283: Taboo colors

Li Dong followed behind the painter.

The twilight in this world had a viscous quality, stretching people's shadows long and slow.

The painter's back was hunched, like a withered blade of grass bent by wind and frost, dragging heavy despair with every step.

He turned into a narrow alley reeking of mold and dust, pushed open a creaky, dilapidated wooden door, and ducked into a dim attic.

In the attic, the air was stagnant, and the light was stingy.

Li Dong stood silently outside the window, his gaze piercing through the walls.

The painter did not light a lamp; instead, borrowing the faint, grayish-yellow light from outside the window, he carefully lifted a stack of paper from a hidden compartment in a broken wooden chest.

These were all torn paintings, clumsily pieced back together, one by one, with crude paste.

The cracks were like ugly scars covering every painting.

On the paintings were struggling colors, twisted lines, and unwilling screams.

The painter was named Mo Chen.

Li Dong simply swept across with the Law of Attunement, and from the emotions remaining in him—those not yet completely smoothed away by the Law of equilibrium—he read this name and his dusty, sealed past.

Once the city's number one Genius, because the "colors" flowing from his brush were too vivid, and the "Variable" contained within his paintings was too dangerous, he had been stripped of his drawing board by the Law Enforcers, his dreams torn to shreds, and he was cast into the dust.

Mo Chen knelt on the floor, his fingers trembling as he caressed the pieced-together paintings, as if touching the cold corpse of a lover.

In his eyes lay a deep pool of dead silence; only occasionally would a few sparks of unwilling phosphorescent fire struggle to the surface, only to be quickly extinguished.

Li Dong did not disturb him.

He merely sent his Divine Thought, following that faint thread of the Law of "Vitality," quietly probing into Mo Chen's Sea of Consciousness.

He did not force anything into him; instead, like a master musician, he found a string deep within Mo Chen's Divine Soul that had long been covered in dust and broken.

Then, he plucked it gently.

Hum—

That night, Mo Chen had a bizarre and surreal dream.

In the dream, he was no longer in the grayish-yellow attic. He saw a flower, a flower composed of the pure concept of "Life," blooming defiantly in the endless darkness!

Every petal of that flower flowed with a color he had never seen before, gorgeous to the extreme.

Red was burning magma, blue was the roaring deep sea, and green was the savagely growing primeval forest!

These colors washed over his Soul, stripping away and shattering the gray dust covering his heart layer by layer!

His forgotten passion, suppressed impulses, and the most primitive yearning for freedom awakened at this moment like a volcanic eruption!

"Paint! I must paint!"

In the dream, Mo Chen went mad. Having no brush, he used his fingers as a brush. Having no pigment, he used his own Soul as ink!

He danced wildly in the Void Realm, painting brilliant nebulae and surging rivers!

The entire dreamscape transformed into a living, wild painting filled with forbidden beauty!

The next day.

Mo Chen was awakened by the "Variable" fluctuations emanating from his own painting.

He looked down to see a complete sheet of draft paper spread before him. On it, a ball of fire was blazing; the brushstrokes of the flame were full of vitality, as if in the next second it would jump off the paper and set this dead, silent city ablaze.

This was his masterpiece from his sleepwalking the night before.

Before he could recover from the shock.

"Swish!"

The door was pushed open by an invisible force, and two Law Enforcers walked in with expressionless faces.

Their gray vortex pupils locked firmly onto the painting.

"Detected out-of-specification Variable, executing 'Correction' procedure."

A cold, emotionless intent echoed in the air.

One Law Enforcer reached out, intending to tear up this "forbidden work" just like yesterday.

But this time.

"Don't touch it!"

Like an enraged beast, Mo Chen lunged forward, clutching the painting tightly to his chest.

His body trembled violently from fear, his teeth chattering, but in his bloodshot eyes burned a light like never before.

It was the light of resistance!

The Law Enforcers seemed to pause for a moment; in their programming, there were rarely records of "specimens" resisting.

Just then, a more oppressive figure walked slowly in from outside the door.

He was taller than the ordinary Law Enforcers, and the color of his uniform was deeper, nearly black. The blurriness on his face was heavier, and the gray vortex in his eyes spun faster, as if it could suck a person's Soul right in.

The Law Enforcer captain, the "Purger."

"Detected source of contamination, initiating 'Formatting' protocol."

The Purger's voice rang directly in Mo Chen's mind, carrying a cold will to erase everything.

A terrifying power of the Law of equilibrium turned into countless invisible needles, stabbing into Mo Chen's consciousness, intending to format all thoughts in his brain regarding "colors," "Variables," and "resistance," turning him back into a perfect, mindless specimen.

Mo Chen let out a muffled grunt of pain, feeling his Soul being peeled away piece by piece.

Just at the moment he was about to be completely "formatted."

Ding.

A soft sound.

It was as if something invisible had been severed.

The gray vortex in the Purger's eyes suddenly stalled, and the power continuously flowing from the "equilibrium Hub" beneath the city was suddenly cut off!

It was like a network terminal suddenly losing connection.

In the Purger's mechanical thinking, for the first time, a bug called "System crash" appeared.

"Now!"

A voice exploded in the depths of Mo Chen's heart.

Mo Chen had a flash of inspiration; he didn't know what had happened, but he seized this fleeting opportunity!

With all his might, he grabbed the charcoal on the floor, used his body as an axis, and slashed fiercely across the ground!

"Get... away from me!"

Sizzle!

A line burning with crimson flames appeared out of thin air on the floor, blocking the space between him and the Law Enforcers!

Within that flame was contained all his anger, unwillingness, and that sliver of ignited "Vitality"!

The flames scorched the air, causing the surrounding Law of equilibrium to emit a groan of unbearable strain.

The Purger and the Law Enforcers were actually forced back a step by this fragile line of fire.

"Well done."

A calm voice rang out.

Li Dong had appeared in the attic at some unknown time, standing right beside Mo Chen.

He was still in the guise of an ordinary traveler, but his appearance caused the Laws of the entire space to stagnate.

The vortex in the Purger's eyes spun frantically, attempting to parse this suddenly appeared "anomaly."

However, in its database, Li Dong was "null."

He existed, yet could not be defined.

Standing here, he was like an incalculable "X," an ultimate bug capable of crashing the entire "equilibrium" System!

"Warning! Highest-level 'anomaly' detected! Requesting highest-privilege strike!" the Purger sounded an alarm.

Li Dong didn't even look at him, but instead watched the line of fire on the floor with interest, smiling at Mo Chen.

"You see, a Variable is actually a kind of power."

He turned his head, his gaze finally falling upon the Purger, his tone carrying a touch of mockery.

"You guard a giant tomb and turn all living people into funerary objects; is that fun?"

This question hit the Purger's logical core like a heavy hammer.

"'equilibrium' is eternal; 'Variable' brings destruction. All 'anomalies' must be erased!"

The Purger gave up on the ineffective parsing, raised its hand, and a gray ball of light radiating an aura of annihilation condensed in its palm, aimed at Li Dong.

This was the power of "Return to Zero," capable of reducing an entire galaxy to elementary particles.

However, Li Dong simply extended a finger.

[Dynamic Equilibrium].

Hum!

The terrifying gray ball of light, at the very moment it was about to touch Li Dong, eerily took a turn and blasted toward the two Law Enforcers behind the Purger with even greater speed!

Boom!

No violent explosion, only silent annihilation.

Those two Law Enforcers, along with the space they occupied, were cleanly erased by their own power.

The vortex in the Purger's eyes froze completely.

Its System... had burned out.

Order had been broken.

equilibrium had failed.

Mo Chen opened his mouth wide, staring blankly at everything.

For the first time, he knew that a "Variable" could be this strong! He realized that the all-arrogant "Law Enforcers" could also be this pathetic!

The spark in his heart was completely ignited at this moment, turning into a raging fire that would spread across the plains!

Li Dong ignored the logically confused Purger and reached out his hand toward Mo Chen.

"This world is sick, very sick."

"It's not enough for you to paint alone."

"Come with me. Let's go together and bring back the original colors of this world."

Mo Chen looked at the hand reaching toward him.

That hand was clean, powerful, as if it held infinite possibilities.

He hesitated for less than a second.

Then, he threw away the charcoal in his hand, put down the scroll in his arms, and with all his might, gripped Li Dong's hand tightly.

In his eyes flickered a light like never before, a light called "hope."

"Okay!"

Li Dong smiled.

He knew that in this game of chess, he had already placed the most crucial first piece.

A war concerning "colors" and "equilibrium" was about to begin in this dead, silent Twilight City.

His gaze pierced through layers of buildings and cast toward the deepest part of the city, at that massive "equilibrium Hub."

"Lord of Equilibrium... what exactly are you afraid of?"

"Are you afraid of these 'colors' you've locked away, or are you afraid of... some even more terrifying Variable that even you cannot 'equilibrium'?"