281: The other side of the chessboard

The Universe was silent, as never before.

The Void Mother Nest, which had devoured countless civilizations and nearly dragged the entire dimension into the abyss, along with its core "parasitic" concept, had been completely "returned" by Li Dong to the Origin point before existence was born, using the power of the ancient stone slab.

It was not deletion; it was restoration.

This Void Realm was as clean as a wiped piece of glass, leaving not even a trace of the scars of war.

Li Dong's Divine Soul stood in this absolute "nothingness," feeling the joy and jubilation of the Universe within him.

Every pulsation of the heart of the universe was like a hymn sung to him; the newly born chains of Law, like billions of ribbons of light, coiled around him, affectionately rubbing against his will.

He had won.

From confronting the Puppet of the "True Lord's" will to battling the dimensional evil god, the Void Mother Nest, this path had been walked for too long, and the tension had been too great.

At this moment, an unprecedented sense of exhaustion surged like a tide from the deepest depths of his Divine Soul.

However, in this rare moment of relaxation after victory, an indescribable sensation appeared out of thin air.

It was not a sound, not an image, and certainly not any kind of energy fluctuation.

It was more like an invisible string, one end connected to Li Dong's very "existence," and the other end extending into that deeper, more ancient dark unknown that even the power of Return to Zero had not touched.

The string was gently plucked.

There was no malice, no killing intent, and not even the slightest emotion.

There was only a pure curiosity, and a calm... "invitation."

It was like a master of the game, after observing a breathtaking match, issuing an invitation for the next game to the victor who had played the brilliant move of "Return to Zero."

The exhaustion in Li Dong's Divine Soul was instantly dispelled by this pluck.

He did not feel offended; instead, a thrill of meeting an equal opponent rose from every particle of his Divine Soul.

The path of the "Attuner" truly had no end.

He looked back at the Universe behind him.

Those "world seeds" he had snatched from the maw of the Void Mother Nest had already been placed under the care of the Origin will of the Universe, in accordance with his will.

They were scattered into the dead zones that had become desolate due to the war, and upon contacting the first ray of new starlight, they would take root, sprout, and evolve into countless brand-new civilizations and miracles.

"Grow up well."

Li Dong left behind a gentle thought.

He took another look at the Observer, who was frantically restructuring within the torrent of data and was about to undergo its ultimate transformation.

He took a look at the heart of the universe, which had fallen back into slumber, accumulating power for its next evolution.

He gripped the Blade of Judgment, which had just drunk its fill of the evil god's blood and now had all its sharpness retracted.

He held up the ancient stone slab, which appeared increasingly plain and unadorned, yet was so deep it seemed capable of devouring all light.

With no more reluctance.

Li Dong followed the pull of that "invitation" and took a step out.

His figure did not escape into any known dimension but instead plunged directly into a dimensional crack forcibly outlined by the power of the "invitation."

This was not the violent and chaotic turbulence of the Void Realm.

On the contrary, everything here exuded a suffocating, meticulously designed "sense of structure."

Space here was not infinitely extending but was like paper folded billions of times, with a set of independent and closed Laws hidden in every fold.

Time here was not a flowing river but a water droplet trapped in amber—static, yet containing terrifying potential energy that could be released at any moment.

An invisible pressure squeezed in from all directions.

It did not act upon the Physical Body, nor did it erode energy; it directly targeted "concepts."

It attempted to analyze Li Dong, to define Li Dong, and to forcibly twist all the "dynamic" and "changing" qualities about him into a "static" and "eternal" label.

The ancient stone slab protected its master on its own; a layer of hazy, faint light enveloped Li Dong, isolating him from this conceptual erosion coming from a higher dimension.

Li Dong's Attunement Law, like billions of the most precise probes, silently reached into every corner of this space, rapidly analyzing this unprecedented order centered on "solidification."

He did not know how long he had traveled.

When the scene before his eyes suddenly opened up, Li Dong discovered he had arrived in a brand-new world.

At first glance, this place seemed quite ordinary.

There were mountains and rivers, sun and moon, stars and celestial bodies.

But at the second glance, a sense of dissonance that went deep into his marrow grabbed his full attention.

The sky was not blue, nor was it black, but a permanent, grayish color of dusk.

The sun and the moon were actually hanging at both ends of the firmament simultaneously, emitting the same dim, cold, and temperatureless light.

The air was filled with an indescribable "sense of stagnation."

A leaf fell from a branch; its movement was so slow, as if it had been put into a thousand-fold slow motion, tracing a solidified trajectory in the air, refusing to fall to the ground.

A river, its surface smooth as a mirror, without a single ripple; the so-called "flowing" was more like a painting being scrolled extremely slowly.

Time here was as viscous as a rotten swamp.

Li Dong's Divine Soul swept across, instantly discerning the essence of this world.

The core Law here was distorted by an "Absolute Equilibrium" that was far more Advanced and overbearing than the "formatting" of the Hand of Order.

This "equilibrium" did not allow for the existence of any "Variable."

It suppressed all "vitality," all "mutations," and all "possibilities."

Everything was forcibly locked into a dead, infinitely looping script.

In the distance, at the end of the horizon, an incomparably magnificent ancient city loomed in the twilight.

The city walls were towering, buildings stood in great numbers, and the city was lit with thousands of lights.

Yet that brilliant sea of lights, far from bringing any warmth of human life, instead exuded a heart-palpitating Death Qi.

Because the brightness of every lamp and every flash of light maintained an absolutely synchronized, mechanical regularity.

No lamp would light up early, and no lamp would extinguish late.

They did not seem to be illuminating for people, but rather like indicator lights running on a huge and precise machine.

Li Dong understood.

This was no longer the baring-its-fangs-and-brandishing-its-claws destruction of the "Devourer."

This was a gentler, and also more cruel, imprisonment.

The existence that had issued the "invitation" was not a violent madman, but a warden whose desire for control had reached the extreme.

He had turned the entire world into a perfect museum of specimens.

And himself, the "super Variable" who had personally directed the grand drama of "Return to Zero," was undoubtedly, in His eyes, the new exhibit with the most collection value and the one most in need of being "corrected."

Li Dong restrained all his Law-based Divine Might; the pulsation of the heart of the universe was suppressed to near stillness, the sharpness of the Blade of Judgment turned into ordinary iron, and the aura of the ancient stone slab was completely hidden.

His figure blurred, and from a Dominator of the Universe with infinite Divine Might, he became a traveler in simple robes with an ordinary face.

Only his eyes remained as deep as before.

With the Attunement Law as his "eyes," he calmly observed every rule on this huge chessboard, searching for the flaw that must inevitably exist.

This would no longer be a cosmic war that could destroy the world at any turn.

This was a game of "human" chess that tested patience, wisdom, and his philosophy of "Attunement" even more.

An ultimate game of "freedom" versus "imprisonment."

What he had to do was to find that only possible "Variable" spark in this world, which was suffocated by "Absolute Equilibrium," that could ignite a prairie fire.

Then, personally attune it into... a storm capable of overturning the entire chessboard!

A smile that no one noticed curled at the corner of Li Dong's mouth.

He stepped forward, unhurriedly, and walked towards that dead city of dusk.

His new chapter had begun.