Lord of the Truth

Glow.

The dense, overwhelming torrent of energy that had poured violently out of Robin's body moments earlier…

Now began to return.

It was slow at first—like droplets finding their way home—then all at once, a spiraling vortex of raw power materialized around him, swirling with purpose and direction. It converged toward a single point just below his navel, pouring into him without pause.

Foundation One…

Foundation Four…

"…"

Robin didn't resist.

He had already given up trying to fight the inevitable. Resistance was useless, like screaming at a collapsing star.

But as he felt each new foundation of energy rebuild itself—not by his will, but by someone else's—something within him sank deeper.

A heavy, cold weight pressed into his chest.

He wasn't angry anymore.

He wasn't even afraid.

He was simply… crushed.

Moments ago, when the last of the golden runes vanished, he had still harbored hope—that maybe, just maybe, some fragment of the Truth Law would remain.

But it hadn't.

And once the erasure was complete, he had wished the old man would leave.

Just go.

And just leave behind a book about balance or something.

that would give him a chance to get back his Truth

But even that was denied him.

This wasn't the first time Robin had been forced to start over.

He had lost everything before.

The first time had been during the hellish war against the Warlords of Hovenheim.

But even then… he had chosen it.

He had thrown away his foundations with his own hands, in a gamble for victory, in defiance, in strength.

But this time?

He hadn't thrown anything away.

It was ripped from him.

And now… it was being rebuilt without his permission, without his consent, like a puppet being stitched together again by a hand it couldn't see.

It was worse than defeat.

It was violation.

Foundation Eight…

Foundation Ten…

"Good… The early foundations are stabilized…" the elder's voice came, broken and labored, each word soaked in effort.

"Now… we begin installing the Law of Balance… starting with Foundation No. Eleven…"

His lips curled into a faint, bloody smile.

"I know… you hate me now… But when you come to understand the power I'm giving you… when you see the legacy I'm leaving you… you'll thank me."

And with that, he turned his full focus back toward Robin's energy core.

"Compress."

Hwoooom~

Foundation Eleven began to take shape. It was different—thicker, heavier, and far more unstable than any that came before.

Robin could feel it.

It vibrated with unbalanced energy, like a mountain on the verge of collapse.

This was its nature.

Foundation Eleven could not survive alone.

It had to be bound—anchored by a Law.

The Law of Balance.

And Foundation Eleven would not wait.

"…"

The elder slowly clenched his right hand.

Inside Robin's core, something vast and strange began to form.

A massive, silver-blue pattern emerged in the darkness—a rune, so large it blanketed his entire energy center like a sky of shifting stars.

Then it descended—steady, heavy, inevitable—

And latched itself to Foundation Eleven.

"…It is done, my disciple…"

The elder's voice was low, distant, almost gentle.

"In just a few more minutes… you'll reach Level Fifty in Balance…

You'll wield strength enough to cleanse injustice, to restore harmony to the universe… to—hm?"

Suddenly—

Something went wrong.

Something broke.

Shwooooooo~

The massive Balance pattern began to unravel.

It melted.

It evaporated, fading into nonexistence like a ghost kissed by light.

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"What… is happening?!"

The blind elder's composure shattered.

He raised his left hand toward Robin and roared, "Form!"

Another, new Balance pattern flared into being—

And vanished almost instantly.

A second.

A third.

A fourth, fifth, sixth.

Every time he tried to rebuild it, the pattern collapsed.

None of them could take hold.

Not one survived long enough to even stabilize.

And then—

Something impossible happened.

Formation. Formation.

A new pattern—invisible to the eye—appeared directly atop Foundation Eleven.

But this one was not Balance.

This one held.

It stabilized the foundation instantly.

Then came another.

And another.

A storm of unseen Runes, each one alien, sacred, divine—Truth Runes—rushed in from nowhere and wrapped themselves around Foundation Eleven.

They weren't summoned.

They weren't commanded.

They simply came.

"Impossible…"

The elder stumbled back a step.

Appearing. Appearing.

The walls of Robin's energy gathering center were no longer bare.

The golden runes of Truth—from the First Stage to the Fourth—re-emerged from the void, as if they had never left, reclaiming their rightful place.

"Impossible… Impossible!!"

The elder screamed, voice shrill with fear and fury.

A wave of green light burst from his chest as he sacrificed yet another chunk of his lifeforce, desperate to stop the restoration.

Glow.

The light beneath Robin's navel flared into an explosion—

Brighter than anything so far.

So bright it set the skies ablaze and made the land below tremble.

Then—

BAAAM!

The elder was hurled backward, stumbling until he crashed into the sea, his body slamming against the water like a meteor.

"Argh!!"

BOOMF~

The bubble around Robin burst, collapsing into golden dust.

He fell—

Hard.

Landing on his back with a sharp grunt, pain racing up his spine.

But he didn't even feel it.

"What… the hell… just happened…?"

Robin sat there, stunned, his legs sprawled, breath shallow.

He looked up—eyes wide, heart pounding—and stared at the elder, now half-submerged in seawater.

For the first time in this entire encounter…

The old man looked afraid.

Clatter.

As if the universe itself had chosen this place to host a divine play—

Shock after shock echoed across the air, rumbling deep within the sky and beneath the trembling ground.

Robin and the blind old man froze—one recovering from trauma, the other still reeling from failure—waiting for the air to still, for the storm to pass, for the silence to mean safety.

But instead…

The sky split open.

Not metaphorically. Not figuratively.

Literally.

A great tear ran through the firmament above, and from that divine rupture… something began to descend.

It looked like a scale—a massive, radiant golden balance, so colossal it seemed to swallow the entire sky.

Its golden shimmer dimmed the sun.

Its weight seemed to bend the horizon.

And the very moment this celestial instrument appeared, everything stopped.

The wind froze mid-whirl.

The churning sea became glass.

The birds in the air fell silent.

The ants on the rocks halted their march.

Even the laws of heaven—the abstract principles that governed life and death, time and motion—seemed to pause, holding their breath in reverent stillness.

All existence waited.

Waited for a judgment.

"The Scale… the Scale…"

The blind old man trembled, his voice breaking into terrified whispers.

He turned his face skyward, his empty eyes wide with horror, his lips quivering.

His expression…

It wasn't anger.

It wasn't confusion.

It was the face of a dying man seeing the very embodiment of divine retribution.

Like prey realizing the predator had arrived.

Like a sinner meeting the god he thought had forgotten him.

DING.

The left pan of the scale dipped.

The sound was soft.

But its echo was deafening—like the toll of a divine bell across all of creation.

Pa-dump.

The old man's heart throbbed violently in his chest.

"…No. No, no, no… I wasn't trying to corrupt the world. I wasn't spreading chaos—I was trying to help! I was looking for a successor! I was trying to save it all!!"

He began crawling backward, panic oozing from every twitching muscle.

His voice cracked, his breath turned ragged.

Tears of rage and disbelief ran down his weathered cheeks.

"I've done this so many times before. So many times! Why now?!

Why now?! What did I do wrong?!"

BOOF.

He reached with his left hand—trying to support his body, to continue his terrified retreat—

But there was nothing.

His hand was gone.

He collapsed, face-first into the shallow water.

"…No…"

His whisper was more like a sob.

He forced himself up.

Somehow, with the last shred of willpower, he stood.

And ran.

He ran from the sky.

From justice.

From something far older than time itself.

But when he tried to step forward—

BOOF.

His left leg was gone too.

And down he went again, crashing to the ground like a toppled idol.

"NO!!"

He roared with everything he had left, voice raw with betrayal.

"After everything I've done for you?!

For this universe?! For balance itself?!

Don't do this to me!

PLEASE!!"

His body lay broken.

His limbs severed.

His strength abandoned him.

He no longer tried to flee.

Instead, he turned—dragging himself across the dirt—and lifted his face toward the heavens.

Tears streamed down his face as he begged.

"Please… no…

Don't do this…

Don't end me like this!!"

His voice cracked.

He wasn't just crying out to the scale anymore.

He was crying to the laws he had worshipped.

To the truths he had believed in.

To the stars that once shone on his path.

His lifeforce was dwindling.

His mind was crumbling.

His soul was bleeding.

The golden scale remained above—silent. Unmoved. Unforgiving.

And in the end, his heart, mind, and body—all surrendered.

He collapsed. Unconscious.