Chapter 60: The Legend of the Demon
"Sorry, I was just delayed for a moment."
Orin Vale, having reverted to a ball of light, flew back underground and slipped into his armor. While he was gone, the unmanned suit had been standing guard, its palm cannon aimed at the remaining demonic spirits.
"I just dealt with a little leak. Fortunately, it was nothing serious," Orin Vale said casually. "Now, where were we?"
The hearts of the assembled demonic spirits were already in turmoil.
After all, they were demonic spirits. Although they had obediently stayed underground the entire time, it didn't prevent them from seeing the situation in the city above.
So they knew exactly what this big shot had just gone out and done.
Was he kidding? He had single-handedly pushed back the great flood, and it had only taken him a short while.
And when he came back, he wasn't even out of breath!
What kind of god-level power was this?
In the eyes of these minor demonic spirits, this was already beyond their comprehension. This level of strength wasn't even in the same dimension as them.
So, the demonic spirits confessed everything, whether they were supposed to or not.
However, the information they could provide about the mastermind, Belial, was limited. They only knew he was a terrifying demon from a certain dimension, possessing immense strength, but for his true form to come to the physical world and use his full power, a ritual and a sacrifice were required.
Aside from this basic background information, the rest was mostly the demonic spirits' tearful and bloody accusations against the demon.
"He forced us to do it!" a demonic spirit cried accusingly. "Belial is a cruel monster! If we displease him in the slightest, he'll grab one of our brothers and chew on them like dry rations!"
"And he's debauched and insatiable! He always loves to capture women to serve him, sometimes several at once!"
"Yes, yes, he especially likes those with slim waists and long legs," another demonic spirit added. "And he has a particular fondness for married ones!"
Orin Vale: "..."
So this demon was a fiend for other men's wives. It's no fun unless they belong to someone else, is that it?
However, this characteristic reminded him of another famous demon in the DC World, a truly terrifying entity who was also a demon from another dimension scheming to invade reality...
"Oh, and I heard he has a super-powerful father!" a demonic spirit said angrily. "I suspected it from the start! He's just a nepo baby with no real skills of his own, relying entirely on his awesome dad..."
"Hold on."
Orin Vale noticed a blind spot.
"His father, is he very powerful?"
The faces of the demonic spirits changed drastically, and they glanced at each other.
"Well... it's not a question of whether he's powerful or not."
A demonic spirit mustered its courage and said in a low voice.
"He is the ruler of countless worlds, the destroyer of countless dimensions. His very name is a symbol of ruin, a conquering demon of the highest echelon..."
"Trigon?" Orin Vale ventured.
The moment this name was spoken, all the demonic spirits began to tremble like sieves, their faces all screaming, "I solemnly declare that I have nothing to do with the preceding statement."
Orin Vale knew he had guessed correctly.
Well, I'll be damned. It's really him.
Trigon, a top-tier demon in the DC Multiverse. It was said that he conquered his birth planet at the age of one, destroyed that planet at six, and ruled his entire home dimension by thirty. From then on, he began a campaign of conquest, breaking out of his dimension to march upon the multiverse.
However, his method of conquest was different from that of ordinary ghosts and monsters. While traditional devils were still diligently running their small businesses of swindling people into signing contracts to sell their souls, Trigon had already embarked on the great journey of conquering the multiverse with his lower body, a one-man, one-"gun" crusade across the cosmos.
This was no exaggeration. For a multiverse-level demon, his method of conquest was quite abstract, rather reminiscent of old web novels where characters' realms skyrocketed not through normal cultivation, but by "piledriving." He could assume various forms to seduce women in different dimensions. The offspring born from these unions would grow up to become the channel for his main body to descend into their respective dimensions.
Conquering worlds through piledriving, a strong contender for the number one playboy of the multiverse. If you were to count conquests, even Zeus, the sales champion of the Olympus-brand piledriver, would have to admit defeat and willingly step aside.
Trigon's offspring were scattered throughout the multiverse, with wildly varying power levels—the disparity was extreme. The most powerful among them was even stronger than Trigon's true form, while the weakest might not be much stronger than a mortal. He couldn't judge Belial's true form without seeing it, but Orin Vale didn't consider his avatar much of a threat. However, if it was Trigon, the problem became serious.
This wasn't like a typical planet-level crisis. Once Trigon descended, it would affect an entire single universe. At that point, there would be nowhere to hide in the entire universe. If he were in a bad mood, he could just set the whole universe on fire and burn it to nothing.
Orin Vale pondered for a moment.
"Pal, record a name for me. Remind me to look it up when I get back."
"Rachel Roth. Possibly a magic-based superhuman, but I can't rule out the possibility of her powers not having manifested yet. Should be female, age likely between 14 and 19..."
Rachel Roth, codename Raven, the most famous of Trigon's offspring, and the only one whose combat power, when in a Power Burst, surpassed her old man's. A renowned magic-based superhero. There are thousands upon thousands of multiverses, but in any multiverse where Trigon set his sights on Earth, she was the portal he used nine times out of ten.
Orin Vale continued to try and awaken his distant memories. These memories were already fading before his transmigration, but fortunately, after being reborn as an Ultraman, his brain had been upgraded. Even the fuzziest impressions from his childhood became clear after the elevation of his life level. As a result, his memory of every DC Comics chapter he had ever read in his previous life was crystal clear, and he could recall them with just a little thought.
"She should be a white girl... ah wait, she could be black for all I know."
Orin Vale suddenly fell into thought.
His memories came from the settings when he read the comics, but he hadn't touched DC Comics for some years before he transmigrated. He had only heard from his buddies that the all-pervasive genes of black folks had already forced their way from reality into the comics. A dozen prominent characters, including members of the Justice League, had been race-swapped. This possibility certainly couldn't be ignored...
A characteristic of DC Comics is that many powerful beings have their own weaknesses. For example, Superman is weak to Kryptonite, Martian Manhunter is weak to fire, and Trigon is weak to... gates.
Throughout history, nine out of the ten times Trigon was defeated, it was because his gate collapsed. So, no matter what, he had to find Raven first, and start with her to figure out how to prevent disaster, to nip Trigon's threat in the bud... er, or rather, behind the gate.
"Um... we really have nothing else to confess," a demonic spirit said weakly. "Could you please... be merciful?"
Orin Vale snapped back to reality.
"Oh, I was just thinking about something... hmm, let's continue. Are you all the demonic spirits? All gathered here?"
The demonic spirits looked at each other.
After a moment, one of them spoke: "Well, Amenhotep isn't here. He's an undercover agent in a human organization called 'A.R.G.U.S.'."
"Right, and I heard those humans are scheming against you, Lord! Of course, it's just wishful thinking..."
"Speaking of which, it seems they've also been troubled by some alien from outer space recently," another demonic spirit said. "Amenhotep mentioned that there's an alien who flies very fast, is incredibly strong, and can shoot lasers from his eyes..."
"Hmm?"
Orin Vale narrowed his eyes.
"Tell me more about that alien."
(end of chapter)