Lord of the Truth
Chapter 2223: Bleed
Baaang—
"Damn it..!!" Blokan unleashed the Fundamental Law of Reflection to disperse the incoming attack of one of the adult space beasts, then immediately afterward his eyes began darting wildly right and left, upward and downward, carefully tracking the movements of the three adult space beasts he had personally chosen to handle.
The pressure alone forced veins to bulge across his temples.
And after reassuring himself that he could divert his concentration for a single second, he shouted toward the right side of the battlefield:
"Asir, do you need help with the two over there?!"
"Argh!!" Asir was already fully occupied applying the Fundamental Law of Time onto incoming attacks in order to slow them down and grant the Father Tree and the corpse-wall enough opportunity to intercept them before impact.
To some extent, this method consumed less energy than attempting to block the attacks directly...
But even so, he was still attempting to hinder adult space beasts!
Finally, Asir managed to force out a response:
"No thanks, focus on Morgana!" Then he immediately returned his full concentration to the battlefield again.
...After the four of them recovered their strength and barely managed to catch their breath, they had immediately rushed forward to assist however they could.
To assist the soul creature Arkalon.
And truthfully...
Arkalon was already fighting on equal footing against the battlefield itself.
One could even argue he did not require assistance at all!
Except for one category of existence he genuinely could not completely control...
The adult space beasts.
Every single charge or attack launched by one of them shattered entire sections of the enormous bone wall Arkalon had painstakingly created and reinforced, forcing him to continuously intensify his assaults in order to compensate for the destroyed corpses.
But the number of corpses continued decreasing steadily.
And the openings continued increasing.
So all four of them reached the exact same conclusion simultaneously...
They would handle the adult space beasts personally.
How?
None of them stepped beyond the protection of the bone wall.
None of them abandoned the shelter of the Father Tree’s branches.
Instead, they simply unleashed their strongest techniques whenever an adult beast attacked, intercepting the charges and pushing them backward repeatedly.
That strategy did not truly injure the remaining ten beasts in any meaningful way...
But it strengthened Arkalon’s defenses tremendously.
Or at least...
That was what they believed.
"...." Arkalon slowly scanned the battlefield around him, his eyes opened unusually wide as though trying to engrave the entire scene into his memory forever. "...Hmm, this will not end well. We need to take the next step."
Then he continued observing everything around him while attempting to devise a solution.
Finally, his gaze landed upon the vortex of pure golden soul power, causing his brows to rise slightly.
"Oh... this might actually work."
Then he began spinning the Seraphim Brush rapidly between his fingers for nearly twenty full seconds.
Before finally raising it and beginning to draw.
Glow—
An enormous soul formation rapidly began taking shape, absorbing such an immense quantity of soul power from the vortex that nearly a quarter of it disappeared.
Then Arkalon slowly raised his left hand and pushed the formation forward.
<The Arkalonian Technique of Eternity’s Mourning.>
Baam—Baaaam.
Objects resembling massive wire fences emerged from the formation one after another.
Yet instead of reinforcing the defenses or attacking the beasts directly, they wrapped themselves around the golden vortex itself.
Then Arkalon finally began witnessing the results of his work.
The thin golden membrane before his eyes showed him things he had never seen before...
Those spiritual wire-fences intercepted the souls of the beasts before they entered the vortex and became purified.
They deliberately attacked specific portions of those souls and tore black strands away from them...
Then allowed the remaining souls to pass through the vortex normally.
Those black strands slowly drifted toward the core of the new formation.
Then they began expanding.
Breaking apart.
Multiplying.
And spreading outward in every direction as spiritual waves.
Zzzzznnnnnnnnnn—
The despair carried by the dead beasts...
The agony they experienced at the moment of death...
Their deep regret...
Their rage.
Their terror.
Their hatred...
Every negative emotion possessed by creatures that had already tasted death was amplified violently and unleashed back upon members of their own race.
Disturbance.
The beasts were already suffering beneath the effects of the Soul Freezing Formation, their thoughts and reactions slowed to a horrifying degree.
And when they were struck once more by amplified negative emotions and thoughts...
Negative thoughts originating from members of their own race who had already tasted death...
Their hearts and souls trembled violently.
Those thoughts were direct.
Raw.
Pulled straight from the instant of death itself.
And because they originated from beasts similar to themselves, the freezing formation caused them to feel as though those thoughts were their own genuine emotions.
As a result, nearly eight hundred thousand nascent space beasts began believing they had already died.
Panic instantly spread among them like wildfire.
Meanwhile, hundreds of youthful space beasts began retreating in confusion and hesitation, the mental interference far too intense for them to simply ignore.
As for the adult space beasts...
They slowed down even further.
Suddenly, sorrowful and furious roars began escaping from them without control.
They continued moving.
Continued attacking.
Continued fighting.
But no longer with the same terrifying momentum as before.
"This..." Althira stole a quick glance toward Blokan while continuing to support the battlefield. "What exactly is wrong with that soul creature..?!"
"If I hadn’t personally witnessed what is happening here with my own eyes, I would’ve called it the most exaggerated and dishonest legend in all of history." Blokan finally gained enough breathing room to speak again. "Even Lord Robin’s soul creatures are this powerful?" Then he narrowed his eyes while secretly glancing toward Arkalon, who was visibly irritated by the vortex’s rapid consumption. "...I wonder."
"You cannot defeat him." Althira immediately noticed the challenge and calculation hidden within his gaze.
"...." Blokan slowly looked forward again before releasing a frustrated sigh. "Perhaps you are right."
Before entering the gate, he had attempted to suppress Lord Human, the bookworm, through status and strength.
He became angry because Lord Robin requested assistance from him without immediately providing enormous compensation in return.
He had even started planning to reject anything Lord Robin might later offer him while demanding additional payment instead.
After all...
That was the price of hiring people stronger than yourself to perform tasks you personally could not accomplish.
Yet now...
He had just accepted that even a soul creature surpassed him.
How ridiculous.
Did Lord Robin summon them to accomplish what he himself was incapable of doing?
No...
He summoned them to handle matters he did not even consider worthy of personally thinking about.
Trivial routine work from his perspective.
Tasks beneath the level of requiring his direct involvement.
And the moment Blokan fully realized that point, he subconsciously stole another glance toward Robin’s direction.
Immediately, his eyes widened completely, "This...?"
"Look! Reinforcements are arriving from the gate, at least twenty royal soul masters!!" Asr pointed excitedly while shouting in joy.
As long as the people outside discovered what was happening here, then additional reinforcements would inevitably continue arriving afterward.
Althira, Morgana, and even Arkalon immediately began preparing themselves to receive support and reorganize their plans accordingly.
As for Blokan...
It was as though he had not heard a single word.
He continued staring silently toward that distant direction...
Robin stood there like a mummy.
Exhausted beyond reason.
Blood continuously poured from his ears and nose despite the monstrous energy erupting endlessly from his body.
But that was natural.
That was expected considering his opponent.
He was fighting an ancestor space beast.
The same type of existence that had once violated the entire universe itself.
The same type of existence that forced Athena into hiding and pushed the Cosmic Elder into becoming an old man through endless sacrifices.
That part was understandable.
What was truly strange...
What was truly shocking...
Was that his opponent—
The monster calling herself the Executioner...
Was bleeding too.