Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 303 Nyarlathotep...

In this dark place, there is no time; everything is in chaos.

How long the creator gods waited is impossible to say from a human perspective. Perhaps a moment? Perhaps billions of years? We don't know.

But the monster the creator was waiting for had not yet arrived; instead, another uninvited guest appeared.

A wise man with a long beard and a thoughtful look in his eyes suddenly appeared in this dark place and walked toward the creator.

If the giant snake were still alive, perhaps it would remember who this person was.

The wise giant Mimir.

Unlike the Mimir seen by the serpent, who was all white-haired and aged, indifferent to everything, the Mimir of this time had long hair and beard, but not yet completely white. His eyes were wise, yet bright and spirited, showing that he had not given up hope.

"Outsider, you have arrived."

The Creator, the illusory spirit, gazed at this intelligent giant from the outer realms and spoke.

The illusory spirit knew of her arrival, a fact that did not surprise Mimir. For gods and men who could foresee the future, it was no secret.

So Mimir respectfully prostrated himself before this creator god, then raised his hands and head, making a pleading gesture.

"O Creator God, our world is facing an immense crisis. Please have mercy on us."

Mimir's words were earnest and passionate.

But the Creator simply shook his head at Mimir's prayers.

“Outsider, I know why you've come, but I cannot help you.”

"I don't need your help. Just tell me the whereabouts of the omniscient and omnipotent one."

Upon hearing the Creator's refusal, Mimir became even more anxious.

Mimir drinks the water of the Fountain of Wisdom every day, and he knows the past, the future, and the present; he also knows things that do not belong to his own world; he knows things that have happened, things that have not yet happened, and things that will not happen.

Every day, his wisdom deepened, and he learned more. But even so, traversing infinite time and space, he could not find a way to escape that disaster.

Except one.

Through the waters of the Fountain of Wisdom, he learned that there was a creator god in this world, and in the world created by this creator god, there was an all-knowing and all-powerful being with infinite power.

In the entire universe, perhaps only this omniscient and omnipotent being could help it.

And so, with this hope, he came into this world.

However, the Creator simply shook his head in response to Mimir's plea.

"The outsider is gone."

"Not here?"

"Yes, it's gone, and it's gone forever."

"When might it appear?"

Mimir pressed on, unwilling to give up.

But the creator's answer shattered his illusions completely.

“Not an inch or a moment of time and space will remain; it has left this story forever.”

Mimir wanted to ask more questions, such as what the story the Creator was telling meant, but the Creator remained silent.

In the end, Mimir's expression was uncertain. It thought and thought, as if it was hesitating about something, before finally making up its mind.

Thank you for your guidance.

The wise giant eventually left, but before departing, he thanked the creator for his guidance and then disappeared from this world.

Vague and indistinct, like a phantom spirit of light, it gazed upon the departing Mimir. In this realm devoid of time, a moment is synonymous with eternity.

Therefore, He saw that Mimir and Ymir decided to repeatedly reset the cycle of reincarnation in order to avoid falling into the monster's mouth one day.

But with each reset and reincarnation, a completely new monster was eventually born in the world.

The greedy serpent finally swallowed the world, but some remnants still flowed with time and fell into the mouth of the monster at the end of the river of time.

The monster at the end of that river of time has not yet awakened, and may never awaken.

But that which is beyond description, larger than the sky, larger than the universe, larger than all of space and time combined, is there, and will always be there.

Afterwards, the snake that swallowed the world swam into the void, completely unaware that it was moving upwards against time.

In the past, it will encounter the creators who had not yet created the world, and experience the stories of that time.

This is the origin of the story.

……

But the Creator no longer looked to the past, but instead looked to the future.

Because while the giant serpent was moving backwards through time, in the future, a similar monster was also moving backwards through time.

Although it has not yet arrived, the Creator seems to be able to sense its presence.

Pain, ferocity, madness, hunger...

A chaotic aura emanated from the future world, sweeping across the entire void.

No one can see its full form, only a faint phantom it casts in the present world, but even this faint phantom has already filled all of time and space.

"..."

The phantom opened its mouth wide, seemingly devouring something, yet also appearing to be saying something.

An invisible maw opened wide, and within that maw, large enough to swallow all of space and time, the Creator saw countless shimmering universes.

Countless timelines rise and fall within the monster's belly, some powerful, some weak. Mortals, heroes, gods, and even creators all rise and fall, live and die in their respective timelines.

In the eyes of the Creator, it could even see at the ends of countless times and spaces that there also existed a Creator, the gaping maw of an invisible phantom, and the Creator and the phantom within the phantom's belly...

Endless, endless, like an infinitely recursive mirror image.

But that wasn't a mirror image; it was reality.

Up, down, left, right, front, back, past, present, future... the entire world is already inside this monster's belly.

Its head is at the beginning of time, while its tail extends to the end of time.

Countless dimensions of time and space float within its belly, and countless universes shine with brilliance, forming its body.

The greedy and violent monster finally swallowed everything at the end of time, devouring everything into its belly, yet it was still not satisfied.

The dragon of greed, the snake that devours itself, has finally met its despair. Driven mad by hunger, the monster can only satisfy its desires by devouring itself.

And everything in the phantom's mouth was exactly the entire space-time after it was swallowed.

"..."

Where.

The Creator heard the phantom's roar; it was searching, searching for the omniscient and omnipotent One.

Currently, it's the only thing that might solve the monster's hunger.

But the Creator gave only the same answer as before.

"It's gone."

"Where is it...?"

"It's gone forever."

"..."

The response to the Creator was the wrath of the phantom, which had once swallowed the Creator God and swallowed the Creator God once more.

Faced with this force, the Creator did not resist, for resistance would be futile.

Before his glorious body shattered, God let out a mocking laugh.

“What can a heartless monster do, even if it swallows everything?” So the god was swallowed by the monster.

Meanwhile, the phantom's angry roar echoed from its spot, uttering a name that could not be uttered in a human voice.

"Nya..."

……

In some other world, in 1930 AD.

Earth, America.

A thin, middle-aged man was writing something at his desk.

"I don't understand, what exactly is Yog-Sothoth? What does it look like? And what are those countless spheres you keep mentioning? Are they bubbles?"

The man wrote in a dry, cold style, describing his own understanding of Yog-Sothoth.

"It is the door, the key, the gatekeeper, the master of all time and space..."

"All of these descriptions are actually referring to the essence of Yog-Sothoth—it is a living world."

"All of time and space together constitute it—Yog-Sothoth, those countless shimmering spheres, which are actually countless universes of varying sizes."

"And that is why Yog-Sothoth knows where the door is, for Yog-Sothoth is the door; Yog-Sothoth is the key; he is the gatekeeper. The past is in him, the present is in him, and the future is in him, for all things are within Yog-Sothoth."

"Because all time and space belong to Yog-Sothoth himself, Yog-Sothoth knows everything that happens in any time and space, and is an all-knowing and all-seeing lord."

"He knows where the Old Ones broke through; he also knows where the Old Ones will break through again. He knows which lands on earth have suffered his ravages; he also knows which lands still bear his trampling; he also knows why, when he tramples the suffering lands, no one can see his face..."

"Everything is in Yog-Sothoth, and Yog-Sothoth is in everything..."

"All of this is because all of time and space is Yog-Sothoth himself. All the stories take place within Yog-Sothoth, all the Great Old Ones are within Yog-Sothoth, and even Yog-Sothoth himself."

"Therefore, Yog-Sothoth knows everything, because it exists in everything..."

The man wrote a very long passage, and finally managed to describe Yog-Sothoth as he understood it.

Finally, it wrote.

"That's why I initially wanted to call these stories the Yog-Sothoth myths, because Yog-Sothoth is a noun similar to Rome, Japan, Egypt, or Earth."

"The myth of Yog-Sothoth is the myth that took place within Yog-Sothoth."

After patiently replying to this reader, the man opened the next reader's letter.

“Mr. Lovecraft… may I ask, the Chaos of Crouching…”

This reader asked some very interesting questions, hitting a nerve with men. Among them were questions about Nyarlathotep in the book about men.

The man remained silent, then wrote.

"Thank you for your letter... Regarding the Chaos of Fuxing, I think you should pay more attention to its identity as the God of a Thousand Faces and the Messenger of the Outer Gods."

“A long time ago, I said that I had a dream in which I was in a dark cave. I was walking along the cave, and there was a faint light around me, but beyond the light was deep darkness.”

"In that darkness, it seemed as if countless voices were whispering, terrifying and filling me with dread. And finally, those whispers in the darkness spread out into countless shadows, assailing me and engulfing me..."

"This is the concept I had when I created Nyarlathotep: when those dark things cast a sliver of light into the lives of humans, those eerie shadows that crawl on the ground and extend outwards..."

“Nyarlathotep, you can also think of it as human cognition of the indescribable, therefore it has countless appearances, is the messenger of the Outer Gods, and has the most frequent contact with humans.”

"..."

The gaunt man was writing, completely unaware that a shadow was looming behind him.

The shadowy figure stood with arms crossed, silently watching the man writing furiously before him, and spoke.

"So, humans are truly fragile creatures. Even if they create gods, they themselves only have a lifespan of 47 years, don't they?"

It seemed to be talking to someone, but the man was completely unaware of its presence, as if he couldn't hear its voice at all.

At that moment, the shadow glanced over and said with displeasure.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, don't look around."

But in this small room, there was nothing but shadows and a man, and it was unclear who he was talking to.

But the shadow looked straight ahead and grinned.

"Who do you think I'm talking to?"

It pointed to you behind the screen and said.

"Stop looking. I'm talking about you, mortal."

"Huh? Breaking the fourth wall? It's fine either way."

But then he added with great interest.

"But now that guy can't find the Omniscient and Omnipotent One, he must be furious. Haha, the Omniscient and Omnipotent One couldn't even control the person who created this story; he just jumped out of his head as soon as he was born."

"In that case, it's quite interesting to have the rare opportunity to make fun of this guy while cloaking himself in omniscience and omnipotence."

"But I can't beat this guy in this story, looks like it's time to run."

As he spoke, the shadowy figure looked at you behind the screen and gave a hearty smile.

"Well then, mortals, let's meet again in the next story."

Then, the demonic shadow laughed maniacally and vanished from the spot. Meanwhile, inside the study, the gaunt man continued writing, completely unaware of what was happening.

If the box contains stories, then the outside of the box consists of the people who create and read those stories. People created the deities within those stories, thus becoming the creators of gods.

But a god in a nutshell is still a god.

A century later, those who created the gods have all turned to dust, yet the gods still exist in stories, pictures, images, poems, and other forms of information. They even incite mortals outside the box to shout the names of their own gods and to fight, bleed, and wage war against each other in their own name.

Centuries, millennia, and even tens of thousands of years may pass, but the gods inside the box will still exist, while the mortals outside the box will have changed batch after batch.

Even millions of years from now, after all the mortals on earth have died, the gods will still exist in the information, in the light, until the next mortal opens the box...

The gods inside the nutshell peered through the cracks and stretched out their tentacles, slowly and steadily changing the world of mortals outside the nutshell.

"...Although it is just a story, it is much more than just a story."

At the end of the letter, the gaunt man wrote this sentence.

Seven years later, Loftraff died.

The stories he created, along with those terrifying tales of gods and spirits from the indescribable world, continue to circulate silently across the land.

The mortals who created the gods are dead, but the gods live on forever.

……

"Gods of the Outer Lands".

When the illusory spirit that was about to create the world saw the beautiful girl with straight, silver-white hair, a petite and delicate appearance, and a long ahoge on her head, it spoke.

What brings you here?

The illusory spirit, as always, dislikes knowing the future in advance.

The otherworldly god who called himself a crawling, writhing being of chaos, looked no more than a beautiful young girl, sticking out her rosy tongue and then moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

Then, the corners of her mouth turned up, revealing a pure smile on her face.

"Of course... it's to make the story more interesting."

Nyaruko, the Goddess of a Thousand Faces, smiled even more brightly.

……

Much later, an angry roar rang out.

"Nya..."

(End of this chapter)