Robin gave a slow series of nods, his gaze still unwavering, his tone contemplative.
"Hmmm... Hearing this, I don’t quite understand sothing." He folded his arms, pausing a mont for emphasis. "If you’re not here to complete many of the requests... then what is it that keeps you lingering in the Chamber of Truth day after day? This place isn’t so idle lounge for ditation—it demands a steep toll."
He took a slow step forward, as if the air itself had grown heavier.
"Every 300 hours you spend here burns through resources—resources few can afford. And that’s only the financial cost." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Remaining inside the Hall this long leaves your physical body unguarded, disconnected. Unless your soul is strong, too strong, you are left dependent on others to protect you in the material world. Others who could—at any mont—decide your death is worth more than your life."
Robin’s voice now carried a sharper undertone, not threatening, but cutting through the room like a scalpel.
"And even if you survive the betrayal... even if your consciousness doesn’t collapse sohow... the long-term cost? The slow erosion of coordination between your soul and flesh. Eventually, your grip falters. Your fingers tremble. And when you try to draw sothing on actual parchnt with actual ink in the real world—your hand disobeys. It hesitates. It forgets."
The spiked-haired man sneered, raising his chin defiantly.
"Tch... I’m starting to believe that rumor going around." He leaned forward. "They say you stumbled upon the hidden legacy of an ancient Truth Chosen. Is that the source of your precious insight? Are you nothing more than a scavenger fattened off another man’s glory?"
His voice took on a bitter rhythm, each word sharpened like a knife.
"Is he the one whose techniques you’ve been peddling off as your own? Just another fool who found a relic and decided he was a genius."
Robin didn’t flinch. His expression remained still—too calm.
But the spiked-haired man’s voice rose again, more agitated now.
"You really don’t get it, do you? Only in the soul domain can you truly draw. Here, we are free to try anything. No concerns over rare inks or delicate scrolls, no artificial constraints. And here—inside the Chamber of Truth the soul force is even purer, cleaner, truer than our own soul domains."
He gestured around him dramatically.
"Where else can you find such stable resonance between thought and form? Even our own soul domains aren’t this precise!"
He wasn’t entirely wrong. In the wider world, even a single martial manual often required a vast array of materials—specially crafted papers aligned to different laws, enchanted inks made from rare beasts or stardust, brushes soaked in liquid soul essence. And any runes that tied into multiple disciplines—such as formations that enhanced elixirs or pill alchemy—could demand the synchronization of several laws. Mistakes weren’t forgiven. Here, they could be explored, even undone.
Robin stood before him now, a few feet away, but didn’t et the man’s eyes.
Instead, he stared directly at the projection board in front of him, ignoring the heavy hostility in the room.
"...Hmm. A martial art fusing two minor law from the paths of Clarity and Water, classified as Stage Three. A decent concept." His voice remained even, clinical. "It would serve well for a planetary-scale empire managing murky or polluted water worlds. Practical and sustainable. A rare combination."
Then Robin tilted his head just slightly, as though examining a broken cog in a machine.
"But you’ve misaligned the fusion sequence. The laws don’t synchronize under your current structure." He raised a hand and traced an invisible arc in the air. "This technique is designed for use across broad aquatic expanses—it’s not for throwing quick bursts around a battlefield. You need a third stabilizing law to serve as a binding agent. Without it, even with decades of refinent, the two laws will never achieve usable harmony."
The spiked-haired man glared at him with pure disdain, his posture defensive and brittle.
"Heh~ So now you’re here to steal this idea too? Just like you skim through our request boards, plucking out fragnts of inspiration and leaving the rest to rot?" His voice dropped in accusation. "Don’t even try. This is my final design. You won’t understand it—no matter how much you pretend to be a visionary."
Robin didn’t respond to the insult.
Instead, he looked at the board again—longer this ti.
Then, with a quiet breath, he lifted a hand.
A pen full of soul-ink ford between his fingers, materializing out of nothing.
And he began to draw.
The audacity of the act stunned the chamber into a frozen stillness.
The spiked-haired man’s fury exploded. He slamd his palm on the table with a boom, nearly cracking the surface.
"What the hell are you doing, you arrogant little—" He lunged toward the console, his fingers flying toward his personal control panel to flag a violation, a formal report of design tampering—
—but then he stopped.
His eyes caught the strokes appearing on the board.
And for reasons he couldn’t quite explain...
He didn’t press the button.
Robin’s voice echoed through the silence like the chi of a bell across a canyon.
"In my view," he said softly, "there are only eight absolute truths in all the cosmos. The Master Laws—those that predate creation itself. Everything else—every technique, every principle, every so-called truth—is relative."
He drew another arc, his hand as fluid as the law of motion itself.
"Relative to how you perceive it. How you apply it. How you rge it."
He shifted the design again, integrating a new set of patterns, reshaping the technique like a master sculptor revising a flawed statue.
"That’s why I’ve always found it strange—how rigid most Truth Chosen beco. When it cos to pattern play, their minds get trapped in triangles. Why two laws? Why stop at three? Why treat four as a ceiling?"
"All these laws are threads. Threads that, when woven together, form a tapestry called reality. Each one a puzzle piece. And what the Eye of Truth grants is not a complete map... but the vision to see where the pieces are scattered."
He turned back to his work, eyes gleaming.
"Our job is not to copy reality—but to rearrange it. To reforge it. To build a world that never existed."
Then, smiling faintly with that ever-composed deanor, Robin raised his pen gracefully, placed it back behind his back, and gently patted the back of the spiked-haired man’s neck—slow, deliberate, almost mockingly tender.
"By the way," he said in an unhurried tone, smooth as silk yet laced with veiled thorns, "you might want to consider using the bark of Treant Creatures for manual inscription. It’s a bit rare, yes—but still far more affordable than lingering here endlessly in here. It also holds up remarkably well against most law patterns. The only thing is—you’ll need to be careful with how you handle the Paths of Ti and Destruction when carving them onto it. Have you ever heard of those two paths before?"
"...That?!" The spiked-haired man’s eyes flew open, pupils dilating. Slowly—almost as if under a spell—he raised the drawing in his hands, his movents oddly reverent, almost entranced. It was clear: Robin’s words had faded into the background, replaced by the overwhelming sight before him.
The martial technique was complete.
And more than that—it had evolved. A third law had been fused into its very structure. A that lifted the power, range, and depth of the technique to an entirely new level. This was no longer a third-grade martial art... it was sothing more. Sothing valuable. With that refinent, its price had surely doubled—if not more.
Robin, without even sparing another glance, turned his back on the man and walked slowly in the opposite direction, calm and composed like a scholar leaving his scrolls behind. As he passed, his gaze lifted to et the old dog-headed man.
"There’s a rumor spreading," Robin said flatly, yet every word rang with tension. "They say I’ve been sighted in Sector 100... That’s all. No context. No additional details. Just that one detail. Do either of you happen to know anything about it?"
"Heh~ I’m afraid your tongue runs too freely, tal-face. That’s becoming a real issue," the old man muttered, a chuckle hiding sothing sharper beneath.
"Oh, but this particular slip," Robin said as he tilted his head slightly, his voice now carrying a crisp chill, "only occurred here—and only in the presence of you two."
From behind the silver mask, a cold smile ford.
He stopped. Turned just enough to let his gaze dance between the two n—the old dog-headed one and the youth with spiked hair. Then he calmly raised both hands pointing at both.
"One of you let it out," he said, voice calm like still water—but sothing dangerous lurked just below the surface.
He folded his hands behind his back again.
"And one of you... will face the consequences."
"That’s unbecoming, tal-face," the old man growled, his face tightening with suspicion.
"...!" The spiked-haired man’s face twisted, rage bubbling to the surface. He slamd the drawing board on the table again—though this ti carefully, almost protectively, making sure not to damage the completed work. "You think too highly of yourself, you arrogant brat. Who would bother wasting ti leaking so aningless scrap about you? Go snoop around—find the gutter where your loose lips flapped!"
Robin simply gave a quiet chuckle, as if he were listening to a child throw a tantrum.
"I’ll show you exactly how HIGH I am today," he said, voice now edged like sharpened glass. "Think of it as a farewell gift."
He took a step forward, then continued, his words like a quiet storm:
"I ca here with open intentions, with a clear heart. I spoke to you both as fellow Seekers of Truth—as researchers, as brothers bound by the pursuit of deeper knowledge. But one of you reminded that even in the noblest realms... there are still dogs and pigs."
His body now pulsed with spiritual heat. A flicker of restrained wrath.
"This is a vow," he continued, voice deepening, "as a researcher, as an emperor, as a future Great Truth Chosen—I will find out which one of you did it. And when I do... I’ll enjoy my revenge."
He paused for one final breath.
"...And then I’ll forget you the very next day."
With a fluid movent, Robin summoned his control panel into being. His voice now rose slightly, addressing the room’s guardian spirit—his words clear for both n to hear:
"Our friend here has finally completed one of his long-lingering tasks. I’m sure he’ll want to pick a new one soon. Cancel our arrangent—let him choose freely from the remaining requests."
Then, slowly, he turned his face toward the spiked-haired man—his eye behind the mask like cold lightning.
"Goodbye to the lucky one..."
His voice darkened to a whisper.
"And as for the traitor... See you soon!"
Whoosh.
With a sharp gust of wind and a flicker of energy, Robin’s body vanished from the room—like a fla snuffed out by force.
BAM!
The spiked-haired man, his fury uncontained, raised the completed board to protect it, then let loose a brutal kick that shattered the table to pieces.
"That arrogant bastard! Does he actually think—"
Whoosh.
"...Huh?" Both n turned their heads sharply.
A single request scroll on the wall—one of the many that filled the Hall of Truth—vanished in a flicker of golden light.
"...What the hell...?"
Whoosh.Whoosh.Whoosh.
Whoosh.Whoosh.Whoosh.Whoosh.Whoosh.Whoosh.
The four mighty walls—once covered in scrolls of ancient origin, crafted over hundreds of thousands of years by countless scholars and requesters—were emptying before their eyes.
One by one, the requests disappeared into nothingness.
The dog-headed elder rose to his feet in silence.
The spiked-haired man, expression drained, sank slowly into his chair.
And for a long, agonizing mont...
Silence reigned in the Chamber of Truth.
A silence that hurt.
User Comments
0 comments from readers