Chapter 2277

2277 - Self-Description

“…Why is there a golden lock above your head?” Robin asked, a hint of curiosity in his voice as he sat in his place.

“A lock above my head?!” Althera began waving her hands above her head as if swatting at a fly, trying to look up but to no avail.

She turned to Glacion, “Do you see anything?”

“…” Glacion furrowed his brows deeply. “…No, I don’t see anything.”

“Nothing?” Althera looked back at Robin, “Do you really see something, or are you trying to mock me because I’ve lost all my power and can no longer examine myself properly?”

“And why would I lie about something so trivial?” Robin showed a smile, then pointed above her, “It’s right there.”

“Set the lock aside,” Althera waved her hand, “What’s happened to me?!” Then she raised her voice further, “Why has my energy convergence center returned as if I were reborn?”

“…I think the energy convergence issue is the last thing you should be worried about.” Robin folded his arms across his chest, his eyes glowing with a faint gold as he stared directly at Althera’s forehead, “There are strange things happening within your spiritual domain. Can you feel them?”

“…?” Althera jolted upright and sat straight. Not being a royal spirit lady, she possessed no more than a single consciousness. Whenever she needed to examine her spiritual domain, she had to send her first and only consciousness inside, placing her body in a state of stasis.

But this didn’t take long… Althera opened her eyes again, screaming, “There is not a single engraving of the Fundamental Repetition Law in my spiritual domain! The toil of hundreds of thousands of years has been erased as if it never existed!!”

The disappearance of the energy core and the return of the energy gathering center to its pre-training state is alarming and terrifying, but it occurs in certain cases. In such a situation, the patient retrains everything from the beginning. However, because the law is already imprinted in their soul at high levels, retraining takes negligible time.

But now… even that has been taken away?!

As for Robin, he was utterly calm in the face of Althera’s screams, silent, merely watching.

He had not moved from his spot.

To Althera, this was a life-shattering event; to him, it was simply a good case for study, nothing more.

Althera meant nothing to him on a personal level, nor even on an academic one, and when the disaster struck, she came to blame him... So matters between them were entirely transactional, with nothing that would make him rise and give his all.

"Hmm, this is truly a terrible matter, but that wasn't what I meant when I spoke of what's happening in your Spiritual Domain," Robin nodded twice. "Rather, it's what's happening specifically within the walls—it's something truly wondrous that I've never seen before. Stop moving for a moment, and stop talking too; perhaps I'll figure something out."

"Hold on, hold on." Glacion stepped forward, raising a hand. "Are we just going to forget about the Lock?!"

"If you saw what I see, you would forget it too," Robin muttered, still staring at Althera's head.

The Spiritual Domain itself remained unchanged, and that's why even after Althera sent her consciousness inward, she noticed nothing.

But what was happening within the walls of the Spiritual Domain was truly something wondrous.

"Set the Domain aside, please!" Glacion pointed at Althera. "Describe the shape of the Lock to me!"

"..." Robin tilted his head slightly. "Golden, as I said, ancient in appearance, with a dignified aura, slowly coiling around her head in a clockwise direction along a specific golden path, as if there were a track or a partner connected above her head for the lock to slide on." Then he lowered his eyes a bit, patiently examining her body. "And there are several light golden shackles piercing the heart area, the Energy Gathering Center, and other vital regions—a separate chain from the lock."

"...?!" Althera felt a hint of fear.

All of this was happening inside her body, and she couldn't feel it?

Where had this been hiding from her... Just a month ago, she was an ordinary Monarch, and minutes ago, she was the most powerful Monarch the universe had ever seen!

Suddenly, everything vanished, and she became a prisoner to something she didn't even know what it was?!

"Lord Robin... aren't you describing the same lock and chains that broke around you moments ago?" Glacion felt he was going mad. "I saw you looking up as they shattered—you saw them just as I did at the moment of breaking."

"..." Robin waited a few moments, then nodded. "When I first saw Althera, that was the first thing that came to my mind—it's the same lock." Then he shrugged. "But what comes next?"

"What do you mean by 'what comes next,' Lord Robin?" Glacion asked quickly. "Aren't you eager to know what's going on?"

"That's not it," Robin sighed. "The Lock and the Shackles clearly represent restrictions, but what then? How many restrictions do we, the inhabitants of Universe B-14, have? The restrictions of the Young Belt, or the Seventh Level restrictions in the Middle Belt, or the restrictions of the Shell, or the restrictions of the Void, or the Seal imposed on humans when transitioning from Martial Emperor to World Calamity, or~ or~"

Robin shook his head. "The sheer number of seals and boundaries imposed on us is terrifying, and pursuing them would only be exhausting. Not exhausting for me as a person, but exhausting for the psyche. The fact that we are under this many restrictions and deviations is itself disheartening."

Then he turned his gaze back toward Althera's forehead. "But in comparison, I find what is happening within the walls of Althera's Spiritual Domain far more intriguing."

Then he pointed at Althera with a smile. "At this moment, there are millions of strange threads slithering like snakes between the walls of Althera's Spiritual Domain, each one carrying different Law Patterns. These are nearly all the Laws that exist in the universe—truly a breathtaking sight!"

He then continued, "A large number of them have settled and begun to wither and merge with the walls, and all the similar and homogeneous Laws are weaving complex and extremely powerful networks together before becoming part of the Soul Domain... At this rate, in just a few days, all these Threads will become a perfect network and disappear into the walls without a trace. Even I might not be able to detect them then."

He then chuckled towards Althera, "Congratulations. You may have lost your training, but you will reap an extremely powerful Soul Domain that can withstand massive explosions from within and devastating attacks from without—a domain that cannot be destroyed even if you brought the Abominations of the entire world upon it. You might even gain the Elastic Range Trait like me, thanks to the flexibility and strength of those Threads, hehe... Huh?"

Robin's expression immediately soured.