Chapter 255: Special Forces Style Event Completion!
The Flash discerned the truth about time.
Meanwhile, at an earlier node on the timeline, inside the Batcave that had just experienced the descent of a “deity” and thus appeared utterly dilapidated.
“Is this energy the Speed Force…”
Bruce Wayne stood amid the wreckage, having just completed a simple scan of his own brain. The Speed Force arc image flickering incessantly on the screen was like the whisper of a demon, continuously forming unease in his mind. He forcibly suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart and instructed Alfred, who looked worried beside him.
“Alfred, immediately mobilize all available funds and channels from Wayne Enterprises to secretly acquire or take control of these biotechnology and neuroscience research institutes.”
He quickly listed several names, all at the forefront in their fields and among the top tier of institutions. “Act fast, and don’t attract any attention.”
In response, Alfred didn’t ask why, merely nodding steadily.
“Understood, Master. I’ll handle it right away.” He gave Bruce a deep look, especially at those brand-new eyes, then turned and strode quickly out of the Batcave to carry out the task.
“Damn it! I knew it!” In the empty hall, only Bruce remained. He stood in place, his body slightly tense, as if exerting extreme effort to restrain something. His fingers unconsciously clenched and released, his gaze sometimes sharp as an eagle, sometimes flashing with a microscopic wisdom starkly different from his usual calm rationality.
The faint golden arcs in Batman’s mind seemed to become even more active.
Bringing some extremely mysterious whispers.
Ultimately, Bruce couldn’t resist the invasion of this energy into his brain. His footsteps seemed beyond his control as he slowly walked toward a corner of the room, to the stasis pod holding the Kryptonian youth Jordan Kent. Jordan remained in forced stasis, his expression calm, oblivious to everything around him.
“What’s here?”
Bruce’s gaze did not fall on Jordan.
Following instinct, his gaze turned to a metal tray placed beside the stasis pod. It contained personal items scavenged from Jordan.
Some small gadgets incomprehensible to this era, a few energy candies, and a notebook… that looked perfectly normal, with no markings on the cover.
That notebook seemed to hold a eerie attraction for Bruce. His rationality only made him hesitate for a moment before he still reached out toward the notebook.
And at this very moment.
The instant Batman’s fingertips touched the rough cover of the notebook—”Zzzap!”
A barely perceptible yet truly existing golden arc suddenly burst from his mind, conducting along his nerves all the way to his fingertips.
The Speed Force formed some deep, resonance-like connection with that notebook! The notebook seemed to come alive, directly sticking to Bruce’s hand.
“No! This is that thing from the mad ancient god!” Batman realized the situation, but his trembling fingers simply couldn’t let go.
“Instinct” drove him instead to grip it even tighter.
The chaotic information fragments in Batman’s mind from the Speed Force seemed to find some anchor point on this notebook, beginning to slowly and spontaneously organize and align… An enlightenment, mixed with deeper obsession and a sense of… control, started to grow relentlessly in his heart.
“Ian’s diary… All rights reserved, piracy will be pursued.”
Bruce opened the first page and was instantly captivated by its contents, as if those saints first encountering the Bible, a thirst arising in his heart that reason couldn’t block. His new eyes, in the dim Batcave, flickered with an unprecedented and unsettling light.
Clues from past and future intertwined at this moment.
At this very moment, the Flash’s terrified discovery in the future and Batman’s instant contact with the unknown notebook in the past seemed to form a fatal closed loop—those restless Speed Force arcs in Bruce’s mind foreshadowing a path to an even more unknown and dangerous future.
That might be scenery even the Batman Who Laughs had never reached. And while the young Bruce Wayne in the Batcave was producing a dangerous resonance with that black notebook from the future due to Speed Force erosion.
On the other side, Ian, who had just mastered the 【Speedster】 form and thus began calling himself the “God of Speed,” was applying his “great power” to what he perceived as the “right path.”
Running.
Running.
The Speed Force surged and roared around him, gray-white arcs tearing through the air.
His perception was like invisible radar waves, centered on himself, instantly scanning every corner of Metropolis and its surrounding Star City. Building structures, life signals, energy flows… A sea of information flooded his consciousness, instantly processed by Speed Force-enhanced thinking.
“Found it!”
Ian’s three heads simultaneously showed an “as expected” expression. He locked onto an unassuming abandoned building on the edge of Metropolis’s industrial zone.
The most dangerous place is the safest.
Lex Luthor certainly knew how to pick a spot.
But this couldn’t escape Master Ian’s eyes… Speed Force eyes. No plan, no sneaking in— Ian’s action principle was always direct.
He slightly adjusted the black battle robe he’d swiped from old man Clark’s wardrobe—it seemed to be a product of Kryptonian technology with adaptive contraction, perfectly fitting his bizarre three-headed, six-armed body at the moment, though the style was a bit mismatched.
But at least it covered the key areas.
And made him feel quite “superhero”-like.
“Awesome! I’m Superman!” The next moment, Ian activated his ability. Not a simple wall crash, but using the Speed Force to induce a specific frequency resonance between his own atoms and the wall material!
At least, that’s how Ian saw his operation, though the result was still less than ideal.
“Boom—!!!”
Accompanied by a massive roar, the thick concrete wall on the building’s side was torn open like by a giant can opener, breaking into a relatively “neat-edged” large hole.
Dust from bricks and metal filled the air.
Ian turned into a gray-white bolt of lightning, carrying the smoke and dust as he rushed inside.
Inside, several fully armed elite bodyguards clearly hired by Lex Luthor—they hadn’t even noticed the wall damage, let alone raise their guns to respond to the crisis.
Everyone was still chatting idly when, in the next moment, they only felt a blur before their eyes and an irresistible force hit, their bodies uncontrollably colliding and tangling with each other.
When the dust slightly cleared, the mercenaries were seen bound together in an extremely twisted, giant centipede-like pose using their own gear belts, shoelaces, and even pant belts, dangling precariously from the ceiling’s steel beams, with their own socks stuffed in their mouths.
“!!!???”
Everyone could only make terrified “mmph mmph” sounds.
“You’re welcome, this is art—art is centipede.” One of Ian’s heads turned back with a grin, even thoughtfully posing them symmetrically.
Small fry dealt with.
Ian’s gaze instantly locked onto the center of the room, where an old woman bound to a chair—kind-faced yet filled with terror and confusion—Grandma Martha.
That is, his grandmother.
“Don’t be afraid, Grandma Martha!”
Ian immediately reined in the violent lightning around him, the middle head struggling to squeeze out what he thought was the most reliable, most “good grandson”-like smile.
Though paired with his current appearance, it looked somewhat horrifying. But no choice—when using the Speed Force, the true form manifested; blame could only go to the Speed Force.
“I’m Clark Kent, your invincible Superman son. The reason I look a bit strange to you is because evil bad guys fed you a lot of poisonous mushrooms.”
“Don’t panic, I’ll save you and get you out right now!”
He strode forward quickly, simultaneously vibrating his head and vocal cords at high speed to blur his face and make his voice sound more mature and reliable.
Martha Kent: “?????”
She widened her eyes.
Looking at the boy in front of her, wearing a strange black bodysuit, who had dispelled his original bizarre form but was still using a distorted, altered voice to claim he was her tall, handsome son Clark with the sunny smile… The old lady felt her worldview and hearing might both have serious issues.
Had Lex Luthor injected her with hallucinogens?
Or did getting old really cause such outrageous hallucinations?
But Ian gave her no time to think. He figured he’d completed “identity verification” and “comfort procedure,” and the Speed Force surged around him again.
The true form armor also reappeared.
The two arms on the right extended, hugging Martha at a speed that seemed gentle but allowed no reaction, while the Speed Force surged into his legs again.
“What I’m using now is my super speed as Superman.”
Information infusion was this direct.
“Boom—!!!”
Another massive roar.
A hole was opened in the wall on the other side of the building in the same way. Ian, holding the still-befuddled Martha, turned into lightning and rushed out, vanishing into the rain curtain and the city’s neon lights. In place, only a slightly smaller humanoid gap in the wall than last time remained, along with the “human centipede ornament” dangling from the ceiling.
“Hmm, this time the humanoid gap left is much smaller, energy control more precise—a huge improvement! Not far from achieving traceless phasing!”
Ian of course knew what he’d smashed through, but he never engaged in self-doubt, only genuinely rejoicing at every tiny “progress” of his own.
Even if this “progress” looked like precision in destructive power to others.
“Crackle crackle, crackle crackle~”
Meanwhile.
In the heart of Metropolis.
Another decisive confrontation was unfolding in the pouring rain.
Clark Kent, the young Superman, hovered at the top of a skyscraper, cold rainwater soaking his vibrant battle suit and the black hair on his forehead. He had just gone through a brutal battle with Batman, failed to subdue him, and now was in extreme passivity due to Martha’s kidnapping.
“Don’t force me!”
At this moment, Superman’s face mixed anger, anxiety, and a hint of barely perceptible humiliation.
Across from him stood Lex Luthor.
This young billionaire genius wore only a thin shirt, letting the rain soak through, yet his face bore a composed smile of total control that was utterly repulsive.
“Hand her over!!”
Superman roared at Luthor, his voice echoing in the rain curtain with irrepressible wrath. “Hand over my mother! Or you won’t want to see an irrational me!”
He was threatening.
By rights, no one on Earth wouldn’t feel terror from this.
Yet Luthor might be the exception—this was a madman. Not only did he not fear, he exaggeratedly spread his hands, his face showing an almost pitying mocking expression.
“Tsk tsk tsk… You failed, Superman. This is too disappointing. I thought you’d be more… efficient. A god-like existence who can’t even take down Batman?”
“Looks like you’re all hype.”
Luthor’s mockery was very direct.
“Hand her over!!” The red glow of heat vision in Superman’s eyes flickered violently, the surrounding rainwater instantly evaporating into white mist, showing he was on the edge of eruption.
In response, Luthor not only didn’t retreat but leaned slightly forward, staring straight at Superman with those deep yet madness-laced eyes.
His voice was soft yet like a venomous snake hissing.
“Remember our deal, Kal-El? If I have any issue—anything, even just tripping or bad mood—your dear, fragile mother who belongs only to us humans, Martha Kent… will die. Immediately, right then.”
This sentence was like the most effective sedative.
Instantly extinguishing the heat vision red glow about to burst from Superman’s eyes.
That destructive power struggled and flickered in his pupils, finally extinguishing unwillingly, leaving only deep powerlessness and burning rage.
He couldn’t gamble.
He didn’t dare gamble.
Seeing Superman successfully suppressed, Luthor’s smile grew smugger. Like a monarch dispensing alms, he said in false merciful tones.
“See, I’m still kind. I can give you one more new chance. That masked vigilante from Gotham, that bat… he must die.”
“Just kill him, and I guarantee your mother will safely return to the farm to keep baking her apple pie—you definitely held back before.”
“Now, throw away your saintly heart, go kill Batman. It’s actually fair—trade one doomed dark life for one bright, kind life…”
Luthor continued eloquently expounding his twisted “benevolent” theory, savoring the pleasure of toying with a deity in his palm.
However, at this very moment—
“Whoosh—!!!”
A gray-white lightning bolt impossible to catch with the naked eye.
Like otherworld thunder tearing the night sky, at speed exceeding Superman’s dynamic vision limit, it surged from the distant city skyline!
It didn’t fly in a straight line but refracted impossibly along the glass curtain walls of the skyscrapers, each turn leaving a winding lightning-scar-like trajectory!
“Hm?”
Superman’s super senses caught this sudden change.
He whipped his head around; Kryptonian super vision let him barely see the lightning’s core as a multi-armed bizarre figure, and a familiar human shape held in its arms!
But he had no time to react at all!
Not even to think!
That lightning had already refracted up the final glass curtain wall, defying physics, appearing like teleportation before the two confronting on the rooftop!
Then.
Superman only felt a weight sink into his arms.
A warm, familiar body had been gently placed into his embrace—his mother, Martha Kent! The woman looked somewhat panicked.
But seemed unharmed.
“The Flash?!”
Immediately after.
Before Clark and Luthor could recover from this lightning-fast change, that gray-white lightning, after handing Martha to Superman, completed a turn in a thousandth of a second!
When it stopped.
Superman only saw a figure directly smashing through the building, crashing layer by layer through all the floors below, appearing in the underground blocked from his view by walls.
On the rooftop.
Only the patter of rain on the ground, Luthor’s “heh heh” from his throat, and the heart-chilling buzz of gray-white arcs left by the “God of Speed” on the ground remained.
“That is…”
When the mysterious figure finally stopped, Superman’s suddenly dilated pupils saw the three-headed, six-armed monster had stopped before another monster!
“Doomsday, heh heh…”
The three-headed, six-armed monster seemed to be staring at another sleeping Joker Bat.
Superman felt like he saw drool.
He wasn’t sure.
“Damn it!!! Who is he!!”
Luthor finally, when Ian stopped, had a chance to react.
