Glow.
The dense, overwhelming torrent of energy that had poured violently out of Robinâs body moments earlier...
Now began to return.
It was slow at firstâlike droplets finding their way homeâthen 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 didnât 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 itselfânot by his will, but by someone elseâsâsomething within him sank deeper.
A heavy, cold weight pressed into his chest.
He wasnât angry anymore.
He wasnât even afraid.
He was simply...
crushed.
Moments ago, when the last of the golden runes vanished, he had still harbored hopeâthat maybe, just maybe, some fragment of the Truth Law would remain.
But it hadnât.
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 wasnât 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 hadnât 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 couldnât see.
It was worse than defeat.
It was violation.
Foundation Eight...
Foundation Ten...
"Good... The early foundations are stabilized..." the elderâs 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 Iâm giving you... when you see the legacy Iâm leaving you... youâll thank me."
And with that, he turned his full focus back toward Robinâs energy core.
"Compress."
Hwoooom~
Foundation Eleven began to take shape. It was differentâthicker, 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 boundâanchored by a Law.
The Law of Balance.
And Foundation Eleven would not wait.
"..."
The elder slowly clenched his right hand.
Inside Robinâs core, something vast and strange began to form.
A massive, silver-blue pattern emerged in the darknessâa rune, so large it blanketed his entire energy center like a sky of shifting stars.
Then it descendedâsteady, heavy, inevitableâ
And latched itself to Foundation Eleven.
"...It is done, my disciple..."
The elderâs voice was low, distant, almost gentle.
"In just a few more minutes... youâll reach Level Fifty in Balance...
Youâll wield strength enough to
cleanse injustice
, to
restore harmony to the universe
... toâhm?"
Suddenlyâ
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.
"What... is happening?!"
The blind elderâs composure shattered.
He raised his left hand toward Robin and roared, "Form!"
Another, new Balance pattern flared into beingâ
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 thenâ
Something impossible happened.
Formation. Formation.
A new patternâinvisible to the eyeâappeared 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, divineâTruth Runesârushed in from nowhere and wrapped themselves around Foundation Eleven.
They werenât summoned.
They werenât commanded.
They simply came.
"Impossible..."
The elder stumbled back a step.
Appearing. Appearing.
The walls of Robinâs energy gathering center were no longer bare.
The golden runes of Truthâfrom the First Stage to the Fourthâre-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 Robinâs navel flared into an explosionâ
Brighter than anything so far.
So bright it set the skies ablaze and made the land below tremble.
Thenâ
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 fellâ
Hard.
Landing on his back with a sharp grunt, pain racing up his spine.
But he didnât even feel it.
"What... the hell... just happened...?"
Robin sat there, stunned, his legs sprawled, breath shallow.
He looked upâeyes wide, heart poundingâand 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 playâ
Shock after shock echoed across the air, rumbling deep within the sky and beneath the trembling ground.
Robin and the blind old man frozeâone recovering from trauma, the other still reeling from failureâwaiting 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 scaleâa 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 heavenâthe abstract principles that governed life and death, time and motionâseemed 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 wasnât anger.
It wasnât 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 deafeningâlike the toll of a divine bell across all of creation.
Pa-dump.
The old manâs heart throbbed violently in his chest.
"...No. No, no, no... I wasnât trying to corrupt the world. I wasnât spreading chaosâI 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.
"Iâve done this so many times before. So many times! Why now?!
Why now?!
What did I do wrong?!"
BOOF.
He reached with his left handâtrying to support his body, to continue his terrified retreatâ
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 forwardâ
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
Iâve done for you?!
For this universe?! For balance itself?!
Donât do this to me!
PLEASE!!"
His body lay broken.
His limbs severed.
His strength abandoned him.
He no longer tried to flee.
Instead, he turnedâdragging himself across the dirtâand lifted his face toward the heavens.
Tears streamed down his face as he begged.
"Please... no...
Donât do this...
Donât end me like this!!"
His voice cracked.
He wasnât 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 aboveâsilent. Unmoved. Unforgiving.
And in the end, his heart, mind, and bodyâall surrendered.
He collapsed. Unconscious.