be restored immediately. Some of them even started opening their own private windows, intending to simply ignore this strange interruption and continue watching the battles on their own, only for everyone attempting it to discover that all the other broadcasts had been shut down!

As for the other half of the enormous audience, they weren't shouting or trying to change broadcasts at all. They simply remained where they were and stood there in astonishment, staring at the person appearing before them...

Robin Burton!

This was Robin Burton, the man whose actions were moving the entire universe at this very moment!

"He's truly Human, exactly as he named himself, nothing but a human... All those theories claiming that the name was supposed to imply something deeper, or that he deliberately chose it to divert attention away from his true race, can finally be thrown into the garbage after today."

"He looks much more handsome than I imagined... I always pictured him as some crazy old scientist with messy hair, someone who looked like he'd spent his entire life buried in experiments."

"That bastard is actually sitting there drinking something and celebrating his thousandth birthday while Sector 90 is burning over the heads of its inhabitants!!"

"...Wait..." The angry voices didn't completely stop, but that particular word suddenly began appearing among them as some people finally noticed something much stranger than the birthday celebration itself.

"Did he just say his thousandth birthday?"

"A thousandth? As in... only a thousand years?!"

"A genius! I swear, he's an unprecedented genius!!"

"What a ridiculous performance and what a blatant lie!! Only a thousand years old? Who does he take us for?! My own son is already two thousand years old and still keeps failing his studies at the Star Academy!!"

"Liar! Robin Burton is a wicked liar, exactly as expected from the patron of the plague!!"

Alongside the shouts of those completely swept up by the situation and already convinced of their own conclusions, countless other voices continued rising from every direction as everyone tried to interpret what they had just heard in their own way.

In that brief second when Billy began taking out the cake, the voices of shouting spectators seemed to fill the entire universe, every person saying something different from the one beside them, every person expressing a different opinion about what they were seeing and hearing.

Among the quadrillions of humans and non-humans watching the broadcast, whether they were currently inside the Soul Society itself or watching from somewhere outside it, it had become difficult to find even two people who shared exactly the same opinion after hearing those few short exchanges between Robin and Billy!

This was especially true regarding the number that had struck everyone where it hurt most and immediately become the center of their arguments... Some people cursed Robin outright and called the claim an obvious lie, while others began trying to explain that Robin and Billy must have been speaking in riddles and that the number couldn't possibly mean what it appeared to mean.

Some of Robin's admirers even began shouting that it was merely a permissible trick intended to conceal his true age from the universe, something he had deliberately done so that curses couldn't use his actual age to target him.

But despite all the different explanations, accusations, theories, and arguments spreading everywhere, no one, absolutely no one among all those watching... considered for even a single moment that the number might actually be true.

Then, at that very moment, before those arguments could settle or any single explanation could prevail over the others, a wide window suddenly appeared before everyone watching the broadcast, accompanied by the clear sound of a whistle—

Beep Beep

And written clearly inside that window was a short message:

<Soul Society congratulates Lord Robin Burton on his thousandth birthday according to his soul age registered with us, and wishes him a pleasant day and a happy vacation.>

"......?!"

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