Chapter 204: I Suspect the Wrath of God Can Phase Through Walls
"Thanoseid only becomes this proactive when facing Darkseid."
Du Wa casually glanced at the entire battle process, unsurprised by the outcome.
Darkseid's clones naturally varied in strength. The powerful ones could obtain the Anti-Life Equation and trade blows with the Anti-Monitor, while the weaker ones gave pathetic, eye-watering performances on various battlefields, practically becoming super soldiers.
The DCEU's Darkseid was by no means a top-tier clone; at best, he was merely adequate.
But Thanoseid was different. This fellow was the product of absorbing and fusing two individuals from separate multiverses, and he had also received Du Wa's power.
To put it bluntly, even if Thanoseid was a complete waste and truly fell at Darkseid's hands, Du Wa could intervene in an instant, directly empowering Thanoseid with immense strength.
However, the one most impacted by this outcome was the not-quite-dead Steppenwolf.
He hadn't been beaten to death by Superman and the group of Xenomorph heroes. Instead, a blast from Thanoseid's Omega Beams had pierced his chest. He was still clinging to life, lying on the ground and struggling in agony. He couldn't even bother with his wounds, staring at Thanoseid in disbelief.
"Darkseid is dead? The master of Apokolips, how could he die so easily?! And at the hands of another Darkseid!" Steppenwolf's mind was buzzing.
He knew he was just a clone, a mere consumable to his main body. But he was still a deity in this universe who had been exiled by Darkseid for many years, forced to wander the cosmos.
The Darkseid he was powerless to resist, the one he held in both dread and awe, had been eaten in such a manner? Without even leaving behind the most basic fragments of his godhood?
"Darkseid…"
"Shut up. I am Thanoseid, completely different from the Darkseid you know!"
Thanoseid walked over with his hands behind his back, standing before Steppenwolf like a mountain.
He looked exactly like Darkseid.
"You possess the same godhood as Darkseid, and you were able to kill and absorb him. To me, you are the master of Apokolips!" Steppenwolf prostrated himself before Thanoseid, expressing his submission.
He didn't know what kind of trick the "Darkseid" main body was playing, whether this civil war between clones in this universe was deliberately arranged, but that didn't stop him from pledging allegiance to the new lord of Apokolips.
It was just as his main body wholeheartedly served Darkseid's main body.
But Superman could not tolerate this. His eyes glowed red, and he was about to finish off Steppenwolf for good.
Wonder Woman also brandished her Godkiller Sword and charged forward.
Whether Steppenwolf defected to Thanoseid or Du Wa, the result was the same: Du Wa's forces would gain another deity-level combatant. This absolutely could not be allowed to happen!
But the heroes who made a move were effortlessly swatted down, one by one, by the vastly more powerful Thanoseid.
Thanoseid had become too strong. His strength was now equivalent to double that of a Darkseid clone. He had, at the very least, graduated from the super-soldier tier and now possessed a sliver of the flair of a top-tier cosmic god.
Superman had it the worst. Thanoseid grabbed him by the cape, repeatedly slammed him around, and finally kicked him away.
"Without my permission, and without a sign from Du Wa, how dare you lay a hand on my servant? From now on, Steppenwolf will be my assistant," Thanoseid sneered.
"Your strength has surged after absorbing Darkseid's godhood; everyone can see that. Perhaps this is a good opportunity for you. You can try to challenge me."
From beginning to end, Du Wa hadn't spared Steppenwolf a single glance, completely unconcerned about his fate. At this moment, however, he was slightly interested in Thanoseid's decision.
"How could I? No matter what, you are my master, Thanoseid's master." Thanoseid bared his teeth, speaking nonsense that not even someone like Lex Luthor would believe, and with a clear conscience at that.
"Neither of these two is telling the truth. What a pity. If Thanoseid dared to rebel against Du Wa, it might cause Du Wa to loosen his control over us, giving us a chance to act."
Wonder Woman spat out a mouthful of blood, which corroded a large patch of ground. She immediately helped the heavily injured Superman up, allowing him to better bask in the sun to heal his injuries. She had never hidden her thoughts and now spoke in a low voice, all while carefully observing Du Wa's reaction.
The result was just as she expected. Du Wa didn't care. As long as it wasn't a matter of principle, Du Wa would ignore their actions within certain limits.
"I don't think it would work. He can even erase the changes from a timeline reboot and has even planted his own people in another timeline. Are you sure a rebellion from us would solve anything? The tasks Batman instructed me to do have all failed."
Flash wore a numb expression, his face etched with extreme pain. "Originally, if I had changed history, everything should have been altered by me. I might have even had a chance to see my mother… I'm in so much pain."
"Is your mother also named Martha?" Lex Luthor asked with a scornful look.
"No, why do you ask?" Flash looked at the crazed Luthor in confusion.
Superman's face was dark as he remained silent. Batman hid in the distance, his entire being concealed within a shadow, not saying a word.
"Don't worry about it. It's not worth wallowing in sorrow over. No matter how much you suffer, you are not alone. There are many versions of you in parallel universes who have also lost their mothers. That is the fate of most of you."
Du Wa spoke slowly, "In fact, I know a guy for whom you could search the entire Multiverse and not piece together a few complete uncles."
Flash felt a nerve had been struck. He didn't think this was something to be compared, but Du Wa paid no heed to his emotional shift. With a single thought, he smoothed over Flash's brainwaves, making him completely calm.
"Generally, I don't pry into your minds. There's no need, and I have no such penchant. But that doesn't mean I can't do it. I imagine some of you have already guessed as much," Du Wa said with a faint smile.
Thanoseid's smile slowly faded. This was what he feared most. Fortunately, he had intentionally controlled the content of his thoughts. The ultimate means of his planned rebellion against Du Wa, surely Du Wa wouldn't know the details… right?
"I have absorbed Darkseid's godhood and know what he was thinking. The command came from his main body in the Sphere of the Gods. I request to carry out an operation to cross parallel universes. Before Darkseid can attack us, I will kill more of his counterparts first. Of course, this will also give me an opportunity to grow stronger and eventually replace Darkseid's main body," Thanoseid proposed.
"I like honest people. It doesn't matter even if you're hiding something from me."
Du Wa could figure out what this guy Thanoseid was scheming with his toes. Both Thanos and Darkseid were inherently ambitious tyrants. With the two fused together, he knew all too well what kind of creature Thanoseid had become.
"Most of Darkseid's godhood is in the Sphere of the Gods. This means that even if you kill every last one of the clones across the Multiverse, you will still be no match for Darkseid's main body," Du Wa said.
"Correct, but I can still use your power, can't I? Just like how you took a risk and brought us to a strange, new multiverse." Thanoseid grinned ferociously. It was true that he despised Du Wa, but at the same time, he also deeply admired him.
The more he admired him, the more he had to find a way to kill him. Only then could he prove that Thanoseid was the truly great one!
Du Wa smiled. "Go and conquer this universe. Turn it into our headquarters with the utmost speed, and then radiate outwards to the surrounding universes."
At the very least, he had to bring the DCEU minor multiverse under his control first.
It was just like what he had done in the Marvel Multiverse.
Du Wa had never forgotten his goal. He had come to these worlds to spread his concept, to assail a higher echelon of existence, and to seek the possibility of multiversal ascension.
Soon, with Earth as the center, various forces began to spread out in all directions. Bringing war was a minor tactic; what was truly important was to spread Du Wa's name far and wide. Every place it reached would become Du Wa's pasture.
Du Wa also began to bestow a boon on all the people of the universe, allowing these poor souls the fortune of bathing in the radiance of the God of Xenomorphs.
Sometimes, Du Wa even felt he was too remarkable, so generous and benevolent, willing to extend a hand to bring rebirth to all, whether they were willing or not.
This time, Du Wa was not as patient as he had been in the Marvel Multiverse. He rapidly expanded his species, increasing the magnitude of his concept.
Soon, Xenomorphs began to appear, to varying degrees, on a vast number of planets throughout the universe.
Countless gazes turned towards him, but even the cosmic gods did not dare to make a move against Du Wa.
If even Darkseid was defeated and killed, who else had the courage and strength to stop Du Wa?
"A god who appeared out of thin air, which parallel universe did he come from?"
"Those strange creatures called Xenomorphs, they can perform remote parasitism across vast distances of space-time? Mortals have no ability to resist that level of power. Before long, the entire universe will be filled with Xenomorphs."
"Parasitism of ordinary beings is one thing, but that guy seems to be able to control gods, too. That... Darkseid? The one who killed Darkseid? He seems to be under control."
No one had ever seen such a docile "Darkseid," so obedient and compliant, like a loyal dog. How was this possible?
Every god in the universe feared for their own safety, desperately trying to find out Du Wa's origins, and especially his purpose.
But regardless of what they did or didn't do, they couldn't halt Du Wa's advance. As more and more planets fell to the Xenomorphs, yet on the surface maintained the status quo, with conflicts between various factions and nations continuing as if nothing had happened, the situation became all the more bizarre.
Gradually, the changes in this universe began to attract the attention of some special individuals.
The first to react were, of course, the multiversal gods who had deployed their clones in this universe.
The moment Darkseid's main body confirmed that his clone had died in battle and its godhood had been absorbed, he understood.
"Master?"
"I already know, Desaad. I didn't expect something so interesting to happen. The clone that killed and absorbed a fragment of my godhood was actually the handiwork of Ghost," Darkseid sneered.
"Ghost? You mean the incident when Ghost vanished from the Multiverse?" Desaad immediately recalled it. Ghost's whereabouts could not be found, neither in the many universes nor in the Sphere of the Gods.
Many gods actually knew of Ghost's identity as the "Wrath of God." However, aside from the mysterious beings in Heaven and Lucifer who had rebelled against it, virtually no god had ever truly come into contact with The Presence. They were completely ignorant of whether The Presence even existed, whether it was a more powerful God, an ultimate force, a divine artifact, or a set of rules.
Darkseid, of course, knew. Some of his clones had even clashed with Ghost.
But the one incident that had even caught the slight attention of Darkseid's main body was when Ghost had mysteriously vanished, forcibly obscuring a region of space-time, as if a piece had been surgically cut out of the Multiverse.
No god would chase after Ghost to cause trouble, trying to figure out what the embodiment of the Wrath of God was up to. Carving out a marginal universe was not a problem at all, as long as the 52 numbered universes remained unaffected.
Now, Darkseid's main body realized that what Ghost had done back then must have been very interesting. It had led to his clone, after fusing with something unknown, to begin acting independently.
"But even so, this shouldn't be enough to alarm you. You wouldn't care about a few scattered fragments of your godhood," Desaad said, puzzled.
There were too many fragments, of varying sizes. Losing one would have absolutely no impact on Darkseid himself.
"I've always suspected that Ghost has the ability to cross the Source Wall. I just never had evidence. Now, I've found an interesting breakthrough. I just need to decipher the part of my strange clone that doesn't belong to me, and I can confirm it."
Darkseid looked down upon the blood-red Apokolips, a world filled with screams and despair. On this planet as vast as a universe, countless cities were scattered about, naturally containing a massive population of native inhabitants—not the mass-produced bio-weapons like Parademons, but normal residents.
These people were trapped in endless war, suffering eruptions, massacres, plagues, extinction, and natural disasters, until death.
Originally, even the dead were naturally under Darkseid's rule. As long as the mysterious Black Hand didn't intervene, no one would question this—and even if Black Hand wanted to do something, he likely wouldn't have the opportunity to spread the Black Lantern rings into the Sphere of the Gods.
But now, with the arrival of The Endless, the DC World had gained a new supreme god on the side of Death. The future was now uncertain. The gods were all waiting and watching; this would require a long period of adjustment.
But compared to the mystery of the Source Wall, what was Death? The Endless were nothing, ultimately just a group of beings who had jumped from a small cage into a larger one.
(end of chapter)