Chapter 6172 - 5183: Soul Machine Utopia (40)

A few cats squatted on the treetops beside the Dammed Lake, looking at the water with difficulty. Not to mention the giant Beasts drinking below, cats are desert creatures that inherently dislike water, and this lake is very deep. Even if they could hold their breath and dive, it would still be quite frightening.

"It’ll be okay," Shiller comforted them, "Even though our lung capacity isn’t large, the propulsion of the tentacles is very strong, allowing us to swim quickly. Moreover, the movement of the tentacles doesn’t consume our own Physical Strength, so there’s no risk of drowning."

Although that’s what was said, it really wasn’t that simple. To avoid the Beasts drinking, they could only go at night. Although there was Moonlight at night, the lake bottom was basically pitch black, and nothing could be seen.

Shiller led them into the water, but before they could dive to the bottom, they lost two. Little Superman didn’t dare to open his eyes, and Constantine couldn’t see clearly. At this moment, the strength of the tentacles became a disadvantage; with a sudden swing, they instantly left the group.

Fortunately, when they couldn’t hold their breath any longer, they frantically swam upwards. The thrust of the tentacles was fast, allowing them to reach the surface before drowning. When their heads emerged from the water, they found themselves several meters apart, unable to speak a word.

They thought about tying something to connect the cats together, but worried it might hinder their actions. In the end, they extended a tentacle, wrapping each other’s tails together to form a line and swam down, which slightly improved the situation.

However, reaching the bottom, they encountered problems. Previously, when Shiller and Peter went down, they went individually, but this time, going down with four cats, the sand stirred by the tentacles immediately rolled up, directly obscuring their vision.

Though it was already hard to see anything, the sand also created resistance to their progress. Shiller groped around underwater for a long time but couldn’t find the pipe entrance, so he had no choice but to float back up.

After a lot of fuss, Shiller decided to reduce the number of participants. It proved challenging enough for Humans to dive, let alone cats. Coordinating four cats for diving would make even cooperative game players curse.

Ultimately, Shiller and Little Superman went underwater together, but with only two cats, they had to use different methods. Shiller directly bent his tail with a tentacle, significantly enhancing his Strength. Little Superman was already excited; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to tackle so many large prey.

The two cats went down together, Shiller clinging tightly to Little Superman. This time, it went relatively smoothly, and they reached the pipe entrance directly. The two cats grabbed the pipe entrance and inserted their tentacles, each grabbing one side of the valve and pulling outward with force, a hissing sound was heard, and water currents began to whirl.

The two cats continued to pull the valve outward but the impact of water pressure leaking inward was too strong. They had only pried the valve halfway open when they were almost sucked in. Seeing it was not going to work, they had no choice but to frantically swim upwards.

Fortunately, the other two cats hadn’t gone ashore and were floating on the surface. As soon as they saw the Whirlpool forming, they dived down, just managing to meet Shiller and Little Superman struggling upwards. Peter and Constantine grabbed them, and the four cats worked together with their tentacles to counter the force of the water current, barely escaping the Whirlpool.

Shiller breathed a sigh of relief, climbing onto the shore all wet and looking back at the Whirlpool. Judging by its size, the water influx was huge; it might not take long for the lower levels to be flooded.

They were so exhausted that night that they just shook off the water and fell asleep curled up without even having the time to lick their fur dry. They were awakened the next day by a mouse. The mouse said, "I went down to check, and the bottom is already flooded. However, it seems something is blocked, and the water isn’t rising."

"It looks like we’ll have to continue flooding," Shiller said to Peter, "how is the pipe construction going?"

"It’s ready; we’re just about to insert it for a trial," Peter said, clawing the ground, stretching his body backward forcefully, then grinding his claws again, adding, "Let’s eat first; this is quite the Physical Strength task."

Peter wasn’t exaggerating; moving these pipes required a lot of effort. Even though the tentacle’s Strength is infinite, running up and down was exhausting. You could say that the structure of a cat’s body is somewhat limited and that the supplement of tentacles is also very constrained. Shiller regretted several times not bringing the technological equipment from Cat City Gotham.

Once the pipes were laid out, as Peter had said, the mucus started pumping water on its own. Although it looked like nothing was happening, the water level inside the cube was rising higher and higher, quickly filling the room. At this point, the cats couldn’t go down anymore and didn’t know whether they successfully halted the blood cell computer’s operation.

The mouse felt it and said, "It seems something is different, but I’ll need to ask Tavier for specifics."

After saying that, the mouse went to contact his colleagues, while the cats were studying the key. The key seemed to carry some kind of force, making it impossible to look at directly, but it needed to be used somehow. How exactly was it to be used?

"I don’t think it will be too complicated," Constantine said, "The more Divine Artifact-like things are, the simpler their usage. Maybe we just need to insert it into any door and use it."

"But where can we find a door around here?" Peter, not knowing much about mysticism, said, "Do we need to build a house and make a door?"

"No need, just draw one," Constantine said, "Such mystical rituals are mainly influenced by Idealist Power; as long as you believe it’s a door, it is a door. As long as you believe what’s behind the door is where you want to go, then opening the door will take you there."

Peter shook his head, not knowing if he couldn’t understand or was helpless about such unreasonable things. Little Superman asked, "Where should we go then?"

"Iron Man wouldn’t just create these two machines," Peter asserted, "We should look for other machines, especially the ones made after the neural network computer. We might find the results Iron Man analyzed within that computer, and we’ll know where he went."

Shiller nodded. He had already lost hope of directly contacting Iron Man and even suspected that Iron Man deliberately wasn’t answering the phone, wanting to stay here as a hidden resident for a longer period.

In fact, Shiller could understand; a scientist facing a brand new and mad cosmos is at the peak of curiosity, much like a child with a new toy, it’s hard to stop them from getting immersed in it. Not to mention, he could also experiment on his plan to escape fate here, he definitely would want to stay a bit longer.

Besides, a clone had been rescued earlier, so nothing significant would happen on Earth, thus allowing him to conduct his experiments here with peace of mind. Even if he knew someone from home had come, he might not want to leave.

Even so, Shiller still needed to find him. The key was to discuss the Nimrod plan with him. This place conveniently lies outside God’s jurisdiction, allowing free talk to finalize all matters, he can stay here as long as he wants.

Soon, the mouse returned. It said, "The Tindalos Hound seems to have changed, but it hasn’t quieted down, it seems to have become angrier."

"I knew it." Shiller said, "An unattainable hidden phone keeps ringing, driving you to the brink of madness. Then suddenly it’s silent, would you give up searching?"

The mouse was speechless, but still said, "Certainly not, I just want to tear the caller to pieces."

"But that’s it." Shiller said, "Anyway, the phone has stopped ringing, once it vents its anger, it should return."

The mouse mulled over it, Misisha was indeed quite temperamental, but most Outer Gods were inherently lazy, even when provoked, they wouldn’t be active for long, soon enough they’d go back to sleep. Misisha being this rowdy was because it couldn’t sleep due to the disturbance. Now that the phone was silent, once it vents this flame, it’d return.

As to how long it would keep being rowdy, no one knew; one could only hope it runs out of energy soon. But the mouse still felt desperate, as long as Misisha was active, he would be trapped here.

Meanwhile, Constantine had finished drawing the gate. They planned to try setting the anchor point as one of Iron Man’s creations, but worried the Silver Key wouldn’t comprehend this, they added delimiters, meaning different times in this space. This increased the probability of encountering Iron Man’s creation.

Shiller also noticed the mouse’s anxiety, after pondering, he said to Constantine, "Can we perform the ceremony to communicate with Nya again?"

"We can, but what do you intend to do?"

"I want to contact him," Shiller said, "Now that we already have a teleportation portal, we should be able to come and go freely. There’s no harm in doing Nya a favor."

Constantine drew the array again, but this time smaller, as it only needed Shiller. Once activated, Shiller linked to Nya’s consciousness, immediately informing him that the phone continuously bothering Misisha had been turned off.

Nya, true to his nature as the most vengeful and petty Outer God, upon receiving this news, immediately rushed to retaliate against Misisha, successfully injuring the big dog and sending it home to recuperate.

But it wasn’t just for revenge, he also helped Yog a bit. Yog’s favor was indeed valuable, once he helped Iron Man clear things up, Nya could directly access his database for ready-made knowledge.

For the mouse, this was also good news, with Misisha settled, Yog could repair the time-space structure. Yog’s ability was reliable, greatly shortening the mouse’s time to return home.

"You all have some conscience." The mouse felt somewhat grateful, "Next time I run into you guys, I’ll give you a discount."

"Welcome to play in our cosmos." Several cats stood by the door, "You’ll surely find many surprises."

With that, the Silver Key activated, and the door drawn on the ground truly opened. The cats jumped in, and after a flash, they landed on the soft ground again.

Shiller came back to his senses, staring at the key held in his tentacle, it must be said, this teleportation portal was indeed quite gentle, even more so than the mage’s suspension rings. Only under Shiller’s insistence did Strange improve the portal’s comfort, previously it could make people throw up from the spinning.

At this moment, Shiller suddenly heard an exclamation beside him. He turned to look, only to find Little Superman gazing up at something. Following Superman’s line of sight, what he saw was no longer a canopy that covered the sky, but a colossal Sky City.