"How about we try to feed the mycelium first?" Shiller thought for a moment and said, "Once they're full, they should stay quiet for a while, right?"
"It's possible," Peter said, "I think we don't even need to feed them until they're full. As long as we find something to feed them, we can sneak past. It's a pity we didn't bring any prey..."
"Even if we had prey, how would we carry it?" Little Superman said, "It was hard enough for us to get up here. If we have to drag prey up, we'll be exhausted."
The other cats fell silent; it was indeed challenging. Firstly, the wild animals outside might have already been mostly consumed by the mycelium. There might not even be any living creatures within dozens of kilometers. Where would we find prey?
Secondly, the cats' strength was too limited. While they could catch a bird or a mouse, it would be gone with just one bite by the mycelium. Bigger prey would last longer, but the cats couldn't drag it in, let alone through such complex tunnels.
"Regardless, we have to try." Constantine said, "The drone has a little power left. It should be able to create a safe zone, and maybe we can see what's inside."
This was already the best plan. The cats communicated with the small drone, which then flew in first. It used electricity to push forward, and sure enough, the fungus was terrified, quickly moving aside. The cats dashed in, bypassing the massive steel sculpture, and started running deeper inside.
But deeper inside, there were only more fungi, obscuring even the light, turning the place into a sea of red, leaving no place to set foot. Perceiving the biological intrusion, the endless red fungi roared once again, surging towards the cats.
Behind layers of mycelium, Shiller saw a glimmer of light. He realized it might be the initial breach, but then the drone sounded an alarm. Its power was nearly depleted and couldn't go any further; otherwise, it wouldn't have enough to return.
Taking a deep breath, Shiller was unwilling to give up. He had to see for himself whether it was indeed Yog that destroyed the neural network computer. The other cats began to run back, but Peter saw Shiller standing still, and quickly turned back to nudge him: "Hurry! As long as we make it out alive, we can think of other ways!"
Shiller gritted his teeth, about to turn and leave with the others, but suddenly all the fungi froze, then quickly retreated as if a tide was going out, vanishing into some unknown cracks within seconds.
The cats were stunned, but only Shiller charged towards the light. That spot of light seemed both near and far, existing and non-existent, and he sprinted in that direction, completely unaware that the floor had started to tremble.
The other cats panicked, wanting to retreat into the passages to hide, but seeing Shiller still running, they followed him. The cats dashed wildly in the huge room, while the red waves receded into the distance. Not just inside the cube, but all living creatures within the entire ecosystem were frantically hiding.
In the moment of space-time stasis, Shiller saw the true form of the glowing object. It was an eye, or perhaps a bubble, brightly hovering there, seemingly indifferent yet omniscient.
Time and space shattered like a mirror, everything returning to chaos before being reassembled. Some inexplicable changes collided amidst endless random collisions, entangling and merging to form a brand-new space-time.
Shiller abruptly opened his eyes, inhaling the humid air of the Primitive Jungle. He gasped for breath, and the next second, a familiar buzzing sound came. Almost instinctively, Shiller dodged to the side. Little Superman yelped as he was knocked to the ground.
"What the..." Little Superman hadn't finished speaking before a terrifying flying ant appeared in front of him. He shrieked, jumping up and back, then turned and ran.
Shiller followed behind him, both of them continuing to run forward until they had passed through a thick bush, finally shaking off the dreadful insect. Little Superman panted heavily, looking confusedly at their surroundings, and instinctively asked, "What's going on? Reset?"
"I'm afraid so," Shiller said, "the cosmos has reset."
A visible question mark appeared above Little Superman's head. He said, "Why did it reset?"
"There's no reason," Shiller said, "That's just how this world is; it can reset at any moment."
Little Superman opened his mouth wide, seemingly finding it incomprehensible. He said, "Why reset if there's nothing wrong?"
"The time and space here are not continuous," Shiller said, "you can understand it this way, the time in our cosmos is like a river, but here it is whirlpool after whirlpool. We can only jump from one cyclic whirlpool to another and can't let time flow as we perceive it."
"How could it be like this?" Little Superman couldn't accept it, "If the same days keep repeating, and then repeating again, how do the creatures here survive?"
"That's why I say, it's impossible for there to be any civilization here, even if there is, it would be a kind of existence beyond our imagination of time," Shiller sighed, unexpectedly yet not unexpected.
Actually, having come to the home of the Outer Gods, the trouble they faced wasn't really things like spiritual pollution. Those so-called spiritual pollutions are actually just gods from the Cthulhu Mythos being out of place in the World of Order. But the biggest trouble they faced at their home is actually a space-time structure and cosmic structure that the human race cannot comprehend at all.
Despite standing firmly as if in a piece of Primitive Jungle now, it's likely that outside this small patch, it's all Chaos. No planets, no Sun, you might just take two steps and reach the limits of space, and there's nothing outside, not even space, it's not even the cosmos, the whole world exists only within this small range.
And this small unstable fragment keeps rebooting, restarting every few days. This is the setting deep in the Stars of the Cthulhu Mythos, something Shiller and the others can't shake.
After understanding this matter, Little Superman couldn't help but sigh: "I suddenly feel that Cartoon World is quite good, at least when they hang me on the Origin Wall, I don't have to constantly cycle through these same few days. I once watched a horror movie with this kind of plot, it's too scary."
Apparently, falling into an endless repeating cycle is one of the rare things that can make Little Superman feel fear, or rather, for any being of Wisdom, it is the most terrifying cage. Nyarlathotep's desperate attempt to stop them from coming was actually justifiable.
"Don't lose heart," Shiller said, "Look on the bright side, in this cycle, you weren't bitten by those ants on the tail, so you won't hurt this time."
Little Superman was momentarily stunned, then said: "Doesn't that mean we can foresee the future?"
"I'm afraid it's not that simple." Shiller wasn't as optimistic. If the Cthulhu Universe was merely a simple cycle, it wouldn't be so terrifying. Although things were urgent just now, he still noticed something from that flying big ant.
Before Shiller could explain to Little Superman, a loud boom was heard, and the whole ground shook, making Little Superman's hair stand on end: "Could it be restarting again?"
Apparently, the situation developed worse than that. With a boom, out crawled a three-headed crocodile from the bushes, with six icy sharp claws. Little Superman and Shiller were dumbfounded, but immediately after, a giant bird three or four meters tall directly pierced through the crocodile's abdomen with its sharp beak, spraying blood everywhere, the crocodile writhing in pain. The giant bird withdrew its beak, opened its mouth, and a large mass of worms extended from its mouth into the crocodile's wound, voraciously sucking.
Little Superman was too scared to move, just staring there blankly. Shiller hurriedly nudged him with his head to stop looking at that thing, and by then, Constantine and Peter also heard the commotion and appeared on the other side of the bushes.
A few cats exchanged glances, quickly slipping away along the edge of the bushes. But it was like facing the eighty-one challenges of Banana Fan Mountain along the way; what were once just large birds had completely turned into monsters, with mouths and underwings full of worms. Crocodiles had three heads, four heads, and the heads didn't even belong to them, looking like the heads of prey they had swallowed. As for the multitude of snakes, bugs, rats, and ants, they were just disgusting; seeing too much made Shiller feel dizzy and nauseous.
Just when it seemed like there wasn't any spiritual pollution, it hit. They seemed to have randomly arrived in a bad space-time where the animals were completely polluted and were not conducive to survival for creatures like them.
Shiller sighed inwardly, his luck was as bad as ever. But the good news was that he could confirm that in the previous space-time, the cube was indeed broken by Yog; the eye-like bubble was simply classic. This suggested that their opponent, and Stark's, might really be Yog-Sothoth.
Although they learned this information, the pressure increased. Yog is known as the master of all things unified, within neither time nor space, yet simultaneously the creator of time and space, possessing all the knowledge in the world. Such an existence clearly cannot be opposed by force.
The good news is, Yog is somewhat similar to Nyarla, not completely blind and ignorant; artists and literary masters are his Avatars, and it is said that someone once bore his offspring. He is actually the most typical kind of Outer God, not intentionally aiming to kill, just that humans can't handle any contact from him due to his overwhelming Strength, making it impossible to interact with any life in the microcosm.
This has both advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is, any potential contact with Yog is extremely deadly. Shiller suspects that their jump in space-time this time might have been because he directly viewed one of Yog's eyes, disrupting the existing timeline stability, throwing them into another Whirlpool. The advantage is, unlike Nyarla, Yog generally doesn't deliberately cause trouble. At most, he doesn't care; to take the worst-case scenario, his primary target right now is also Iron Man rather than these cats, so as long as they're not targeted, there's room for maneuver.
The few cats spontaneously ran towards the original shelter, but upon reaching the base of the tree, they found countless eyes stretching out from the tree hole — literally stretching out. A group of fledglings with numerous big and small eyes growing from their mouths, with mouths wide open, stared at them unblinkingly.