Chapter 190: Master Ian’s Human Form
Ian’s sophistry about his own human structure came to an end.
He didn’t give Black Adam any chance to think about the oddity in it at all. His whole body suddenly tilted back, then he used his own forehead to fiercely crash into Black Adam’s forehead.
“Let me see what dirty thing has bewitched you!”
Ian’s voice carried a kind of excitement like a researcher, as if what was in front of him wasn’t an enraged ancient King of Gods, but a precision instrument that needed to be disassembled and inspected.
Before the words had even fallen.
The collision of the two heads had already happened.
That impact force.
Had a beauty where Ian didn’t care at all about the integrity of his own frontal bone.
It even made Black Adam see stars.
“Dong!!!”
A muffled roar like an ancient temple bell being struck echoed in the two people’s minds.
Black Adam, who was sneak-attacked, only felt his vision go black. Countless golden stars and black crows swirled chaotically in his field of view, his brain matter almost shaken into a uniform paste! His proud magic resistance and physical defense, in the face of this completely unconventional mental（ physical） attack, seemed like some not-so-classic joke.
Meanwhile, Ian seized the moment when his consciousness was shaken and a gap appeared in his mental barrier to successfully force his own extremely “just” consciousness into Black Adam’s mental world.
His earlier words weren’t the goal; they were just to create this opportunity for himself. Countless memory fragments, violent emotions, and ancient incantation images rushed past like an out-of-control flood. Ian’s consciousness sped through them, filtering out information irrelevant to the outer universe, heading straight for the source of that abnormal dark power.
At the same time.
In the reality dimension.
“Bang!”
Two muffled thuds rang out almost simultaneously.
Two figures directly fell flat on the ground in the special prison cage. Black Adam’s limbs were still twitching unnaturally, but Ian’s eyes rolled back completely white just like Black Adam’s.
White foam began to uncontrollably spill from the corners of Black Adam’s mouth. However, Ian’s preparations were obviously more thorough. The foam he spat out wasn’t ordinary transparent liquid, but… colorful bubbles. Like an overturned palette, carrying a faint sweet scent of rainbow candy.
It didn’t mean anything else.
Mainly because Ian had stuffed effervescent tablets in his mouth beforehand.
At least the foam he spat out looked better.
That counted as a win.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet refracted dreamlike glows under the cold light of the prison cage, like colorful ribbons sprayed during a festival celebration.
His current appearance, under the reflection of the blue force field light, presented a weird yet fantastical visual effect. Of course, there weren’t many people who could appreciate and judge it.
“…”
Queen Mera blinked her big eyes and subconsciously tugged at Clark’s cape.
“Clark… your son… his mouth is better at spitting bubbles than the arrow stonefish that spits the most bubbles in the Atlantic… is this really… okay?”
Queen Mera’s tone was full of uncertainty.
“Mm.”
Clark Kent.
This God of Man, who had faced countless universe-level crises, now looked at his son rolling his eyes while spitting colorful bubbles, his face showing only a deep, accustomed numbness.
He nodded heavily, just about to speak, when Batman beside him preempted with his cold, emotionless voice processed through a voice changer.
“You’ll get used to it.”
Concise and to the point, containing countless unbearable past events.
Wonder Woman Diana rubbed her still aching forehead, looking at the two guys in the prison cage who seemed to be having a collective epileptic seizure, and asked helplessly: “So now… we’re just waiting here? Waiting for Ian to ‘mess around’ in that ancient emperor’s brain and come up with some result?”
She always felt that entrusting such an important task to Ian wasn’t a wise choice.
“We can also find something else to do. At least, we can first ‘interrogate’ this… ‘guest’ from the parallel universe that Clark and the others brought back.”
Batman maneuvered his wheelchair to turn around. The gaze under his mask swept over everyone, finally landing on Injustice Superman, who was still emanating a philosophical aura of despair on the broken wall not far away.
As he spoke, the wheelchair silently glided in front of Injustice Superman. Injustice Superman still had his head down, staring blankly at the ground, as if indifferent to everything around him.
Batman didn’t beat around the bush, didn’t even use any lie detector. He just stared at the other with those eyes that could see through all lies, then threw out a bombshell.
“You don’t want to have a baby without anyone to help you either.” Sure enough, as the wise Batman, Bruce Wayne spotted Injustice Superman’s belly at a glance.
He saw the reason for Injustice Superman’s depression. This sentence was like a silent thunderbolt, instantly striking everyone present except Clark and Batman into charred shock.
Aquaman directly sprayed out the mouthful of water he had just drunk; Mera covered her mouth, eyes wide round; Wonder Woman’s expression went from shock to confusion to a weird realization.
With some lingering fear.
A splendid array.
“Shut up!”
And the Injustice Superman, who had been like a stone statue, suddenly raised his head! His cheeks, ears, and neck rapidly flushed with blood at a visible speed, finally turning into the extremely rare pig liver color like Batman’s a few minutes ago! It was a color mixed with extreme shame, humiliation, and unspeakable breakdown.
“You—!” Injustice Superman squeezed the words through his teeth, his eyes viciously warning Batman, “That child you let run wild… he doesn’t belong to any of our universes! He’s a heretic that shouldn’t have been born! You have no idea what you’re raising! He’s a demon crawled out from hell!”
Very obviously.
Injustice Superman had been “impregnated” by Ian.
Severe psychological trauma.
“Listen, this kind of thing is none of your business.” Clark beside him frowned, stepped forward to block in front of Batman, and firmly retorted at Injustice Superman.
“Heh.”
Hearing this, the pig liver color on Injustice Superman’s face gradually faded, replaced by a deep, almost tragic sarcasm. He tugged at the corner of his mouth, showing a smile uglier than crying: “Fine. Anyway… the ones who’ll eventually face that ‘disaster’ aren’t me. It’s not my place to worry.”
As he spoke, Injustice Superman deeply glanced at this universe’s Clark Kent.
“Disaster?”
Batman immediately seized the key word, lowering his voice, starting to react.
“What final disaster? What exactly did the Supreme Alliance send you and that Golden Superman here for this time?” His intuition told him that Injustice Superman’s reappearance this time wasn’t just a simple dimensional invasion.
“Of course there was a mission assigned to us.” Injustice Superman seemed to have broken the jar, sneering: “Two missions. The overt one was simple: just have you two ‘Supermen’ decide who’s superior, see which one fits their standard of the strongest, most perfect.”
He paused, his eyes flickering, “But I feel… the Supreme Alliance was using this as an excuse to search for something in your universe.”
When he said this, Injustice Superman’s tone also carried some uncertainty. It was all just his intuition, no actual evidence.
“Searching for what?” Clark still pressed.
Hearing this, Injustice Superman rolled his eyes.
“If I knew, would I have been brainwashed and controlled, turned into a biological weapon that only knows to execute orders?” His tone was thick with bitterness, “I’m a failure, Clark. Failures in our organization are just roadside stray dogs, no longer qualified to know the core plan.”
His words made everyone frown. This cruel hierarchical system was unsettling. No Justice League member was willing to accept that the so-called Supreme Alliance was an evolution of the Justice League.
“Regarding what you said, I will investigate it in detail. Now, tell us, what exactly is the ‘final disaster’ you mentioned earlier?”
Batman pulled the topic back to the point again.
His tone was like interrogating a criminal, but Injustice Superman didn’t mind. This failed hero shook his head, his eyes as if recalling some vague and terrifying fragment.
Constantly flickering.
“Only those at the end of time can truly ‘see’ it… but all who try to return and report forget… It’s the rules, protection, perhaps also a curse.” He withdrew his gaze, voice low, “I can only guess… it must be related to the outer universe invasion.”
“The scale… might be unimaginable to us.” This was Injustice Superman’s initial persistent idea: the outer universe invasion would eventually collapse the entire multiverse.
Regarding this.
Wonder Woman was also pensive.
“You’re not sure? Just a guess?”
She asked with some suspicion. As an Amazon savage embraced by modern society, she didn’t yet have an accurate judgment that the outer universe invasion was entirely harmful.
“Yes, just a guess. For this kind of thing, either ask The Batman Who Laughs; he might know more clearly…” Injustice Superman paused and added another sentence.
“Of course… or ask his collaborator. I have vague memories of being under mind control, and I know there’s a collaborator behind The Batman Who Laughs.”
He had said the name The Joker Bat twice in succession, but that weird void chain didn’t appear, nor did any force try to pull Injustice Superman back to the Supreme Alliance headquarters.
This made Injustice Superman… very uneasy.
Of course, not uneasy because he couldn’t escape, but because he couldn’t help thinking what information was hidden behind The Batman Who Laughs no longer caring about exposure like before.
Just as Injustice Superman truly felt his heart in his throat.
“Collaborator? Who?”
Aquaman Arthur couldn’t help joining the questioning.
He was still a Justice League member after all; he had to show his face a bit, just like how most times he slacked in battle but it didn’t affect him posing for a “group photo” after.
“If I remember correctly.”
Injustice Superman raised his head, looked at the gloomy sky, as if guarding against something.
“It’s a woman called Paradox. I’m not clear on what exactly is special about her, but even The Batman Who Laughs that madman seems slightly wary of her.”
His words were information-dense.
The others were still digesting the info, while Clark Kent’s mind was already churning.
Paradox!
Clark Kent of course remembered this name very clearly. Hearing this name, Clark Kent’s eyes imperceptibly flickered slightly.
His super brain instantly retrieved a memory—not long ago, in the eerie ruins of a military base, that mysterious woman who appeared and resolved many supernatural outbreaks, then tricked him during his search, and quietly disappeared afterward. The name she left was “Paradox”!
Realizing this.
Clark Kent’s super brain operated uncontrollably even if he didn’t want it to. He didn’t make a fuss, keeping his face calm.
The others didn’t notice.
But the only other person present with world-top observation and deduction ability, Batman, had keenly captured Clark’s fleeting subtle reaction with the gaze hidden behind his white eye lenses.
“Paradox, huh…” Batman also remained composed, just silently elevating the name he’d heard Clark mention once before a few levels higher on his list of dangerous figures.
And.
He also drew a question mark representing uncertainty on the connection between this name and the Kent Family. It would take some useful information to turn this question mark into a definite symbol.
“You have to tell us everything you know about the Supreme Alliance, about that ‘Paradox’, about the ‘final disaster’ you guessed. All details.”
Batman’s wheelchair slid forward half an inch, almost bumping into Injustice Superman’s knee. His voice, processed by the voice changer, carried an undeniable oppressive force.
Injustice Superman slowly raised his head.
He didn’t answer directly, but lifted one hand, fingertip lightly tapping his seemingly flat abdomen that seemed to bear a thousand pounds.
“Want information? Fine.”
Injustice Superman mimicked Batman’s tone, but with added broken-jar mockery, “But first, you have to solve the trouble that kid from hell caused inside me.”
He deliberately emphasized “kid from hell,” his gaze meaningfully glancing at Ian in the distant prison cage, still happily spitting colorful bubbles.
This was clearly bargaining.
The brows under Batman’s mask imperceptibly furrowed.
In his view, though Ian acted absurdly unrestrained, the “trouble” he caused was mostly controllable. With Batcave technology and Kryptonian physique, solving it shouldn’t be hard. Compared to the intelligence value Injustice Superman might provide, this trade was acceptable.
“Fine. We’ll handle your… abdominal ‘situation’.” Batman at this point still didn’t realize the severity, thinking it a minor issue, and agreed straightforwardly.
He even used relatively neutral wording.
Injustice Superman seemed somewhat surprised by the other’s frankness, a flash of doubt in his eyes, but soon replaced by a numbness of “it can’t get worse anyway.”
He nodded, just about to say something more—
“Uh… guys?” Aquaman Arthur’s voice cut in, with a hint of awkwardness and urgency. He shook something in his hand that looked like an old-style pager.
“I might… need to leave first.”
The pager screen in Aquaman Arthur’s hand was flashing with red wavy signals.
Clark turned his head, asking concernedly: “Is there an emergency in Atlantis? Need help?”
He subconsciously thought it was another rebellion in some underwater kingdom or an ancient sea monster awakening. However, Aquaman showed a bitter smile uglier than crying.
“Clark, my friend, you can lift continental plates, push planets, shoot lasers from your eyes… but you can’t stop humans from endlessly dumping garbage into my home.” He shook his head, that smile full of helplessness, “Yes, you can do many things, but you can’t stop humans from polluting the ocean.”
Clark instantly fell silent.
He certainly understood.
As a superhero, he could solve countless earth-shattering crises, but for this slow and persistent “poisoning” stemming from human civilization itself on its living environment, he truly felt a deep powerlessness.
His super senses had long told him what the ocean was enduring, but it was a massive, complex systemic problem, not solvable by punch after punch.
Wasn’t Krypton’s destruction also rooted in such inferior tendencies derived from civilization’s development?
“Is it… because of the nuclear polluted water?”
Clark’s voice sank, carrying a heavy confirmation.
Aquaman nodded heavily, his expression turning strange, “My brother Orm just contacted me via encrypted channel… He said his legs might have undergone some… unexpected ‘mutation’ because of that damned radiation water. He’s begging me to hurry back and take him to land to see a doctor or biologist.”
“Oh, speaking of which, by the way, you think… for his condition, should I get him an appointment with a ‘vet’, or just take him straight to the ‘aquarium’ to find an expert professor?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Aquaman always shocked people in unexpected places.
After a weird silence, Diana couldn’t help turning her head away, shoulders trembling slightly; Clark coughed awkwardly; even Batman’s jawline seemed to soften for a moment.
“He can come to me first.” Batman’s voice remained steady, no emotion detectable, “The Batcave has the most advanced medical scanning equipment to analyze his… mutation situation.”
“No! Thanks! Really no need!” Aquaman shook his head like a rattle drum, rejecting almost reflexively. He’d rather accept his brother growing twenty fluorescent tails than send him into Batman’s “medical room” that looked like it would slice people for research.
That wouldn’t turn it into a real succession dispute!
“To be honest, I’d rather trust Ian’s brilliant plan.” As he spoke, he seemed to remember something, quickly pulling out something from the leather pouch at his waist—a bulging little bag woven from colorful fish scales and glowing seaweed, with “brilliant plan” embroidered in crooked land script.
It seemed Aquaman had just communicated with Ian about this ocean pollution issue.
Everyone looked at that ominous pouch, then at Ian in the prison cage happily bubbling away, suddenly all suspecting if Aquaman was really a fish.
“Then good luck to your Atlantis.” Batman seemed not to insist, just giving a dry blessing. After all, using Ian’s “brilliant plan” against human-caused pollution was somewhat fighting poison with poison. He bet if it succeeded, Atlantis definitely wouldn’t remain a sovereign civilization.
It would have to mix in some of the lately popular Gotham saying—Ian virus.
Regarding this.
The oblivious Aquaman nodded, turning to summon water flow from the sewer. At this moment, Queen Mera hesitated, still stepping forward to Batman.
Her beautiful face, which seemed even less independent about restrooms than Indians, was full of worry.
“Bruce, I know you don’t easily get involved in politics… but could you please use your influence on land… at least call for it? It’s not just pollution anymore…”
Queen Mera’s voice lowered, carrying a hint of barely perceptible fear.
“I can feel the ocean’s pain intensifying. Something… ancient and terrible sleeping in the deepest sea trench seems to be awakening because of this pollution.”
She looked at Batman, tone earnest.
The atmosphere instantly grew heavier.
At this moment, a slightly hoarse and mocking voice suddenly rang out.
“Perhaps… I shouldn’t comment.”
The always silent Injustice Superman suddenly raised his hand, like a student asking a question in class. Obviously, though he said that, his action meant he couldn’t hold back his urge to instruct.
Everyone looked at him.
Meeting their gazes, his tone calm yet carrying a chilling coldness.
“Here’s the simplest, most direct suggestion: mobilize your forces, find and cut all major undersea fiber optic cables, sever all maritime energy channels and transport routes.”
“Once land dwellers lose the global network, instant communications, stable energy supply, and transoceanic trade… ninety percent of human ‘industrial civilization’ will collapse instantly. They won’t have any ‘spare’ time or resources to argue, bicker, or dump pollutants they themselves can’t handle into the seabed.”
Injustice Superman paused, looking at the crowd’s drastically changed faces, continuing: “Survival will become humanity’s sole goal. For survival, life itself will find… new paths.”
This move of his was undeniably ruthless.
After the words fell, the entire ruins fell into dead silence. Everyone looked at this Superman from the parallel universe with extremely complex expressions.
Everyone realized the difference between Injustice Superman and Clark Kent.
This was the mindset of an iron-fisted ruler—efficient, direct, regardless of consequences. To “solve” the problem, he’d first destroy the entire system producing it.
The gaze behind Batman’s white lenses was sharp as a knife, as if to dissect him completely. Clark’s brows were tightly furrowed, eyes full of disapproval. Wonder Woman and Queen Mera felt a vigilance from ancient memories against absolute power and coldness.
Injustice Superman met their gazes, just indifferently shrugging, as if what he just proposed was as casual as suggesting dinner tonight.
“Just a suggestion.”
He added softly, then lowered his head again, resuming his “none of my business” silence, as if the one who threw out the shocking plan was someone else.
Meanwhile.
Ian and Black Adam were still spitting bubbles.
Mainly because Ian’s consciousness intrusion brought considerable burden to both himself and Black Adam, not just experience points acquisition. Neither Ian nor Black Adam expected what happened.
At the beginning.
Things developed quite normally.
Ian’s consciousness was like a slippery fish, freely shuttling in Black Adam’s vast and violent sea of memories. He passed ancient Kahndaq temples, witnessed the granting of Shazam’s power. He felt the pain of kinslaying and a millennium of imprisonment, also experiencing modern society’s impact on Black Adam and his own longing for revenge.
Finally, Ian was drawn to a deeper, more viscous dark power, constantly diving until sinking to the bottommost layer of that consciousness. There were no longer specific memory fragments, but a chaotic mental domain polluted by foreign will. Suddenly, an irresistible suction came.
Ian felt his consciousness yanked in! When he came back to his senses, he found himself not floating in mental space, but solidly standing on a street.
Both sides of the street were typical Japanese buildings, wooden signboards with incomprehensible katakana, pedestrians in various clothes bustling, chattering Japanese dialogues filling the ears.
The air was filled with the smell of octopus balls mixed with gasoline.
“What’s going on?”
Ian subconsciously pinched his face.
“Echo of the past? Illusion formed by memory fragments? Or remnant bewitchment created by that outer universe power?” He hadn’t expected such a… lively and seemingly normal scene hidden in the depths of Black Adam this ancient rough man’s consciousness. This was completely different from the evil lair or dark temple he imagined.
While Ian warily surveyed the surroundings, trying to find flaws in this illusion, a little boy who looked seven or eight, hugging a huge strange egg, da-da-da ran up to him.
The other looked up with expectant big eyes, opening with a earth-shattering Japanese sentence.
“Big brother, you’re still a virgin, right?”
No wonder Japanese is annoying.
“????”
Ian hadn’t expected a kid younger than him to stun him silent. Even with his bizarre experiences, he was shocked by this soul-striking question.
“Shut up, don’t speak if you can’t. Whose kid is so rude? Believe it or not, I’ll send you 800 sets of test papers?” This threat had no power on Japanese kids.
The kid seemed not to expect being yelled at, shrank his neck, but hugged the egg tighter. He hesitated, pulled out a few coins from his pocket, cautiously saying: “I… I’ll pay! My egg needs the urine of 999 virgin boys to hatch! Please, big brother!”
His words didn’t sound like something a normal person would say.
“Do I look like someone short on your few coins? Also, little brat, let me tell you, though I have super bladder capacity, I’m long past the age of playing with shit, piss, and farts! Don’t come to me for this low-level collection task!” Ian rolled his eyes; after all, he was almost fifteen.
Exactly the age to care about image.
Of course.
Kind family education gave Ian a kind essence.
“I’ll give you a clear path. Go to an orphanage, dig their sewer; you might hit the jackpot. Three-parts-sugar premium boy urine isn’t easy to find on the market without super bladder help.” Ian gave constructive advice. The kid didn’t understand but nodded thoughtfully.
Mainly Ian’s matter-of-fact, righteous demeanor made the kid feel convinced, feeling like this weird big brother spoke great sense.
The kid left.
Waving his sleeve.
Heading to the orphanage.
“What universe is this exactly? Like True New Town?” Ian watched the kid’s receding figure, momentarily unable to judge what weird worldview was behind hatching the strange egg. He continued wandering aimlessly on the street, observing this seemingly normal world that was everywhere slightly discordant.
Pedestrians, vehicles, shops… everything vivid, but he always felt something off, like a thin veil covering everything.
Unknowingly, Ian walked to a huge square in the city center. The square was bustling with people. He subconsciously looked up at the tallest statue in the center— at a glance, his expression froze, mouth agape in shock, even the urge to complain temporarily gone.
The statue towered, material not ordinary stone or metal, but a special substance like condensed endless darkness, emanating ominous faint glow.
The statue’s form was a huge, ferocious, evilly beautiful… giant!
It had sharp claw-like fingers, a twisted colorful timer fragment decoration on its chest, body covered in sharp protrusions like biological exoskeleton, face distorted and vicious, mouth grinning as if mocking and scorning the entire universe. Though a statue, it emanated a heart-palpitating oppression like a living thing.
“No way, no way, no way.”
Ian’s heart pounded.
This design, this aura, this overwhelming villain BOSS vibe… he was too familiar! Perhaps due to Ian’s gaze, the statue emitted weird fluctuations.
“Hm?”
Ian felt the statue’s cold, lifeless eyes “come alive,” two intangible rays of extreme darkness will projected onto his retinas like substance, intertwining and outlining in front of him a blurry yet incredibly clear, huge, destruction-emanating shadow of a dark giant!
The next moment.
A low, majestic voice full of absolute power and dark will, as if crossing endless time-space, boomed directly in the depths of his mind.
“Only darkness can rule the universe, and I am the embodiment of darkness! The creator of New Land of Light! King of Ultra Belial!” That figure grew clearer.
Ian’s consciousness body blinked, not scared at all, but surging with huge, indescribable excitement. He had long known this world definitely had Ultraman.
Sure enough.
At this sudden moment.
He finally saw a live Ultraman.
Though it was the less prestigious Belial Ultraman, it was still a somewhat popular NPC type. Such an Ultraman definitely had a chance to become Master Ian’s human body.
“Who’s talking about New Land of Light?”
