The cube was entirely silver-white, without a trace of any other color. Its surface was smooth as a mirror, and fine patterns occasionally flickered across it, like some ancient script breathing.
The coordinates of countless parallel worlds flowed within the cube, like a galaxy cupped upside down in his palm—scattered points of light, densely packed, some bright and some dim.
The bright ones represented worlds where living beings still existed. The dim ones were already utterly dead, where even the wind no longer moved.
His consciousness flowed out along the cube's light, passing through the barrier surrounding Morik Manor that even Death could not penetrate, through Hell's dark-red skies, through the clouds of the mortal world, and through the rift between Apocalypse World and Pestilence World.
His consciousness was like an invisible river, flowing between layered, intersecting parallel worlds.
At times, he felt like an eagle surveying countless tiny squares below from the heights. Some squares contained fire, some seawater, some steel and glass, and some forests and swamps.
Some worlds were ruled by machinery. Metal skyscrapers pierced the clouds, not an inch of soil could be seen on the ground, and even the air had been filtered into a colorless, odorless transparent gas.
The people in those worlds had remade their very souls into gears and springs. Every thought was precise to the millisecond, and every heartbeat was calculated on an energy consumption chart.
It was good, but too cold—so cold that even pestilence was unwilling to grow there.
Pestilence required dampness, decay, flesh and souls giving off that sweet, cloying, nauseating stench as they were eroded.
Some worlds had sunk beneath the sea. Sunlight could not penetrate the thousand-zhang depths, and only luminous coral and jellyfish illuminated the underwater cities.
Merfolk and sea demons danced amid the ruins.