Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2500 The Breaker of Certainty

Mid Sector 90—On the surface of a planet

"Oh no..." Theo's eyes began trembling violently as he stared at what was happening in the broadcast, an ominous feeling immediately rising within him.

This wasn't part of the plan!!

The idea of broadcasting what was happening inside Donara live for everyone to see, in order to ease the pressure on them and correct Robin's image in the eyes of the universe, had originally been Billy's idea. He had sent the proposal to Theo because he knew perfectly well that it wouldn't succeed without proper coordination with the Shadow Swords, and asked him, as his uncle, to help him carry it out while keeping the entire matter secret.

Of course, Theo hadn't kept anything secret.

The proposal had gone directly to Robin exactly as Billy had written it, without Theo concealing or changing anything, and Robin had carefully reviewed the entire thing, thought it over for some time, and eventually agreed.

Then Robin himself had arranged the timing and prepared the stage for everything by issuing a warning to everyone not to come visit him on his birthday, after which he dressed himself up properly and simply sat there waiting for the appointed time.

According to the planned course of events, his father was supposed to expose the secrets of the Great Powers in a seemingly spontaneous manner, following the simple principle of: You wanted my downfall, so I'll drag you down with me. Afterward, he would talk about the strengths of his empire and openly boast about the power and achievements of his children in front of everyone... He had also used the Causality Dice more than once beforehand and predicted that one of the three powers would launch a major attack against him during the broadcast, and he had explicitly said that he would use those attackers as an example and a warning for anyone wise enough to take heed.

That was precisely why he had deliberately been prolonging the broadcast by slowly opening the gifts one after another, giving the attackers enough time to arrive regardless of who they ultimately turned out to be. It was also why Theo had repeatedly prevented Billy from shutting down the broadcast while, at the same time, refusing to tell him that Robin already knew everything about the broadcast from the beginning, because if Billy knew the truth, his spontaneous reactions in front of Robin would inevitably change.

Everything had been arranged in advance, and everything had been proceeding exactly as intended without any significant problems...

Until this moment!

Huuuum

Golden light exploded from Robin's body through the broadcast with such overwhelming intensity that merely looking at it seemed enough to blind the eyes.

This wasn't part of the plan at all. His father wasn't acting this time or following the course they had previously agreed upon; he was genuinely angry!!

Damn it... Even Theo himself had actually written his memoirs because he'd nearly died at Helmor's hands, so how the hell was he supposed to know that everyone else would end up doing exactly the same thing?!

Theo immediately raised his wrist without wasting another moment and began speaking rapidly through the interstellar communication network, "Change of plan, change of plan, prepare to improvise!!"

Dozens of replies immediately came pouring in from the numbered Shadow Swords who had been waiting for instructions... but what exactly were they supposed to prepare for?!

Theo didn't know. He truly didn't know what his father intended to do next, and that complete lack of certainty was precisely what made the situation so difficult to handle.

Maybe Robin would personally go and fight one of the Great Powers? Maybe he would simply display his strength before the entire universe? Maybe he would come directly to Mid Sector 90 and participate in the ongoing war?!

"Damn it!!" Theo raised both hands above his head in frustration as every possibility passing through his mind seemed worse for Robin's image than the last.

Any one of those choices would tarnish his father's image and weaken the position they had been carefully building for him, making Robin appear before everyone as somewhat unstable, impatient, hot-tempered, and impossible to trust, even if he ultimately managed to inflict enormous damage wherever he chose to strike. As for merely displaying his Laws and demonstrating his strength without doing anything else, that would somehow be even worse... Who got angry and simply started flexing their muscles for no reason?! Rather than increasing his standing, that would only diminish his prestige in the eyes of those watching.

What exactly was he going to do after making such a declaration?

What was he—

Disturbance

"....!!" Theo's eyes suddenly widened to their absolute limits, and his breath caught in his throat as everything else occupying his thoughts disappeared for a moment.

Not because of anything he had seen through the broadcast... but because of what he had suddenly felt directly in Mid Sector 90 itself.

What he had just felt despite being ten entire Sectors away from the place where his father was currently standing with both arms raised.

Mid Sector 900—A street on one of the mortal planets

"Hehe, you won't catch me!"

Among the billions upon billions of planets scattered throughout every Sector, naturally, not all of them were developed worlds belonging to great empires or powerful organizations. Naturally, not every planet possessed Space Gates, broadcast screens, and space vessels connecting its inhabitants to the wider universe... It was equally natural that there would still be remote planets with scarce resources, planets whose inhabitants were actually grateful for the simple fact that the outside world had forgotten about their existence.

Here, children played freely in the street with nothing more than small sticks and stones, their clothes made from animal hides barely sufficient to cover the important parts of their bodies, yet despite how little they possessed, broad and genuine smiles still covered their faces as they played together.

No one here needed to occupy their thoughts with some particular empire that had suddenly decided it wanted their already scarce resources, nor with some particular person who had decided that their planet should belong to them and wanted to conquer it.

Here, within the bliss of their ignorance and isolation from everything happening across the greater universe, they were simply—

Disturbance

Rumble, rumble

"Huh?" The children suddenly fell onto their backsides as the disturbance reached them, some immediately beginning to run beneath the nearby trees in confusion while others simply remained where they were and started crying.

Most of them, however, began staring upward toward the night sky in complete astonishment, unable to understand what exactly was happening around them...

This didn't feel like an ordinary earthquake coming from the ground beneath their feet. Their very bodies themselves were trembling, the surrounding air was becoming distorted and unstable, and the sky... the sky itself was changing.

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Mid Sector 750—

Krssh—Rumble

"...?!" Sevar slowly rose to his feet, his attention immediately locking onto the strange disturbance spreading around him.

The Heaven-Avoidance Cave was shaking violently, its surroundings trembling with enough force to make the disturbance impossible to ignore.

And the atmosphere around him had changed along with it. The air itself began to compress and expand repeatedly, as though the space around him were being subjected to some enormous invisible pressure.

"What the...?! " Sevar's expression began to pale slightly as he sensed the scale of what was happening around him. "Is he targeting me?!"

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Mid Sector 99—Donara

Disturbance

The enormous golden momentum continued surging out of Robin's body without any sign of slowing down, pouring outward like a colossal waterfall that had remained blocked for thousands of years and had finally been set free all at once.

"Ah... Aah..." Billy fell onto his backside, staring ahead blankly as all the words of comfort he had wanted to say suddenly seemed unable to find their way out of his mouth.

He could only continue staring at Robin's back in complete astonishment, unable to do anything else, while the broadcast continued carrying everything happening before him to all those who knew and those who remained unaware among the children of the universe.

Rumble, rumble

The Demons below dropped to their knees beneath the pressure they were experiencing. Unlike the rest of the universe, they didn't merely feel the strange shaking and disturbance spreading everywhere—they directly felt the terrifying immensity of the golden momentum itself pouring out from Robin.

Even the Passage that had been spitting out a new beast every few seconds seemed to have completely frozen at that moment... Not a single beast dared to pass through while that overwhelming momentum filled the surroundings.

"Me..." Robin spoke through tightly gritted teeth, every word carrying the anger that had been building inside him. "You think I will be defeated? And by whom? Who in this universe can defeat me? Who beneath this shell can force me to start over from the beginning?"

Disturbance, disturbance

The golden momentum accelerated with an enormous increase in volume, surging farther and farther outward until it burst beyond Donara's planetary atmosphere and continued penetrating into the depths of space.

"I am the one who broke my death when it seized me. I am the one who broke my fate when it bound me!" Robin began raising his voice as the golden momentum continued pouring from his body. "I am the one who broke every obstacle that stood in my path. I am the one who broke every person who ever dared to try to stop me!"

Then he raised his hands even higher, and with that movement, the outpouring of golden momentum grew more immense, continuing to expand with seemingly inexhaustible force.

"I am the one who broke the very notion of humanity's inferiority simply by existing. I am the one who broke the inevitability of the Cosmic Elder's death just because I wanted it to!" Then he slowly began raising his head, his voice continuing without pause. "I am the one who broke the dreams of those who dreamed of destroying the universe without punishment. I am the one who will break anyone who dares lay a hand on anything that belongs to me... I am Robin Burton. I am the Breaker of Certainty!"

Then he gritted his teeth with even greater force, his hair and eyes shining beneath the golden radiance, the fury within them mixing with an imperious gaze that looked down upon everything before him.

"If all of that still isn't enough for you to understand who I am... then allow me to break something else, something that every creature within this universe can feel for themselves, and whose echoes can reach even beyond it..."

Then—

He brought both hands down with tremendous force.

"Buffer zones between the Sectors of the Mid Belt... break and end this epoch for me!"

Crack