"A stable wormhole corridor between sectors, fixed in place and colossal enough to pass entire planets through it? Does sothing like that even exist?" Althera muttered, her brows tightly furrowed in disbelief. Then she lifted her gaze and stared directly into Robin's eyes. "And you truly believe you can create sothing like that using only the third grade of spaceti, when the Tyrant Interas himself cannot accomplish it even with the seventh stage of space?"
"Oh?" Robin raised one eyebrow slightly, a faint hint of amusent flickering across his face. "And how exactly do you know he can't? He isn't of the chit-chatting type, isn't he?"
"If he could," she replied firmly, shaking her head, "he would've conquered the entire universe long before civilizations even had the chance to form. Even now, the Tyrant's armies still rely on starships and massive grand space gates to move between sectors. No matter how advanced their technology is, they certainly don't travel from sector to sector instantly the way you're describing!"
"Hm..." Robin scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. "Then I suppose I'll have to increase the level of secrecy around artificial rifts far more than I originally planned." His expression grew a bit more serious. "It would be troubleso if the Tyrant Interas were to catch even a hint of what I'm doing here."
"... You're talking as if you've already succeeded," Althera said in disbelief. She pointed toward the black circle. "Then why can't I feel anything from the other side? Why can't I pass my hand through it? Doesn't that an this is a failure?" "I'm not finished yet-so it's too early to decide what counts as success or failure," Robin replied calmly, shaking his head. "Second, theoretically speaking, yes-I can succeed where the Tyrant Interas failed. Whether I can achieve it with the third stage, or whether I'll need to reach the fourth first... that's exactly what we're testing today."
At that mont, his body began to glow with a deep golden radiance. The light gathered into intricate, engraved patterns that spread and pulled across his skin, forming complex symbols and flowing lines of power. Yet he seed almost unaware of it as he continued speaking:
"As for the Tyrant Interas-soone who possesses the seventh grade-he can manipulate the entire space of the mid belt itself. He can compress it, stretch it, distort it, expand it, or reshape it however he wishes..."
as an example-their
He continued steadily, "But all of that is still confined to existing space. Take rand Space only to locate the safest route between sectors, then accelerate the transfer from one gate to another through a chain of violent spatial compressions. That's all they do. And that's exactly why inter-sector travel can never truly be instant-and never will be. You are still traveling... just at a much higher speed."
"And what you're doing is different from that?" Althera asked quietly, her voice tense with unease.
"Completely different," Robin answered, raising his voice with unmistakable pride. "What I'm doing isn't controlling or reshaping available space. I'm creating an entirely new spaceti fabric to connect two points directly. I'm forging a passage that doesn't belong to this universe at all-and because of that, it doesn't need to obey its laws." The golden glow around him slowly settled and dimd. "All I need to do... is design it properly."
"A passage that doesn't belong to this universe? Is that really how spaceti works?!" Althera recoiled in visible shock, her composure breaking for the first ti. "How could you possibly keep sothing like that from collapsing? How much unimaginable energy would it take just to keep it open? And do you even possess the power, the knowledge, and the control needed to attempt sothing this insane in the first place?!"
"You're overthinking it," Robin said calmly, shaking his head. "All I need to do is establish the corridor safely one single ti. After that, it will exist permanently -forever-without requiring any additional energy at all... unless, of course, it is attacked and destroyed by an external force."
"I see nothing but dreams," Althera replied, her brows knitting tightly together. "How could a corridor like that possibly exist without needing constant energy to sustain it?"
"Then watch turn dreams into reality," Robin answered with a quiet, confident smile.
"As for the Tyrant Interas-soone who possesses the seventh grade-he can manipulate the entire space of the mid belt itself. He can compress it, stretch it, distort it, expand it, or reshape it however he wishes..."
He continued steadily, "But all of that is still confined to existing space. Take the Grand Space Gates as an example-their function is only to locate the safest route between sectors, then accelerate the transfer from one gate to another through a chain of violent spatial compressions. That's all they do. And that's exactly why inter-sector travel can never truly be instant-and never will be. You are still traveling... just at a much higher speed."
"And what you're doing is different from that?" Althera asked quietly, her voice tense with unease.
"Completely different," Robin answered, raising his voice with unmistakable pride. "What I'm doing isn't controlling or reshaping available space. I'm creating an entirely new spaceti fabric to connect two points directly. I'm forging a passage that doesn't belong to this universe at all-and because of that, it doesn't need to obey its laws." The golden glow around him slowly settled and dimd. "All I need to do... is design it properly."
"A passage that doesn't belong to this universe? Is that really how spaceti works?!" Althera recoiled in visible shock, her composure breaking for the first ti. "How could you possibly keep sothing like that from collapsing? How much unimaginable energy would it take just to keep it open? And do you even possess the power, the knowledge, and the control needed to attempt sothing this insane in the first place?!"
"You're overthinking it," Robin said calmly, shaking his head. "All I need to do is establish the corridor safely one single ti. After that, it will exist permanently -forever-without requiring any additional energy at all... unless, of course, it is attacked and destroyed by an external force."
"I see nothing but dreams," Althera replied, her brows knitting tightly together. "How could a corridor like that possibly exist without needing constant energy
to sustain it?"
"Then watch turn dreams into reality," Robin answered with a quiet,
confident smile.
In truth, the cube Robin had created to imprison Pythor's heart still hangs in the skies of Nihari to this very day, suspended above the endless sea of magma. Visitors arrive from every corner of the empire daily, traveling vast distances just to witness the enormous heart floating in the air-a living monunt to the colossal battle that founded their mighty empire, and undeniable proof of His Majesty's overwhelming power.
But Robin had never viewed the cube from that symbolic perspective.
What he saw was its stability-as if it were a stone lodged immovably in the
middle of a sea of compressed sand. And from that vision, an idea was born: a way to exploit this phenonon.
He realized that using the Law of Space was like stabbing soone with a dagger and then pulling it out quickly-there would always be a chance for recovery, especially with so healing and treatnt.
But using spaceti was entirely different.
It was like stabbing soone and leaving the dagger inside their body.
At that point, no healing would work. The body wouldn't be able to expel the dagger on its own. And the dagger itself wouldn't require any additional force to remain-it would simply stay embedded within the body... trapped there forever, until an external force arrived and tore it out again.
So for Robin, the solution was simple in concept:
Design a perfect dagger.
Stab the space of the mid belt at the perfect point.
Then protect that dagger from anyone who might attempt to destroy it.
His smile widened slowly as the thought settled in his mind.
"I wasted centuries designing the dagger," he murmured, almost reverently.
"And now... it's finally ti to choose the right place for the stab."
"Huh?"
Neither Althera nor Richard understood a single word of what he ant, and
they could only exchange confused glances.
But then... sothing began to happen.
Robin slowly raised his right hand.
A golden die began to form in the air above his palm-perfectly shaped, radiant, and unreal. It had six faces, and on each face were different numbers of arrows,
engraved in glowing symbols that felt older than civilization itself.
"Wh... what is that?" Althera whispered, her voice barely audible.
No matter how she extended her senses or searched through all the knowledge she had accumulated across countless ages, she couldn't recall ever seeing anything like that die before-nor could she comprehend what it was made of, or what laws governed its existence.
"It's the Die of Judgnt," Robin said calmly.
"One of the very few causality abilities I can use from the first stage."
He stared at the die for a long mont... then turned his gaze toward the east.
"I still haven't decided," he said slowly, "whether I should create my artificial corridor in a way that fuses Mid Sector 99 and Mid Sector 100 into a single, unified, inseparable power-two sectors bound into one destiny." Then he turned toward the west.
"Or set that plan aside for now-since both sectors already belong to -and
instead connect the corridor to Mid Sector 98... to accelerate the downfall of
the Sorcerer Behemoth."
Silence fell.
Althera's eyes slowly widened, until her brows nearly touched her hairline in
pure disbelief.
"You have the first stage of causality?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
But Richard was focused on sothing else entirely.
He snapped his head toward Robin, shock flooding his face.
"Forget that-" "You want to bring down the Sorcerer Behemoth?!"
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