Chapter 200: Run, Ba... Du Wa?
Author: Great Demon Spirit
Chapter 200: Run, Ba… Du Wa?
The Flash, carrying the hopes of an entire universe, began to run.
He was bathed in the blue Speed Force, his speed increasing, his figure gradually disappearing, and he even slowly broke away from the original history.
"Batman... I hope I haven't made the wrong choice."
Barry thought to himself. Even though he was quite resistant to this cheating method of creating a new timeline to overwrite the old one, he could only keep running, searching for the opportunity to reverse time.
Batman also quietly watched the departing Barry.
"You've done your best, Young Master Wayne. If you think about it, this method is reliable. We just need to change history, correct the history where Du Wa and his group appeared. Maybe my past self won't have to do anything, and Du Wa and the others won't appear... They would have never invaded our universe from the very beginning." Alfred felt he should say something to encourage Batman to reignite his fighting spirit.
But he didn't need to do this, because Batman never loses his fighting spirit.
"Wrong, that's not how it works. Since parallel universes exist, and since heroes like Barry who can rewrite timelines exist, there must also be domains and individuals that can resist changes in time. Perhaps at the very moment the universe's time is reversed, Du Wa will be outside the universe, unaffected by time. So no matter what we do, we can't change the history of them attacking our universe. It is an established fact that will inevitably happen."
Batman only hoped to find a possible breakthrough by rebooting time countless times.
What he didn't know, however, was that this was doomed to be impossible. The upper limit of the universe determined that this world did not possess the power to truly defeat Du Wa. Even the gods within the universe could at most confront Du Wa, but they couldn't expel him.
And what Batman could never have anticipated was that his dangerous act of compelling the Flash to travel through time, attempting to rewrite history, had already entered a truly perilous domain.
In a grander, multiversal dimension.
Countless gazes crossed endless worlds, looking down upon the Flash who had been the first to start running.
"A Flash has already started running? That's a bit fast."
"It has basically no impact. The flow of time in each universe isn't the same, let alone in such a remote world."
"Well then, the Flashes of other universes can also start to move. We just have to wait for enough Flashes to start running, creating one Flashpoint after another..."
The ancient gods, who stood upon the multiversal stage, watched the even more distant and vast changes.
There, a new world was poised for action. The native gods within that world were also looking over from afar at this moment, already prepared—to push the world they ruled, the Vertigo Universe, to completely join the world of the DC Multiverse.
"Looks like those guys over there are very enthusiastic. This is beneficial for us."
In the Vertigo Universe, the members of The Endless gathered together. The third eldest, Dream, spoke, then looked at his closest sister, the second eldest, Death: "Once we succeed, you and our eldest brother will be able to use that more magnificent world to become even more powerful deities than those guys!"
"Hehehe, a multiverse without a complete Death is so rare... If it weren't for that wall sealing the multiverse, it would be even better."
An instinctual craving to possess everything surged in Desire's eyes. They stared at this vast world, anticipating what level they would reach after integrating countless desires: "But without that thing, they wouldn't be so eager for us to join."
The eldest, Destiny, had been silent all along, looking down at his book of fate like a quiet scholar. When he raised his head, the other family members all looked over.
"A small, interesting twist has occurred. The Flashpoint event in one universe has started a little bit early because a certain fellow, who is also a foreign concept, accelerated its evolution. However, it has no effect on us. They are the ones who are more anxious." Destiny closed the book in his hand.
Destiny never conveys useless information. Everything that has happened and has yet to happen is a part of Destiny.
Dream silently watched the multiverse that seemed so close in the distance, committing Destiny's words to heart, thinking about exploring the dream realms of all life in that world once he became the Dream of the multiverse.
Following the lead of the DCEU Universe, the Flashes in a greater number of universes began to run one after another.
Arrowverse Universe.
"Run, Barry, run! You can save your mother!"
The Flash muttered, his voice a low cry.
Animated Universe.
The Flash here also began to run, wanting to see the world he hoped for with his own eyes.
And the Flashes of even more universes successively made the same move.
With so many Flashes acting at the same time, creating a continuous stream of Flashpoints, causing one cluster of universes after another to tremble, the old history became blurred, and the newly born time could not be confirmed. This caused reality and dimensions to become confused.
An unprecedented great fusion of universes began. A group of outsiders, concept gods destined to surpass the vast majority of deities, were already stirring restlessly.
In the DCEU Universe, Du Wa also sensed the change in time at the first possible moment.
Although he was not a God of Time, as a single universe god, he could perform the most basic perception of the various frameworks of the universe.
His gaze immediately fell upon the Flash. He knew that the famous Flashpoint event had begun.
"This is a carnival for the foreign gods. I am also a foreign god. Although this major event is destined not to be my home turf, I will not be absent."
Without hesitation, Du Wa locked onto the Flash, extending his will to him.
The Flash was completely unaware of this. He concentrated all his attention, running in circle after circle, recalling the feeling of that brief time travel from before.
Gradually, he found it. The moment he closed his eyes, countless images flashed through his mind—no, those were not just memory fragments in his mind, but real historical fragments that existed in the time stream scattered all around him!
The Flash's eyes snapped open as he stared in shock at the surrounding scene. At this moment, it was as if he were running backward, surpassing time itself, causing his entire being to flow in reverse.
If he wished, he could enter any time node at any moment.
"Not this one, not this one either, it has to be earlier... Found it!"
The Flash quickly searched for his target, but just as he was about to leave time, he sensed that something was wrong. Even with the super self-healing ability granted to him by the Speed Force, he still felt a physical discomfort.
It seemed... something extra had appeared...
"I've been parasitized?" This thought flashed through the Flash's mind, and he felt a bone-deep chill. When did this happen?
"From the moment you were still on the normal timeline."
Du Wa's voice resounded in the Flash's head, nearly scaring the young hero to death. "You trust Bruce too much. It was clearly your first time meeting, yet you're too quick to trust others. Many of his judgments about me are wrong."
"So you really were waiting for me to travel through time? Batman was right!"
The Flash wanted to break away from the timeline and run back, but unfortunately, it was already too late.
"You have no path back. Enter the time node you have chosen and do what you must do."
"And make it convenient for you to achieve your goal? Listen, I don't know what goal you, this demon, want to achieve, but I won't let you succeed!"
"I said, you have no choice. Even if you have the Speed Force to protect you, it's a pity that the Speed Force is not a toy you can manipulate at will. It won't listen to you, at least not to the *you* from this universe."
Du Wa was stealing the Flash's body and had also indirectly come into contact with the power of the Speed Force, but he wasn't very interested in the Speed Force itself, only treating it as a tool to achieve his goal.
A slight interference caused the Flash to rapidly detach from the time stream, and the surrounding images quickly disappeared. He tumbled awkwardly to the ground.
"That is..."
Du Wa suddenly glanced in a certain direction. In the shattered time, an image flashed past.
It was a golden wall composed of countless giants.
The Origin Wall? What a troublesome thing. It's best to stay far away.
Du Wa frowned.
This thing was too bizarre. As the shackles that sealed Perpetua, it contained countless mysteries. It was knowledge, it was power, and it naturally attracted countless gods from every era to explore it one after another, but none of them ever returned.
All of them got stuck to the wall, captured by a terrifying suction force, becoming a part of the Origin Wall. All the power they possessed was continuously extracted by the Origin Wall, transformed into energy to seal Perpetua.
The entire multiverse was completely surrounded by the Origin Wall, a massive cage.
The edges of certain individual universes could also see and come into contact with the Origin Wall.
It was no exaggeration to say that if Du Wa got close to the Origin Wall, even though he was a concept god, he wouldn't be able to escape. He himself, along with all his concepts, would be captured by the Origin Wall.
But the fact that the Origin Wall could be observed by Du Wa through a crack in time was a problem in itself. This meant that the collision and fusion of worlds had begun, shaking the Origin Wall.
"...Where on earth do you want me to go?"
The Flash rubbed his head, looking at his surroundings in despair. His gaze was bleak. No matter where he went, it was all meaningless.
"Where you go specifically isn't important, Flash. The moment you started running, you had already successfully completed your mission."
"My mission is to send you to the past?"
"Not that. If I wanted to go to the past, I have plenty of methods; I can do it myself. Only you—you must personally complete a run that changes history."
Du Wa lifted the Flash's finger, pointing toward the location of the Origin Wall. "Look, a group of gods has made their move."
Universes emitting different hues of light all began to tremble violently. Some universes even drew closer to each other, showing a tendency to collide.
But that wasn't the problem. The biggest problem was that the Flash saw the same scene from even more cracks in time: a significantly more massive universe appeared in his vision, as if from nothing, growing bit by bit and tyrannically colliding with other universes.
"A great universal collision! Is it because I changed time, causing even more chaos in the timelines? It's even affecting parallel universes!"
The Flash was terrified; he wanted to stop running.
"It's too late. You are honored to witness this inevitably unprecedented scene because of me. This is the result of your—no, to be precise, the result of the joint efforts of countless yous." Du Wa praised, watching this scene in amazement.
His perspective was far broader than the Flash's. He personally witnessed a series of conceptual entities begin to expand madly after entering the DC Multiverse, reaching a level he was completely unable to assess.
The vast Vertigo Universe itself had largely dissolved. As an independent dimensional world, it had become the headquarters of The Endless.
The scale of the DC Multiverse underwent a valuable expansion.
This was an unprecedented feast. Except for a very few individuals who stood high above and had the ability to disregard this change, the vast majority of other gods had to adapt to the new era.
"Hmph, these outsiders are too disgusting. No outsider has ever been so brazen! They've even reached a level they couldn't have reached originally."
"Beelzebub, saying that only makes you look uglier. If you're really so capable, you should go pick a fight with The Endless."
"Trigon hasn't moved, so I have no reason to move. I have to give Trigon some face."
In Hell, a group of infamous demons gathered together, full of malice.
Just like the Marvel Multiverse, DC's Hell is also located outside the multiverse, in a higher-dimensional space-time—the Sphere of Gods. Here, there are higher-level worlds like Apokolips, New Genesis, Heaven, Hell, Heaven, the Endless Corridor, etc. It is also the region where beings of a multiversal standing reside long-term.
The high-level gods of DC all keep their main bodies in the Sphere of Gods, at most dispatching avatars to move about within the multiverse.
The demons were still talking about The Endless, but soon, this bunch of guys' eyes widened in disbelief as they watched the rapidly dissolving Vertigo Universe. After being assimilated and transformed by DC's rules and successfully integrating into the DC Multiverse, it then rapidly detached from the multiverse and plunged headfirst into the Sphere of Gods.
If that were all, it would be one thing, but this Vertigo Universe was charging straight for... Hell!
"Fuck! It's coming for us?"
"Trigon, say something!"
"..."
All of Hell was thrown into a state of chaos.
A group of demons all stared at the strongest great demon, Trigon. But facing the menacingly approaching Vertigo Universe and sensing the numerous, still madly expanding conceptual entities within it, Trigon chickened out.
If he stood out now, he would be beaten to death. The guys on the other side were at least of multiversal standing, and among them were high-level concepts like Destiny and Death. Even if they hadn't grown to their peak, they weren't beings he was willing to provoke.
Trigon then wanted to see what Hell's true top dog—Lucifer—thought of The Endless.
No one knew just how strong Lucifer was, only that this 'birdman' had never lost and constantly drove the demons of Hell to attack Heaven.
(end of chapter)