The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

Su Yuan's blood vessels were burning.

The pure black chains of law spread wildly from every blood vessel in his body, along meridians, bones, and nerve endings, strangling towards the core area of ​​the three-colored brand.

On the surface of the "elephant" mark on his palm, the dark gold patterns were being covered by a dense layer of black threads. The pure white creative power was constantly shrinking and fading under the black erosion. Even the deepest, pitch-black power of denial was emitting hissing noises.

It can't tell the difference.

It's impossible to distinguish which of the criticisms are from one's own side and which are from the enemy.

Assimilation progress: 23%.

27%.

31%.

The numbers on the panel were jumping upwards. With each percentage point increase, Xiao Huo's face paled a little more.

His ten fingers were gripping the edge of the control panel tightly. Golden blood seeped from the corners of his eyes, his nasal cavity, and his ear canals simultaneously. It wasn't an external injury. His sensory system had its signal pathways torn apart by the impact of the assimilation wave.

All the readings on the control panel were crashing.

Energy cycle – abnormal.

Law conduit—abnormality.

Core stability – anomaly.

Weapon system - offline.

Defense Matrix - Offline.

Life support - offline.

Each line of data was followed by a glaring red exclamation mark. The entire panel was as red as the Spring Festival couplets on New Year's Eve.

"Master!! Assimilation progress is 34! If we don't—"

Xiao Huo didn't finish speaking.

Another wave of crimson chains surged from the deepest part of the train's core. Thicker, denser, and more ruthless than the previous one.

The chains pierced through the barriers of the law conduits, passed through the filtering layer of the dark gold veins, and rushed directly into the physical space of the cockpit.

Visible to the naked eye.

Thin, pure black threads, as fine as hair, emerged from the gaps in the control panel, from the metal seams in the floor, and from the frames of the car windows.

Like an insect.

Like maggots.

It was densely covered every surface of the entire cab.

"ah--!"

The money-guarding spirit let out a shrill scream that was so mournful it was almost unrecognizable.

The black threads seeped into the cracks of its treasure chest, creeping along the inner wall. The newly sprouted dark gold runes on the chest's surface flickered wildly, trying to resist—but there were just too many threads. Ten. One hundred. One thousand.

The brightness of the runes visibly diminished.

The treasure-guarding spirit was trembling all over, its short little legs bracing against the bottom of the treasure chest as it shrank into a corner. It shrank as far as it could go. Then it covered its eyes with its chubby hands.

I'm not watching anymore.

I can't see a single thing.

Wang Hu knelt on the ground.

His robotic arm has stopped sparking.

It's not fixed. It's completely frozen.

Black threads slithered into the gaps between the joints of the robotic arm, entangling every gear, every circuit, and every quantum chip inside.

The modification data of the "orbit scavengers" stored on those chips is being overwritten line by line by black chains.

What should it be overwritten as?

Overwrite it as "belongs to the king".

Wang Hu could sense it.

His arm is becoming his own.

That feeling is more terrifying than pain. It's the terror of "you're still alive, but a part of you no longer obeys you."

He gritted his teeth. His gums bled.

His eyes were so wide they looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

But he didn't utter a single word.

Not a tough guy.

She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, those black threads would crawl in.

Assimilation progress: 41%.

45%.

49%.

It's almost halfway done.

The other end of the chessboard.

On the throne formed by the collapse of a galaxy.

"Wang" was watching.

He sat there, one hand supporting his head, his pure black, pupil-less eyes revealing a condescending, nonchalant mockery.

That look wasn't directed at an enemy.

They were watching the mice in the cage.

"Interesting." His thoughts traveled countless light-years to directly enter Su Yuan's mind. His voice was soft, carrying a gentle quality that made one's teeth itch.

"From the moment you first devoured something in Terra."

"It all started from the very first bite you took of the war centipede."

"From the moment you ate that Star Destroyer as a midnight snack."

"You think you're evolving?"

"You think you're getting stronger?"

The smile in my mind grew even stronger.

"You're just eating the feed I give you."

"Every bite."

"Every single one."

"They are all my seeds."

"The more you eat, the deeper the seeds take root. When you're full, stuffed, and think you're invincible—"

"The seed will sprout."

"Then, you will become mine."

"Your train, your abilities, your consciousness, everything about you—will become part of my game."

"What's this called again?"

"Wang" tilted his head, and an ironically innocent look appeared on his face, which was exactly the same as Su Yuan's.

"Oh, right."

"Force-feeding".

"You are that duck."

"I've spent so much time and energy on just one thing—"

"I'll feed you just the right amount."

The thought dissipated.

But the impact it causes is more deadly than any physical attack.

Because it doesn't shake the body.

It is confidence.

It is certainty.

It is the belief itself that "I am constantly getting stronger".

Inside the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland.

A suffocating silence filled the carriage.

Black threads have covered more than 60% of the visible surface. The dark gold interior walls of the carriage are turning black patch by patch. The tri-colored liquid flowing in the law conduit is also becoming turbid.

The roar of the train's engine is decreasing.

It descends little by little.

Like a dying beast, its breathing became shallower and weaker.

Assimilation progress: 52%.

56%.

Xiao Huo stared at the number on the panel that was still jumping up.

His lips were trembling.

He wanted to call him "Master." He wanted to call out to Su Yuan. He wanted to say something.

But he opened his mouth three times, and his vocal cords could not vibrate.

It wasn't that they were suppressed.

It is fear.

Pure, instinctive fear.

As the core of the train, he could perceive what those black chains were doing more clearly than anyone else.

They are not sabotaging the train.

They are rewriting the ownership of trains.

The fundamental definition, "The owner of the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland is Su Yuan," was changed word by word to "The owner of the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland is Wang."

The moment it's changed to 100%—

He was no longer Su Yuan's little fire.

He will become the "King's" little fire.

He would raise his vines and aim them at the man sitting in the driver's seat—

The moment this thought took shape in his mind, even more blood welled up in Xiao Huo's golden vertical pupils.

It was not physical damage.

It's a mental breakdown.

"No……"

A single word was squeezed out from deep in his throat.

With a sob in her voice.

He carried a despair that he himself was unaware of.

Billions of light-years away.

Arbitration Tribunal Headquarters.

The eleven highest elders had different expressions, but conveyed the same message.

It’s over.

The elderly man in the third seat shook his head. His movements were slow and heavy.

"Force-feeding..." he murmured, repeating the word over and over, a bitter smile playing on his lips that was hard to decipher—a mixture of sarcasm and wistfulness. "So, from the very beginning, every single absorption of that paradoxical entity was part of the player's calculations."

The old man in the fifth seat closed his eyes.

"So all the miracles we've seen, all the incredible reversals, all the feats that made us think 'this creature will rewrite the universe'—"

He opened his eyes.

His pupils were filled with the weariness that followed the settling of the dust.

"It's all just the chess players feeding each other."

The seventh female elder remained silent. She simply looked away from the quantum monitoring interface.

I can't bear to watch anymore.

A being that once terrified her to the point of breaking down her psychological defenses is now being devoured from within by the food she has consumed.

Satire.

A tremendous irony.

The chief arbitrator remained silent.

The scepter was held in his hand.

He's waiting for the outcome.

Assimilation progress: 61%.

Inside the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland.

Black thorns sprouted from Su Yuan's pores.

One. Two. Ten. One hundred.

Slender, black thorns bearing the runes of laws burst forth from his bare skin, blood trickling down the veins of the thorns.

Each thorn was connected to a network of chains within his body.

They no longer stay inside the body.

They grew outwards.

It grows longer towards the core of the train.

The first thorn pierced the control panel.

The dark gold sheen on the panel instantly faded, replaced by black.

The second one. The third one. The tenth one.

Thorns extended from Su Yuan's body in all directions, embedding themselves in the floor and walls, and spreading along the outer wall of the law conduit all the way to the connection point of the carriage.

Next, continue.

It pierced the outer casing of the pitcher plant's engine.

The dark gold armor of the entire Emperor's Path Devourer is turning black at a visible speed.

Start from the front of the car.

One piece. Two pieces. Ten pieces. One hundred pieces.

The tri-colored patterns that once flowed across the surface of those proud obsidian scales are now fading. In their place are dense, pure black inscriptions.

The car body is changing color.

From the outside—

A colossal abyss beast, originally brimming with the vibrant energy of dark gold and emerald green, is transforming into a pitch-black, lifeless puppet chariot belonging to the "King."

Assimilation progress: 67%.

arbitral tribunal.

The old man in the third seat sighed.

"it's over."

He said it a second time.

This time, no one refuted him.

On the chessboard.

The "King" sat on his throne, watching the train in the distance turning from dark gold to pure black.

His expression remained calm.

Still mild.

Like a patient shepherd, waiting for his hounds to bring home their prey.

Assimilation progress —

72%.

Then Su Yuan smiled.

It's not a smile.

It wasn't a sneer.

It wasn't a bitter smile.

It was a maniacal laugh that surged from the deepest part of his throat, unrestrained to the extreme, with a strong, bloody smell.

"ha--!"

Laughter erupted in the driver's cab.

It exploded in the space filled with black thorns.

It exploded when the assimilation process was nearing three-quarters complete.

ring.

The noise was so loud that the train carriages were shaking.

Xiao Huo's fingers froze on the panel.

He stared at Su Yuan's retreating figure.

He had seen Su Yuan smile in many desperate situations.

I laughed in Terra City. I laughed in the Void Black Market. I laughed inside the Star Destroyer Mothership. I laughed before the Black Hole's Eye.

Every laugh meant that something that would leave everyone speechless was about to happen.

But this time.

I really can't tell the difference between small fires.

Is this a confident smile, or a mental breakdown after reaching the depths of despair?

Su Yuan didn't give him time to think.

"The only territory."

Two words.

Xiao Huo's pupils suddenly dilated.

"Turn it off."

"Wh...what?!"

Xiao Huo thought there was something wrong with his ears.

The only territory.

That was the last, most crucial, and most fundamental defensive barrier of the Emperor's Path Devourer.

The interior of the car is the owner's absolute domain, and no external rules can apply there.

This is the last lock that prevents them from being fully assimilated.

The reason why the assimilation chain can only be gnawed away little by little, and cannot be filled instantly like a flood breaking through a dam, is because the only territory is blocked by a barrier at the very bottom.

Turn it off —

It's equivalent to dismantling the dam.

It's like inviting a flood into the house.

It's tantamount to suicide.

"Master! Don't turn it off!! If you do, we'll all—"

"Turn it off."

Su Yuan's voice was unusually flat.

It calmed down to that eerie tranquility found only in the eye of a storm.

He didn't look back at Xiao Huo.

He simply repeated it once.

Xiao Huo's finger hovered above the panel.

It was shaking violently.

He watched Su Yuan's retreating figure.

He watched the back of the man who had been sitting in the driver's seat since day one and had never let him down.

Then he closed his eyes.

Golden blood seeped from the gap in the closed eyelids.

The finger fell down.

"The only territory... is now closed."

The voice was trembling.

But he pressed it.

Because he believed in him.

The dam collapsed.

The assimilation process occurred the very second the sole territory closed—

It jumped from 72% to 89%.

The millions of pure black chains are no longer being squeezed out of the veins one by one.

They were blown up.

It exploded simultaneously from every cell of Su Yuan.

The chains pierced his heart.

It ran through his spine.

It penetrated his cerebral cortex.

It also runs through the core chamber of the pitcher plant engine.

The entire Imperial Journey Devourer turned completely black in that instant.

From the inside out.

Not a single piece of dark gold remained.

Su Yuan opened his arms.

Standing in the very center of the driver's cab.

It was pierced by hundreds of millions of black chains from all directions.

Like a martyr nailed to a cross.

Blood gushed from every point on his body pierced by the chains. It wasn't red. It was a mixture of three colors—dark gold, pure white, and jet black—flowing from the wounds and meandering along the patterns of the chains.

pain.

He knows pain.

That kind of pain isn't physical. It's existential. It's a tearing sensation, more terrifying than death, that arises from the very process of "you becoming someone else."

But the corners of his mouth were still turned up.

It warped into an arc that would make any observer feel uncomfortable.

91%.

93%.

95%.

The other end of the chessboard.

"Wang" leaned forward slightly.

A faint hint of satisfaction flickered in his pure black eyes.

almost.

Five more percentage points—

This fun toy now belongs to him completely.

Su Yuan's left eye's dark gold color is fading.

The pure white color of the right eye is fading.

Both colors are being swallowed up by black.

96%.

97%.

Xiao Huo knelt in front of the control panel.

He already sensed it.

Its core definition is being rewritten in the last few lines of code.

A few more seconds.

He would no longer be Su Yuan's little fire.

"Owner……"

When he uttered those two words, there was a tremor in his voice that he himself was unaware of.

It's not because of fear.

It was because he knew that this might be the last time he would use those two words to refer to this man.

Then--

Su Yuan made a move.

It wasn't a struggle. It wasn't a resistance. It wasn't tearing at the chains that ran through my body.

He closed his eyes.

All movement stopped.

Breathing is steady. Heartbeat is steady. Facial muscles are relaxed.

It looks like it's asleep.

In a desperate situation where assimilation is 97% complete and only three percentage points remain before being completely reduced to a puppet—

He closed his eyes.

then.

The one to whom all things return to oneness.

Full power.

Inward.

It's not about analyzing the enemy's rules from the outside.

Inward.

Analyze yourself.

Deciphering the pure black chains that are rampaging wildly within his body.

No.

To be more precise—

Let's analyze the concept of "assimilation" itself.

The analytical tentacles of the One Who Unifies All Things shot out from Su Yuan's core consciousness, piercing through the surface of the three-colored brand that had been dyed nine-tenths black, and penetrating the internal structure of those pure black chains.

It's not about confronting them.

It's not about tearing it apart.

It's not about denying.

It's about understanding.

He was trying to understand "assimilation".

What is assimilation?

It is the process of A transforming B into A.

It is "I" who rewrites the definition of "you".

It means replacing "Su Yuan's attributes" with "Wang's attributes".

Then——

What is the essence of assimilation?

It's digestion.

Turn what doesn't belong to you into what belongs to you.

This process—

Su Yuantai was familiar with it.

He has been doing this since he was seven days old.

To devour. To digest. To transform. To assimilate.

This is not the exclusive right of the "king".

This is Su Yuan's specialty.

The One Who Unifies All Things has captured the core inscription deep within the chain's structure.

"Those who eat me are eaten by me."

Seven characters.

Su Yuan read it twice.

Then, deep down, I laughed.

That's very well written.

The meaning is very clear—you ate my food, so you are food in my mouth.

However, this line of inscription has a fatal logical flaw.

It defines the relationship between the "eater" and the "eaten".

But it is not defined—

To whom does the "food" truly belong?

Su Yuan's eyelid twitched.

Creation and evolution were forcibly activated from the depths of the dying tricolor mark in that instant.

A wisp of pure white power of law squeezed out from the crack in the palm that was about to extinguish.

This wisp of white was not used to fight against the black chains.

It pierced Su Yuan's own stomach—not the stomach in the physical sense—but the complete "digestive system" of the Emperor's Path Devourer, an 8th-level star field predator, which ran through the entire train, from the pitcher plant engine to the law conduit to the dark gold veins.

Creation and evolution began to reshape.

It's not about reshaping weapons. It's not about reshaping defenses.

Reshape the stomach.

Transform your stomach into one that can digest "assimilation" itself.

Assimilation progress: 98%.

Only two percent remain.

Chains took over everything.

Blackness covered everything.

The entire train was black, inside and out.

The surface of Su Yuan's skin was covered with dense inscriptions of the character "王" (king). Only a faint trace of light remained in the depths of his left pupil, where the dark gold color had faded. The pure white of his right eye was almost completely gone.

one second.

two seconds.

three--

The chains stopped.

It didn't stop on its own.

It's stuck.

Everyone felt it. Including the spreading chains themselves.

Assimilation progress: 98%.

It hasn't moved.

98%.

It's stuck.

It's like a high-speed machine suddenly having an impossible screw shoved into it. All the gears are still turning, but the whole system just stops moving forward.

What's blocking the way?

The surface of the train.

In the gaps between those obsidian scales that had been dyed pure black—

A ray of dark golden light emerged.

Extremely fine. Extremely weak.

But it is there.

Then the second strand.

The third strand.

The tenth strand.

Dark golden light seeped through the gaps in the scales covered by black thorns, like the first rays of sunrise piercing through the gaps in the dark clouds.

It's not about fighting against chains.

It is a chain wrapped around something.

Dark golden threads of light coiled around the surface of each chain. Not tight. Very loose. Like the mucus secreted by the stomach lining enveloping freshly swallowed food.

Then pure white light appeared.

From deeper within. From the very core of the pitcher plant's engine.

The pure white power of law flowed upstream along the law conduits, passing through every chain wrapped in dark gold light threads—

filling.

It's like gastric juice seeping into the fiber of food.

Begin decomposition.

"What...?"

This question did not originate from inside the train carriage.

It came from the other end of the chessboard.

The "King" sat on the throne. His face, which had never shown any change in expression—

Her smile froze.

It didn't disappear. It froze.

It's like paint on a canvas suddenly drying and cracking.

He could sense it.

His chains—chains he had meticulously cultivated over countless eras, infiltrating the deepest recesses of Su Yuan's body through countless feedings—

It is being digested.

It wasn't interrupted.

It's not that it's been rejected.

They weren't expelled.

It is digested.

Like food.

They are slowly and methodically broken down into the most basic nutrients by a digestive system that is far more terrifying than they imagined.

Assimilation progress: 98%.

97%.

95%.

The numbers jumped back.

Xiao Huo stared at the control panel.

He couldn't believe his eyes were still there.

The assimilation process is slowing down.

It's dropping!

He lay slumped over the control panel, golden blood streaming from his nose, his eyes bloodshot and cracked, but his pupils lit up in that instant.

"It...it's being digested..."

Inside the driver's cab.

Su Yuan kept his eyes closed.

Arms outstretched.

Countless pure black chains ran through his body.

But the surface of those chains—is fading.

Pure black turned into dark gray.

The dark gray turned grayish-white.

The dark golden stomach wall and pure white gastric juices were breaking down, disassembling, and digesting the assimilation toxins that the "King" had meticulously arranged, piece by piece, at an extremely efficient rate.

What does it digest into?

Digested into the purest, unassigned nutrients of the law.

It is the "stomach" that he created, evolved, and reshaped that is dry.

A stomach that can digest the "concept" itself.

You say, "Those who eat me are eaten by me"?

Sure.

So your "assimilation" itself is also a part of you, right?

I just need to digest the concept of "assimilation"—

Your chains are no longer chains.

It's just a bunch of high-dimensional energy fragments that have lost their purpose, are disorganized and undisciplined.

And high-dimensional energy fragments—

It happens to be my favorite food.

Assimilation progress: 89%.

82%.

73%.

The numbers are crashing.

Finally, a tiny, almost imperceptible change appeared in the "King's" facial muscles.

It's not anger.

It's confusion.

The real confusion.

He devised countless possible reactions from Su Yuan: resistance, denial, escape, self-destruction, or even sacrificing his consciousness to preserve his physical body.

The one thing he never expected was—

This madman will eat "assimilation" itself.

Who would do that?!

This is like poisoning a fish.

Fish cannot detoxify.

The fish ate the poison.

Then the fish tells you—

This poison of yours is quite potent.

Deep in the universe.

Those ancient beings peering through the dimensional rift collectively emitted a slight, almost whispering fluctuation of consciousness.

It wasn't shocking.

It's confusion.

The same confusion as "Wang".

Assimilation progress: 61%.

54%.

43%.

The red warnings on the panel went out one by one.

Energy cycle – in recovery.

The law conduit is recovering.

Core stability – in progress.

Xiao Huo's fingers were still resting on the panel. He had stopped looking at the numbers.

He watched Su Yuan's retreating figure.

Watching the chains piercing Su Yuan's body turn grayish-white, then translucent, and finally shatter into tiny fragments of law, which are then swept away and devoured by the dark golden vines.

The dense inscriptions of the character "王" on Su Yuan's skin are fading.

The dark gold in his left eye is returning.

The right eye is returning to its pure white state.

The dark gold crown brand on his chest lit up again.

Xiao Huo's lips trembled.

Then he laughed.

His smile was both silly and ugly, and golden blood slid down his cheeks and into the corners of his mouth, tasting both salty and fishy.

But he was smiling.

Arbitration Tribunal Headquarters.

Among the eleven highest elders.

The elderly man in the third seat jumped up from his chair.

He suddenly moved closer to the quantum monitoring interface.

The tip of his nose almost hit the light screen.

His hand pressed against the edge of the screen, his knuckles turning white.

"Is the assimilation process...reversing?"

He turned to look at the person next to him.

What I saw was a face just like mine—full of disbelief.

The old man in the fifth seat did not stand up. He remained seated, his hands clasped together, his fingers intertwined, his knuckles turning white.

His lips moved for a long time.

Finally, he managed to squeeze out a sentence.

"He digested the poison."

Four words.

When he said it, he himself felt that the sentence should not belong to any normal language system.

Assimilation progress: 29%.

18%.

7%.

Su Yuan opened his eyes.

The left eye is dark gold.

The right eye is pure white.

The dark crack in the very center of the iris suddenly opened in that instant—

negative.

This does not deny the existence of chains.

This does not negate the act of "assimilation".

More accurate.

Even more insidious.

Geng Suyuan.

What he denied was the underlying cause and effect that "these chains belong to the king".

Just this one.

Only the ownership right is denied.

It does not deny the essence.

What are the effects?

The effect is—

The instant Su Yuan's denial took effect, the last seven percent of the pure black chains remaining in his body lost their causal connection with "King" at the same moment.

"Snapped!"

It was not a physical breaking sound.

It is the vibration emitted by the law network when the causal chain is completely severed.

All the chains turned grayish-white at the same time.

All the inscriptions faded to transparency at the same time.

All the words "belonging to the king" disappeared simultaneously from the core code of each chain.

The chains are still there.

But they no longer belong to anyone.

They became the purest, most ownerless, and most defenseless—

High-dimensional primordial energy.

Naked.

There were no markings at all.

They have no affiliation whatsoever.

It's just sitting there.

It's placed inside Su Yuan's body. It's placed inside the core of the train. It's placed inside the digestive cavity of the pitcher plant engine.

Su Yuan's lips twitched.

Those convulsions weren't painful.

It's because I'm craving it.

"eat."

One word.

The core chamber of the pitcher plant engine opens at full power in this second.

Dark golden vines burst forth from the interfaces of every law conduit inside the train, precisely wrapping around each piece of grayish-white chain remnant that had lost its home.

roll.

裹。

drag.

plug.

They stuffed it all into the engine's mouth.

The three-colored brand on his palm opened simultaneously. The three powers of dark gold, pure white, and pitch black formed a miniature vortex of laws, absorbing every last drop of the remaining unclaimed energy within Su Yuan's body.

Devouring speed—

The numbers on the panel were almost blurred.

Xiao Huo stared at the control panel.

What did he see?

He saw the energy reserves of flesh and blood jump from five figures to six figures.

He saw the core fragment's energy jump from four digits to five digits.

He saw that the residual concentration of the law had exceeded the meter, and a string of units he didn't recognize had appeared after the value.

Then he saw something even more terrifying.

Total core energy reserves curve of trains —

It shot almost vertically to the ceiling of the chart.

Then it crashed through the ceiling.

Then it disappeared outside the display area of ​​the chart.

The train was shaking.

But it wasn't a painful tremor.

It was a trembling sound of extreme fullness, satiation, and contentment.

The engine roared from a low-frequency hum that was about to go out to a roar that shattered the three spare observation windows in the cab in just three seconds.

The black color on the obsidian scales completely faded. The dark golden patterns of law energy shone brightly again. Not just restored to their original brightness, but more than twice as bright.

Within ten seconds, the entire Emperor's Path Devourer transformed from a black, lifeless object on the verge of becoming a puppet back into a dark golden abyssal behemoth radiating an even more terrifying life force than before.

I'm full.

The kind of fullness that makes you feel stuffed.

The kind of happiness that makes you feel supported.

Assimilation progress: 0%.

zero.

Not even a trace was left.

The other end of the chessboard.

On the face of the "King"—

The smile disappeared.

It's completely gone.

It's not just frozen. This time it's truly gone.

His expression was complex instead.

There was confusion. There was bewilderment. There was a tiny—very slight—surprise.

He sat on the throne.

He could sense it.

All causal connections between him and those chains were severed.

Clean and tidy.

Not a single one was left.

Those seeds that he had painstakingly cultivated over countless eons, seeds that had permeated every cell of Su Yuan—

It was uprooted.

Then it was eaten.

"Wang" tilted his head slightly.

"interesting."

Two words. The tone was so flat that no emotion could be detected.

But his right index finger—that smooth, unnaturally black finger—bent slightly.

This tiny movement had never occurred before.

Billions of light-years away.

arbitral tribunal.

No one spoke.

Just a dozen seconds ago they were saying "It's over".

now--

It's definitely over.

But the outcome was the complete opposite of what they expected.

The assimilation trap meticulously planned by "Wang" failed to destroy Su Yuan.

Su Yuan ate the assimilation trap for dinner.

The old man in the fifth seat stood there, his ashen face displaying an extremely subtle expression that even he himself could not explain.

That expression can be translated into four words in human language.

Her mother opened the door for her outrageous mother—it's outrageous to the extreme.

Inside the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland.

Su Yuan looked down at his palm.

The three-color branding shines even brighter than before.

Dark gold, pure white, and jet black.

The three colors coexisted harmoniously in his palm, flowing with intricate patterns.

He clenched his fist.

Loosen up.

Feeling the immense energy within my body, which had expanded to its limit due to overeating.

Then he burped.

"Well--"

This burp doesn't come out of gas.

It was a miniature shockwave infused with the afterglow of the three-color laws.

The shockwave erupted from his mouth, piercing the windshield of the driver's cab, the bony front bumper, and the train's external armor—

Then it spread to the outer chessboard space.

Wherever the shockwave passed, the three closest black soldiers were forcibly pushed back two steps at the level of laws.

A burp.

Three pieces were pushed back.

Su Yuan wiped the corner of his mouth.

"Excuse me."

"I'm too full."

His tone was so relaxed that it made everyone who heard it want to swear.

Xiao Huo lay on the control panel.

He didn't even have the energy to complain anymore.

Fine.

not human.

Really not human.

But Su Yuan did not stop.

A dangerous glint flashed in his eyes, a glint that made Xiao Huo instinctively want to crawl under the control panel.

"Small fire."

"……exist."

"Did you see the causal lines when those chains broke just now?"

Xiao Huo was stunned for a moment.

Then he looked down at the panel.

I saw it.

At the very moment the causal link between the chains and the "King" was denied and severed, a faint trace remained at the break—

Cause and effect residual thread.

The other end of the line points to the farthest point on the chessboard.

Pointing to the throne.

It points to "King".

Xiao Huo's pupils suddenly contracted.

He got it.

He understood what Su Yuan was going to do.

"Master...you wouldn't be thinking of..."

What do you think?

Su Yuan's lips curved into a wide smile.

It's so big it's almost frightening.

He raised his right hand.

The three-color branding on the palm fully unfolded.

Dark golden vines of law surged forth from his palm. Not extending outwards, but following the remnant thread of causality—

Head towards the direction of "King".

The vines were wrapped with spores of the golden plague.

The density of spores is more than ten times that of any previous release.

Because Su Yuan had just finished eating.

The energy was so abundant it was overflowing.

The vines stretched wildly along the remnants of cause and effect, piercing through the gaps in the square formation of billions of black soldiers, and crossing the black horizon formed by karmic fire.

It traversed a distance of countless light-years.

It doesn't require physically crossing that distance.

The causal line is a connection at the level of laws.

If you follow the cause-and-effect line, distance becomes irrelevant.

next second.

The other end of the chessboard.

On the pedestal of the throne formed by the condensation of a collapsing galaxy—

A dark golden vine silently emerged from the crack in the laws.

thin.

So fine that it is almost invisible to the naked eye.

But it embedded itself in the base structure of the throne.

Then I started inhaling.

The front lines of the Black Pawn formation were the first to sense it.

A very faint, almost negligible energy fluctuation suddenly appeared in the dark matter squares beneath their feet.

The direction of the fluctuation is from the front line to the rear.

From the direction of the throne—

Something is being extracted.

The king's expression finally changed.

In pure black, pupil-less eyes.

The pupil appeared for the first time.

No. It's not the pupil.

The pupil lit up briefly where it should have been.

Extremely short. Extremely fast.

It's a feeling that's close to "surprise".

He sensed it.

His throne—the very foundation of his laws—is being bitten at from the bottom by something.

It's not a big mouth.

But that feeling—

It's so clear it can't be ignored.

The formation of the massive army of black-spotted trolls began to stir.

It was no longer a uniform march. It was a scattered, chaotic, and confused series of tiny movements.

Because the causal link through which they obtain instructions to act from the throne has been disrupted.

Just a moment.

However, in an array of billions, even a moment of interference is enough to create an exploitable gap on the front line.

Inside the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland.

On the energy panel.

Xiao Huo saw a new data stream.

enter.

Energy is entering!

Source attribution – external causal link.

The value is small. Compared to the massive amount of energy gained from the Gluttony Chains remnants, it's negligible.

But its origin—

Xiao Huo swiped his finger across the panel and brought up the source tracking data.

Then he froze.

Source tracing: High-dimensional chess game - Black side - Core node - "King".

They are drawing energy from the "King".

Reverse pull.

Su Yuan was not on defense.

Victory is not celebrated after the toxins have been digested.

He is launching a counterattack.

Following the cause-and-effect path that Wang himself had arranged—

He stuck his mouth under the king's buttocks.

Stealing the King's energy.

"Holy shit..."

Wang Hu finally got up from the floor.

His robotic arm resumed operation. After all the black threads disappeared, the overwritten data was automatically rolled back.

He leaned against the car window, looking at the scene outside.

The ranks of the billions of black-spotted soldiers were trembling slightly.

It's not an attack.

It's chaotic.

And the Emperor's Path: Devourer of the Wasteland—

It hovered steadily in the very center of this chaos.

Dark golden vines extended from the bottom of the vehicle and disappeared into the gaps in the laws.

Like a straw.

It was inserted into the bottom of the Infinity Drink Cup.

Suckling.

Wang Hu pulled his head back.

He watched Su Yuan's retreating figure.

His lips moved twice.

Finally, he silently shut his mouth.

I won't comment.

I can't give a rating.

There is no suitable vocabulary in the human language system.

checkerboard.

The dark golden vines were still sucking.

The inhalation speed is not fast.

But it's very stable.

It's very consistent.

The key is--

The throne cracked.

The throne, formed from the condensation of a collapsed galaxy, had a hair-thin crack appear on its base.

Dark golden light seeped out from the cracks.

Just a tiny bit.

But everyone present who could sense the fluctuations of the laws understood the meaning of that crack.

The foundation of the "King" has been bitten.

By a human who climbed up from a third-rate civilization, who should have been a puppet three minutes ago, and who was clearly poisoned to death—

He took a bite with his other hand.

Emperor's Path: Devourer of the Wasteland

Energy is continuously flowing in.

Not many. But enough.

This is enough to allow the train to undergo another qualitative change after it has digested the toxins and devoured the remains of the chains.

The bony ram at the front of the car began to mutate.

The massive ram, composed of ultra-high-density bone, grew wildly under the infusion of the throne's primordial energy.

It gets longer.

It gets thicker.

It becomes sharper.

Three-colored patterns of law began to emerge on the surface of the bone. The dark gold skeleton supported the structure, the pure white creative flesh filled the density, and the jet-black power of negation forged its sharpness.

The ram is no longer a ram.

It is turning into a gun.

A dark gold king-slaying spear pointing directly at the farthest point of the chessboard, towards the throne.

The moment the spear tip materialized in the void, the underlying structure of the entire chessboard emitted a low-frequency vibration.

The frequency of that resounding sound—

It happened at the exact same frequency as when the throne cracked.

Resonance.

The Spear of Kingslaying and the crack in the throne resonated at the level of the laws.

This means—

The gun knows the way.

It knows where to poke.

Su Yuan got out of the driver's seat.

He did not use the normal passage.

He went directly up through the hatch on the roof of the vehicle.

wind.

The wind at the level of laws.

The wind ruffled the stray hairs on his forehead.

He stood on the roof of the Emperor's Path Devourer. Beneath his feet were dark gold obsidian scales. Above him stretched an endless chessboard-like void.

before--

It is a massive black army of billions still struggling in chaos.

And the furthest point from the army—

That collapsed galactic throne with a crack in it.

And the "king" on the throne who was staring at him with pure black eyes.

Su Yuan raised his right hand.

No attack was gathered in the palm.

There was no Law Hammer. There was no Power of Denial. There was no Three-Colored Orb of Light.

He simply extended his index finger.

Facing the "King".

Then I ticked it.

The actions were so simple they were insulting.

It just bent twice like that.

The meaning couldn't be clearer.

Come here.

Didn't you say I was a stuffed duck?

The ducks have turned around and are trying to eat the zookeeper.

Come here.

The image of the index finger bending twice in the void was transmitted to every corner of the chessboard by the network of laws.

It was transmitted into the core of every black stone.

The perception of the ancient being peering in from behind the dimensional rift was transmitted.

It reached the already shattered worldview of the elders of the arbitration tribunal billions of light-years away.

It penetrated into the deepest part of the "King's" consciousness.

Arbitration Tribunal Headquarters.

No one spoke.

speechless.

The elderly man in the third seat slowly sat back down in the judge's dock. His buttocks had barely touched the seat when he stood up again. He couldn't sit still. He simply couldn't sit still.

The elderly man in the fifth seat rubbed his face with both hands. He rubbed hard, leaving red marks.

He was making sure he was awake.

The seventh female elder uttered an indecent word for the first time in the council chamber.

It's not convenient to record the specific words here.

All I know is that she was stunned for a moment after she finished speaking, and then she covered her mouth.

The Supreme Judge's scepter did not fall this time.

But his fingers left five deep marks on the handle of the scepter.

His lips trembled slightly.

Four words were squeezed out.

"Cancel review".

The old man in the third seat glanced at him.

The chief arbitrator closed his eyes.

"Cancel everything. Natural disasters, paradoxes, cosmic cancers, whatever."

"Cancel all."

"From today onwards." He opened his eyes. The patterns of law within his pupils trembled violently.

"About that existence—"

"We only observe."

No comment.

"No intervention."

"Don't provoke them."

"Did you hear that?"

All ten elders bowed their heads.

No one objected.

checkerboard.

The "king" sat on a throne with a crack in it.

He looked at the human standing on the roof of the train in the distance, who beckoned to him twice with one index finger.

With that face that looked exactly like his, now sporting an arrogant smile that made your teeth itch.

He stared at it for a long time.

In those pure black eyes, there was a "pupil" that shouldn't have existed, which only shone for a fleeting moment—

It lit up again.

Then the "King" slowly stood up.

From that throne formed from the solidified galaxy, its base cracked.

He stood up.

The second he stood up.

The massive army of trolls once again knelt in unison.

The vibrations of the underlying laws of the chessboard were louder than before.

Permissions confirmed.

"King's" full operational authority - activated.

He extended his right hand.

It reached out into the void.

The fingers sank into an unseen dimensional interlayer.

It looked like someone was rummaging through a drawer looking for something.

Then he grasped it.

Pull it outwards.

A sword.

A bladeless, edgeless greatsword formed entirely from the pure event horizon of a black hole.

The sword does not reflect any light.

Because light disappears when it reaches its surface.

It is not absorbed.

The concept of "light" is not allowed to exist within the area covered by the sword.

The instant the sword was completely drawn from the dimensional interlayer—

The chessboard is broken.

It's not a metaphor.

Beneath our feet, a high-dimensional chessboard of nebulae as squares and black hole event horizons as boundaries—at the very instant the sword is drawn—

Start from the feet of the "King".

The crack spreads at the speed of light.

The black squares shattered.

The white squares were broken.

Every line of latitude and longitude is breaking apart.

The entire chessboard is falling apart.

The fragments tumbled in the void.

The boundaries formed by gravitational waves, the grids paved with dark matter, the ground solidified by the remnants of stars—all scattered into countless fragments of the laws of nature.

Even the massive army of millions of kneeling black pieces was overturned in the aftershocks of the shattered chessboard.

The chessboard is gone.

The rules are gone.

This is no longer a game of chess.

This is a game without rules, the most primal, the purest—

Wang Zhan.

The roof of the Emperor's Journey Devourer.

Su Yuan withdrew his provocative index finger.

He watched as the figure in the distance, who shared the same face as him, drew that heavy sword that shouldn't exist under any physical laws.

He watched as the chessboard beneath his feet shattered at the speed of light.

He watched as the debris swept across the outer walls of the train, leaving fine scratches on the obsidian scales.

He watched as the blade of the blunt heavy sword swallowed all the light, leaving only pure, absolute blackness.

Then he laughed.

Her smile was even bigger than when she hooked her fingers with hers before.

It was so big it showed its teeth.

It was completely white.

His left eye was burning with dark gold.

His right eye was pure white and spinning.

The dark crack in the center of his iris was pulsating.

All three colors burn simultaneously.

The wind brushed past his face.

Su Yuan stood on the back of the abyssal behemoth, gripped the handle of the King-Slaying Spear on the roof of the vehicle, raised his chin, and faced the approaching "King".

"bring it on."

He said.

The sound was torn to pieces by the wind at the level of laws.

But every fragment reached the ear it was meant to reach.

"let me see--"

"The taste of the king."

"Does it deserve to be the main course?"