Today's a big update!
Let's get to it!
LexCorp Tower, top floor.
The global broadcast signal had been cut.
The office was deathly quiet.
Lex Luthor stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside the window was the city, now a complete mess.
On the screen, the image of the black-haired man smiling playfully at the camera still replayed in his mind.
That wasn't a victory declaration for Superman.
That was a public execution for him, Lex Luthor.
A blatant, undisguised provocation, like someone who had found a new toy.
His 'Deleted-Slaying Theory,' built with a lifetime of wisdom and countless riches, had been effortlessly crushed, like stepping on an ant.
"Crack."
Next to him, the several-million-dollar mahogany desk bore a clear fist imprint from his single hand.
Spiderweb-like cracks spread outwards from beneath the impact.
His assistant, Mercy Graves, pushed open the door and entered.
She held a tablet, her face pale.
"Boss, Metallo... John Corben's life signal has completely vanished beyond the stratosphere."
"We've... lost all contact."
Her voice trembled as she spoke.
Mercy had been with Luthor for many years.
She had seen him angry, arrogant, and calculating.
But she had never seen her boss like this before.
Luthor didn't turn around.
He merely spoke in a hoarse voice, as if squeezed from deep within his throat.
"Get out."
Mercy's body stiffened.
"Boss..."
"Get out!"
A roar.
Mercy flinched in fear, almost dropping the tablet.
She dared not say another word, quickly bowed, exited the office, and softly closed the door.
The moment the door closed.
A crashing sound of a large object shattering echoed from within the office.
The mahogany desk, symbolizing the status of his business empire, had been smashed in half by his fist.
"Why?"
Luthor paced wildly back and forth in the ruined office.
"Why did kryptonite fail?"
He ran his hand over his bald head, his eyes filled with incomprehensible madness.
"This isn't scientific!"
"My data, my models, all my deductions proved that kryptonite was the ultimate solution!"
He abruptly stopped, looking at an entire wall on one side of his office.
That was his 'Wall of Honor.'
The wall was covered with design blueprints for various anti-Superman weapons, precise models, and data analysis reports from every confrontation with Superman.
This was the crystallization of his intellect.
It was all his effort dedicated to fighting that alien 'false god.'
He walked over, picked up a golf club from the corner of the wall.
"Bang!"
The protective glass of the first design blueprint was violently shattered.
"Godslayer Armor? Trash!"
"Bang!"
"kryptonite Energy Cannon? Scrap metal!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Like a madman, he swung the club, smashing everything on the wall, all his past pride, piece by piece, into smithereens.
Glass shards, metal parts, paper reports... scattered across the floor.
Until the entire wall was bare and in disarray.
Luthor finally stopped, gasping for breath.
He threw away the bent and twisted club and collapsed onto the floor.
Around him was the 'old world' he had personally destroyed.
The office was utterly silent.
After a long while.
A low chuckle escaped Luthor's throat.
"Heh heh..."
"Hahahahahahaha!"
The laughter grew louder, more frantic, filled with a pathological euphoria.
"I understand..."
He leaned against the wall, slowly rising to his feet.
In his eyes, the previous anger and fear of humiliation had vanished.
What remained was a dangerous, obsessive gleam, as if he had discovered a whole new field.
"I wasn't wrong."
"It wasn't kryptonite that was wrong, nor was my theory wrong."
He walked to the other side of the office, to a brand new, pure white smart whiteboard.
"It was the sample... a perfect... anomalous sample that shouldn't exist!"
His finger traced across the whiteboard, leaving a clear mark.
"A Kryptonian without weaknesses..."
"No, he's not even... entirely Kryptonian. That fighting style, that use of energy..."
Luthor's breathing became rapid.
He was like Columbus discovering a new continent, his eyes glowing with fanaticism.
"Killing a god with a weakness is merely the act of a butcher."
"But analyzing a god without weaknesses, replicating him, controlling him..."
With trembling hands, he wrote several large words in the center of the whiteboard.
Project Codename: Prometheus
Below it were several new sub-topics.
"Target Individual [Ter-Ror]: Analysis of energy composition and output mode."
"Study of the fusion stability between unknown gene fragments and Kryptonian genes."
"Topic Three: How to replicate an obedient... Deleted?"
His research direction had completely changed at this moment.
From "How to kill Superman."
To "How to possess Ter-Ror."
Meanwhile.
Downtown Metropolis.
Clark Kent had recovered from the kryptonite radiation.
He looked at the devastated street before him, his emotions incredibly complex.
He wanted to thank his cousin for saving him.
Yet he also wanted to reprimand him for his astonishing, barbaric display of power to the entire world just now.
For a moment, he didn't know how to speak.
Ter-Ror clapped the dust from his hands, completely ignoring the awestruck and fearful gazes around him.
He walked up to Clark, sizing him up and down.
"You..."
Clark was about to say something.
Ter-Ror simply clapped him on the shoulder, with considerable force.
He spoke lazily, in a tone of one lecturing a junior.
"Kal-El. My dear cousin."
"Next time, don't get tripped up by a glowing little rock."
"Your ki is stronger than I imagined, don't waste it."
After speaking, he turned away indifferently, intending to leave.
Clark was so choked by his words that he couldn't speak.
What was that?
Approval? Or mockery?
Just then.
Ter-Ror passed a shop window facing the street.
The television in the window was broadcasting an emergency news flash, and the screen had just switched to another city.
Central City.
A recent recording was being replayed.
A figure in a red suit, moving as fast as a red lightning bolt.
He weaved between collapsing buildings, moving endangered civilians one by one to safety.
Each movement was accompanied by tiny golden electrical sparks.
Ter-Ror's steps halted.
His 'ki' sense had detected a very unique energy fluctuation in that recording.
It was completely different from all the energy he had felt before.
"This little guy who only runs around..."
Ter-Ror stared at the red figure on the screen, muttering to himself.
He had found something new that interested him.
Kara had also arrived from National City by this time.
She landed beside Clark, looking at the unharmed Ter-Ror, then at the chaotic scene, her expression equally complex.
"Are you okay, Clark?"
"I'm fine, Kara."
Ter-Ror suddenly turned to look at Clark and Kara.
"cousin, Kara, when are we going to have a fight?"
"I feel like these people aren't as good as you two."