New York is an eighteen-hour drive from Kansas, and that number would be even higher if you added the time it takes to reach a specific farm after entering the state.
Benjamin, who planned this trip as a father-son bonding experience, wasn't in a hurry. Instead, he took four days, enjoying the scenery along the way as they headed to their destination.
During this time, Clark finished reading the Superman comics Benjamin had given him. The more he read, the more Clark questioned if he was truly a Kryptonian. But weren't these just fictional comic stories? How could they be real?
Despite his doubts, the beautiful scenery and Benjamin's company gradually calmed Clark. Though the guilt in his heart remained, the warmth of their journey together slowly eased his anxiety.
Until... they ran head-on into a tornado.
Yes! A head-on collision.
The tornado appeared too suddenly. Even with Benjamin's preparedness and his attention to US disaster warnings, he couldn't escape the twister that suddenly formed nearby.
Logically, a tornado's path should follow natural laws, but this one's trajectory seemed particularly unusual.
Ben tried to escape many times, changing direction repeatedly, but this tornado seemed to have a mind of its own. It kept chasing their car as if it had targeted them and wouldn't stop until they were gone.
At the same time, the tornado moved at an abnormally fast speed. Benjamin pressed the accelerator to the floor, but he still couldn't outrun the disaster.
After struggling for nearly half an hour, their car stopped.
The tornado was close enough that its strong winds halted the car's movement. The tires spun, grinding against the road and producing thick black smoke, but the car couldn't move forward even a single meter.
"Clark!"
"Father!"
Both of them were extremely anxious. Faced with such a terrifying natural disaster, they had never considered confronting it directly. Even though Clark knew he was powerful, he never imagined he could stand against a monstrous tornado.
Suddenly, a large tree flew through the air and slammed heavily into the driver's door. The vehicle instantly deformed. When the door was ripped open, Ben fell unconscious from the severe impact.
With his foot off the accelerator, the car lost its last bit of resistance and was uncontrollably dragged towards the tornado's center. At that moment, their lives hung by a thread.
"No!"
Bang!
Clark let out a loud, childish scream, and with a powerful bang, he kicked open the car door and burst out. His feet slammed directly into the ground with immense force, his calves almost completely submerged in the concrete.
He gripped the car, which was being pulled by the violent winds, with both hands, using his own strength to fight against the power of nature.
Looking at Benjamin, unconscious in the driver's seat, Clark's eyes turned red, and a beam of heat shot out, directly cutting off the back half of the car. This reduced its weight and lightened some of his burden.
The severed rear half of the car was swept thousands of meters high by the tornado in the blink of an eye.
Because the tornado possessed such terrifying, life-ending power, Clark exerted even greater strength.
He wouldn't allow anyone to take his family from him, not even nature itself!
At that critical moment, Clark's strength was further stimulated, and the half-car he held slowly began to descend to the ground.
At this point, Clark felt that this tornado was specifically aimed at him.
Even though it was a natural disaster, Clark could still sense it was targeting him.
The tornado, or rather, nature itself, this world, wanted to eliminate him.
There was no proof, but Clark just had that feeling.
In this situation, staying with his father would only put him in harm's way.
After realizing this, Clark tensed his muscles. Though only an eight-year-old boy, he was as strong as a grown man. He swung the entire car and hurled it in the opposite direction of the tornado.
He controlled the force and angle well; the thrown car would slide hundreds of meters on the ground before stopping. Although it might be a bumpy ride, his father in the driver's seat would definitely not be injured.
By this time, the tornado was behind Clark. Once he relaxed his grip, he couldn't resist the enormous pull and was sucked into the air.
"Where is this?"
When Clark opened his eyes again, he saw endless space.
Indeed, this tornado was abnormal. How could a normal tornado carry people into space?
But at the same time, Clark suddenly realized that he didn't seem to need to breathe. He had been accustomed to breathing for eight years, but it turned out to be a meaningless act.
"Can I still go back... to @#￥?"
Clark's body suddenly flickered like a distorted TV screen, as if a computer virus was being attacked by security software, his entire body twisting and jumping.
"What's happening here!"
Clark had no idea what was going on, and he couldn't understand it at all. He had a super brain but lived the life of an ordinary eight-year-old child. Knowledge he had never received couldn't just appear in his mind, so he couldn't make sense of the situation.
However, after this strange occurrence, Clark's body seemed to be pulled by a special force and began to fall back to Earth.
Hot!
This was Clark's only sensation. The extreme heat from breaking through the atmosphere made him feel as if he were about to melt. He continued to fall until he broke through the clouds and saw a large farm and cliffs nearby.
"I'm going to... fall off a cliff!!"
Clark instinctively wanted to stop this from happening, but his body was held by an unknown force, and he couldn't move at all. He could only fall straight towards the cliff.
At the deepest part of the cliff, a hexagonal space tunnel had opened at some point. As Clark fell into it, the hexagonal space-time tunnel closed.
A series of events unfolded like carefully laid traps, ultimately sending Clark away from that world.
When Clark opened his eyes again, he found himself back in a bustling metropolis.