Stark had no chance of stopping the rapidly ascending Shiller, especially since he wasn't even donning his latest battle armor. Instead, he was using a makeshift version hastily assembled in someone else's lab. As a result, he was slower, and by the time he flew near the Planet Eater, the gray mist had completely enveloped its massive figure.
Previously, the Gray Mist had regained all its memory, discovering its mysterious origin. Logically, it should have also embarked on the path to acquiring rule-based power.
However, Batman and Iron Man had interfered, giving it a portion of the intelligence that belonged to the two strongest scientists in the universe. This provided the Gray Mist with a unique understanding during its later cooperation with the mediocre - that "physical movement is also a form of movement".
This made the Gray Mist's attack methods particularly unique, one of a kind in the entire cosmos.
The Gray Mist factor is also a kind of particle, or one could say that all symbiote factors are a particular type of particle. What's so-called symbiote cells are actually symbiote particles.
This extraordinary race seems to be a kind of microscopic particle that combines on a material level in a simple way and generates different characteristics due to the different directions of their evolution.
Like normal symbiotes such as Venom, they utilize energy acquired from the outside world to increase the number of their own particles infinitely, so as to exhibit greater material mass. Thanks to their special particle organization structure, they possess greater strength.
However, the Gray Mist is taking the opposite path, inducing constant fission of its particles. While keeping the total quantity stable, it centers the energy on making its own particles smaller, further exploring the microscopic world.
As we all know, matter is made up of molecules, which are formed by the connection of two or more atoms. If one could freely control molecules, they could create material out of thin air. But if they could freely control atoms, sub-atoms or even smaller microscopic units, they would not be far from grasping the truth of the universe.
From the moment of its birth, the Grey Mist's control over the microscopic level has reached the molecular level. It can decompose the items brought by Shiller and then reorganize them while ensuring their characteristics remain unchanged. This is its innate feature.
It's just that it was previously instinctive—theoretical and scientific level was a disciple of Shiller, similar to knowing how to change a lightbulb.
Further exploration of the microscopic world requires certain theoretical knowledge support and repeated practice. The inspiration given by Batman and Iron Man - the special genius of scientists - allowed the Gray Mist to finally realize what its greatest strength was.
In the past, it always felt that it had more than enough defense but not enough offense. Shiller had never let it fight, and it didn't even know how to fight. But now it found a simpler method to destroy--
Once the exploration in the microscopic field touched the threshold of atomic and subatomic control, many terrifying options would naturally emerge: nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, neutron radiation, antimatter shock, cosmic explosion...
If you delve deeper, it's impossible not to mention two of the four fundamental forces widely known: the strong force and the weak force.
The strong force, also known as "strong interaction", acts between protons, neutrons, mesons, and other hadrons. The weak force, also known as "weak interaction", acts on electrons, quarks, neutrinos, and other fermions, and restricts radioactive phenomena.
As should be clear from the examples mentioned in the concept above, the strong force and weak force are the rulers of the microscopic world, constituting half of the universe's foundation.
Of course, so far, the Grey Mist has yet to explore this part, but after some time of practice, it can already more skillfully control atomic-level reactions.
This is actually not difficult to understand. The Grey Mist itself is a peculiar particle organism. What is a microscopic world to humans is the normal world for it.
Other symbiotes chose to unify with normal organisms in the material world, increasing their volume and mass and making their particle connections denser to obtain stronger macroscopic forces.
However, the Gray Mist took the opposite path, making its particles smaller and the gaps between particles larger. This made the interaction between particles more obvious and allowed it to effortlessly mimic any atomic-level movements.
Before Stark could fly to the Planet Eater, he simply hovered in mid-air. He then saw the figure started to implode from above the Planet Eater's head.
Stark didn't know how to describe what he was seeing right now because such a motion should never occur on any humanoid creature. This was usually an astral physics phenomenon that only occurred when a star had run its course.
All matter in the body of the Planet Eater was driven by a special particle to implode inwards, like someone forcefully squeezing a handful of sand.
Under immense pressure, all matter in the Planet Eater's body was compressed into neutrons. At this point, the massive gravitational pull in the core made this inward implosion unstoppable. The internal pressure increased until it compressed space and time. Finally, even the neutrons were crushed, leaving behind a celestial body with unimaginable density, commonly known as a black hole.
The moment this process started, alarm bells went off in Stark's head. He disregarded everything and pushed his battle armor to its maximum speed, attempting to fly in the opposite direction to escape the gravitational pull of the black hole.
However, with the level of propulsion his battle armor currently had, attempting to resist the gravitational pull of a nearby black hole was nothing but a fantasy. Tony hesitated to use the energy from the Ark Reactor due to concerns about the two universes.
Looking at the wisp of gray mist floating in front of him, he grit his teeth and stamped his foot, simply letting go of the controls and allowing himself to be swallowed by the black hole.
Entering a black hole is quite an extraordinary experience, especially when still alive. Although Iron Demon God has reached a transcendent stage, he never dove into a black hole. This time, his unusual experience was finally completed.
Peculiar particles of a gray color clung to the surface of his battle armor, enabling Stark to ignore any gravitational or pressure forces and enter the most mysterious celestial body in human astrophysical history in a distinctive state, taking in all of its splendors.
Stark saw that the black hole wasn't pitch black inside. As it approached its limit, he could see redshift and blueshift rays and electromagnetic waves, which manifested as spirally twisting light waves, continuously moving toward some point behind Stark.
Stark knew there must be a singularity behind him, but he also felt instinctively that some mystical change was still occurring in the entire field. The black hole wasn't the final destination yet.
Indeed, Stark didn't know how much time had passed, but he could feel that the gray mist was pulling him toward the singularity. Until one moment, everything became still.
As Stark turned around, he saw the singularity formed by matter compressed to its utmost limit explode violently, and then, like a bullet out of a gun, he and countless particles were ejected from the center of the singularity explosion.
When his vision cleared, Stark saw a breathtakingly beautiful spiral nebula, with a white hole glowing powerfully at its center.
At this moment, the particles that were initially compressed to their utmost limit were still being vomited continuously from the white hole. Due to the repulsion around the white hole, Stark was gradually moving further away from the mystical and illusory point of light.
As he turned his gaze to the cosmos, he saw a completely unfamiliar starlit sky.
The fog didn't condense but rather, it flew with Stark. This flight didn't seem to have a sense of speed, it seemed more like continuous teleportation. It didn't take long for Stark to see a familiar yet strange planet.
Stark recognized it because it was the beautiful, blue earth he had observed countless times from space. But the earth was also unfamiliar because it wasn't the earth he knew very well, nor was it the earth of the Zombie Universe.
This was an entirely unfamiliar earth, hence Stark deduced that he had arrived in an unfamiliar universe.
Stark turned to look at the gray fog floating next to him, his eyes seeming to say, "So, you put in all this effort to create a portal?"
The fog, as if it had heard his thoughts, shook intensely the part that looked most like a head, expressing its dissatisfaction.
The fog opened its mouth wide and spat out a giant head––the head of Galactus.
Stark's eyes were wide in shock.
Shiller returned to his human form, extended his arm, and pointed at Galactus' head.
It was quite mysterious; Stark felt as if he could hear Shiller's thoughts, reminding him of the times when they had initially agreed to return home and sleep but ended up being speechless inside the Star Devouring Engine.
Stark looked back at Earth again, seeing signs of turmoil at New York City's location.
He wasn't sure whether the zombie disaster had started in this alternate universe, but clearly, the Star devouring engine was more valuable than his cobbled-together equipment.
Thus, Stark and Shiller flew toward Galactus' skull.
Before going into Galactus' head, Stark couldn't shake off his worry and checked Earth again. His eyes fell on New York City. Helen, Spider-man, Zombie Spider-man, and Eddie equipped with Venom, four figures, were desperately escaping.
The good news was that the zombie crisis hadn't erupted. The bad news was that the Shiller crisis had.
"Say it again, what did you see before the teleportation array activated?!!" Helen ran and hollered at the Zombie Spider-man behind her.
"I don't know, it might have been an illusion!" Zombie Spider-man was panting as he ran, shouting at the top of his lungs, "I saw the shadow of a doctor in a white coat!"
"That's definitely Shiller!!!" Helen roared.
Then Zombie Spider-man said in a relieved tone, "I don't know why, but the zombies suddenly stopped biting people. That's a good thing, right?"
"Good my ass!" Helen turned her head and snapped, "We're in BIG trouble!!!"
Just as Helen, leading the way, turned a corner, she saw a middle-aged man with a ghastly pale face and dark eye sockets, wielding an axe. Like a possessed man, he was tilting his head and dangling his arm, standing right in their path.
Helen stopped abruptly, put out an arm to halt the people behind her and yelled, "Stop!"
Running second, Venom didn't stop in time. He ran straight into Helen. It turned out Helen, small as she was, was incredibly sturdy. When Venom crashed in "bang," he was bounced right back and landed on the ground.
"Why did you suddenly stop?" Venom growled at Helen with a gaping mouth, "I could have just eaten his brains. Wouldn't that be enough?!"
"What if Shiller is inside his mind?"
"Forget what I said, let's run!"
The three people in front turned around concurrently and ran like crazy. Zombie Spider-man, lugging in the rear, was confused. He yelled at the three figures fleeing in horror, "Who is Shiller?!!"
"Whoosh!"
As an axe gleaming with a cold light flew past Zombie Spider-Man's ear, he saw a pair of desolate gray eyes beside him.