"No!"
Clark rejected it sternly without a second thought.
His tone was more serious than ever before.
"Tel, you don't know how to control your power!"
"Letting you go after Livewire will only cause immeasurable destruction and casualties!"
"Control?"
Tel-El heard the word and scoffed as if he had heard a huge joke.
"Why control it?"
His gaze swept over Clark and Kara, his eyes filled with genuine confusion.
He was like a wild lion looking at two of its kind, whose claws and teeth had been blunted, confined in a zoo.
"Power is meant to be unleashed."
"Not kept in a cage like a pet, like you two do."
As soon as he finished speaking...
"Boom—!"
A white aura, several times more powerful than the one in the park earlier, exploded from Tel-El!
The entire DEO base shook violently under the impact of this furious energy wave!
Light tubes on the ceiling burst in clusters, countless precise instrument screens were incinerated, emitting sizzling electrical sparks.
All the DEO agents present, including Director Hank Henshaw, were pressed firmly to the ground by this terrifying pressure, unable to even lift a finger!
Kara and Clark's expressions also changed drastically.
They felt as if they were standing in the center of an exploding sun.
The heat, the raw, pure energy, made every cell in their bodies scream in agony!
"You..."
Kara spoke with difficulty, looking at the huge cracks appearing on the wall due to the energy impact, completely dumbfounded.
Tel-El didn't give them another chance to speak nonsense.
He didn't even bother to look for the base's exit.
Because in his eyes, all walls were exits!
"Boom!!!"
With a deafening roar, Tel-El unleashed a ki blast with a raised hand.
It directly blasted through the DEO headquarters' wall, which was made of several layers of special alloy and was said to be able to withstand a nuclear bomb!
He forcibly carved a straight, massive tunnel through the entire base, piercing through more than a dozen layers of its structure!
He transformed into a streak of white light and shot into the sky!
Smoke and dust filled the air.
Clark and Kara stood before the massive hole, utterly speechless.
Cold wind poured in through the gaping hole, ruffling their somewhat disheveled hair.
After a long while...
"What was that?" Kara's voice was a little dry. She gazed at the sky, muttering, "That energy... that speed... I couldn't keep up at all."
Clark silently shook his head, his eyes filled with unprecedented solemnity and confusion.
"I don't know."
"But I can be sure that it's definitely not Kryptonian power."
"But he is indeed a Kryptonian!"
National City Center.
Chaos was unfolding.
A woman shimmering with blue electricity—Livewire—was floating in mid-air.
She spread her arms, greedily sucking up the city's electricity like an addict.
The entire block plunged into darkness.
"Hahahahaha!"
Feeling an unprecedented surge of power within her, she let out a maniacal laugh.
"Where's Superman? Where's Supergirl?"
"Today, this city is mine!"
With a casual wave, a lightning bolt as thick as a bucket descended from the sky, incinerating a police car.
Citizens screamed and scattered, fleeing in all directions.
Just as she was reveling in the thrill of this fear and power...
A lazy voice suddenly sounded in front of her.
"Playing with electricity?"
Livewire's laughter caught in her throat.
She saw a black-haired, blue-eyed man, who had appeared before her at some unknown point.
He wasn't wearing any uniform, was bare-chested, and looked at her with calm eyes.
Tel-El couldn't be bothered to even glance at the surrounding chaos.
His senses told him that the woman in front of him had more energy than those DEO nobodies, but only marginally so.
He extended a finger and beckoned to her.
"Show me your strongest electricity."
"You—are—asking—for—death—!"
Livewire was enraged by this extreme disdain.
She gathered all the electrical energy she had just absorbed into a single point.
A massive lightning bolt, several times thicker than the one that had just struck the police car, transformed into a roaring thunder dragon and fiercely blasted towards Tel-El's face!
"Careful!"
Just then, Superman's figure appeared in the distant sky. He let out an anxious warning, preparing to rush over and save him.
However, he witnessed a sight that he would never forget in his life.
Facing that terrifying lightning strike, powerful enough to blast a building into dust...
Tel-El did not dodge or evade.
He didn't even change his posture.
He simply, slowly, extended his right hand.
Then, with one hand...
He caught the furious lightning bolt.
"Sizzle—!!!"
Devastating electric light wildly surged across his arm, emitting an ear-piercing hiss, yet it couldn't harm even a single hair on him.
They were like a group of docile little snakes, futilely licking their master's palm.
"Is that all?"
On Tel-El's face, there was undisguised disdain and disappointment.
He squeezed his five fingers tightly.
"Boom!"
That massive lightning bolt was forcefully, directly crushed in his hand!
It transformed into a sky full of dazzling electric sparks, dissipating into the air.
The citizens who were frantically fleeing stopped in their tracks.
Superman and Supergirl, who had arrived, halted in mid-air.
Even Livewire, the instigator, her manic laughter completely froze.
Tel-El's figure vanished from his original spot.
He reappeared in front of Livewire.
In Livewire's terrified pupils, his calm face was reflected.
She wanted to scream, to retreat, but found her body was bound by invisible shackles, unable to move.
Tel-El slowly raised his right hand and extended his index finger.
A white speck of light, the size of a grain of rice, lit up on his fingertip.
"Too weak."
He pronounced softly.
Then, the light on his index finger flashed, silently piercing through her skull.
The light in Livewire's eyes extinguished, and the electric glow shimmering around her body instantly dissipated.
Her body plummeted straight down from the sky.
Superman instinctively rushed over and caught her before she hit the ground.
But the feeling in his hands was lifeless.
He looked down at the woman in his arms, her eyes wide open, with only a tiny charred hole between her eyebrows, his mind a blank.
Dead.
She was... killed just like that.
From Tel-El's move to Livewire's death...
The entire process took less than ten seconds.
Tel-El slowly descended onto the devastated street.
He looked up at Superman and Supergirl, who were stiff with shock and anger in mid-air, and grinned, revealing a smile mixed with contempt and instruction.
He gestured with his chin towards the still-warm corpse in Superman's arms.
"See."
"This is how you solve a problem."
As his words fell, everyone around the globe who witnessed this scene via their phones and news broadcasts reacted with either joy or concern.
In Gotham City, inside the Batcave...
Watching the nonchalant scene on the screen, Bruce Wayne's eyes narrowed.
He typed on the keyboard, and a top-secret file was created.
The file was named: White Phantom.
Threat Level: Omega.