Luthor cried out in pain as Max's Chidori severed his left arm.
"No!" Superman shouted, rushing forward.
Max flung Luthor toward him. Clark caught him, grimacing as blood dripped from the cauterized stump. The wound was sealed, but the black rod buried deep in his shoulder remained. When Clark looked back, Max was gone.
Mercy stirred as the seal broke, groaning weakly. Seeing she was fine, Clark shot out the window with Luthor in his arms, heading straight for the hospital. He had a gut feeling Max wasn't finished.
A short distance from LexCorp, Max stood atop a building. Forming a hand sign, he summoned a clone in a puff of smoke.
"Leave nothing alive," he muttered.
The clone nodded and leapt away toward Rose Island.
Max had spared Luthor for two reasons. First, despite being a menace, Luthor had proven useful whenever the entire world was threatened. Second, killing him here would have triggered a fight with Superman—one Max might have been forced to end permanently if escape became difficult.
But Amanda Waller is a different matter entirely. She had been directly involved in his cloning,. And for that, she would die.
Summoning his bird, Max leapt from the rooftop and soared toward the direction of Belle Reve.
At Metropolis General, Superman landed hard at the emergency entrance, cradling the unconscious Luthor. The automatic doors slid open and doctors rushed toward him the moment they saw the mangled state Lex was in.
"He needs immediate surgery," Clark said quickly, urgency sharp in his voice. "Left arm severed, shoulder impaled—stabilize him now!"
"Understood, Superman. Leave it to us," one of the nurses replied as they wheeled Luthor away, already barking orders to prep the operating room.
Clark stood there for a moment, watching as Luthor disappeared down the hallway. Seeing his greatest rival in that broken, helpless state hit him harder than he'd expected. They were enemies, yes, but never—not once—had he wished something like that upon him.
Still, the question gnawed at him. What atrocity had Lex committed to drive Max to this point? From what Clark had seen in Max's eyes, the boy wasn't just fighting—he was furious.
Clark pressed the communicator in his ear.
"Superman to all Leaguers," he said grimly. "It's Max. He has attacked Luthor. Nearly killed him. From the looks of it, Lex either did something—or played a role in something—that has pissed him off."
There was silence for a heartbeat before he added, "Alright. Meet you there."
Without waiting, he shot back into the sky, a red-and-blue streak tearing away from the hospital.
Batman lowered his hand from his ear, processing Superman's message. He already knew why Max had gone after Luthor.
Two years ago, he had uncovered what was happening on Rose Island. He had gone there himself, shut down their operations, and warned Waller. He told no one else—not even the League. If Max ever found out ,his reaction would be violent.But it seemed Waller hadn't listened.
In the past three years, Max had killed no more than sixty-seven people—rapists, mass murderers. Batman overlooked it. Fear of the "Ghost from Hell" had cut crime rates in half. No one could prove it was Max. His stealth was exceptional. Victims were found without injuries, their souls seemingly ripped away. After reviewing the Darkseid footage, Batman had concluded Max was responsible.
But things were escalating. Max was no longer targeting criminals—he was striking at influential figures which is a problem. Luthor had supplied Waller with Max's DNA. That was reason enough for the attack. Which meant Waller would be next.
Batman exhaled slowly. If they tried to bring Max in, he would resist. And given his power, millions of lives could be lost in the crossfire. He still hadn't found a reliable countermeasure. Max was too well-rounded. His only weaknesses were the obvious ones—he was alive, and most of his abilities were tied to magic.Other than that there's nothing else.
Max's clone darted across the ocean's surface, his body cloaked in crackling lightning chakra. A thunderous sonic boom trailed behind him as he closed in on Rose Island.
The moment he reached striking distance, heavy turrets erupted from beneath the ground, spitting bullets and missiles in his direction. Max leapt skyward, cheeks puffing before releasing a massive fireball that streaked down like a meteor. It slammed into the defenses, detonating in a thunderous explosion that left most of the turrets reduced to molten wreckage.
He landed on scorched earth, his left hand sparking with lightning that stretched into a long blade. With a swift spin, the clone sliced through the remaining turrets, dismantling them in a single strike.
The lightning cloak flickered out. In its place, a ribcage-shaped Susanoo erupted around him, spectral arms tearing into the ground. With a guttural rip, it wrenched free a buried metal slab, tossing it aside to reveal an underground entrance.
Max stepped inside, the corridor lit with crimson warning lights as evacuation sirens blared. Scientists scurried like panicked insects, their eyes widening in horror before they turned and fled.
His right hand surged with power—lightning condensing into a Chidori Sharp Spear. He swung, the crackling blade carving through steel walls with ease. Silence followed, broken only by the shrill alarms… until heavy footsteps echoed ahead.
A squad of soldiers marched into view, rifles raised in tight formation. They opened fire instantly, the hail of bullets rattling down the hall. Max clapped his hands together, summoning a wooden wall that rose to shield him from the storm of lead.
The ground trembled as he formed another set of seals. Massive vines burst forth, snaking through the hallway. Soldiers scrambled in panic, but the living wood caught them, constricting and crushing until the screams faded beneath the blaring alarms.
The clone raced down the hallway, lightning sparking off his body, when—BOOM!
A deafening explosion tore through the facility, flames swallowing him whole.
Deeper inside, Dr. Benjamin whipped his head around, the walls trembling from the blast. He cursed under his breath as he slapped his palm against the biometric scanner. The heavy doors hissed open, and he rushed in with two soldiers at his back.
On the metal bed lay a small girl, strapped down by clamps and fitted with a bulky headpiece humming as it transmitted information to her head.
Benjamin's lips twisted, half in pride, half in desperation. My greatest achievement… I won't abandon her I have worked too hard for to create her. His hands trembled as he typed furiously at the console. With a hiss, the restraints snapped open and the helmet disengaged.
"Get her," Benjamin ordered.
One soldier holstered his rifle and reached down, but before he could lift her, the girl sprang to life. Thena launched herself at him, fists pounding his face with wild fury. The other soldier brought the butt of his gun down on her skull—CRACK!—and she collapsed, dazed.
"Careful, damn you!" Benjamin snarled, his voice breaking with panic. "She is priceless—more valuable than all of us combined! Hurt her, and you doom years of research!"
Thena's eyes snapped open, blazing with will. She raised her hand, and with a low rumble the ground split. Vines as thick as tree trunks erupted, coiling around the guards and Dr. Benjamin. They struggled uselessly as the foliage bound them tighter.
She had waited for this opportunity. Every escape attempt before had ended with sedation, her mind forced back into darkness. But the knowledge they'd pumped into her only sharpened her hunger to see the world outside these steel walls. Now, at last she would finally see the world.
Without hesitation, she bolted barefoot down the corridor. Her hair whipped behind her as she passed door after door, each chamber worse than the last—rows of grotesque, malformed human experiments floating in glass tubes, their pale, twisted bodies suspended in milky fluid.
She forced herself not to look or to think. Just run.
But then she turned a corner.
A guard stumbled toward her, one arm severed, blood spraying with each step. His eyes were wide with terror, mouth opening in a wet gurgle.
Thena froze. She had never seen so much blood.
Then, in an instant, a lightning blade burst through his chest. The soldier convulsed, choking on his own screams, before collapsing in a pool of crimson.
Out of the haze of smoke and fire stepped Max's clone, his clothes scorched, his lone Sharingan burning. His killing intent poured down the hallway like a suffocating fog.
Thena locked eyes with him—
—and the world shattered.
Visions crashed into her mind: herself dying, again and again, torn apart, burned alive, strangled, crushed. Each death more gruesome than the last. She screamed, clutching her head, as the ground itself began to quake.
And then—
BOOOOM!
From outside, the entire island erupted as colossal vines burst skyward, writhing like titanic serpents and tearing through steel and stone.
End of Chapter