Lord of the Truth

Chapter 2266: THE Master -4

"...How?" Glacion muttered with difficulty as he watched the Spacetime Cube rotate slowly and majestically, its edges glimmering with a profound and ancient radiance that seemed capable of bending perception itself, making every second feel longer than it truly was.

Although he had never witnessed a phenomenon related to the Master Laws before, that thing was definitely Fifth Grade. Only the Fifth Grade could make a Guardian feel as though he might die simply by moving, as though even the smallest action might place him in direct opposition to an irresistible cosmic force.

But how...

Glacion turned back toward Lord Robin, his mouth slightly open, his gaze moving repeatedly between the cube above and the figure standing below it as if his mind refused to connect the two.

He was unquestionably a Martial Emperor, and he still had not placed a Stabilizer within his body. Glacion did not need to examine him with soul perception or any other method to realize this fact. If a Stabilizer were present, the aura surrounding his body would have changed dramatically, becoming deeper, heavier, and unmistakably different from what he was sensing now.

Didn’t that mean he still possessed only the Fourth Grade of Truth?

How could it be possible for him to possess Fifth Grade Spacetime?

Perhaps... his talent in Spacetime was simply far greater? A mutation, an affinity, or something along those lines that had allowed him to advance in one direction far beyond what should have been possible according to common sense and the established understanding of cultivation.

But did he possess a mutation or affinity with the other Master Laws as well?

"...." Glacion swallowed hard and continued staring at Robin while secretly wishing the phenomenon would end as quickly as possible, because every additional moment spent beneath it seemed to place greater strain on his thoughts and emotions even if the pressure itself remained unchanged.

The phenomenon that had caused even the vortex of laws to behave strangely, pausing briefly before moving again as though uncertain of its own nature. The phenomenon that had forced the infamous black wasps to the ground like dead locusts, stripping them of all resistance and reducing them to pitiful creatures incapable of even struggling properly.

...A monster!!

Second Grade Balance, Third Grade Causality and Creation, Fourth Grade Truth, and Fifth Grade Spacetime.

Was he merely the Fourth of the Cosmic Foundations, or was that title itself already insufficient to describe what he had become?

At the summit, he was still below the Chaos Ruler, the Elder Cosmic, and the Archon, at least according to conventional standards of power and status, but in terms of quantity, talent, and terrifying potential, the three of them combined were scarcely worthy of carrying his shoes, and the more Glacion thought about it, the more absurd that comparison seemed despite feeling completely accurate.

"Hmm?" Glacion noticed something, then his eyes widened to their limits as a realization struck him with the force of a physical blow. "No..."

Robin’s physical age... it was less than a thousand years.

Glacion remained standing there, unable to tell how much time had passed, because his thoughts had become tangled together and every new discovery seemed to erase the certainty of the one before it.

Until this moment, he had believed that Lord Robin had healed the Elder Cosmic through either extremely advanced knowledge or comparable power, because only one of those explanations had seemed necessary to account for such a feat.

But... it had never crossed his mind that he possessed both.

Hoooooooooom

The light above intensified once more, spreading outward in brilliant waves that illuminated everything within sight and caused the surrounding space to tremble faintly under its influence.

Yet it did not increase the pressure upon body and soul as the previous symbols had done. On the contrary, it eased the burden slightly, allowing his chest to expand enough for him to breathe comfortably, and for the first time since the phenomenon had begun he felt as though air was truly reaching his lungs.

However, his very existence as a living creature, his natural instincts refined through countless years of survival and cultivation, were telling him that he should still kneel, while his pride consumed every last shred of strength he possessed to prevent that from happening, creating an invisible struggle that left even his muscles trembling faintly.

Even so...

The expression on Glacion’s face shifted from astonishment to horrified shock.

His eyebrows drew closer together, the muscles around his eyes tightening involuntarily as the expression on his face gradually lost all composure, the corners of his lips lowered, his heart began beating rapidly with such force that he could almost hear the pounding within his own ears, and his breathing grew increasingly hurried despite his efforts to maintain control over himself.

He looked like a child who had shattered a window and could hear his father’s footsteps approaching, except that the fear filling his chest now was infinitely deeper than any childish panic, carrying with it a primitive instinct that seemed to originate from the deepest layers of his existence.

Then, with difficulty, and through the will he had forged over the course of his long life, through countless battles, life-and-death struggles, and centuries spent standing above ordinary cultivators, Glacion slowly raised his gaze upward.

A fifth symbol had appeared at the center.

It was an eye.

An eye with five inner circles, an eye larger than all the other symbols, so large that it naturally dominated the entire phenomenon without needing to exert any visible pressure, gazing downward as though judging all living beings with impatience, as though the existence of countless creatures beneath it was merely a minor inconvenience.

The vortex of laws froze in place, its endless motion abruptly halted as if something had seized its very essence, then hastily dispersed as if frightened, as though it no longer wished to remain, fleeing in every direction with a haste that seemed almost humiliating for something that represented the laws themselves.

And what replaced it was a canopy of pure gold that concealed the horizon. It was not merely a color or a layer of clouds; rather, the sky itself appeared to have been replaced by a vast pool of pristine golden water that could never be disturbed, a boundless expanse whose surface remained perfectly smooth regardless of the tremendous energies gathering beneath it.

The enormous pupil within that eye moved slowly, looking toward the scales once, toward the Ouroboros once, toward the cube once, and finally toward the Gear again, as though calmly inspecting each symbol one after another and confirming something only it could understand.

Those four colossal symbols moved with majesty and slowness until they formed a square beneath the eye, after which strands emerged from them and connected them to four thick lashes along the eye’s lower eyelid, making the entire formation appear less like a collection of separate phenomena and more like a single complete existence whose components had finally assembled themselves into their proper places.

Hoooooooooom

Glacion’s knees gave out, not because his body had become weak, nor because an overwhelming force had crushed his joints, but because every instinct within him suddenly agreed that resisting any longer was meaningless.

Poof

Glacion found himself kneeling upon the air, his arms stretched at his sides, while his face remained fixed upon the sky, his posture rigid and motionless as though he had become part of the phenomenon’s audience against his own will.

It was a strange feeling...

His body was still overflowing with energy, proven by the fact that he could kneel upon the air as though it were solid ground, and yet he possessed no strength with which to stand, as though the energy remained present within him but no longer truly belonged to him, refusing to answer the simplest command.

"So this is power..."

Glacion muttered in a voice audible only to himself, his words carrying a trace of disbelief and relief that he had not noticed before.

"So this is talent..."

His eyes trembled, not from physical weakness but from the collapse of assumptions he had carried for most of his life.

"Everything else is insignificant beside it..."

The corners of his lips lowered even further as countless memories flashed through his mind, memories of geniuses, rulers, monsters, legends, and beings who had once seemed unattainable to him.

"Everything else is fleeting..."