Chapter 295: The Lord of Truth

In the depths of the Moon's Crescent Ring, within swaths of chaotic energy that resemble nebulae and dust clouds, there stands a Temple forged from pure white spirit matter.

Spirit matter, as it is called, is a relatively stable soul energy that precipitates from chaotic energy, and it comes in many varieties.

Spirit matter is somewhat like external elements: it can form various complex existences and is affected by spacetime distortions, yet its constraints are far fewer than those of elements.

In fact, almost everything in the void is composed of spirit matter.

Including void life.

Now look at the Temple.

Its shape is simple, resembling a thatched longhouse on a hillside, but the four sloping roofs extend outward and are supported by thick columns.

At the main gate of the Temple, a tall and long staircase rises, flanked on both sides by rows of exquisite sword‑holding statues.

The statues appear motionless, yet they exude a captivating aura of power, as if they could spring to life at any moment.

At this moment, on the platform at the very top of the staircase, stands a tall man in a plain deep‑blue robe, gaunt‑faced, who is none other than the Lord of Truth De Rui Tan.

On the ground before him lie three short, grotesquely twisted, ugly beings.

If one only looks at the three beings, one can see they are quite large and robust, but next to the towering De Rui Tan, whose body is etched with countless faint power runes, they instantly become three insignificant imps.

De Rui Tan places one hand on his hip, holds a dark‑green branch in the other, and taps the head of the leftmost, black‑smoking "imp".

A streak of emerald light sinks into the imp's head, and the imp trembles, daring not to resist.

"Plague Envoy Duo Luo Te, I command you to go to the Radiant Empire in the mortal realm and spread plague everywhere, so that its mortals die in painful wails."

"Yes, Great Lord of Truth."

The black‑smoking imp strikes its head hard against the ground, then transforms into a dense black energy sphere and darts away from the Temple toward the distant plane world.

By doing so, the imp reveals its true power: it is a Legendary 3 Void Demon.

In the former mortal world, such a demon could easily plunge a nation into chaos.

But the times have changed.

De Rui Tan does not demand that this creature cause massive damage to the Radiant Empire; he only wants it to spread more plague in the mortal realm, making the situation even more chaotic for his convenience.

Of course, a single Legendary 3 demon is far from enough; once captured, it would be easily slain by the current mortal empire.

Thus, De Rui Tan points the dark‑green branch at the second imp, which is taller and stronger, its power reaching Legendary 4.

"Famine Envoy Salai, I command you to go to the Radiant Empire, and let all crops, weeds in its fields, and trees on its mountains—indeed any plant—wither."

This Legendary 4 demon Salai was an ancient nightmare of De Rui Tan's plane, later losing interest in the mortal realm and spending its days in the Moon Ring.

It had lived peacefully until it met De Rui Tan, and thus became his captive.

In fact, all three demons present are in the same situation.

Salai, having not paid much attention to mortal affairs for a long time, is somewhat unclear about De Rui Tan's orders.

"Master, a large‑scale withering spell consumes a great deal of power; why waste it on trees and weeds when we could just target the crops?"

De Rui Tan thinks about explaining, but decides it's not worth the trouble, since these demons are merely consumables.

"Do as I say, Salai!"

"Yes, Master."

Salai obediently complies, then transforms into a deep‑purple light sphere and leaves the Temple.

The last demon, the strongest, reaches Legendary 5; its manifested humanoid form is a giant with curled horns on its head, eyes blazing crimson, and a lion's tail.

"Misfortune Spreader Sa Jia Ka Er, I command you to go to the capital Mei Da Xilin of the Radiant Empire and hunt down the lone mortals, letting them die miserably in misfortune."

"Remember, the number of dead does not matter, but they must die a gruesome death, and as many mortals as possible should witness it, so they feel terror and despair."

"Yes, Master."

The Legendary 5 demon's power has already taken shape; its soul scale equals more than five hundred times that of a mortal legendary strongman.

Its body is also wrapped in a layer of dim red flames composed of countless soul runes, making it quite terrifying to behold.

In the past mortal world, such a powerful demon could easily cause a horrific cataclysm, and if clever enough, could even annihilate a plane world unguarded by legendary mages.

But the times have changed.

De Rui Tan watches the great demon depart, silently thinking: "May you live a little longer."

Though this demon is the strongest, the place it goes is also the most dangerous.

He is completely unsure how long it will survive.

After lingering before the Temple for a while, De Rui Tan turns and returns to the Temple's main hall.

The hall is very spacious, and at its farthest end stands a tree emitting emerald light.

The tree is somewhat diminutive, ancient in appearance, leafless, yet two adult‑head‑sized strange fruits, each wrapped in runes, hang from its branches.

De Rui Tan walks beneath the tree, carefully plucks one fruit, brings it to his lips, but does not eat it; instead he softly chants some vague incantations.

The chanting lasts a long time, about half an hour.

Simultaneously, the strange fruit continues to transform, eventually becoming an exact replica of De Rui Tan himself.

At a glance, it is impossible to tell real from fake, even the aura of power is identical.

The only difference is their expressions: one is wooden and stiff like a statue, the other is alive.

When this De Rui Tan appears, the real De Rui Tan sits on the hall floor, feeling a slight sense of pride.

"This soul fruit is truly a fine thing, pity there are only two."

It was not forged by him, but by Adela for him; only two exist, and once used they're gone.

He immediately closes his eyes.

After a while, the "De Rui Tan" on his face shows a fully human expression, and the rune light surrounding his body becomes lively, matching the real De Rui Tan perfectly.

Then this "De Rui Tan" strides out of the Temple, turning into a deep‑blue light sphere that quickly rushes toward the azure deep‑blue Ring ahead.

Mei Da Xilin.

The wedding date draws nearer; as the bride and also the host Empress Zhuo Ya, she naturally must take charge of the wedding's security.

The main opponent is De Rui Tan; to guard against his assassination, the soul mist shrouding Mei Da Xilin has become three times denser.

After entering the mist, any legendary expert's void vision will fail, and all soul-related detection techniques will completely fail.

Then comes mortal realm security.

The vast capital, divided by streets into numerous districts, has a corresponding shadow guard officer directly responsible for each district.

All districts have patrols 24/7, and they use the latest lightning communicators for real-time contact.

If any abnormality occurs in the capital, even as minor as a drunk causing trouble or a shrew scolding in the street, the longest it takes is three minutes before a security team arrives.

If the security team can't handle it, they call the city garrison; if that still fails, they immediately upgrade to elite shadow guards.

They strive to nip all destabilizing factors in the bud.

Visitors from elsewhere also face severe restrictions.

It's best not to come.

If one insists on coming, they will undergo stringent identity checks, uncovering even whether their ancestors up to eighteen generations wet the bed.

As for visitors from other planes, they are simply banned outright.

The entirety of Mei Da Xilin, as well as a hundred-kilometer radius around the capital, has been fitted with phase-locking formations that strictly prohibit any phase transfer.

Of course, due to insufficient magical ability, the locking formations struggle to inhibit high-level phase transfers.

For example, Luosen's currently mastered infinite phase shift technique within a plane can basically ignore them.

These security duties are extremely tedious; Zhuo Ya, busy for over a month, feels utterly annoyed and can't help but mutter complaints to herself.

"What a lovely speech—talk about caring for national dignity, yet all the work falls on me while I stay carefree."

Never heard of a woman marrying a husband having to handle the entire wedding herself, set up the bridal chamber, and even finish the wedding in her own home.

She couldn't resist contacting her fiancé, who was wandering around Mei Da Xilin.

"Luosen, I'm exhausted and annoyed; I want to go out and have fun too!"

Luosen immediately replied: "Ah-ha~~ dear, you've held out much longer than I expected." "Then come on; I'm bored strolling around alone."

Zhuo Ya just let out a verbal vent; after venting, she immediately regained her composure.

"Forget it, I was just saying it offhand; someone has to do the work."

"Exactly, someone has to do the work; let my puppet handle it."

The first half was spoken by Luosen, but the second half switched to a female voice identical to Zhuo Ya's, emanating from a small partition in the study.

"What's going on?"

"One benefit of a strong soul is exceptionally fast thought speed and the ability to multitask."

"Having watched you handle affairs for many days, I roughly know your style; as long as no major incident occurs, my puppet can cope completely and won't be noticed as abnormal."

"Oh~~ I'm feeling a bit envious."

What Zhuo Ya envies is certainly not the puppet, but the benefits brought by a vast soul.

Rosen Ziran can understand.

"If you want it, I'll craft a similar magical device for you, but it won't work as well as mine."

"Because this is a soul artifact, it requires extremely deep matching with the soul. But you know, it's hard for a person to truly understand another's soul."

Zhuo Ya, not being a perfectionist, immediately said: "Better than nothing."

She immediately began to anticipate: "How long until it's ready?"

"About three months, I guess; this thing is rather hard to make."

"How much would it increase the soul's size?"

"Maybe one to two thousand times. If it were larger, you'd need deep soul matching, otherwise you couldn't control it."

"After all, this thing is essentially still a magical device."

What is crafted for Zhuo Ya cannot be called the Supreme Crown; it should be named the Radiant Crown or the Empress's Precious Crown.

Zhuo Ya is already satisfied: "Then I'll start counting the days now."

Since the puppet helps with state affairs, Zhuo Ya is also happy to have leisure.

After confirming the puppet indeed had sufficient ability, she put on ordinary casual clothes, sneaked out of the palace, and followed Luosen to stroll around the capital.

While walking the street, Zhuo Ya stretched her back lazily, her face full of excitement.

"Ah~~~ I've lived this long, yet this is the first time I've strolled about completely carefree."

Luosen laughed and said: "How convenient; I just discovered a relatively powerful void demon in the urban area. Shall we go tease it a bit?"

"Ah~~~ relatively powerful—how strong is it?"

"It's a major demon of Legend rank 5."

Zhuo Ya instantly felt a bit guilty: "Can this work?"

The Legend rank of a void demon is not the same as that of mortals.

Perhaps Legend 5 isn't high, but I can't stand the opponent's huge size.

Although Zhuo Ya's soul is currently Legend 9.5, she feels that against such a great demon she can only defend herself.

She knows Luosen can definitely handle it, but the demon is in the void while Luosen is ultimately a mortal; although he boosts his soul with a magical device, his soul cannot leave the device's ring, so his movements are surely far less agile than the void demon's.

So she thinks driving it away or even killing it should be fine, but 'to play with it' seems too casual and prone to trouble.

Luosen is now extremely perceptive; upon hearing Zhuo Ya's words he immediately knows her thoughts.

He smiled and reassured: "Of course it can work."

Zhuo Ya still worried: "Will De Rui Tan notice it?"

Just worried that it might startle De Rui Tan and scare him off.

Luosen laughed again: "With the capital's soul mist so thick, he can't see anything—could he detect it with his backside?"

Zhuo Ya thought about it and agreed; she couldn't help covering her mouth and chuckling: "Mmm~ dear, your speech is really crude."

Why don't you also say a few vulgar words to try, for example the Radiant Empire's most commonly used folk vulgar phrase 'Limoreti'.

The meaning of this word is roughly equivalent to Earth's 'x your ancestors eighteen generations'.

It's extremely vulgar; usually, as soon as one person says it, the other either immediately throws it back or has to defend their ancestors' chastity with their fists.

Just hearing it made Zhuo Ya feel extremely embarrassed; her cheeks flushed as she shook her head repeatedly: 'I'm not saying it.'

Then another worry arose: 'The soul mist is so thick—how are we supposed to find that void demon? We mustn't let it get away.'

If that demon escapes, it will surely cause suffering among the populace.

Luosen had already prepared.

He took out a hat and handed it to Zhuo Ya: 'Put it on.'

'What is it?'

'Insight Law Hat; its function is to penetrate the soul mist.'

Zhuo Ya put on the hat as instructed, found it quite nice, and noticed its style matched the hat on Luosen's head, making a perfect pair, which instantly made her like the hat.

But she still couldn't suppress her surprise.

'Ah? The soul mist can be penetrated?'

Luosen patted the hat on his own head, giving a half‑true, half‑false explanation.

'The way to produce soul mist is to release multiple frequencies of soul vibrations, then let them continuously spread through space.'

'So, as long as we find those specific frequencies of soul vibrations and use some mathematical methods to cancel them out, we can see what lies beyond the mist.'

Seeing Zhuo Ya still full of curiosity, Luosen immediately added a supplement.

'The principle is simple, but carrying it out is extremely difficult, requiring an enormous soul.'

Actually, this is Laifu's ability, which needs immense computational power as support.

Therefore, only Luosen can see through the mist.

'Strictly speaking, it's me sharing my field of vision with you through the Insight Law Hat. Do you see it?'

Zhuo Ya nodded: 'I see it, and it's fairly clear—I can sense a radius of about two kilometers, though it's a bit worse than when there's no mist.'

'The mist definitely still has an effect. Do you see that void demon now?'

'When everyone is basically a "blind‑eyed" who can only see within 50 meters, a two‑kilometer range is already more than enough, but Laifu's limit can reach about ten kilometers.'

'I see it—it's in the void of the alley ahead, less than 500 meters from us.'

'Mm, this really is a big demon—its size is truly huge.'

Zhuo Ya, facing a void demon for the first time, felt both excited and afraid.

Her body involuntarily trembled slightly, and she couldn't help clutching tightly at the corner of Luosen's clothes with one hand.

Her cautious nature gave rise to another worry.

'Dear, if we just keep staring at him like this, won't we startle him?'

She knew demons are extremely sensitive; if this big guy charged at them, it would be terrifying!

Luosen felt that Zhuo Ya at this moment was like a little girl watching a horror movie for the first time—especially amusing.

He had no habit of teasing little girls; he immediately grabbed Zhuo Ya's hand and soothed her softly: 'Of course not.'

'The soul mist completely blocks its perception; it can't see us at all, so we're perfectly safe.'

Zhuo Ya instantly felt relieved, and at the same time found the situation especially amusing.

'Come on, let's go play with it.'

'Okay~'

Zhuo Ya, now free of worries, followed eagerly beside Luosen.

(End of chapter)