Chapter 49: Nightmare Origin! Mysterious Catastrophe!
Ignoring the Titan’s mad curse.
Five minutes later.
Superman’s mood became slightly calmer.
“Do you two even understand how dangerous it is here?” Clark turned his gaze to his child—and his cousin who had apparently been treated like a weapon before.
“Uh… he brought me here! He said he needed to save your life!” Kara immediately snitched, without any concealment, completely selling out Ian.
Clark heard this.
His pupils shook.
He thought of the abnormal sensations from last night, and Ian’s “nonsense.”
“Who told you to come here?”
Clark suddenly looked at Ian.
“My super intelligence?” Ian honestly gave his answer. This time he was really telling the truth; he had relied entirely on reasoning, but Clark’s expression only grew more like he wanted to punch someone.
“Later, we’re going to have a good talk, you and I.” Clark said this seriously to Ian, then turned back and fired several heat rays. The already battered Titan began to shatter wildly.
Immediately after.
Countless light and shadows around them began to shatter, revealing the sewage plant restaurant outside the light and shadows once more. Countless scattered light and shadows seemed to be pulled by some force, frantically gathering together.
A black orb began to condense.
Among them.
It was as if a shattered world was constantly flashing, with countless unwilling souls roaring at the outside. Superman seemed to have seen this before and was not surprised at all.
“What is this?”
Kara wanted to step forward and touch it.
“Don’t touch it!”
Clark yanked Kara back.
His expression was grave, with some worry and vigilance.
“Is this the thing that hurt you?” Kara lowered her head and looked at Clark’s arm. She could sense Clark’s injury, so it wasn’t hard to guess why he was wary.
“Did the person who told you to come here tell you how to deal with this thing?” Clark didn’t answer Kara but turned to Ian, who was staring in shock at the black orb.
“I don’t know, that big shot didn’t say.”
Ian’s eyes were clear.
“Maybe I can deal with it?” He also wanted to be Gul’dan, filled with fel energy every day. Just thinking about it, he knew that upgrade speed would be incredibly fast.
Thinking of this.
Ian couldn’t help but swallow.
His reaction was completely seen by Clark.
“Pica… Dr. Hannibal mentioned this symptom.”
Just as Superman couldn’t help but sigh, preparing to ask Kara to use heat rays with him to see if they could destroy the eerie black orb condensing in mid-air that would escape soon.
“Become our new hope!”
The black orb trembled violently, then shot straight toward Ian like an arrow off the string! The quick-reacting Superman raised his hand to intercept it, but the black orb phased through his palm as if it were intangible.
【Detected mergeable data!】
Ian heard the sudden prompt from his system.
“Ah~”
He was overjoyed.
He immediately opened his mouth.
Preparing to receive the food offered that came to his door.
And at that moment.
Everything froze.
The surrounding world rapidly lost color.
“Are you mad!?”
A fair hand appeared out of thin air.
It grabbed Ian’s throat.
Preventing Ian from swallowing the duck that was at his mouth. Then, the fake Grim Reaper Tessa, or rather the female big shot who didn’t want to reveal her surname, gradually appeared.
She just pinched Ian’s throat.
“Pfft~”
The black orb was spat out by Ian.
“Stealing food from my mouth!?”
Ian got angry in a fit of rage. What could he do? Facing one of the strongest existences in the universe, he could only watch as the other’s gloved hand in black gloves grabbed the black orb.
“Do you know what this thing is? And you dared to let it into your mouth?” The female big shot’s way of holding the black orb also showed a cautious carefulness.
Hearing this.
Ian raised an eyebrow.
“If I don’t eat it, how would I know what it is?” He used his unique logic to cover up the truth that the system had prompted him it was non-toxic and edible.
“…”
The female big shot clearly didn’t suspect too much.
Her attention was all on the mysterious black orb in her hand.
“This is a broken world… You can think of it as a part of some universe, um, a universe shard, carrying things that don’t belong to our universe.”
“Yes, it’s a part of another universe, universe remnants.” The woman’s fingers gently shook the black orb in her hand, and its surface began to ripple.
Faintly, countless tiny light and shadows could be seen flickering inside.
Like countless beings roaring within.
“Hiss! This advanced?” Ian’s mood wasn’t calm; just like his gains weren’t ideal, he felt a shudder upon further thought at the female big shot’s explanation.
“So, these shattered universes still have life in them.” Despite a slight palpitation in his heart, Ian immediately seized the opportunity to extract useful information.
“Just past afterimages, not really life… Of course, if such universe remnants parasitize another universe to revive, those afterimages would indeed regain life.”
The female big shot didn’t know why she wasn’t being the Riddler this time.
She entered a question-and-answer mode.
And Ian certainly wouldn’t miss this rare chance. “It can be like that? One universe parasitizing another? Like a parasite?”
He couldn’t help but think of the few people he had met who didn’t belong to the DC Universe.
Was this also a form of universe parasitism?
Just as Ian couldn’t help but mutter in his mind.
“To be precise, only universes like this one, already shattered and left with only partial remnants, would choose parasitism. For intact universes, they choose gentler methods. That kind of silent fusion is hard for us to detect, far less noticeable than this universe remnants’ parasitism.”
The female big shot looked at the black orb in her hand with disgust in her eyes.
“Us?”
Ian caught the detail.
“This isn’t something you should know.”
But the female big shot clearly didn’t want to answer this question.
“Alright.”
Ian digested the information. “So, why did this shattered universe appear in a cook’s body? Is it because they choose a destined one?”
This even concerned him in Ian’s view.
He couldn’t overlook it.
“To parasitize our universe, they naturally need to choose a vessel in this universe… one with a ‘legitimate’ identity. But don’t think this is lucky.”
“These foreign substances seek out lives with weak will or empty hearts, giving them illusory power and visions, making them think they’ve gained some mission.”
“But in fact, all those parasitized by these shattered universes are tools to be discarded after use. The unlucky one you forced to death isn’t the one your father met yesterday.”
The female big shot gave Ian a deep look.
“You should thank me for saving you. Otherwise, you’d become like the subjects in all the events I’ve handled—a manipulated puppet and a madman gradually losing his own will.”
“There will be many voices surging in your mind, bewitching… Those are obsessions from the past afterimages in the universe remnants.” Her voice was very serious.
“Believe me, no one can resist such torment, not even ones like us…” The female big shot’s words suddenly stopped, her face showing a sense of lament.
Not sure who she was thinking of.
“Hm? Why is your face getting paler?” The female big shot cast aside her memories and looked at Ian again, only to find the youth’s face very off.
Even in the black-and-white world, the youth’s face was frighteningly pale.
“Nothing… I’m actually cool-toned pale too.” Ian forced a smile. For the nightmare world he entered every night, he felt he had found the reason.
However.
This still didn’t explain some things.
Like the mission?
He didn’t have one!
Any voices of obsession.
He didn’t have those either!
Even his minor psychological issues had healed immediately.
Is this right?
Actually, thinking carefully, he and that cook had other differences too. The cook’s strength came from some shattered universe, illusory and unstable, while his strength came from the system.
That was incredibly solid.
No comparison at all!
Thinking of this, Ian suddenly felt his heart calm like still water.
The whole person calmed down.
