Lord of the Truth

"Not until it's truly complete."

Robin stood tall once more, brushing the dust off the area with the side of his leg. His movement was precise, deliberate, as though he were performing a ritual rather than a casual gesture. His eyes, calm yet intense, remained fixed on the uneven ground below him.

"I refuse to announce a method as 'solved' when it works only one out of five times."

With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed aside the small bone he had been using to etch on the earth — a primitive tool, but effective enough for thought-mapping. He dusted his hands together, as if symbolically closing a chapter of his current thought process, and began walking slowly toward the cavern entrance nestled in the hillside.

"I suppose I should consider myself lucky," he added with a half-smirk, "that the fourth stage of the Eye of Truth doesn't demand specialized elixirs or exotic materials to function. If it did, where in this barren region would I even begin to look for ingredients tied to something as elusive and untamable as the master Law of Truth?"

(Ah, right! You can use the fourth stage of the Eye of Truth!)

Evergreen's voice burst with sudden excitement, her presence fluttering like a flame reacting to wind.

(So? What do you see with it now? Don't hold back, describe it!)

Robin paused mid-step. His head tilted slightly upward, golden irises dilating and contracting in waves. The light caught them in a way that made his gaze look almost alien — inhuman in its depth. He waited for a moment before speaking, as if weighing the worth of his own answer.

"…Not much, really," he said at last, voice soft and honest.

"There's not much to see that I'd consider worth mentioning."

(Not worth mentioning? What do you mean by that?)

Evergreen tilted her head, confused by the cryptic answer. But then her eyes lit up as if recalling something important.

(Ooh… Wait. You're supposed to be seeing laws of fifth stage now, aren't you?)

"Exactly." Robin nodded, a wry smile curling on his lips.

"And unfortunately for me, the Young Belt doesn't contain even a trace of a fifth stage law. At least, none that I've been able to detect so far."

He turned back to his path with a soft sigh.

"Ever since my last expedition to this cave, this is the first time I've activated the Eye of Truth and been greeted with near silence. It's... strangely comforting, in a way."

But his expression began to shift, that comfort gradually slipping from his face like mist dissolving in the morning sun.

He added, in a tone that betrayed more than just curiosity:

"But then… there are those things..."

(What things?)

Neri's voice came quickly — sharp, almost alarmed.

She had picked up on it — the subtle inconsistency in his speech. Robin had claimed there was "not much" to see, or that what he saw wasn't worth mentioning... but he never actually said he saw nothing.

Robin scratched his tangled black hair, fingers digging into his scalp as he looked toward the sky with furrowed brows.

He hesitated, then tried to explain.

"…I don't even know what words to use. They're… patterns, I guess. But not like any pattern I've seen before. They're enormous, abstract… sometimes they resemble colossal letters — towering like mountains etched into the void. Other times, they shimmer and dart like birds of light, appearing for the briefest second before vanishing into a different quadrant of the sky."

He paused, as if recalling the surreal imagery.

"Sometimes they seem to give birth to other patterns around them — sometimes even morph into entirely new forms as I watch. It's chaotic, but beautiful. It's like... like watching a dream unfold. A strange, almost nonsensical dream that you only remember flashes of after waking from a long afternoon nap."

(Do you have any theories? Any idea what those patterns might be?)

Neri's voice now held not just curiosity, but reverence. It was as if she were asking about forbidden knowledge — secrets too great for mortal minds.

Robin narrowed his eyes, the gears of logic and intuition grinding against each other inside his mind.

"…I'm not entirely sure. But if I had to guess — and this is only speculation — I'd say… maybe… these are the patterns of the Master Laws at the fifth stage."

His voice lowered, as though he feared speaking the words aloud would summon something from the void.

"Think about it. These eight sovereign laws — Truth, Spacetime, Creation, and the others — they existed before the stars, before the universe was even born. They're not merely ancient. The universe doesn't just rely on them — it requires them. They can't be bypassed or suppressed like lesser laws. There is no 'cut-off' where they stop applying."

(Wait, wait — are you saying you're seeing other master laws with your Eye?)

Evergreen's voice practically squeaked with excitement.

But Neri was already ahead of her.

(Then what are you waiting for? You need to study them — understand them — this opportunity is once in a lifetime! Once this planet ascends into the Middle Belt, or once you travel to that level yourself, the sky will once again be saturated with endless networks of law patterns. You'll never get this level of clarity again!)

Robin raised his hand gently, cutting her off. His gaze had grown distant now — not in distraction, but in reflection.

"First of all, I'm not even certain these are the master laws. Second…"

He took a deep breath.

"I've already spent more time than I care to admit trying to study them. I poured over them. Meditated. Recorded. Compared. And still — I got nothing of value. I can't analyze them the way I do with ordinary laws."

He slowly shook his head.

"If these are indeed the master patterns… then I'm afraid even the Eye of Truth — powerful as it is — may not be enough. Just like I once discovered the law of Spacetime with nothing but my instincts and will, I may have to uncover the rest on my own, without relying on the patterns at all. Not because I want to… but because I have no choice."

"The only clue I have that these might truly be master laws," Robin said, his voice a quiet murmur swallowed by the wind curling through the mountain slopes, "is that when I focus with the second-stage of the Eye of Truth, I can just barely make out vague third stage spacetime patterns. It's faint — like chasing smoke in the dark — but it's there. However, when I try to use the third or even fourth stage Eye to search for fourth or fifth stage spacetime patterns…"

He paused, frowning slightly. "I see nothing but those strange, elusive patterns again. They appear and vanish like whispers in a dream, never letting themselves be understood. It's like the laws themselves are hiding."

He looked off into the distance, his expression solemn.

"These master laws… they defy all logic."

(…What a waste.)

Neri exhaled deeply through the spiritual link, her disappointment tangible even without a physical body. Her voice was low, almost mournful.

(If Robin had truly gained access to the master laws everything would have shifted. The future could have changed. The burdens we carry might have lightened.)

There was a pause before her next words arrived, tighter and more serious.

(So what now? Are you planning to stay in this place until you finish the Fifth Path?)

(Let him stay!)

Evergreen cut in quickly, her usual playful tone bubbling with optimism.

(Let him stay as long as he wants. Once he completes the Fifth Path, the universe will bow to him. He'll have power, riches, and status beyond imagination! His name will be etched into history forever!)

She spun midair, arms stretched wide, as if embracing the imagined glory.

But Neri was unmoved by the fantasy. Her tone hardened.

(I wish it were that simple, but we all know it's not. Time is the one thing he doesn't have.)

Her words dropped like stones into still water.

(Robin, I hope you haven't forgotten your true mission. Even if you complete the Fifth Path — even if you perfect it — the time left to you will not be enough to face what's coming.)

The unspoken weight of her words lingered.

In just nine hundred years, the seed of fate would begin to bloom. Robin would be forced to establish a full-scale interplanetary empire made of a hundred worlds, anchor it to the Galactic Seed, Nihari. And then accelerate the evolution of the world Nihari to reach the Middle Belt.

But Nihari wasn't ready. It still had tens of thousands of years to go before it could naturally ascend.

Which meant... he had only one impossible option left.

Either he himself, or someone native to Nihari, must reach the terrifying level of a World Cataclysm within the next nine centuries.

"I don't even know where to start," Robin admitted finally, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration, his eyes still locked on the mountain's horizon.

"Even if I somehow become a World Cataclysm — which, let's be honest, I don't even know how to begin — how the hell am I supposed to defend an entire empire once we hit the Middle Belt?"

His voice was hard, sharp, brittle like glass under stress.

"That region has no rules. None. Cataclysms and Nexus Beings can move freely. The moment the Planet Seed evolves, and nearby unclaimed planets detect it, every major empire will come for it. Just a handful of World Cataclysms could obliterate everything I built… and I'd be powerless to stop it."

…

Neri and Evergreen exchanged a heavy look.

This — this was the real threat. The insurmountable obstacle.

Even if Robin managed to gather a hundred planets, somehow obtained the incredibly rare planetary displacement equipment, and pulled them into Nihari's orbit…

Even if he reached the unimaginable power level of a World Calamity, and did all this in just 900 years…

What then?

If he's the only World Cataclysm, who would defend the empire when the storms came crashing down?

Creating the empire was only half the mission. The other half was far crueler:

To protect it. To preserve Nihari and the foundation of his legacy until he could rise high enough to become a Behemoth.

The scale of the challenge was so immense, so utterly without precedent, that perhaps Robin had already begun to let it go — to give up on it quietly.

Why else would he be here, working in solitude to complete the Fifth Path, in calm, measured silence, instead of racing to prepare for the inevitable?

He stood in thought for a moment, the wind playing with the edges of his robes. His fingers reached up, brushing through his thick beard.

Then, gripping the end of it tightly, he looked down, as though speaking to the land itself.

"…You are right, Neri, I think I've stayed here long enough."