215: Deprivation of the Gourmet Universe

"Lin Luo" slowly spread his palm.

In his palm, the Gourmet Earth floated quietly, every detail visible. Oceans, continents, clouds, the pulse of ley lines, energy cycles... every detail was miniaturized here in equal proportion, like an exquisite model possessing the complete Laws of the world.

At the same time—

Buzz!

The background of the Universe collapsed and condensed inward!

In the boundless Void Realm, a towering figure condensed from the pure concept of "existence" slowly manifested. Its form was so grand that stars seemed like fireflies and galaxies like bands of light.

And the miniature Earth in "Lin Luo's" palm, its corresponding original body in the physical Universe, was being gently lifted by that cosmic figure's "hand"—a certain Law-bearing entity that transcended dimensions.

The microscopic sphere in the palm and the macroscopic Universe holding the star formed an absolutely synchronized mirror reflection!

In the next moment.

"Lin Luo's" palm slowly closed.

In the Universe, the "hand" of that towering figure also closed in synchronization.

The heavens and earth suddenly dimmed, and the stars shifted!

"Lin Luo's" body instantly scattered into a brilliant golden light, vanishing from the Hill of the Horse Kings. At the same time, the trembling eight feet also disappeared along with the golden light.

Reappearing, they were already in the deep space of the Universe.

The pendant he had always worn fell into His "palm."

In the next second, the pendant silently turned into fine powder.

Golden dust floated like a stream of astral sand. They condensed and transformed on their own—at times becoming a giant golden tree whose veins permeated reality and unreality, at times collapsing into a universal array depicting infinite mysteries, before dispersing again and finally condensing into a perfectly round, flawless bead containing Chaos.

The bead existed for only an instant before it shattered with a bang, turning into a finer flow of golden light that surged into the silhouette condensed from golden light that symbolized "Lin Luo."

Immediately after—

Bang!

"Lin Luo's" silhouette also completely exploded, turning into countless microscopic golden specks of light like a silent cosmic-level eruption, evenly dispersing and permeating every inch of space in the vast Universe.

The world emitted a wail.

It wasn't a sound, but a tremor at the level of the Laws. It was as if an invisible canvas was being torn apart, making a "rip—" sound that froze the Soul.

Within the barriers between dimensions, this originally existing "Gourmet World," as if wiped by an invisible eraser, had half of its very existence—matter, energy, time, space, and even all living beings and stories—completely vanish without warning.

No explosion, no wreckage, no trace.

It was as if it had never existed.

An unknown Chaos space, without beginning or end, without up or down, only the most primitive, hazy Foundation where "existence" and "non-existence" had yet to differentiate.

Here, there was no flow of time, no extension of space, only an absolute primordial sea where "nothingness" and "all possibilities" intertwined.

At this moment, this eternally silent Chaos began a silent, cognition-transcending "expansion."

Chaos itself, like an embryo being kneaded and stretched by an invisible hand, its internal "capacity" and "plasticity" were spontaneously evolving toward an infinitely deep and complex direction.

Just as this expansion of Chaos was underway, in one of its infinitely deep corners—

A "canvas" was stuffed in.

This "canvas" was not a physical entity, but a completely stripped and frozen "slice of the world"—it was the highly compressed aggregate of Law networks, material information, and spatio-temporal structures remaining from the "Gourmet World" that had been half-erased from the original Universe.

Like a "patch" with its own complete rules and colors, it was crudely yet precisely embedded into this expanding Chaos.

The moment the "canvas" touched the Chaos—

Buzz... The colorless and formless Chaos was tainted and stimulated by this external, structurally complete "world fragment." With the "canvas" as the anchor and core, Chaos began to spontaneously manifest matter, differentiate energy, and construct space-time according to the rule blueprint carried by this "canvas"!

The originally monotonous Chaos was filled with a sudden yet vivid "color."

Gourmet Universe, Gourmet Earth.

Time flowed once more.

Crash—!!!

A blood waterfall more vast and terrifying than any known waterfall!

From the massive hole in the King Ma's chest, which was comparable in diameter to a mountain, thick, scalding blood containing unimaginable life essence poured down like a collapsing heavenly river!

"Roar—!!!"

Intense pain and heavy injury stimulated its deepest life instincts. Inside its mountain-like body, a roar erupted like billions of volcanoes erupting simultaneously, or like the birth of countless stars! Regeneration began at a visible, logic-defying speed!

This process was recovery for the King Ma itself, but for the entire Eighth Continent, it was an outright apocalyptic disaster!

Recovering from such an injury naturally required energy. And the King Ma's source of energy was air.

The sky was torn apart, and the strange celestial phenomena that usually shrouded the Gourmet World were completely disrupted; thunder, auroras, and meteor fire-showers crashed down haphazardly.

The earth was no longer simply cracking; it was like dough being repeatedly kneaded by an invisible giant hand. High mountains sank into the ground, deep valleys rose into new mountain ranges, rivers flowed backward, and oceans boiled!

The entire Eighth Continent, amidst the "labor pains" of its king, wailed, deformed, and teetered on the brink of complete disintegration. The Foundation of the continent was shaken, as if it would shatter and drift away from the map of the Gourmet World in the next second.

A few breaths' time felt as long as an eternal Hell to the billions of living beings on this continent.

Finally—

Thump! Thump! Thump!

A low, powerful pulsing sound, as if coming from the core of the world, resounded through the heavens and earth once more!

The terrifying hole in the King Ma's chest was already covered by new, solid muscle and fur that shimmered with a dark-golden metallic luster. Although the new part was slightly lighter in color and the texture appeared somewhat tender, that penetrating fatal wound had indeed recovered!

It remembered.

It remembered that ant, and it remembered that terrifying aura that had descended in an instant, reigning supreme over everything.

It slowly raised a front hoof and stepped down gently.

There was no sound.

But with it as the center, all the raging natural disasters within a ten-thousand-mile radius—the splitting earth, the erupting volcanoes, the reversing tsunamis, the chaotic energy storms—were as if a pause button had been pressed under this hoof, then they submissively calmed and restored.

The king had regained control of its kingdom.

The King Ma stood silently, like a mountain, like a peak, like an ancient statue. Its gaze was cast toward the distant horizon, toward the unknown direction where the enemy had disappeared, and it also seemed to penetrate through layers of space, engaging in silent communication with the kings of the other seven continents.

The eight kings of the Gourmet World were all alarmed.

An "unknown existence" capable of instantly dealing a heavy blow to one of the eight kings and leaving safely... this was enough to break the balance and silence that the Gourmet World had maintained for an unknown number of millennia.

Deep within the Chaos.

Those golden eyes that had once opened, yet seemed to have never closed, gazed indifferently at all of this.

No wind, no sound. But the Chaos itself, under the gaze of those eyes, produced an indescribable "sense of flowing."

The turbid airflow was no longer a static background, but like a deep sea being stirred by an invisible hand, forming slow and grand vortices around His undefinable "existence."

Within the vortices, anomalies were born.

A lotus flower quietly bloomed.

It was not matter, nor was it energy; it was more like the instantaneous manifestation of a certain "concept" or "possibility." Its petals were crystalline, yet its veins were as deep as the starry sky; between its birth and extinction, it shimmered with flowing light.

But in just an instant, this lotus flower silently withered and was annihilated, shattering into Chaos elementary particles finer than dust, returning to the vortex.

His surroundings seemed to turn into a boundless, instantaneous sea of lotuses! The birth and death of every lotus flower brought a trace of imperceptible ripples in the rules, so fast that even the word "instant" seemed too long.

Between birth and death was an endless "existence."

After annihilation was a return to "nothingness."

"...Eh?"

An extremely light murmur rippled out, not as a sound, but as a slight ripple in the Laws themselves. Wherever the ripple reached, the eternally flowing Chaos airflow, which carried endless birth and death, was actually swept aside for an instant.

In this "pure" spot that had been swept open, within the absolute "nothingness," the scene changed abruptly—

As if a mirror surface frozen for ages was struck by an invisible force, it shattered.

Countless crisscrossing, bottomless black cracks appeared! Inside the cracks was a "void" deeper and more primitive than Chaos.

In the next instant.

Golden light so brilliant it was impossible to look at directly converged, wove, and took shape at an unimaginable speed!

Bones, tendons, flesh, skin... all were rapidly constructed within the golden light.

In a flash, Lin Luo's form was completely suspended in the center of the cracks.

The moment the body manifested, the surrounding black cracks seemed to be stimulated, suddenly collapsing and expanding inward!

Like a hungry giant maw, it swallowed the newly formed "Lin Luo," and along with him, those eternally unchanging golden eyes also disappeared.