Lord of the Truth

*Sshhhh~*

With a wave of his hand, the restriction on the souls of the three Tree Fathers was eased. Now they were able to speak again and move slightly, but they did not begin to speak right away, Rather, each of them began to look at the other two as if waiting for someone else to begin speaking, and then finally their eyes turned at the same time towards the deer girl...

The spirit of the planet abandoned them and is literally seducing an invader coming from another world to refine her for himself. They spent hundreds of thousands of years sensing her presence and then trying to refine her and kill what they killed for her, but in a moment she threw them aside as if they were trash... How is this different from your lover cheating on you? If these were their real bodies when they were still Treant creatures, one of them might have started crying by now.

And that talk about planetary belts? About it being a losing deal for Treant? That the person who will succeed in refining the planet's spirit would be killed after only 300,000 years? What should they do with this information now?!

Robin remained silent, watching them with half-closed eyes, he knew very well what situation they found themselves in now... Either submitting without conditions and abandoning their dreams, or declaring war on him and abandoning their soul avatars.

Declaring war on him was the most appropriate option ten minutes ago. The three of them would have undoubtedly chosen to abandon their soul avatars and perhaps try to blow them and take Robin's soul avatar down with them, Robin knew this well and this is why he gave them the ten-minute deadline maybe find one among them whose reason would prevail over emotions. 

But now, after they heard his conversation with the spirit of the planet, the situation is completely different... The real-time limit that they have to spend in actual thinking begins now!

After about an additional minute, one of the three soul avatars finally began to speak, "...Evergreen, you know they are invaders, right? They only came to kill and destroy, they haven't eaten from your soil nor were they born on your back, how could you allow him to refine you?"

The deer girl shrugged, "Whoever refines me must be the strongest available person, his race and origins doesn't matter. As you just heard, in the middle-aged planetary belt there are fierce battles over the ownership of planetary spirits and only the strongest among the competitors gets one."

"…If we can kill this person and expel the invaders, will you allow us to continue the refinement process?" That soul avatar looked like he was about to get down on his knees and beg

The girl raised her small shoulders again, "If you want to continue coming into my domain and resume the refinement even before expelling the invaders, I will not stop you. It is true that it will be useless due to the speed of this new competitor, and I doubt you would have the courage to come again anyway, but still, I will not stop you~"

"...Sigh~ I, Labikan, have spent too long on this matter that it became a part of who I am. I have always overlooked the seas of blood that stain my hands and convinced myself that I would restore the heavenly laws to what they were and allow the Treant creatures to be born again and increase their numbers more than before. Even as I speak now, I can still imagine the day when I will finish refining the planet's spirit and become a God for all future generations."

Robin maintained his silence and contented himself with looking at Labikan's soul with uninterested eyes. In his view, whether the Three Fathers chose submission or war, in both cases he would be the winner.

"...I have to kill all the invaders... I have to fight the rest of the Tree Fathers... I have to resume the refinement process even though I haven't reached 8% after all these years... and I have to prepare to fight much more powerful invaders after 300 thousand years, and most likely die then... How ironic, on my way to eternal life, an unmoving wall of death stood before me." After a few seconds, Labikan continued this time in a harsher tone and a louder voice, "No, I refuse to believe that everything will come to an end like this. What if there is an occupier? I will kill him! Will there be a competition in 300,000 years? After I have finished refining the Planet Spirit and created a sea of Treant armies, I will see who can snatch the Planet Spirit from me! I, Labikan, will fight to the end!"

Robin showed a shocked and amused facial expression at the same time, it was clear that he did not expect to hear this!

Then he looked sideways at the deer girl, and found her already looking at him and stifling her laughter with both hands as if she was telling him: *Didn't I tell you? Even if I told them about the risks, they would continue what they were doing anyway.*

Robin shook his head a few times, smiling, "Heh~ Nice, I respect that, what about you two?" Robin pointed towards the other two soul orbs

"...Do you have something to replace the planet's spirit for us? Show me something tangible and I will follow you." After a few seconds, one of them spoke, a voice that sounded quite sad

"Snawist, are you thinking of selling everything you worked for like that traitor Descartes?!" Tree Father Labikan burst out shouting, "What about you, Flores? You still have a warlord ready to fight, don't tell me you're afraid too!!"

Father Tree Snawest's soul avatar pretended he didn't hear anything, Father Tree Flores' soul avatar also ignored the shouting and looked at Robin with a complicated look, he didn't know who to stand with right now

"Haha, something to replace the planet's spirit? I heard that before." Robin laughed out loud, "Descartes had such a long conversation with me and in the end, he was convinced of what I could offer. Frankly, I don't feel like I need to explain to you or promise you anything right now. Just surrender and accept the soul enslavement seal calmly, and then I will give you until you are satisfied. If you don't trust my words then trust that Father Tree Descartes was not convinced to follow me until he saw what pleased him."

"You don't even want to exhaust yourself a little to talk about what you can offer us? How can we trust you when you already treat us like we're inferior even before we follow you? And what's with that soul enslavement seal thing?!" Tree Father Snowist also started shouting

"Honestly, I don't plan on making friends here. Whether you follow me or not won't make any difference. I came for resources, information, and training for my men." Robin crossed his arms over his chest, "I promised Descartes a few useful toys and gave him a lot of my time only because I found him to be a bit clever and worth the effort, but now that he's on my side and giving me all the information I want, I just need resources and training men and Those things I can only get from war!"

Then he began to move his eyes between the souls of the tree fathers Snowist and Flores, "Swear allegiance to me and accept the soul enslavement seal and as I promised, I will give you until you are satisfied, or follow that fool and fight at your leisure, do not expect tempting offers from me here. I am just giving you a chance to save your lives. "

"Alas... let it be war then." declared Tree Father Snawist, no matter how he feels, his dignity does not allow him to bend the knew under these circumstances.

"Let the war decide then." Father Flores followed him

"Haha excellent, invader Robin Burton, soon you will open your eyes and see what the Tree Fathers can do!!" Father Tree Labikan laughed angrily

"Tsk~" Robin gave a half smile when he got the answer and then sent three small vortexes towards Labikan's soul incarnation… This would be a good opportunity to strengthen his soul and scare the other two at the same time!

"Don't even dream about it!!" But at this moment the soul of tree father Labikan shouted and activated something. Many symbols began to appear around him, and then he disappeared!

Robin was astonished by what he saw, so he quickly tightened the silver soul force restraint around Tree Father Snawist and Tree Father Floris, but even under the strongest restraint that Robin could impose, they both also repeated the same process, strange symbols appearing around their souls, before they disappeared from the domain as well!

In the blink of an eye, Robin found himself standing alone with the deer girl...