Chapter 2392: ugly conclusion

In only the first quarter of the book, Jabba had already managed to arrive at that truth through the clues and observations he had accumulated, he didn’t need long to get to it.

The truth was that the human body was already prepared and fully capable of using variable particles. In fact, one could even say that those particles were already present within the human body from the beginning, except that they remained dormant and inactive, behaving exactly like ordinary cells in a state that made them virtually impossible to detect, only awakening when beast blood was introduced into the body. At that point, those dormant variable particles would begin to emerge and display their true characteristics in response to the newly introduced catalyst—the beast blood.

Jabba supported this conclusion with numerous answers and observations, most of them consisting of short statements derived directly from what he had seen through the Master Law of Identity while observing the effects that different kinds of beast blood had on human blood... while some of the others were simply logical deductions built upon those observations and the results he had accumulated.

For example: What exactly distinguished beast blood from ordinary human blood? Did it simply make bodies stronger? That explanation was clearly incorrect. Even the blood of weak beasts could stimulate the human body; it might actually weaken the body after being introduced, yet it would still stimulate that same body and allow it to use the Laws, and that alone was an extremely strange phenomenon. What exactly was it about beasts that made them closer to the Heavenly Laws than humans?!

The final conclusion presented in the first quarter stated that humans had originally possessed this ability innately—the natural ability to produce variable particles specifically capable of interacting with the Heavenly Laws—but at some point in history, the entire human race had collectively lost that ability, and from that point onward, humans had been forced to rely on beast blood as an external substitute to regain access to something their bodies should have been capable of doing naturally.

And that mysterious point in history could not have been too distant either, considering that remnants of those dormant variable particles could still be observed inside human bodies even now, hidden among their ordinary cells despite having lost their original activity.

Jabba proposed several possibilities for that particular point in history, attempting to explain the event that had somehow eliminated the active variable particles from the bodies of all humans at once, yet every possibility he proposed bordered on the impossible... Jabba himself was fully aware of that fact, and at the end of the first quarter he explicitly wrote that they were merely possibilities that had crossed his mind in passing, before posing a question: What exactly could affect every single human being simultaneously, if not something that had occurred at the very beginning of creation itself?

But if that effect had existed since the beginning of creation, how could humans have possessed those variable particles beforehand only for them to disappear afterward? The two ideas directly contradicted one another, creating an obvious logical inconsistency that could not simply be ignored.

It was a contradiction deliberately left open for the reader’s mind to consider and attempt to resolve, yet despite that unresolved problem, Jabba proceeded to build the remainder of the book upon that conclusion anyway.

But Robin knew the reason. The moment he reached that particular contradiction, the one and only correct answer appeared in his mind almost immediately.

The cycles.

The Executioner had spoken about the current cycle, about the Seer’s cheating, about universes being ranked through wars and numbers, and about several other astonishing matters that had seemed disconnected at first. Yet when those things were connected together and combined with what the Cosmic Elder had previously said about waiting for that event after a hundred million years, about terrifying things happening at that time, and about the weapons hidden inside ancient towers and pyramids that had survived from previous eras...

All of it would inevitably lead him toward one conclusion: something happened every hundred million years, an event that, for some unknown reason, erased existence itself and returned everything back to zero so that it could begin anew.

If the humans of the current cycle did not possess variable particles, while the humans who had existed before them had possessed those particles naturally... then those predecessors mentioned in Jabba’s findings were undoubtedly the inhabitants of previous cycles.

When Robin reached that conclusion and allowed all those scattered pieces to finally settle into place, his heart sank slightly as a deep sense of unease crept into it...

What exactly could cause a change of such enormous magnitude?

Stripping humans of their natural ability to use the Heavenly Laws? And since the universes were separated from one another, it was safe to conclude that whatever had caused this had happened specifically to them—to Universe B-14 itself. Were there other universes that had suffered the same fate? Perhaps there were, but even if that were true, it would still have happened separately in each of them, since there was no direct contact between the universes.

Then... why would a trait as fundamental as this be deliberately removed from humans, separately?

And then the remedy for that very deficiency was placed inside the blood of beasts?!

This could no longer be considered merely a method of weakening the inhabitants of the universe or reducing the heights they could reach. It was a blatant, deliberate, and unmistakable humiliation.

If you wanted to become stronger and regain the ability to use the Heavenly Laws, then you had to turn yourself into an animal.

An animal whose strength itself was limited, and once you followed that path, you would remain limited just like it forever, because its blood would gradually overwhelm your pure human body and become the force guiding it instead. It would alter the details of your body, your soul, and even your temperament, slowly but noticeably with every step you took along that path... Eventually, you yourself would become the animal whose blood you had relied upon, surrendering your original humanity in exchange for that borrowed strength.

What escape was there from such a humiliating fate?

The Soul Path, which Morpheus and the Dreamer Galaxy had crushed beneath their feet for so long, left humanity almost no room to breathe or any meaningful path through which they could rise; even the weakest two-star Royal Soul Master could freely bully the greatest Star Academy within an entire Sector without anyone there being capable of properly resisting them.

The second escape route was... exceptional humans such as Raiden and the Gravity Overlord.

According to the Planet Spirits themselves, they were the ones who created such exceptional individuals, the ones who instilled within them an innate affinity toward a particular Law and allowed their bodies to naturally respond to it... In a sense, it could even be said that the Planet Spirits were the ones who reactivated the dormant variable particles already existing inside their bodies.

...Not too long ago, Robin had discovered the Sixth Path.

Put very simply, he discovered that allowing the Heavenly Laws to engrave their patterns directly upon the soul domain and the energy gathering center created a form of congestion and obstruction, ultimately preventing the Law itself from properly strengthening and transforming the body as it should.

Using the Master Law of Truth, Robin managed to discover the correct arrangement for several of the Laws commonly used throughout the empires under his command. Anyone who practiced the technique he had created would make the Heavenly Law alter their body directly, forcing it to assist them instead of merely engraving its patterns where it pleased, forcing it to create variable energy particles within their body that would allow them to wield those Laws.

But according to Jabba’s research, there were already genuine dormant variable particles hidden within the human body, simply waiting to be activated. There was no need for the Heavenly Law to take that additional step in the first place; instead of wasting its effort on creating artificial particles to compensate for what was supposedly missing, the Heavenly Law could have supplied the body with an additional 10% affinity or perhaps even more.

"...What exactly is going on here?" Robin revealed a strange smile as the different pieces began connecting inside his mind.

The problem with the incorrect arrangement of the engravings was certainly suspicious, but it could still be explained away as some sort of test imposed by the Heavenly Laws, or perhaps as nothing more than the laziness and ignorance of those who had come before them. One could even take another step and simply say that the Heavenly Laws themselves were stupid and that trusting them to arrange everything correctly from the beginning had been the real problem.

But for the bodies themselves to have changed as well and lost the very thing that once made them naturally powerful?

Was it truly nothing more than a coincidence that the Heavenly Laws seemed to conspire against humans while their own bodies failed them at exactly the same time, stripping them of another path toward strength?

"Mmm..."

At that moment, Jabba finally began stirring on his chair, his body moving slightly as consciousness gradually returned to him. Slowly and gently, he raised his left hand and began rubbing his eye, still seemingly trying to recover from the exhaustion that had knocked him unconscious.

Then he suddenly froze as though he had remembered what had happened immediately before losing consciousness and jolted upright in his seat. "What the...?!"

Then he sensed something beside him and instinctively turned his head in that direction. "Ahh!!" Sakar was sitting right next to him, his face turned directly toward Jabba while his enormous fangs remained exposed in a terrifying grimace.

"Welcome back." Robin calmly snapped his fingers, drawing Jabba’s attention away from Sakar and toward himself once again.

"...?" Jabba turned toward Robin, then cautiously glanced back at Sakar to make absolutely certain that the terrifying figure beside him was actually unconscious, before finally looking toward Robin again with obvious bewilderment. "Why does everyone who sits with you end up unconscious?!"

"Perhaps they’re simply overwhelmed by my greatness." Robin revealed a small smile before continuing as though nothing unusual had happened. "Tell me, Jabba, you’ve read my Sixth Cultivation Path, correct?"

"Mhm." Jabba nodded without hesitation. "It’s ingenious and reliable. The only problem is that it’ll require a great deal of work from you personally to determine the correct arrangement of the patterns for every single Minor Law out there."

"Hmm, then why do you think there’s a problem with the way the Heavenly Laws treat us while, at the exact same time, the variable particles inside our bodies are dormant?" Robin tilted his head slightly, his expression carrying obvious thoughtfulness. "It’s almost as though whoever manages to escape one obstacle will inevitably run straight into the other, and the two obstacles existing together have left humanity in a miserable state across every planet and made us suffer for 97.8 million years... Why?"

"Why?" Jabba raised his eyebrows, immediately understanding what Robin was implying. "You think the causes behind the two problems are somehow connected?"

Robin nodded slowly. "I think some vindictive son of a bitch imposed an absurdly excessive punishment on B-14 before the beginning of the cycle."