Chapter 259: Ian’s Obsession! Inverted Tiangang!
Reverse-Flash instinctively wanted to flee.
That Time Wraith wearing Reverse-Flash’s battle suit lifted its head, with scarlet flames burning in its hollow eye sockets, locking dead onto the Reverse-Flash in front of it.
Then, it let out a silent roar, carrying an obsession to destroy everything, transforming into a black lightning bolt and lunging forward fiercely!
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh!”
Reverse-Flash’s stress response was also very quick.
He immediately started running.
He had no intention of fighting his own wraith.
The scarlet lightning raced over scorched earth and ruins with a terrified will, trying to shake off the Time Wraith. Reverse-Flash, this speedster from the future, was now being chased by the nightmare he feared most in his life.
It was himself.
The Time Wraith in the damaged Reverse-Flash battle suit clung to him like a maggot in the bone, carrying overwhelming resentment and deathly silence, pursuing relentlessly at a faintly faster speed.
Reverse-Flash tried sharp turns, using terrain, even creating afterimages to confuse it, but the Time Wraith seemed to see through all his intentions.
The opponent always closed in via the most direct, most lethal path.
“Damn it! He is me! Of course he knows my thought patterns best!” Reverse-Flash’s fear kept rising in his heart. He tried to tear open the time barrier to escape to another era.
This was the ultimate means for a speedster facing an unbeatable danger.
However.
Facts destined he would not succeed.
The surrounding time flow seemed solidified by some invisible force. The Speed Force became viscous and resistant. He was like a fly trapped in amber, unable to budge it at all.
Every impact against the time barrier only brought more intense backlash and soul-level agony.
“No!!!! What’s happening?!” Reverse-Flash was utterly horrified in his heart. He had never encountered this situation. Time had seemingly closed all doors to him.
He even activated the hidden tech-assisted boosters in his battle suit from the future, bursting out with speed beyond his limits, but still couldn’t widen the distance from the Time Wraith. That black lightning filled with the aura of death, like the shadow of fate, was steadily devouring his escape space.
‘This won’t do! Being caught is just a matter of time!’ Reverse-Flash’s brain raced frantically, seeking any chance of survival. Suddenly, he thought of The Flash Barry Allen. That young speedster he saw as a key and also an arch-nemesis. If the two teamed up, perhaps…
But immediately, he recalled his earlier act of unhesitatingly kicking and breaking Barry’s leg bone. Regret surged in his heart. If only he hadn’t broken The Flash’s leg earlier.
Speedsters always seemed to be tormented to near death by things they couldn’t regret in time. Reverse-Flash now felt what The Flash had felt when he couldn’t save his mother in time.
However, he quickly calculated the time. With a speedster’s cellular activity, plus the mysterious Speed Force enhancement today, that level of fracture for The Flash should be mostly healed under the Speed Force’s nourishment by now, at least not affecting basic running and fighting.
“I must get him to help me!”
Survival instinct overrode everything. Reverse-Flash no longer hesitated. The scarlet lightning sharply changed direction, no longer trying to flee, but charging toward Star Labs at maximum speed!
“Whoosh—!”
In the laboratory’s control room, Barry had just removed the temporary fixation splint with Caitlin’s help and was testing his right leg, which was still a bit numb but otherwise fine.
Cisco was debugging equipment.
Trying to track Reverse-Flash and the energy signals from the nuclear explosion area. And Dr. Wells sat in the wheelchair, with a “grave” expression analyzing the data.
At that moment, the scarlet lightning burst in again! This time, Reverse-Flash’s target was crystal clear. He lunged straight at Dr. Wells in the wheelchair!
“Doctor!” Cisco and Caitlin exclaimed.
But Reverse-Flash’s speed was too fast.
He grabbed Dr. Wells by the neck, lifting him from the wheelchair. The scarlet mask turned toward Barry, who had just stood up, voice transmitting through the mask with an undeniable threat: “The Flash! If you don’t want your dear doctor’s neck snapped, do as I say! There’s a tricky ‘thing’ outside that followed me. Help me take it down!”
This was using his own time remnant to threaten The Flash. Barry watched Dr. Wells struggling in Reverse-Flash’s grasp, with a “painful” expression on his face.
He was indeed furious.
“Reverse-Flash! Let go of the doctor!”
It was hard to imagine.
Reverse-Flash had indeed built a strong image in The Flash’s mind.
Barry definitely had some father-substitute feelings toward the unexposed Dr. Wells, due to losing his own father.
“Do as I say!”
Reverse-Flash’s roaring threat was urgent in tone.
At that moment.
“Bang bang bang!”
The laboratory’s reinforced glass outer wall shattered like paper! A bolt of pure black lightning, emanating inauspicious and deathly silence, followed right after.
It stopped just outside the breach!
It was that Time Wraith!
The future Reverse-Flash did not attack immediately. On its distorted, blurry face, those eye sockets burning with scarlet flames of hatred first swept over the held “Wells,” then landed on the alert Barry, and finally locked dead onto Reverse-Flash himself.
Chillingly, it actually spoke, voice hoarse and broken, like countless glass fragments grinding, yet carrying a eerie calm that seemed to see through everything.
“Running… is meaningless now, past me.”
This voice, this tone… though distorted, both Reverse-Flash and Barry could clearly recognize it as essentially belonging to Reverse-Flash’s voice!
The Time Wraith in front of them… had intelligence! It could communicate?!
This completely exceeded Reverse-Flash’s knowledge and upended Barry’s understanding of Time Wraiths. Weren’t they supposed to be time remnants abandoned by the Speed Force, left only with devouring instinct?
“What are you talking about?”
The Flash hadn’t expected the trouble Reverse-Flash mentioned to be Reverse-Flash’s own Time Wraith from the future. Seeing Reverse-Flash in the Time Wraith’s state actually made him feel quite pleased inside.
“Haven’t you felt it yet? So slow. All speedsters… the moment we use the Speed Force.” The Time Wraith continued in that broken voice.
Every word carried a curse, “actually also means… from the moment we start running… we have already become ‘his’ slaves.”
Slaves?!
The word exploded like thunder in Reverse-Flash and Barry’s minds!
“Who is that ‘he’ you mentioned?!” Reverse-Flash roared in horror and shock, his grip on “Wells” unconsciously loosening a bit.
He couldn’t imagine what existence could treat speedsters, especially a future speedster like him, as slaves! Even Savitar was just a false God of Speed!
“No, not Savitar.” The Time Wraith’s burning gaze pierced the mask, as if with endless mockery and pity, solemnly uttering that name.
“It’s Ian Kent. Only now, in this state, do I realize that boy is actually a member of the Infinity Family.”
The future Reverse-Flash had indeed understood many things he hadn’t before.
Ian Kent!?
He might not have heard the surname before, but wasn’t Ian the name they were investigating? The Flash was stunned upon hearing it.
He instinctively looked toward Reverse-Flash.
Reverse-Flash’s reaction was just as shocked as his own.
At this moment, Reverse-Flash and The Flash finally understood who was behind that repeatedly appearing, chaos-causing name. But if the Time Wraith was telling the truth, they would rather never have known this truth! An existence that could turn speedsters into slaves?
This was more terrifying than any arch-nemesis or any universe crisis!
“The sudden speed we gained… it’s related to that person, right?!” Reverse-Flash instantly connected it to today’s abnormal speed boost for himself and Barry, hurriedly seeking confirmation from his future self. Of course, this was also to buy time and think of a counter-strategy.
“Yes, that’s right. He is the master of the Speed Force.” The Time Wraith nodded slowly, the motion stiff and eerie: “So, all speedsters are his slaves.”
“The sudden speed you gained is his so-called ‘mercy.’ While enslaving speedsters… there are also gifts.” Reverse-Flash knew Ian’s mindset and logic well.
“Gifts?”
Reverse-Flash’s voice was filled with incredulous fury.
“What kind of gift is this?!”
Power growth accompanied by inescapable enslavement.
It was simply a demon’s contract!
He would rather not have it!
Barry’s focus was elsewhere. He recalled the blurry footage from tracking the nuclear explosion signal and realized that speedster might be the so-called Ian.
“That three-headed, six-armed guy fighting Superman?” Facing Reverse-Flash turned Time Wraith from the future, The Flash had no intention of helping Reverse-Flash.
He just wanted to clarify the information and understand what warning his future self was conveying.
“Hm? That guy is named Kent?” Reverse-Flash was shocked upon hearing it. As someone from the future, he naturally knew Superman Clark Kent’s identity.
Realizing belatedly that Ian’s surname matched Superman’s was no coincidence, Reverse-Flash’s expression was indescribably colorful and incredulous.
The guy battling Superman was actually Superman’s son from the future!? At this moment, even the experienced, scheming Reverse-Flash felt the plot development was too absurd and bizarre, completely beyond his comprehension—a family drama mixed with universe-level power collapse and Speed Force enslavement contract.
What the hell kind of timeline was this!
……
As the atmosphere in Star Labs solidified due to the Time Wraith’s words. In the distance, over that nuclear explosion area not yet fully settled, with heavy rain still pouring.
Paradox Lady, the mysterious existence holding a black umbrella and wearing Lolita dress, disinterestedly withdrew her gaze from Star Labs.
She didn’t care about Reverse-Flash. The story playing out there, that drama of enslavement and escape, was merely an insignificant interlude in her grand symphony.
“Good evening.”
Paradox Lady slightly raised her head, her gaze piercing layers of rain and lingering radioactive dust, landing on the top of a skyscraper not completely destroyed by the explosion.
There, no one was present—at least in mortal vision. But in Paradox Lady’s eyes, another existence stood there.
A woman shrouded in black veil, emanating the aura of all things’ end and eternal slumber—Miss Death.
She hadn’t just arrived; that wasn’t accurate, because death was an omnipresent concept, so Miss Death had merely manifested a projection of her consciousness here.
She was also quietly watching. Two women beyond mortal comprehension faced each other silently across the chaotic battlefield in the rain. No words, no energy fluctuations, but some tacit understanding or game concerning cosmic balance and fate trajectories was silently unfolding at their gaze intersection.
And at the focal point of their gazes was the center of that earth-shattering battle.
Superman Clark Kent, this young deity, had pushed his power to the limit. Heat vision swept the sky like crimson floods, freeze breath instantly condensing vast ice crystal domains, every punch enough to shake mountains, speed as fast as lightning.
However, strong as Superman was, his opponent, the three-headed, six-armed Ian, had abilities so bizarre they were beyond what Superman could now imagine.
The gray-white Speed Force arcs not only granted absolute speed surpassing his, but formed a strange “domain.” Most of Superman’s attacks landed on it like mud oxen into the sea, twisted, deflected, or even absorbed by some rule-level force. The opponent’s teleportation and self-explosions left Superman with nowhere to dodge.
“Ultraman Bomb!”
Ian self-detonated again.
Blasting Superman covered in grime.
The massive mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion had long been dispersed and torn apart by their violent energy clashes and speed impacts, leaving only lingering smoke and still-scorching air.
“Cough cough cough~”
Superman had lost count of how many times he’d been repelled by the opponent’s incomprehensible speed and abilities. He wasn’t afraid of explosions, but he feared the so-called protein fart left in them.
That stench amplified by super senses.
It was pure torment.
“What the hell are you?!” Superman demanded. The opponent’s fighting style was chaotic yet precisely targeted every one of his weaknesses.
As if knowing him inside out.
This made Superman sense something was off.
“I am the God of Speed! Master of time! Focus of all things! Call me Your Majesty Deity!” Ian’s response was grandiose, but the information still made no sense.
“You’re no god! In this world! No one can call themselves a god!” The young Superman was hot-tempered. His eyes scarlet, he charged at Ian again.
Clashing.
Skirmishing.
All of Ian’s moves were for that ultimate goal—grabbing Superman by the scruff of fate. He craved completing a Heaven-Upheaval revenge too much!
Fueled by this intense thirst for revenge, finally, in an all-out exchange, Superman’s momentary power gap was exploited by Ian!
“Hahahaha!”
An arm covered in gray-white lightning armor, as if breaking time’s bonds, gripped Superman’s nape with speed he couldn’t react to, precise and firm!
“How is it so fast! What do you want!!” Superman paled in shock, gathering all his power instantly, bracing for the fatal follow-up—many thoughts flashed in his mind.
So fixated on his neck—was it to snap it? Or some energy to erode through the neck and control his brain?
He’d seen this monster’s irrationality; the worst scenarios flashed in his mind instantly. Yet, the expected agony, destruction, or enslavement didn’t come.
“Click~”
Superman’s brain blanked for an instant.
He wasn’t injured.
Mainly, it was hard to comprehend what was happening—under Superman’s dazed gaze, that “monster” gripping his nape… one of its other arms actually… pulled out a very stylish smartphone, utterly out of place on this apocalyptic battlefield?!
“Click~”
Front camera already on.
A crisp shutter sound.
Amid the battlefield ruins’ background noise.
Utterly jarring.
Extremely absurd.
