289: Seeding of variables

Li Dong ignored the nauseating gaze from high above the heavens.

Like a wealthy gambler, he casually scattered a handful of iridescent 'World Seeds' onto the land beneath his feet that had just awakened.

This action was less like sowing and more like issuing a command.

A command, that is, a Law.

Boom!

The earth seemed to understand the order; the parched surface cracked open in response, but what surged out was not magma, but a stream of life-giving light as translucent as emerald.

A giant tree's sprout pushed through a metal plate in the city ruins, growing wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye; within seconds, it shot up from ankle-height to the size of a skyscraper, spreading a canopy that blotted out the sky.

In the distance, in the withered riverbed, the first drop of water was born out of thin air, followed by billions more, merging into a surging torrent that roared deafeningly.

The air no longer smelled of dead dust, but of the earthy scent of churned soil, the sweetness of plant sap, and the dampness of newborn water vapor, all mixed into a scent called 'living.'

Mo Chen stood with his mouth agape, still clutching the charcoal stick used for drawing, completely stunned.

He had seen the rigid creation of the Lord of Equilibrium, but he had never seen such wild, such unreasonable 'life'!

But this was not enough.

Li Dong closed his eyes, and a silent melody spilled from his lips—the Song of Creation.

This was not the transmission of sound, but the resonance of concepts.

In the city-state, a man who had just crawled out of the ruins looked at his hands in a daze, and a thought suddenly popped into his mind: he wanted to carve the image of his wife's smile out of stone.

At a street corner, a girl picked up a broken tile, unable to suppress the urge to draw the newly risen sun upon it.

In the minds of countless people, sparks of poetry, musical compositions, and philosophical speculation exploded one after another, like a detonated ammunition depot.

The desire to create is the most Advanced Variable.

"This... this is what the world was meant to look like..." Mo Chen muttered to himself, his eyes burning.

However, the "audience" high above the heavens clearly did not like this show.

Hum—

A cold, chilling will, like invisible ink, dripped into this magnificent oil painting without warning.

The edges of the canopy of the towering giant tree that had just grown began to show gray, withered spots, as if it had experienced a thousand years of decay in an instant.

In the surging river, a streak of deathly gray flowed upstream; wherever it passed, the water solidified, and the fish and shrimp turned belly-up.

The man who was about to carve his wife had the love and inspiration in his heart instantly drained, leaving only a sense of absolute pessimism that "everything will eventually return to deathly silence," and the stone in his hand dropped to the ground with a "clatter."

The "Variable" was being polluted and overwritten by the concept of "End."

[Warning: Overgrowth will lead to chaos. The end of chaos is disorderly destruction.]

The Adjudicator's will transformed into countless images of shattered world wreckage, forcibly rushing into Li Dong's Divine Soul sea.

Those were planets ruined by "Variables," some gnawed into empty shells by insane biotechnology, others turned into cosmic dust in endless civil wars.

[Accept "Correction," and I can grant you eternal peace.]

"Get lost."

Li Dong's Divine Soul sea remained as calm as an ancient well, and the ancient stone slab emitted a gentle, warm light, filtering out those mental corruptions completely.

He even had the leisure to analyze it.

"So, not just a control freak, but a defeatist with psychological trauma," he sneered. "Just because you can't grow flowers in your own home, you think all the gardens in the world should be sealed with cement?"

He raised his head, his gaze piercing through dimensions, carrying a trace of cold mockery.

"Have you seen enough? If you have, it's my turn."

Li Dong extended two fingers and lightly slashed at the Void Realm. At his fingertips, the edge of the Law Scalpel flashed and vanished.

Crack.

A crisp sound that did not exist in the physical world, yet rang clearly on the level of Law.

Between this world and that magnificent chessboard, a faint, almost non-existent thread was precisely severed.

The "gaze" high above the heavens fluctuated violently, and a violent will surged over, attempting to reconnect.

[Violation! The piece is attempting to break free from the chessboard!]

"Shh, be quiet."

Li Dong held a finger to his lips, and the Law of Dynamic Equilibrium acted like an invisible vortex, lightly guiding, deflecting, and finally dissipating that impact into nothingness.

"Causing trouble right under your nose is what's called a 'performance,' isn't it?"

The Adjudicator's will collided with a ball of cotton; it was furious but helpless. It had been temporarily blocked.

"Mr. Li Dong, what is this..." Mo Chen said, his blood and Qi surging from the pressure just now.

"Just putting his phone in airplane mode."

Li Dong said lightly, "But it won't last long. This guy's Law has a 'signal base station' in this world that has been suppressing and polluting this place in secret. If we don't pull it out, we'll always just be weeding the garden while the roots rot in the ground."

As he spoke, he closed his eyes to perceive.

The source of that "End" Law's pollution was like a persistent noise in a symphony; no matter how he tried to cover it with Attunement, it remained stubbornly present.

Found it.

In the deepest part of the world, where the core and the Laws intertwined.

An ancient temple that had been forcibly suppressed for countless years, to the point where even the Origin of the world had almost forgotten it.

"Let's go, Mo Chen."

Li Dong opened his eyes. "I'll take you to see what the true totem of this world looked like before it was turned into a 'specimen'."

The two turned into streams of light and escaped into the underground.

The deeper they went, the more viscous and deathly silent the surrounding Laws became.

This was the place where the Adjudicator's power had penetrated the deepest, and countless twisted Law creatures roamed here.

They had no physical form, looking like clusters of solidified shadows; they were the materialized guardians of the Law of "Imprisonment."

A guardian lunged at them; it did not open a mouth, but an absolute Domain of stillness.

Inside the Domain, even light was frozen.

Li Dong didn't even look. The Blade of Judgment was unsheathed, and the blade did not strike at the guardian's body, but at its connection point to the Laws of this space.

"Pfft."

The guardian dissipated instantly like a punctured balloon, and the "Imprisonment" Law that constituted it was easily scooped up by Li Dong, crushed and purified with the power of Anti-Devour, and fed back to the world's hungry Origin.

Turning waste into treasure—a professional specialty.

The journey was smooth and unobstructed, and they soon arrived at their destination.

A magnificent temple, indescribable in words, floated above the molten core of the earth.

But the surface of the temple was shrouded in a layer of... "Nothingness."

It was a pure Void, it did not reflect light, did not make sound, and did not even "exist."

Mo Chen only took one look, and felt that his thoughts, memories, and even the concept of "self" were being crazily drained and erased by that nothingness.

He retreated in horror, as if one more second of looking would turn him into a blank sheet of paper.

Li Dong, however, stopped in his tracks, staring at that barrier of nothingness with great interest. There was not a hint of tension on his face; instead, a strange, even nostalgic smile appeared.

"Yo, isn't this the old craftsmanship of the Void Mother Nest?"

He muttered to himself, as if he had met an old acquaintance he hadn't seen in years.

"Using 'Nothingness' as a doorman? It seems the thing hidden in the temple makes our 'Adjudicator' very afraid."