From the Human Realm to Heaven, all living beings had only to raise their heads to see the once-brilliant, coldly beautiful starry sky covered by a Variegated Tide. The stars had gone out, colors bled together, and the sky seemed to flow with countless rainbows, changing unpredictably every second, dreamlike and illusory.
"What a pretty painting." A young child clapped and laughed.
It really was a painting, with the sky as the canvas and the world as the pigment. There was no technique to speak of—every color had simply been splashed across it, and under the laws' influence, billions of hues displayed a beauty of ultimate splendor.
But gradually, everyone's gazes focused on the sole star beyond the variegated expanse.
When stars filled the night sky, no one paid attention to any single one. But now that variegation had drowned out the stars, that one still stubbornly shining star was like the last protagonist on a stage—noble, coldly beautiful, lonely, and powerful.
This painting that crowned the Void Realm still could not overshadow the radiance of the oldest star.
In Multistar Heaven, Star Law and the other Angels all knelt, tears streaming down their faces, choking silently as they clasped their hands together. They were not praying for their own fates, but wishing their god well.
*
In the Void Realm Seventh Layer, the Variegated Tide held Ash high like a throne. He looked down from above at Stars, who was half-kneeling on the ground below. She had only barely kept herself from collapsing by propping herself up with the Sword of Starlight. Her Galaxy-woven dress was covered in wounds, her Void Wings drooped limply, and glittering divine blood of starlight spilled uncontrollably from the corner of her mouth.
The power of the variegated Broken Lake had seeped into her