Chapter 100: The Impact of Bad Memes
"Interesting. In that case..."
With that, Zatanna drew a dark purple circle in the water with her wand.
Densely packed backwards runes floated up within the ring, like a swarm of tadpoles swimming in reverse.
"Then allow me to show you what true Logomancy really is."
She raised her chin, her black lipstick glinting coldly in the dim deep ocean.
"Lin Li Stark, you are very strong. But in this story, strong is weak, and weak is strong. The more serious you are, the more you look like a joke."
Lin Li paid her no mind, merely compressing the Qi within his body, and then...
BOOM!!
Terrifying Qi burst forth in an instant, causing the surrounding waves to boil immediately and surge out in all directions.
Zatanna paused her wand, her red lips parting slightly.
"Rise float, heavy sink!"
Under the power of Logomancy, the seawater instantly began to sink.
Opposite her, Lin Li, who had just flared his Qi, felt as if his body were being crushed by a mountain.
His shoulders bowed sharply, and the temple floorboards beneath his feet cracked into a cobweb pattern.
Zatanna narrowed her eyes. "Not bad. This Qi of yours, is it 'city' or not?"
Lin Li grinned. Since when did Zatanna drop memes?
"The seabed isn't city."
"For real?" Zatanna tilted her head, tapping her wand again. "Then try this: Still."
In an instant, the seawater stopped flowing.
But before Lin Li could react, Zatanna spoke again immediately.
"Move."
In the next instant, Lin Li felt the Qi inside his body start going wildly out of control, like an unhinged washing machine.
Rubble flew in all directions, turning the seawater murky.
Zatanna hovered above the ruins, her robe fluttering violently.
"You see, I told you. In this story, the harder you try, the more you look like a clown."
Lin Li climbed out from the rubble, a trace of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth, and suddenly gave a slight chuckle.
"The clown was me all along?"
"Correct."
"Then do you know," Lin Li slowly raised both hands, "that for some things, chanting them in reverse is useless?"
Zatanna frowned at him. "Such as?"
Lin Li cupped his hands together and pulled them back to his side.
A golden vortex of Qi compressed inward maniacally, drawing the surrounding seawater into the sphere of light.
The temple ruins began to tremble as broken bricks, rust, and coral fragments all flew toward his palms.
Zatanna watched all this with great interest.
"What is this?"
"Kamehameha!!"
Zatanna snapped back to reality, waving her wand rapidly to stack layers of backwards runes in front of her.
"Ha—me—ha—me—Ka!"
She shrieked out the reverse speech, attempting to reflect the blast of energy that had not yet been released.
Lin Li looked up, his blue eyes reflecting the golden light.
"Heh, it's useless. In this story, never stand on the left side during a beam struggle."
With that, he thrust both palms forward sharply.
"Ka—me—ha—me—HA!"
BOOM!!!
A pillar of golden light pierced through the deep sea.
The temple's dome was instantly blown away, and the seawater vaporized. White mist and golden light merged together, forming a massive whirlpool that rushed straight to the surface.
Hit head-on by the light pillar, Zatanna's body flew backward and crashed heavily onto the ground.
Lin Li arrived before the anchor and applied sudden force with his right hand.
The runes on the anchor's surface flared frantically, trying to counter.
Lin Li let out a roar, and his vortex of Qi expanded violently once more.
"Still trying to resist? God of Stories, die, damn it!"
The golden pillar of light crushed the black crystal inch by inch.
Sharp, shrill pops echoed from inside the crystal, sounding like red-hot glass dropped into ice water.
In the next instant, the Atlantis anchor exploded into countless black fragments. The seabed shook like an earthquake, and the temple collapsed completely.
Seawater rushed back in, churning up mud and sand.
After destroying the anchor, Lin Li flew up right in front of Zatanna, who was preparing to flee.
"What... what are you doing now?" Zatanna looked at him in panic.
"Do it, of course!" Lin Li grinned. "Since you extended an invitation, how could I not do it?"
...
Gotham Underground.
Felicia was sent flying, her back slamming into a platform pillar so hard that her vision went black with pain.
She rolled onto the ground, her cat ears flattened, as her Claws scraped three streams of sparks across the floor.
The Laughing Hulk walked toward her.
A tattered purple suit hung off his body, his green muscles pulsing with his breathing, and his mouth grinned so wide it almost tore his entire face open.
"Hajimi..."
He tilted his head, a low chuckle rumbling from his throat.
"Hajimi, hajimi, hajimi..."
Felicia pushed herself up off the ground and spat out a mouthful of blood.
"You're a hajimi! Your whole family is hajimi!"
Hulk slammed a fist down fiercely.
Felicia rolled to the side as the fist grazed her black leather suit and smashed into the ground.
Rubble splattered like rain, leaving a crater several meters wide in the collapsed platform.
She used the blast wave to leap up, her Claws leaving three white streaks across Hulk's arm.
The white marks seeped blood.
However, they healed at a rate visible to the naked eye immediately after.
Felicia's pupils contracted.
"Fuck, this regeneration is crazier than a bank vault."
Hulk swung a backhand slap. Felicia barely ducked to dodge it, but the force of the wind sent her flying.
Twisting her waist in midair, she kicked off the wall to spring back, aiming her Claws straight for Hulk's eyes.
Hulk allowed the Claws to pierce his eye sockets, grinning widely.
"Heehee... So cool!"
It was unclear whether the God of Stories was influencing everyone, but all sorts of terrible memes seemed to permeate the entire narrative.
The Laughing Hulk smashed his fist into Felicia's abdomen.
She flew backward like a broken kite, crashing heavily onto the train tracks and sliding over a dozen meters.
His blood still clung to her Claws, but his wounds were already healing, and even his eyeballs were regrowing.
"Felicia!"
Brucie crawled out from the pile of rubble, blood trickling down her forehead, leaning on the Golden Trident.
Seawater surged out from beneath her feet, spreading along the cracks and transforming into three water spouts that blasted toward Hulk from different directions.
Entangled by the water spouts, Hulk's movements stiffened.
Brucie seized the chance to charge forward, sweeping the trident across and slicing the blade into Hulk's chest.
Green light collided with seawater, emitting an ear-splitting hiss.
A bone-deep gash was sliced open on Hulk's chest.
He glanced down; the muscles on both sides of the wound squirmed like living creatures, trapping the trident in place.
"How is this possible?" Brucie frowned, only to see Hulkraising his fist.
"Back! Back! Back!"
Brucie released her grip abruptly and rolled backward.
The fist slammed onto the trident, bending the golden shaft into a terrifying arc before the entire weapon flew off, embedding itself into the wall at the end of the platform.
Hulk pulled the trident blade shard from his chest and tossed it aside casually.
"Doesn't hurt."
Felicia got up from the tracks, her footsteps unsteady.
"Brucie, this thing is completely unkillable. Where's the anchor?"
"Behind him."
Behind Hulk, the mass of green light was still spinning, with the black crystal acting like a cold heart.
Felicia gritted her teeth. "I'll dismantle it. You stall him."
"You most likely won't be able to destroy it," Brucie said in a hoarse voice. "That anchor requires a very powerful attack to break. Currently, the only thing that can destroy it is the Golden Trident."
Felicia glanced at the trident pinned to the wall, then looked at Hulk blocking the way in between.
"Then what do we do? Waiting online, super urgent."
As soon as she spoke those words, Black Cat froze. Why had she said such a weird thing?
Though Brucie also sensed something was off, she still rolled off to the side.
After all, Hulk was already moving.
He brought both hands together, clapping down at Brucielike swatting a fly.
Brucie dived sideways; a huge pit was smashed into the spot where she had been a moment ago.
Hulk pursued relentlessly, his fists raining down like hail.
Brucie rolled and dodged through the gaps between craters, tracks, and pillars, escaping by a hair's breadth every single time.
Felicia took the opportunity to charge toward the anchor.
Her Claws slashed down.
The green light recoiled, blasting her away once more.
She slammed into the wall and slid down, blood pouring from the corner of her mouth even more.
"Holy crap, I'm triggered," she coughed twice. "Seriously triggered."
Hulk turned and walked toward her.
Felicia raised her Claws, ready to fight for her life.
Just then, a black figure dropped silently from the top of the tunnel.
A whip cracked through the air.
*Crack!*
The whip wrapped around Hulk's neck and pulled forcefully.
Hulk's massive body was yanked a step off balance, allowing Felicia to seize the chance and roll out of attack range.
She looked up to see a dark phantom standing before her, resembling a cat.
The phantom raised a hand to push her goggles up onto her forehead, offering a subtle smirk.
"Brucie, your 'Qiang' is here."
Brucie: "..."
What on earth was going on with all these terrible memes?
Chapter 101: Supergirl's Power of Missing Dad
"It's not that we couldn't take the front entrance; the sewers are just more cost-effective."
"I took a three-kilometer detour and was almost marinated by Gotham's drainage System."
Brucie stood up on the other side, wiping the blood from her forehead.
"Selina, the anchor."
"I see it." Selina glanced toward the cluster of green light. "It looks downright abstract."
Hulk roared, tearing the whip from his neck and lunging at Selina.
Selina didn't meet him head-on; her body slipped away like Water, and her whip struck the back of Hulk's knee, making him stumble.
Brucie rushed back to the wall and drew out the Golden Trident.
Felicia pounced at the anchor once more. This time she didn't strike recklessly, instead circling the anchor swiftly as her Claws carved faint grooves across the surface of the green light.
Selina's whip bound Hulk's arms, and Brucie charged in from the flank, stabbing the trident into the anchor.
Seawater erupted from the tip of the trident.
The anchor shuddered violently, cracks appearing across the surface of the black crystal.
Hulk roared, snapping the whip, and threw a punch straight at Brucie.
Selina dove forward, knocking Brucie clear, but was caught by the gale of the punch and tumbled more than ten meters away.
"Selina!" Felicia shouted.
"Don't worry about me!" Selina gasped, clutching her ribs.
Felicia turned, plunging her Claws into the anchor's fractures once again and tearing them outward.
Brucie scrambled up and drove the trident in once more.
Seawater clashed with the green light, and the entire underground platform began to collapse.
Hulk charged toward the anchor. Felicia looked back, her pupils contracting into pinpricks.
"Selina!"
Selina flicked her whip, wrapping it tightly around Hulk's ankle.
Hulk crashed heavily to the ground, but his hand gripped Selina's whip, slinging her entire body toward the wall.
Felicia tore at the anchor with all her strength.
Brucie roared as the trident impaled the black crystal.
The very next instant—
RUMBLE!!
Green light detonated from within, and a Shockwaveswept through the entire subterranean space.
Hulk was swallowed by the radiance; his purple suit, green skin, and manic grin were completely buried beneath falling rubble and seawater.
Brucie grabbed Felicia, Felicia grabbed Selina, and the three of them were hurled toward the ventilation tunnel by the Shockwave.
"Move!"
Brucie pressed a button on her belt, and headlights illuminated the depths of the tunnel.
A black motorcycle stood parked in the abandoned maintenance passage, its engine already running.
Felicia leaped onto the back seat, and Brucie jumped on last, slotting the trident into the side of the bike as seawater was converted into propulsion.
Behind them, the subway station caved in completely, Laughing Hulk's cackles buried hundreds of meters beneath the bedrock.
Felicia cast a glance back.
"Is he dead?"
Brucie's voice was frigid. "I don't know. But the anchor is gone."
Selina twisted the throttle, and the motorcycle shot out into the Gotham night.
"It's not that we couldn't take on Hulk; running away is just more cost-effective."
Leaning against her back, Felicia finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"What is the deal with this lame meme anyway? Is it the God of Stories' doing?"
...
Metropolis.
The underground passage of the Daily Planet.
The clash between Clara and Bizarro shook the entire corridor relentlessly.
Bizarro's fist hammered into Clara's arm, but Claraendured it using a golden Qi vortex, returning a punch straight into his face.
Bizarro flew back with his head twisted, crashing through three partition walls, yet he stood right back up.
A section of his face had caved in, but it snapped back into shape like play-dough.
"Big Sister... you hurt me."
A warped grin sat on the corner of his lips, red light flickering erratically in his White pupils.
"So, I'm going to beat you into a Hajimi."
Clara frowned. "You really must be starving—you'll pick up anything."
Bizarro charged with blinding speed. Clara sidestepped, seized his wrist, and used his own momentum to smash him into the ground. With a thundering crash, the floor collapsed, embedding Bizarro into the concrete.
Clara looked down, blasting crimson beams.
Bizarro opened his mouth and spat out scorching breath. In an instant, the two forces collided, throwing them both backward.
Clara hit the wall, catching her breath.
The golden Qi vortex revolved within her body, compounding with her Krypton energy.
She could feel that she was stronger than before, yet Bizarro's power was also rising.
"Why?" Clara stared at him. "Why are you so strong?"
Bizarro tilted his head. "Because the God of Stories... wrote me crazy."
"Being crazy makes you strong?"
"Being crazy means no pain." Bizarro patted his chest. "No pain means invincible!"
With those words, he charged again.
Clara met his charge.
Fist met flesh with brutal impacts, their speed far too fast for ordinary eyes to follow.
The passage walls fractured continuously, steel rebar twisted, and pipes burst, spewing jets of Water.
Clara drove a knee into Bizarro's abdomen, making him vomit sour bile, yet he chuckled as he locked his arms around her waist, ramming her through the wall.
Just then, heavy footsteps echoed from the end of the passage.
Lex Luthor emerged from the ruins.
A massive suit of Kryptonite armor enveloped his entire body, the green metal glowing with a sickly sheen, and a fist-sized Kryptonite was embedded in his chest reactor.
"Supergirl." Luthor's voice echoed from the armor's speakers, chillingly calm. "How do you like the gift I prepared for you?"
Clara gritted her teeth and got up. "Wearing that junk, don't you feel weighed down?"
"Heavy?" Luthor chuckled. "This is what they call being far ahead of the curve."
He raised his arm, aiming the Kryptonite cannon straight at Clara.
"That was merely an appetizer. The real gift is this suit of Kryptonite armor, custom-made just for you, Clara."
The Kryptonite cannon fired instantly, and Claraimmediately felt her body begin to weaken.
Kryptonite radiation pierced her skin like invisible needles, burrowing into her bloodstream.
Her golden Qi vortex tried to resist, but the Kryptonite's energy was simply too overwhelming; her power was draining away at high speed.
Bizarro felt the discomfort as well, pinching his nose and stepping back.
"Did you know, Clara? In this story, you are too powerful.
So powerful that you had to be nerfed.
So the God of Stories gave me Kryptonite, and gave Bizarro madness.
The two of us are your death."
He squeezed the trigger again, and a beam of green Kryptonite blasted squarely against Clara's chest.
Clara screamed in pain as she was sent hurtling backward, smashing through the wall at the end of the passage and crashing into the Daily Planet's underground parking lot.
She lay in the rubble, her suit charred across the chest, sickly green veins bulging beneath her skin.
"Don't you love preaching about 'hope'?" Luthor looked down at her. "The hope of Metropolis looks like a run-over dog right now."
Clara tried to stand, but Bizarro dashed out from the side and hammered a savage punch across her face.
Clara's head whipped to the side, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
The golden Qi vortex flickered weakly within her body, like a lamp about to burn out.
Luthor stood nearby, folding his armored arms over his chest.
"Keep going, don't stop. I want her to watch her hope shatter piece by piece."
Bizarro rained down blow after blow. Clara's consciousness began to fade; the Kryptonite radiation made even breathing an agonizing torment.
Yet deep beneath the pain, she seemed to catch the scent of wheat fields.
Kansas, Kent Farm.
The setting sun painted the cornfields golden; with every breeze, the stalks rustled.
She walked barefoot on the soil, Jonathan walking beside her with a wrench in his hand.
"Clara, you're faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive," Jonathan said. "But sometimes, we have to learn to stop."
Young Clara looked up, puzzled. "Why?"
"Because the place where you stop is home."
The tractor was parked by the field ridge, Martha called out from the porch for dinner, and the fragrance of apple pie wafted across the entire farm.
Jonathan handed her the wrench, having her repair that ancient harvester on her own.
"Power isn't meant to prove you're stronger than anyone else," Jonathan said, resting his rough palm on her shoulder.
"Power is meant to protect the ones you love. With great power comes great responsibility."
Young Clara tightened the bolt and looked up, smiling.
"Then I want to protect lots of people."
CRACK!!
The memory was shattered by a fist.
Bizarro's punch crashed into Clara's face once more.
Her face was battered and bloody, her blue eyes swollen almost shut.
She heard it.
"Clara, stand up."
Jonathan's voice echoed in the darkness.
The green glow of the Kryptonite armor bathed her as Bizarro's fist descended once more.
Between heartbeats, the golden Qi vortex flickered, like the last rays of the Kansas sunset.
SMACK!!
In an instant, Clara raised her right hand, catching Bizarro's fist.
She broke into a grin. "Now, it's my turn to go on the offensive!"
Chapter 102: Bakugan Boy Lin Li
The moment Clara blocked Bizarro's fist, a golden Qi cyclone exploded in her palm.
The Shockwave climbed up her arm, sending Bizarro flying backward.
Bizarro flipped three times in the air, his back crashing through the parking lot's ceiling and embedding him into a load-bearing pillar on the floor above.
Rubble and rebar rained down from the ceiling like a torrential downpour.
Clara stood up straight, ripples of a golden halo spreading outward from her skin, keeping the Kryptonite radiation three meters away.
"How... is this possible..." Lex Luthor's face was filled with utter shock.
Clara raised her head and swallowed a Senzu Bean, her blue eyes showing through her swollen eyelids.
Under the effect of the Senzu Bean, the green veins on her face rapidly receded.
"You said you wanted me to watch hope shatter," Claraspoke, her voice raspy but steady. "You got one thing wrong."
She took a step toward Luthor, her golden halo clashing with the Kryptonite radiation between them, creating a crackling sound of ionization in the air.
"Hope isn't something that just disappears once it's shattered." Clara raised her fist. "What lies in people's hearts will always grow back even after it's gone."
Luthor raised his arm, pointing the Kryptonite cannon at her face. "Stop right there! Or else I'll..."
Clara didn't give him time to fire, appearing in front of Luthor in an instant.
Only a golden afterimage managed to reflect in Luthor's pupils before a dull thud echoed from his abdomen.
Boom!!
Clara slammed her fist into the energy node on the armor's abdomen.
The abdominal plating of the Kryptonite armor dented inward, and its green energy core flashed with a violent surge of instability.
Luthor stumbled back three steps, his combat boots plowing two charred tracks into the ground.
"Bizarro!" Luthor roared.
Bizarro dropped down from the hole in the ceiling. A twisted smile still hung on his face, but there was a hint of bewilderment within it.
He tilted his head, looking at Clara, the red light in his white pupils flickering.
"Sister... you've changed."
"Yes." Clara didn't look back. "I've found what hope is."
Bizarro rushed forward, faster and more ferocious than before.
Clara sidestepped, grabbing his wrist with her left hand and pressing her open right palm against his chest.
A golden Qi cyclone poured from her palm. She was no longer using Kryptonian strength to fight him, but instead using the flow of Qi to guide the energy inside him.
Bizarro's movements abruptly halted.
He looked down at Clara's hand, his mouth opening slightly.
"Sis... ter..."
"Like I said, it's my turn to attack."
Clara clenched her fingers, and the golden Qi cyclone exploded inside Bizarro.
His body was sent flying, crashing through three walls of the parking lot before finally landing in the printing workshop on the second basement floor of the Daily Planet.
The printing press was smashed to pieces, ink and shredded paper flying everywhere.
Luthor took the opportunity to pull back, the thrusters on the back of his armor spewing green flames that propelled him deep into the corridor.
"Trying to run?" Clara turned around.
Just then, a steady sound of footsteps came from the end of the corridor.
Luthor stopped, his armor's sensors scanning toward the source of the sound.
A figure stepped out from the depths of the corridor, wearing a deep blue tactical suit, with a golden halo faintly shimmering on his body.
Lin Li.
He looked like he had just returned from Atlantis, his clothes still stained with salt left behind by dried seawater.
"Atlantis is taken care of." Lin Li looked up at the battlefield. "Looks like you guys are still fighting here."
Luthor's armor System instantly calculated Lin Li's energy Level.
The numbers provided by the sensors made Luthor's pupils contract sharply.
"Another... Superhuman?" Luthor gritted his teeth, turning his Kryptonite cannon toward Lin Li. "Whatever, even if there are two of you, I don't give a fuck!"
With that, he slammed his finger on the trigger.
A green Kryptonite beam erupted from the cannon. It was incredibly fast and covered a massive area, filling the entire corridor with green light.
Clara's expression changed, and she was about to rush forward to block it for Lin Li, only to see Lin Li simply raise a hand.
A golden Qi cyclone formed a palm-sized round shield in his hand.
The Kryptonite beam slammed into the shield.
The green beam was like water crashing against a reef, splitting and flowing in all directions around the shield.
Lin Li stood in the center of the beam, his expression calm, not even moving a step.
Luthor froze.
His armor's sensors errored out frantically, and the Kryptonite radiation readings went off the charts, yet the man opposite him showed absolutely no fluctuation in his vital signs.
His power did not come from a Kryptonian bloodline, making the Kryptonite suppression completely useless against him.
"What..." Luthor's voice trembled. "Kryptonite has no effect on you?"
Lin Li withdrew his hand, and the golden shield dissipated.
The residual energy of the Kryptonite beam dispersed automatically three feet away from his body, like mist meeting a blazing sun.
"Kryptonite only works on Kryptonians." Lin Li tilted his head. "Care to guess if I'm a Kryptonian?"
His armor's System returned a despair-inducing analysis:
"Target energy source has no correlation with Kryptoniangenes."
"You... what on earth are you?"
"None of your business." Lin Li took a step toward him. "You shot at me, now it's my turn."
Luthor's pupils shrank. His armor's thrusters fired at full capacity, sending him retreating backward at high speed.
At the same time, the Kryptonite cannon fired three consecutive beams in an attempt to delay Lin Li's steps.
Lin Li didn't dodge; he walked forward right into the beams.
Before each beam could touch his body, it was deflected by the golden Qi cyclone, striking the surrounding walls and ceiling, scorching the concrete black.
By the time the three beams were spent, Luthor had already retreated to the end of the corridor.
He spun around abruptly, his boot thrusters firing with maximum thrust as he rushed toward the maintenance shaft leading outside.
"Trying to run?" Lin Li's voice came from behind him.
Luthor felt a hand press against the back of his armor.
The hand didn't press hard, but a golden Qi cyclone surged from the palm into the armor, instantly spreading throughout his entire body along the energy circuits.
Every System in the Kryptonite armor errored out simultaneously. The thrusters died, the weapon Systems locked down, and the armor joints jammed.
Luthor was frozen in place like a statue. The screens inside his armor went completely black, leaving only the Kryptonite core in his chest emitting a faint glow.
"You..." Luthor tried to break free, but the armor wouldn't budge an inch.
Lin Li's hand remained pressed against the back of the armor, the golden Qi cyclone locking the entire suit down like a net.
"This armor of yours is pretty nice." Lin Li walked around to face Luthor, sizing him up. "Did the God of Stories give it to you?"
Luthor didn't answer.
Clara walked over, her face still smeared with blood and bruises.
But her golden halo had stabilized, and her wounds were healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Her gaze swept over Luthor and landed on Lin Li's face, nodding slightly.
"How about Atlantis?"
"Taken care of," Lin Li said. "Zatanna escaped, and the anchor shattered."
"The one in Metropolis shattered too." Clara looked down at her hands. "Bizarro..."
She turned her head toward the printing workshop.
Bizarro crawled out of the ruins, his grayish-white skin covered in golden cracks.
Those cracks were expanding, spreading from his chest to his limbs. Dark green energy leaked from the fissures, making him look like a cracking eggshell.
Bizarro stumbled forward a few steps, tilting his head to look at Clara.
He was still smiling, but for the first time, there was something different in that smile.
"Sister..." he mumbled, his voice much softer than before. "I... remember a little bit."
"There was a... farm." Bizarro raised his hand, looking at his palm covered in golden cracks. "There was... the sun, and corn."
His body began to disintegrate from the cracks, the fragments turning into golden specks of light that slowly drifted away in the air.
"Sister, that place... did I go there too?"
Clara looked into his eyes; the red light in those cloudy white pupils was fading away.
She remembered what Jonathan had said on the porch.
"You did," Clara spoke softly. "You were there too."
Bizarro's tilted head slowly straightened.
"That's... nice."
His body disintegrated completely, turning into a sky full of golden specks of light that slowly drifted under the lights of the printing workshop.
The specks of light fell on the shattered printing press, on the ink-stained floor, and into Clara's outstretched palm, carrying a faint warmth.
Clara closed her fingers, grasping that tiny speck of light.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Lin Li stood three paces behind her, not disturbing her.
Only when the light had completely faded did he speak.
"The anchors are all shattered," he said. "But the God of Stories is still out there."
Clara turned around, her golden halo slowly receding.
"Yes. So it's not over yet."
Lin Li nodded, then looked at Luthor, who was pinned inside the armor. "What about this guy?"
Luthor struggled desperately inside his armor, but the restraint of the golden Qi cyclone was far firmer than he had imagined.
He glared at Lin Li, veins bulging on his forehead, and spoke through gritted teeth:
"You think you've won? The God of Stories will never let you off."
Lin Li raised his hand and tapped the armor's helmet, the metal making a clanging sound.
"So, you know where the God of Stories is right now?"
"Hmph! I wouldn't tell you even if I died!"
"Is that so? My fist can blow up the planet beneath our feet with a single punch. Guess what...
...if I use it to hit your demon pill, do you think your demon pill can handle it?"
Lex Luthor:???
A planet-busting fist hitting his demon pill?
Chapter 103: Traces of the God of Stories
Under the threat of a critical strike to his demon pill, Lex Luthor finally confessed everything he knew.
"The so-called three anchor points were actually traps deliberately left by the God of Stories, designed to make you discover their anomalies.
Then, by destroying these three anchor points, the power of Hell would be released, thereby luring the Lord of HellSatan to descend upon this world."
Lex Luthor spoke urgently; he could feel Lin Li's eyes gradually turning red, his crimson gaze fixed intently on his lower body.
One wrong word, and he would very likely have to say goodbye to his demon pill.
Across from him, Lin Li frowned upon hearing this.
He turned to Supergirl Clara beside him. "How much of what he said do you think is true?"
"My Super Hearing was monitoring his heartbeat just now, and unlike ordinary people, there was no accelerated heart rate from lying." Clara shook her head.
"Then again, he might have undergone professional training. After all, he's Lex Luthor—hardly an ordinary person."
"So he's telling the truth? The three anchor points were all traps?"
Lin Li looked down at Luthor in his hand.
"I already told you!" Luthor struggled inside his battle armor.
"When you destroyed the anchors, the power of Hellbegan seeping in.
Now that all three anchors are shattered, Satan could descend at any moment..."
"Then why did you help the God of Stories before?" Clara's voice came from the side, tinged with bewilderment.
"Because he said he would give me a world without Superman." Luthor's voice was muffled inside the helmet, sounding somewhat distorted.
"But now it seems he fooled even me."
Lin Li said nothing more, merely increasing his speed.
The silhouette of Gotham gradually grew clear in the night, but what made all three of them frown was that the city was burning.
Green energy pulses mingled with the firelight, as if some creatures were locked in fierce combat.
In the direction of downtown, two of three skyscrapers had already collapsed, while the last one leaned precariously against an adjacent building.
The glass curtain walls were completely shattered, and rebar jutted from the concrete like bones gnawed on by a giant.
"It's too late," Luthor said. "Hell's Gate has already opened."
Lin Li tossed him to the ground, the battle armor smashing a crater into an abandoned wharf on the outskirts of Gotham.
Clara landed beside him, her Super Hearing catching every sound coming from downtown.
"A creepy laugh, somewhat similar to the clown." Clarafurrowed her brows. "Bane is there too.
And... a voice very familiar to me, sounding like that guy Solomon Grundy.
A zombie from beneath Gotham. His strength is on par with mine, and he's immortal."
Lin Li and Clara took to the air, flying at full speed toward downtown.
Downtown Gotham City had turned into a battlefield.
Felicia had never imagined she would witness such a scene from a rooftop in Gotham.
Laughing Hulk and Bane were grappling on a main thoroughfare.
Every clash of the two behemoths' fists cracked the asphalt beneath their feet.
Shockwaves overturned surrounding vehicles, causing whole sheets of glass to peel off building facades.
Bane's signature mask was torn in half, revealing the mangled, bloody flesh beneath.
Yet he did not retreat. Grabbing Hulk's left arm with both hands, he executed a fierce shoulder throw, slamming the dark-green maniac into the pavement.
Hulk's laughter echoed from the crater, laced with blood and spit.
"Bane, tough guy..."
He sprang from the crater and slammed a fist into Bane's chest.
Bane was sent flying backward, smashing through the partition walls of two buildings before vanishing into the lobby of a third.
"Damn it!"
Felicia leapt from the rooftop, using her Claws on a lamppost to propel herself, and landed fifty meters behind Hulk.
Hulk turned back, his smile—split wide to his ears—grotesquely sinister in the firelight.
"Hakimi, here again..."
Before Felicia could snap back, a deep roar echoed from an adjacent collapsed building.
Solomon Grundy rose from the rubble.
Nearly three meters tall, his grayish-green skin was covered in stitching marks, like a patched-together corpse.
Yet green flames burned in his eyes, devoid of any shred of sanity.
Grundy grabbed a concrete slab beside him and hurled it at Hulk like a frisbee.
Knocked back three steps by the impact, Hulk turned to look at Grundy.
"Who... are you?"
Grundy's response was a roar as he charged forward and slammed a fist into Hulk's chest.
Blown backward by the immense force, Hulk skidded back, his feet plowing two deep trenches into the ground.
Felicia was stunned.
The zombie's strength was actually greater than Hulk's?
What happened next drove her deeper into despair.
Grundy and Hulk brawled together, but after Bane crawled out of the rubble, he joined the fray as well.
The problem was that Bane targeted Grundy, Grundy targeted Hulk, and Hulk turned his sights back on Bane.
The three monsters clashed in downtown, every collision bringing down surrounding buildings, cracking the ground, rupturing gas lines, and sending flames leaping up from underground.
"Damn it, three lunatics!" Felicia dodged a flying floor slab. "Brucie! Where are you?!"
Brucie's voice came through the communicator, crackling with static.
"East side, the clock tower..."
Felicia turned toward the clock tower.
Brucie was flying out from the ruins of the clock tower, the Golden Trident glowing with aquamarine light in her hand.
Her left arm hung limply at her side, seemingly dislocated, and her cowl was completely shattered, revealing traces of blood at the corner of her mouth.
Yet she still charged forward.
Seawater surged from the ground beneath Brucie's feet, forming three massive waterspouts that slammed toward the three monsters simultaneously.
The waterspouts struck Hulk and Bane, pushing them back, but Grundy merely paused before smashing one waterspout to pieces with a single punch.
"Damn it, it didn't work!" Brucie gritted her teeth.
Grundy turned to look at her, no emotion in his green eyes—only a pure, blind desire for destruction.
He raised his foot and charged toward Brucie with terrifying speed, far exceeding the agility expected of his massive frame.
Brucie held the Trident horizontally before her as seawater condensed into a shield, and Grundy slammed his fist into it.
Boom!
The seawater shield shattered instantly.
Brucie was blasted backward, the Trident knocked from her grip.
She tumbled over a dozen times in midair before crashing into a building's glass curtain wall. With the glass completely shattered, she hung suspended in the air, blood frothing from her mouth.
"Brucie!" Felicia rushed over, but Grundy was faster.
He charged forward again, raising his fist and aiming straight for Brucie's chest.
If that punch landed clean, even Supergirl Clara might not have emerged unscathed.
Watching the fist draw closer, Brucie's pupils reflected the stitched seams across its grayish-green surface.
It was too late for her to dodge.
At that very instant—
A beam of golden light crashed down from above.
It was impossibly fast, far too quick for anyone to react.
Grundy's fist froze in midair. A figure appeared between him and Brucie, left hand behind his back, right hand extended forward with fingers spread wide.
Grundy's fist was caught by a palm several times smaller than his own.
The surface of that palm was coated in a vortex of golden Qi, spinning at a speed virtually imperceptible to the naked eye.
Grundy's punch hitting that vortex of Qi was like striking the surface of a rapidly rotating planet.
Shockwaves radiated outward in all directions from the point of impact, shattering every pane of glass within five hundred meters simultaneously.
Hulk and Bane were pushed back by the Shockwave, each tumbling dozens of meters away.
Felicia gripped a piece of rebar to keep from being blown away.
For the first time, an expression resembling bewilderment appeared on Grundy's zombie face.
"What..." His voice was deep and slurred. "What..."
Lin Li looked up at him.
"Solomon Grundy, why aren't you saying 'Born on a Monday'?"
With that, his right hand clenched tightly.
A vortex of golden Qi exploded from his palm, forming a Shockwave several meters in diameter centered on his fist.
Beginning from the fist, Grundy's right arm burst apart inch by inch.
Grayish-green flesh and blood splattered everywhere, the sound of splintering bone ringing clearly through the night sky.
The Shockwave surged up his arm, engulfing his shoulder joint, clavicle, and chest cavity entirely in golden light.
A hole a meter in diameter was blasted straight through the front of Grundy's body.
Grayish-green chunks and green flames poured from the cavity. His eyes widened enormously, and his lips parted and closed twice, but no sound came out.
Then his entire body exploded from the center, turning into a storm of grayish-green fragments that scattered among the ruins.
Green flames rose from the fragments, burning in midair for a few seconds before extinguishing completely.
Solomon Grundy was gone.
The entire battlefield fell silent for a moment.
Brucie slid down from the curtain wall, and Lin Li reached out to catch her.
Leaning against Lin Li's arm, she caught her breath, looked up, and gazed at him with the eye visible beneath her cowl.
"Why... did you come?"
"Luthor told us." Lin Li let go after confirming she could stand steady. "The three anchors we destroyed were traps. The God of Stories played us."
Brucie's pupils contracted sharply.
"What?"
In the distance, Hulk and Bane also halted their fight.
Hulk tilted his head, staring at the spot where Grundy had vanished, a hint of solemnity surfacing on his crazed face.
Clutching the wound on his chest, Bane backed up two steps.
He glanced at Lin Li, then at Hulk, and finally made a decision that caught everyone off guard—he turned and fled.
Hulk did not pursue him. He stared at Lin Li, a distinct emotion appearing in his crazed eyes for the very first time.
Fear.
"You..." Hulk cocked his head, the smile at the corner of his mouth twitching. "What are you..."
Lin Li turned around, a golden halo flowing around his body.
He looked toward Hulk with a calm expression.
"You don't need to know."
Hulk's pupils constricted abruptly, and he instinctively threw a punch toward his left.
But he struck only thin air—Lin Li's fist was already planted into his abdomen.
A vortex of golden Qi erupted from the fist, pouring into Hulk's body.
Hulk's eyes bulged wide, his laughter turning into dry heaves.
His body caved inward starting from his abdomen, golden light bleeding through cracks across his skin as dark-green muscle shattered and flaked away piece by piece.
"Laugh," Lin Li said. "Weren't you laughing quite happily just now?"
Hulk opened his mouth, letting out one last broken laugh from his throat.
"Ha..."
His body burst apart.
Dark-green fragments scattered in all directions, yet before they could hit the ground, they turned into black smoke and vanished into the night wind. Laughing Hulk was gone.
Lin Li withdrew his fist and turned around.
Clara descended from the sky, landing beside Brucie. Brucie watched Lin Li walk back, remaining silent for a few seconds.
"You've grown stronger," she said.
"Fought a tough battle in Atlantis," Lin Li said, rolling his shoulders. "Thanks to the God of Stories."
Felicia crawled out of the rubble, her cat ears coated in dust and her leather suit torn in several places.
Looking at the debris and rubble littering the ground, she let out a long breath.
"So... the anchors are broken, and Hell is coming?"
"Yeah," Lin Li nodded.
Selina leapt down from a rooftop on the other side, landing beside the three. Her whip was snapped in half and one lens of her goggles was broken, but she was otherwise unharmed.
"I heard Luthor on the roof earlier." She flicked her broken whip. "Satan is going to descend? Seriously?"
"Seriously," Clara said.
Brucie stayed silent for a few seconds before bending down to pick up the Golden Trident.
The shaft of the Trident had gained a crack, but was mostly intact.
Grasping the Trident, she looked at Lin Li.
"What do we do next?"
Lin Li looked up toward Gotham's night sky.
In the night sky, the three locations where the anchors had been destroyed were simultaneously emitting faint, dark-red light, converging high above to form a triangular pattern.
Within the triangle, space was distorting.
It was as though something was forcefully squeezing its way through from another dimension.
Beside them, Felicia mumbled softly, "So we have to throw down with Satan too?"
"Right," Clara said.
Selina cocked her head. "Satan? That Satan? The one from mythology?"
"Right."
Selina fell silent for two seconds, then shrugged.
"Fine. If we survived Gotham, what's there to be afraid of?"
Felicia glanced at her. "With that mindset, you're well-suited to be Catwoman in Gotham."
"Thanks, I already am Catwoman in Gotham."
Brucie paid no attention to their bickering. Gripping the Trident, she stared at the expanding dark-red triangle in the sky, her eye beneath the cowl glinting coldly in the firelight.
Hell was coming.
Brucie Wayne, Batwoman.
Felicia Hardy, Black Cat.
Selina Kyle, Catwoman.
Kara Kent, Supergirl.
Lin Li.
Five people stood upon the ruins of Gotham, looking up at the sky.
The dark-red light in the night sky grew brighter and brighter, and the center of the triangle began to cave downward, like a gate being pushed open.
On the other side of that gate, flames burned.
And something even more ancient, even more oppressive, was stepping forth from the depths of the flames.
Lin Li watched the gate and clenched his fists.
The vortex of golden Qi slowly rotated around him, resonating from afar with the dark-red glow in the sky.
"Hell? Bring it on. As it happens, my current strength should be enough to crush Hell..."
Chapter 104: How Many of My Punches Can You Take?
Under the machinations of the God of Stories, Hell began its invasion of this Universe's Earth.
The moment the rift spread, the entire sky over Gothamwas dyed blood-red.
The clouds curled and peeled away like burning paper, revealing a sight behind them that shouldn't exist in any dimension—
Hell.
Flames poured down from the rift with a viscous texture, clinging to buildings like living creatures as they climbed, devoured, and spread.
Wherever a cluster of Fire landed, the ground bulged into a charred lump that split open, allowing something to crawl out from within.
A demon rose from the ruins of Gotham Harbor; it stood five meters tall, its body covered in dark red scales.
Two curved horns atop its head pointed to the sky, and magma-like saliva dripped from its mouth.
It looked around and unleashed a roar so deafening that every pane of glass within a three-kilometer radius shattered simultaneously.
Then came a second, a third, a tenth...
The Hell legion surged from the rift like a tidal wave. There were hound demons as small as dogs, bearing three heads.
There were behemoth demons as colossal as buildings, collapsing the ground with every step they took.
There were humanoid demons with bat wings wheeling through the air, raining Fire down upon the ground.
In an instant, the streets of Gotham turned into a living purgatory.
And the Justice League reacted the very instant Hellinvaded.
A crimson beam streaked across the horizon as Supergirlappeared in the sky above Gotham Harbor.
Hovering in midair, she furrowed her brows as she surveyed the Hell legion filling the city, then swooped down, punching straight through a behemoth demon attacking a residential building.
A massive hole was blasted through the demon's chest, but in the next second, flames surged from the void, restoring it completely.
"How can it not die?"
Supergirl's pupils constricted as three hound demons pounced on her.
At the same time, the Batwing roared across the sky over Gotham.
Sitting in the cockpit, Batwoman deployed over a dozen freeze bombs in rapid succession, temporarily freezing the demons across an entire area.
The Flash darted through the streets, pulling surviving citizens from collapsed buildings and carrying them to safety.
Green Lantern Hal Jordan materialized a giant chain out of energy, binding a gigantic demon that was trying to make landfall from the harbor.
The problem, however, was... there were simply too many demons.
"They're pouring out of three rifts simultaneously!" Cyborg's voice came through the comm channel.
"Gotham, Metropolis, and Atlantis—all three anchor points are releasing Hell energy! We have to hold all three battlefields at once!"
"We can't hold them," Batwoman said in a cold, hard voice.
"At these numbers, unless those sorcerers use magic to seal the rifts, more and more demons will keep coming."
"Then what do we do?"
"Wait."
"Wait for what?"
"Wait for Lin Li. Though he comes from another Universe, his power is beyond our imagination."
As she spoke, Batwoman gazed through the cockpit toward downtown Gotham City.
There, a golden light was rampaging through the demonic tide.
Lin Li landed on his feet, and the Shockwave blasted away all the demons within thirty meters simultaneously.
A golden vortex of Qi covered his entire body, making him resemble a burning golden star from afar.
A behemoth demon lunged at him, but with a backhanded punch, he blew it apart from the center, its fragments dissipating into black smoke.
"Qi can completely destroy them," Lin Li's voice rang across all comm channels. "Use energy attacks, not physical attacks!"
Clara descended from the sky, her crimson Heat Visionsweeping across the area and reducing hundreds of lesser demons to ashes.
Her golden aura resonated with Lin Li's brilliance; flanking left and right, the two tore through the Hell legion's formation like red-hot blades.
"There are too many of them!" Felicia's voice came through the communicator.
Standing atop a building, her Claws slashed a pouncing hound demon into three pieces, but ten more sprang from the flank.
"My Claws aren't very effective against them!"
Selina's whip coiled around a demon's neck, yanking it out of the air and slamming it down onto the edge of the rooftop.
"Physical attacks can hurt them, but can't kill them!" she shouted, rolling to dodge a demon's breath of Fire.
"We need to use that thing!" She was referring to Brucie's Golden Trident.
Brucie didn't hesitate for a second. Seawater surged from behind her, forming a massive curtain of Water that swept up the demons across an entire street.
The power of Atlantis within the curtain of Water was extraordinarily effective against creatures of Hell; after struggling in the Water for a few seconds, the demons began to dissolve.
"It works!" Brucie felt invigorated. "The seawater can—"
Before she could finish, a beast several times larger than all the previous demons plummeted from the rift, crashing into downtown Gotham City.
Its size rivaled a skyscraper. Atop its head sat a figure—human torso, ram horns, wielding a Trident blazing with black Fire.
"Beelzebub."
Constantine's voice suddenly broke into the comm channel.
"Beelzebub, one of the Seven Princes of Hell.
Don't ask me how I know. Ask, and the answer is that I'm just an old unlucky bastard."
"Constantine?" Brucie frowned. "Where are you?"
"In the place you'd least want to be."
In an alley in Gotham's lower district, Constantine leaned against a wall scorched black by flames, holding half a cigarette between his fingers.
His trench coat was stained with green demonic blood, and a claw mark was still oozing blood on his face.
At his feet, a demon he had eliminated with a ritual was dissolving into black smoke.
"Seven Princes of Hell?" Felicia's voice came through the comm. "Are you serious? God damn that God of Stories, how much shit did he stir up for us?"
"More than seven," Constantine took a drag of his cigarette, his voice hoarse. "Beelzebub is just leading the vanguard.
Minions of Trigon and Lucifer will be coming out one after another.
This isn't an invasion—it's a fucking All-Star Weekend."
The moment he finished speaking, heavy footsteps echoed from both ends of the alley.
Constantine's face turned green in an instant.
To the left of the alley was a three-headed hound demon, each head half as big as his torso, with six eyes staring at him simultaneously.
To the right was a ram-horned demon gripping a rusted greataxe, its skin peeled away to reveal the raw muscle tissue underneath.
"You've got to be kidding me." Constantine tossed the cigarette butt to the ground. "Again?"
The low growls of the three-headed hound demon echoed in the alley, Fire flickering in its six eyes.
The ram-horned demon raised its axe, rust dripping from the blade like blood.
"Gentlemen," Constantine raised both hands, forcing a smile uglier than crying.
"Whatever misunderstandings we had, that's all in the past.
Look, it's better to make friends than enemies. Why don't we..."
The three-headed hound demon roared and lunged right at him.
"Fuck! You bastards have no sense of sportsmanship!" Constantine turned and ran.
He vaulted over a low wall, squeezed through a gap barely half a person wide, and darted between the pipes.
Behind him, the demons smashed through the walls, their roars drawing closer and closer.
"Fuck, I can't outrun these bastards."
The three-headed hound demon crashed through a side wall, its three heads opening their mouths at once to spew flames of three different colors.
Constantine slid under the flames, singeing a patch of his trousers, but escaped unharmed.
Rolling back to his feet, he kept running.
The ram-horned demon appeared in front of him, bringing its greataxe crashing down.
Constantine dodged sharply to the side. As the axe lodged into the ground, he used the momentum to leap onto its handle.
Then, with a backflip, he landed on the demon's shoulder, pushed off its horn with his toes, and jumped again.
"Thanks for the ride, big guy!"
He landed atop a wall at the end of the alley, but the ram-horned demon swung its arm back and grabbed the hem of his trench coat.
Constantine was yanked off the wall, slamming heavily onto the ground.
The three-headed hound demon closed in from behind, all three heads dipping low and opening their jaws toward him.
Flames gathered in their throats, an orange-red glow illuminating the entire alley.
Lying on the ground, Constantine watched the three mouths charging their breath, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and popped it into his mouth.
"Fine," his lips twitched slightly, "I'm out of fucking ideas."
Just as the flames were about to engulf Constantine, a golden figure descended from the sky.
BOOM!!!
A golden vortex of Qi erupted from the point of impact, the Shockwave blasting both the three-headed hound demon and the ram-horned demon into the air.
All three heads of the hound demon slammed against the alley wall at once, its cervical vertebrae snapping with a crisp crack.
The ram-horned demon's greataxe went flying, and the creature itself was propelled out of the alley by the blast wave, tumbling over a dozen times down the street.
The flames were completely dispersed by the golden vortex of Qi.
Constantine lay on the ground, the cigarette in his mouth completely intact.
He blinked twice, staring at the figure standing before him.
Lin Li looked down at him.
"Constantine."
"Uh," Constantine scrambled to his feet and patted the dust off his trench coat. "You know me?"
"I do," Lin Li explained. "After all, in this world, nobody else could take out loans from both Heaven and Hell at the same time."
Constantine: "..."
Thanks for knowing me, I guess.
Lin Li raised a fist and threw a punch to the left; the gale from his fist sent the three-headed hound demon, which had just gotten up, flying once again.
It crashed through the partition walls of three buildings, disappearing into the rubble.
He glanced to the right.
The ram-horned demon had just scrambled to its feet, but catching Lin Li's gaze, it hesitated for a second before turning to flee.
"Where are you running?" Lin Li raised a foot and kicked through the air.
The air was compressed into a visible Shockwave that slammed into the ram-horned demon's back, blasting it into a plume of black smoke.
The alley fell silent.
Watching this, Constantine pulled a lighter from his pocket, lit the cigarette in his mouth, and took a deep drag.
"Fair enough," he blew out a puff of smoke. "You're stronger than anyone I know. You must be that person from another Universe Brucie mentioned?"
"Yes, but what matters most right now is Hell's invasion, and finding that bastard, the God of Stories."
Constantine shrugged.
"This whole Hell invasion thing—I'm familiar with it.
Been in this line of work too long. Every time, Hell wants to destroy the world, then we find a few heavy hitters, do a ritual, shut the gate, and done.
I've got the routine memorized."
Lin Li: "No need for all that trouble this time."
Constantine raised an eyebrow. "What do you plan to do?"
"Beat Hell back."
Constantine fell silent for two seconds, then tossed the cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it underfoot.
"Kid, Hell has seven layers. Each layer has a Lord of Hell, and each lord has their own legion.
Right now you're facing Beelzebub. As for the numbers in his legion...
Put it this way: you could count from the day you were born until tonight, and you still wouldn't finish."
Lin Li looked down at him. "And?"
"So..." Constantine stared at the golden energy sphere in his palm and suddenly grinned.
"So this attitude of yours—'I'm just going to beat the shit out of Hell head-on'—I fucking love it."
He pulled a yellowed old map from inside his trench coat and spread it out between them.
The map marked the locations corresponding to the three anchor points, as well as the lines of energy flowing between those rifts.
"Hell's invasion is sustained through the anchor rifts." Constantine traced a line across the map with his finger.
"As long as we seal the rifts, the legions behind them won't be able to come through. Sealing the rifts requires..."
"Requires energy," Lin Li said.
"Right. Immense, pure energy." Constantine looked up at him.
"Is that so... But I feel like I can just beat these demons to death directly."
Lin Li raised his head, looking toward the demon god in downtown Gotham City.
"With my Power of a Million Suns..."
...
On the battlefield in downtown Gotham City, Beelzebubsat atop the behemoth demon's head, watching the Justice League fighting tooth and nail against the demon legion below.
"These are the Guardians of Earth?" His voice was low and arrogant. "Weak and vulnerable."
With that, Beelzebub raised his Trident burning with black Fire and pointed it toward the sky.
The demons surging from the rift suddenly grew even more frenzied; their bodies swelled, their strength doubled, and their numbers multiplied at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Supergirl was knocked back by three behemoth demons simultaneously, crashing straight through a building.
Alfred's fighter jet was mobbed by more than a dozen winged demons; with its engines smoking, he was forced to eject.
Wonder Woman ensnared a demon with her Lasso of Truth, only to be tackled from the side by even more demons.
"Where is Lin Li!" The Flash shouted as he ran. His speed was already beginning to drop, the demonic flames draining his stamina.
"He went down," Brucie soared across the sky, her Tridentsweeping out to freeze a wave of demons. "Constantine is down there."
"Constantine?" Wonder Woman's voice came through the comm, laced with teeth-gritting venom. "That con man?"
"Yes." Brucie touched down on a rooftop, catching her breath.
Right then, the ground shook.
A tremor more violent than any before rumbled up from the deep subterranean depths of Gotham.
A pillar of golden light erupted thunderously from the ground in the city center, rocketing straight into the heavens.
The pillar of light was as thick as a skyscraper, golden vortexes of Qi swirling violently across its surface, dragging every demon in its path into the vortex, tearing them apart and reducing them to ashes.
As the pillar of light swept past the behemoth demon beneath Beelzebub, half of its body was instantly vaporized.
Within the pillar of light, Lin Li rose slowly, golden radiance blazing all over him, making him look from afar like a divine idol crafted from pure gold.
"Beelzebub, I hear you're a Lord of Hell?"
"I wonder, how many of my punches can you take?"
Chapter 105: Is the Lord of Hell Too Weak?
Beelzebub raised his Trident, burning with black flames, and pointed it at Lin Li.
"Big words. The last person who spoke to me like that is already hanging from a pillar on the seventh floor as an ornament."
Lin Li descended from the pillar of light, his feet landing on the ruins in the center of Gotham City.
The golden cyclone around him gradually contracted, condensing into a nearly tangible film of light.
"You must have quite a few ornaments hanging on your seventh-floor pillars then." Lin Li stretched his wrists. "Mind if I add another pair of ram horns?"
"Hmph! Mortal, you have overstepped!"
Beelzebub snorted coldly, raised his Trident, and pointed toward the sky.
Tens of thousands of Hell demons turned their heads simultaneously, looking in Lin Li's direction.
Immediately after, under everyone's astonished gazes, these hideous demons began fusing together.
Bones pierced out from the bodies of three-headed hound demons, fusing with the giant beast demons beside them.
The wings of winged demons tore through skin and sprouted from the spines of ram-horned demons.
It was as if an invisible giant hand was molding these demons like plasticine, pressing them together until they gradually turned into giant demons over fifty meters tall.
The bodies of these giant demons were stitched together from hundreds of smaller ones; their skin was covered with eyes and mouths, looking chaotic and hideous.
"What on earth is that?"
Felicia stood on a rooftop in the distance, her brows furrowed.
"A patch-up monster? A Hell version of Frankenstein?"
"Way uglier than Frankenstein."
Selina stood beside her. Her whip was completely snapped, so she had replaced it with two fire axes picked up from the ruins.
"Just one look at this thing makes me want to wash my eyes out."
Brucie dropped down from the sky, thrusting her Tridentinto the ground as seawater formed a massive curtain of water behind her.
Her gaze passed over the composite demon and landed on Beelzebub further away.
"Lin Li is taking the front; we'll attack from the flank." Her voice broadcasted across all channels through the communicator.
"Clara, hit its eyes with Heat Vision! Hal, use your energy construct to seal its mouth! Diana, bind its wings with the lasso!"
"Copy that," Clara's voice came from the sky.
She had already recovered from the previous battle, a golden halo flowing steadily over her body.
She took a deep breath, and crimson Heat Vision erupted from her eyes, precisely hitting the dense row of eyes on the composite demon's front.
Those eyes burst under the extreme heat, and the composite demon let out a screech that sounded like a blend of hundreds of agonized screams.
Hal Jordan used his Green Lantern power ring to construct a giant strip of duct tape, wrapping it three times around the composite demon's largest mouth.
Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth shot out from the side, wrapping around the base of the composite demon's wings. With a sharp pull, the wing joints snapped with a crisp crack.
"Lin Li!" Brucie shouted. "Now!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Lin Li vanished on the spot.
In the next instant, he appeared directly in front of the composite demon's chest.
Golden Qi condensed on his right fist into an energy sphere over three meters in diameter, spinning at a speed so blindingly fast that the surrounding air was ionized into plasma.
His fist slammed straight into the composite demon's chest.
The golden energy sphere exploded.
BOOM!!!
A Shockwave expanded in all directions from the point of impact, forming a visible ring of compressed air.
A whole layer of ground in central Gotham was scraped away, surrounding ruins were entirely leveled, and even the clock tower in the distance wobbled in the air wave.
A hole dozens of meters in diameter was blasted right through the composite demon's chest.
Golden Qi poured into its body through the cavernous hole, spreading rapidly along the bones, muscle, and blood vessels of those demons.
Hundreds of demons were simultaneously shredded by the golden Qi, turning into a sky full of black smoke and ash.
Before the ash could even hit the ground, it was scattered by the air wave, creating a flurry of black snow over Gotham.
Beelzebub's Trident blocked the flying debris.
Standing atop the giant beast demon's remains, his expression changed slightly as he watched the composite demon he had summoned get reduced to nothing in less than two seconds.
"Such formidable power... what on earth is that?"
"Superman." Lin Li pulled back his fist and looked at Beelzebub. "A Superman far stronger than you could ever imagine."
Beelzebub raised his Trident, and the black flames surged, condensing above his head into a colossal fiery beast.
The temperature of the flames was so intense that the surrounding air distorted, and even Brucie in the distance felt the scorching heat.
"As one of the Seven Princes of Hell, Beelzebub," his voice became formal, as if pronouncing an ancient judgment, "in the name of the Lord of the Second Circle of Hell, I sentence you to eternal damnation—"
"Stop chanting," Lin Li raised his hand. "You talk too much."
He brought his palms together and pulled them back to his waist.
Golden Qi compressed furiously within his palms, causing the surrounding space to distort.
Clouds above Gotham were dragged down, debris from buildings was pulled over, and even distant burning flames were yanked toward his palms by the gravitational pull.
Golden light condensed into a fist-sized orb between his hands; its surface whirled with countless tiny cyclones, each resembling a miniature star.
"Kame..."
Beelzebub felt the energy contained inside that sphere of light—a terrifying power capable of destroying an entire planet.
"...hame..."
Beelzebub jammed his Trident into the ground, and black flames formed a shield several meters thick in front of him.
At the same time, he bit his finger and drew seven Hellrunes upon the shield.
"...ha!"
Lin Li thrust both palms forward.
A blue beam of light erupted from his palms; the sphere expanded the instant it was unleashed into a massive pillar of light over ten meters wide.
Wherever it passed, the air ignited, the ground vaporized, and space itself tore open.
The shield of black flames was shredded like paper before the golden beam of light, and the seven Hell runes turned to ash in the illumination before a scream could even be uttered.
Beelzebub held up his Trident to block in front of him.
The pillar of light blasted into the Trident.
The black Trident snapped right down the middle.
Beelzebub's body was engulfed by the golden light, his ram horns shattering in the glow.
His entire body was blasted backward, crashing through the edge of the rift and tumbling dozens of times in the dark crimson space, before finally vanishing into the flames deep within the fissure.
The golden pillar of light pierced through the entire sky, leaving a golden rift inside the tear.
That rift was like a golden nail, firmly pinning down the closing fissure so it could neither completely close nor expand any further.
"A Lord of Hell? That's it? Isn't he way too weak?"
Waiting for more chapters