262: How does your law taste?

The Star Domain pointed to by the coordinates lay quietly in a corner of the Universe, like a forgotten tombstone.

Li Dong took a step, and his figure materialized above the atmosphere of a planet.

Dead silence.

A silence that seeped into the marrow.

It was not that there was no sound, but that the very concept of "sound" itself had become thin.

The wind had stopped, the clouds were stagnant, and the land below was a shocking expanse of gray decay.

The once-blue ocean now resembled a massive, solidified slab of gray glass, without a single ripple.

Forests that should have been green were now nothing but carbonized, withered bones, poking straight up toward the sky.

There were no signs of life, not even traces of death.

All things had simply "stopped."

Li Dong closed his eyes, and his perception spread out like spilled mercury.

The core of this world, its heart—that star core which should have been burning fiercely, providing energy and the foundation of Law for the entire world... was gone.

It had not been shattered by violence, nor had it extinguished from exhausted energy.

It was as if a surgeon with terrifyingly refined skills had used an invisible scalpel to perfectly and harmlessly remove it, following the veins of the Law.

It was hair-raisingly clean.

"The Observer's intelligence is truly precise."

Li Dong landed on a plain that had turned into a black desert.

The gravel beneath his feet had once been the most fertile soil in this world.

He crouched down and picked up a pinch of sand.

The sand silently disintegrated at his fingertips, turning into the purest stream of information, but this information was incomplete, like pages that had been gnawed upon.

Just then, a slight commotion came from behind a sand dune not far away.

A "human" figure crawled out, stumbling.

To call it human was already a stretch.

Its body resembled a wax figure that had been casually kneaded; one arm had melted into its chest, and its face lacked features, possessing only a hole that constantly opened and closed, oozing gray mucus and emitting an unconscious rasping sound.

This was the last "survivor" of this world.

After the star core was stripped away and the Law collapsed instantly, it had not died immediately but was twisted into this state by the chaotic residual power, leaving only the instinct to survive.

It "saw" Li Dong.

In that chaotic consciousness, only one thought remained—devour.

It roared, and its deformed body catapulted toward him in a way that defied the Laws of physics.

Li Dong didn't even look up at it.

He simply blew a breath.

A gentle force of "Attunement" brushed past; the deformed body paused instantly, then dissolved inch by inch like a sandcastle, with no pain, no struggle, returning to the purest nothingness.

This was the only mercy he could grant.

"There is too little residual information."

Li Dong stood up, the [ancient stone slab] warming slightly against his chest, amplifying the sliver of coordinate information provided by the Observer.

In the depths of his pupils, countless fine streams of data lit up.

[Void Eye], activated.

The entire world changed in his eyes in an instant.

Matter disappeared, replaced by countless crisscrossing lines of Law.

Most of the lines were broken and dim, but in the center of the void, he saw a... barely perceptible "scratch."

It did not belong to this world, like a faint, imperceptible trace left by a fingernail scraping across glass.

The end of that scratch connected to a constantly squirming fold in space, resembling a wound.

A Void Realm rift.

"Found it."

Li Dong did not hesitate in the slightest and stepped inside.

The scene before his eyes changed drastically.

He seemed to have fallen into a kaleidoscope, surrounded by countless twisted spatial faults and violent turbulent energy.

This was the crevice of dimensions, the "sewer" of the Universe.

The air was filled with a thick, nauseating stench, a mix of rotting flesh and decaying Law.

This was the Void Realm maze.

"Roar—!"

Piercing shrieks rang out from all directions.

From the shadows of the maze, monsters surged out.

They took various forms; some resembled skinned behemoths with shattered fragments of Law hanging from their bodies, while others were merely masses of pure, screaming Chaos energy.

Void Realm aberrations.

They were the products of "trash" excreted by those "predators" after digesting star cores, combined with Void Realm energy.

They had no intelligence, only hunger.

Li Dong became the only "food" in this junkyard.

"Perfect, let me test my blade on you."

Li Dong's expression was calm, and he gripped the air with his right hand.

A [Law Scalpel] made of pure concepts condensed and formed in his palm.

He didn't even make any unnecessary movements; he simply swung forward casually.

Ssh—

An invisible, intangible sharpness swept across.

The dozen or so aberrations rushing at the front froze instantly.

The next second, a perfect cutting line appeared on their bodies, and they silently separated, purified into nothingness by the "Attunement" power overflowing from the cut.

One strike, field cleared.

Just then, the Observer's consciousness sounded in his mind without warning.

"Be careful. A Void Predator is not a race, but a 'phenomenon.' They are the cancer cells of the Universe, skilled at camouflage and lurking; any form of Origin energy is their nourishment. To them, you are a delicacy they have never seen before."

"Understood."

Li Dong responded concisely and continued walking deeper into the maze.

The deeper he went, the more severely space twisted, and the scent of decay became increasingly intense.

Finally, he passed through the last layer of the spatial membrane, and the scene before him suddenly opened up.

This was a twisted spatial node of unimaginable size.

A nest.

Countless Void Realm rifts converged here like octopus tentacles, injecting stolen energy into the center of the nest.

And in that center, Li Dong saw the stolen "trophies."

One, two, three... seven star cores in total!

They had once been the sources of life for seven worlds, but now they were wrapped in balls of squirming, asphalt-like black viscous matter.

Those substances were covered in dense, vein-like runic tentacles that dug deep into the star cores, greedily absorbing energy and carrying out some kind of evil transformation.

The star cores were wailing and trembling.

Li Dong's eyes turned completely cold.

"Come out."

He said coldly toward the depths of the nest, "Sneaky thief, do you still need me to invite you out?"

The shadows in the depths of the nest began to squirm violently.

A massive shadow slowly rose.

It was a monster... that could not be described by any known creature.

Its main body resembled a giant jellyfish floating in the Void Realm; inside its translucent body, there were no organs, only countless twisted, shattered Law runes flowing slowly.

Below it hung thousands of thin, long tentacles shimmering with eerie light.

This was one individual of the "Void Predator."

It had no eyes, but Li Dong could clearly feel an indescribable "gaze" locking onto him tightly.

There was no killing intent, no anger, and no desire for communication.

What that gaze transmitted was an appetite... pure to the extreme.

The next instant, a twisted consciousness crashed directly into Li Dong's mind.

It was not language, but a piece of primitive information mixed with greed and curiosity.

Translated, it roughly meant:

"New... food..."

"Your 'taste'... smells... very special..."

"Let me... have a taste..."

Li Dong gripped the [Blade of Judgment] in his hand.