Lord of the Truth

"Oh? And what exactly did I do to anger the Marshal?" Rinara's lips curved into a faint, teasing smile, her tone carrying both amusement and defiance. "Was it because I saved several thousand of his soldiers from dying due to their own poor arrangement and sloppy strategy? Truly, how unreasonable. Why doesn't he make better use of the Kiumaji Fox forces — they, after all, are also part of the Empire, bound by its banners and its laws."

"My lady," the woman beside her — a composed yet visibly uneasy officer in her thirties — spoke with hesitation, "you already know humanity's eternal, ancient problem with the fourth stage of the Laws. They carry their own power, their own pride— a pride so deeply rooted that they still boast of having declared war on an entire Starfield simply because we joined it and held our ground. And more than that… they endured. They survived, they expanded. Because of their tremendous achievements, nearly every human power within that Starfield has now joined them under the Cradle's banner."

The woman's voice wavered with concern as she continued, her words flowing rapidly, "...all major trade entities have sworn allegiance and sought the Cradle's protection. Every influential human family of note, nearly every clan and academy across the Starfield, they have all become parts — willing parts — of the Centennial Cradle Empire. And not only that… after Lord Hedrick's war and the beginning of our expansion into neighboring Starfields, more and more human powers began reaching out to them, eager to establish ties."

She took a short breath before pressing on, "...Can you even begin to imagine it, my lady? The war for the Starfield still rages, yet at the very same time they are expanding beyond its borders! Just think how much pride must swell in Marshal Caesar's heart — and in the hearts of his generals. Tell me, which one of them would dare admit, even by a single percent, that there is a flaw in their human nature? A flaw which, if wasn't there, could erase every limitation before them and set them on the path to becoming a millennial empire within just a few short centuries!"

"...." Rinara's eyes trembled faintly, her expression hard to read.

To hear talk of the Cradle Empire — an empire that hadn't even reached its five hundredth year since founding — being spoken of as a millennial empire sounded absurd, almost like a cruel joke whispered by a nightmare. Yet for some reason… it did not feel absurd. It felt natural. Logical. Even inevitable, should that one impossible equation be fulfilled.

But unfortunately… it was impossible.

That ancient human flaw — the one that had persisted through five Great Truth Chosen — would not vanish merely because humanity wished it so.

After a brief pause, the woman in her thirties continued, her voice lower, steadier, "As for the Kiumaji-blooded army, we aren't cast aside, we have our own wars — battles against enemies personally chosen by us. For now, we're fighting alone on two fronts. No human troops accompany us except the Shadow Swords."

"I did not choose to attack those wretches." Rinara's tone sharpened, her voice rising slightly. "We were presented with a list, and we selected only two of them. That's all."

"But my lady," the woman answered quickly, almost desperately, "that list contained the names of all the powers that stole our worlds, that cast us down when we were weak! Because of them, we were forced to dismantle our great Empire and seek refuge beneath the Cradle's banner. You — your very Highness — made it a condition that Marshal Caesar would aid us in avenging those humiliations!"

"....." Rinara remained silent, her gaze fixed far toward the horizon, where the light of distant stars flickered dimly through the mist of dusk.

That was the official reason — the one the people believed.

But buried beneath it were layers upon layers of deeper truths, unspoken and unresolved.

"All those names," Rinara finally murmured, "are secondary. Their time will come — the guillotine will find them soon enough. But..." her voice lowered to a whisper, almost trembling, "the one name I want did not appear on that list."

"...The Empire of the Twilight Spectrum," the woman said softly, nodding as if confirming a dreadful secret.

A full century had passed since the Nine Paths Empire had been formally dissolved and its remnants absorbed into the Centennial Cradle Empire.

After that public declaration, the Starfield Council issued a stark ultimatum to the Cradle: expel the demonic power known as the Nine Paths, or face direct intervention. The report was spread across every channel of media and communication, echoing like thunder across the stars.

And in that moment — when the Kiumaji people trembled with dread, knowing full well what was to come, remembering the centuries of bitter wars they had already endured, and certain that once again they would be cast aside — Marshal Caesar ascended the imperial dais.

Before the entire Starfield, he declared with unwavering resolve that no harm would come to the Kiumaji race nor to their lands, and that he himself would defend them to the very end.

His words struck like fire across the void — a promise of iron from the most powerful man alive, and a vow that would change the course of empires.

The word "destruction" wasn't nearly enough to capture what came next — it was far beyond ruin, beyond devastation, beyond anything the Starfield had ever witnessed. It was annihilation made manifest, a calamity that rewrote the balance of power across countless worlds.

Most of the great powers of the Starfield — already trembling in fear at the Centennial Cradle Empire's relentless expansion — decided to take the chance and strike together. They each sent portions of their armadas, a quarter, or half, of their entire fleets. And when these fragments gathered, the result was a force so immense that the skies themselves seemed to bend under its weight — an endless legion stretching across the void, so vast that even the most advanced sensors could not calculate its true scope. It was a war host with no beginning and no end.

In the first thirty years of the campaign, Caesar lost more than fifty planets to the methodical, almost mechanical, advance of this combined onslaught. Entire solar systems were stripped bare, colonies erased, star routes severed. Yet, through sheer determination — or perhaps divine cruelty — the Cradle Empire did not collapse. Somehow, against all odds, it endured.

Then, when the situation seemed utterly hopeless, reinforcements appeared — fleets and legions that materialized as if conjured by the void itself.

Only later did Rinara discover the truth — these were the remnants of the First Army of the Young Sector. They had abandoned every one of their ongoing operations, shut down their entire infrastructure there, and come as one to stand beside their commander.

They brought with them dozens of starfleets, hundreds of thousands of martial emperors, and hundreds of veteran generals from the Burton Family. It was a complete army, whole and pristine — a sleeping giant that had been quietly maturing in the shadows of the Young Belt, untouched by the constant bloodshed of the Mid-Region. A force so pure, so disciplined, that it could replace Caesar's entire military without faltering for a moment.

At that time, Caesar had already performed the impossible. With his existing forces, he had managed to halt the enemy's advance exactly at the line where he had lost those fifty planets. No matter how hard they pressed, the invaders could not move further. Meanwhile, the Shadow Swords had infiltrated their ranks, igniting chaos, betrayal, and sabotage from within. Several major powers began to stumble, while others — disoriented and paranoid — withdrew their fleets entirely.

So when those reinforcements arrived, it was like a tsunami colliding with an already overfilled dam — the flood burst forth, unstoppable.

That day became immortalized in history as the dawn of a new era of blood and fire. It was called The War of the Day of Reckoning.

On that fateful day, Marshal Caesar himself stepped forward before the galaxies, his voice broadcast to every corner of the Starfield. With a tone as cold as the void and as fierce as the sun, he declared total war — not on one faction, but on the entire Starfield.

And that war, that cosmic storm, still rages to this very day.

But now, there was a fundamental difference — the Centennial Cradle Empire was no longer the side defending.

At first, they had only forty fleets — a number barely enough to maintain their borders. Yet they fought with unyielding ferocity, holding every inch with blood and will. Then came the fifty new fleets — a mixture of restored veteran armadas and freshly forged ships from the imperial core. United, the ninety fleets surged forward like a tidal wave of vengeance, reclaiming every single world that had been torn from them… and continuing far beyond.

The newly unified army opened more than forty battlefronts simultaneously. And impossibly, they won on every single one. Their triumphs unfolded beneath the protection of Rinara — the mad guardian who moved between planets at impossible speed to fight for everyone.

From desperate defense to unstoppable conquest, the transformation was so swift and brutal that the Starfield itself trembled.

The Kiumaji people — once outcasts, scorned and discarded — found themselves reborn in fire. They worshipped Caesar as their savior, their protector, their eternal general. They marched willingly beneath the Cradle's radiant banner, fighting not out of fear or obligation, but from genuine pride and faith.

Even Rinara — whose original goal had been a slow, cautious merging of the two forces — was struck speechless. The unity she had dreamed of achieving through centuries of planning had happened in a fraction of the time, born out of blood, victory, and the unbreakable charisma of a single man.

Everything seemed perfect.

The Starfield trembled before their might.

The Centennial Cradle Empire stood unmatched, unstoppable.

Everything — except for one lingering shadow.

The Empire of the Twilight Spectrum.