The lethality of Mars exploding was not actually that significant.
Mars is a rocky planet. Its internal structure is dominated by silicate rocks and a metallic core, lacking the conditions for nuclear fusion fuel or sustained fusion reactions found in stars.
Even if the explosion of Mars released its entire gravitational binding energy, it would only amount to three-millionths of the energy the sun releases per second. Therefore, the aftermath of this explosion would not surge toward Earth.
However.
The energy currently being radiated by the two golden figures was another matter entirely. Mars had exploded, yet at this moment, the flames and shockwaves engulfing the planet appeared utterly dim.
At the very center of the explosion, two figures were confronting each other in a manner that transcended physical laws. The brilliance they erupted with could cause even a supernova to lose its luster in their presence.
This was not science.
It was Kryptonian Science.
The idealistic philosophy of Krypton.
The moment those two figures collided in the core, all the fire, dust, and shockwaves became mere background. In the center of the explosion, two golden figures were locked in a physical struggle.
One was clad in the red and blue battle suit, his eyes as scorching as stars—he was Superman, Clark Kent, the symbol of hope. The other, whose very suit possessed a golden sheen, was also Superman, Clark Kent.
However, this individual was the counterpart of Ian's father from another universe, a presence with an incredibly resolute and cold countenance.
"They showed me everything, they let me witness the end... Only when there is but one Superman left can we be in time to save this multiverse!"
The Golden Superman was whispering to Ian's father. The authentic Clark of this universe did not approve of this salvation through the slaughter of counterparts; he remained silent, his arms clashing against the opponent's.
The mere counter-pressure of their energy tore through the warp and weft of time and space.
Boom—!!!
A pillar of light that defied description erupted from the center of their engagement.
That was not merely light.
It was a torrent of pure will from both men, the purest manifestation of Hope from the depths of the Kryptonian bloodline, a light of conviction sufficient to rewrite the laws of physics.
It swept past, and the planetary debris along its path disappeared like pencil marks erased by an eraser. Even space-time itself was twisting and deforming. Golden energy poured down like the Milky Way in reverse, instantly swallowing the Martian wreckage, Phobos, and all the floating cloned corpses. The planets, meteors, and everything else along the way were consumed.
Even light itself was evaporated, distorted, and reconstructed into pure dust of light by this force. This brilliance was powerful to the extreme, far exceeding the brightness of any burning star.
It was as if it intended to ignite the darkness of the entire multiverse.
"Light Superman! The authentic M78 Nebula is in DC!"
Ian was riding on the back of the Injustice Superman, his hands death-gripped onto the opponent's fingers. The Injustice Superman's knuckles emitted an overburdened "crack-crack" sound, looking as though Ian was about to snap his sixth finger.
However.
The light had already erupted toward them.
"How could it be like this... your Clark shouldn't have such potential..." The Injustice Superman, whose emotions were suppressed, was still in a daze when Ian grabbed him and used him as a human shield.
"You have to use a Superman to fight a Superman!"
Ian hid his face behind the other's back. The moment the light swallowed the two of them, Ian felt the blood in his entire body boiling—it wasn't a metaphor, golden-red flames actually ignited within his blood vessels.
Even Little Ian felt a scorching sensation of being set on fire.
[Berserker Experience +99]
[Berserker Experience +99]
[Berserker Experience +99]
...
[Warning: Detection of a surge in germ cell activity, immediate cooling is recommended.]
The golden light surged like a tsunami.
That was not a physical temperature, but a burning on the level of existence.
The Injustice Superman was blocked in front of Ian. Even so, as the light approached and swallowed them, Ian still felt that Little Ian had a scorching sensation of being ignited.
"Cooling my ass!" Ian gripped the Injustice Superman deathly tight, feeling as though he were clutching a surfboard while struggling in a tsunami. "Is this the kind of thing that can be cooled?!"
Ian was emitting a sharp, booming scream.
Not far away, Batman's Hellbat armor emitted a piercing overload alarm. Under the mask, the golden tide drawing closer was reflected in Bruce Wayne's pupils.
He looked up at the golden light sweeping over everything, and for the first time, true fear appeared in his eyes.
"No... this impact... I can't withstand it at all..." He suddenly raised his left arm, and a miniature card-swiping machine popped out of the armor. In his hand, he was holding a gold card.
"Unlock limited-time magic superpowers! Highest authority!"
The Hellbat was roaring, swiping the card with forced composure. This was the little surprise Ian had designed for him; as long as he swiped the card, he could unlock various magic superpowers Ian had inscribed on it.
It could be considered an additional value-added service. Ian knew Bruce Wayne would eventually thank him, because he had made the money power Bruce Wayne possessed a bit more worthy of the name.
Ding—
[Insufficient balance.]
Of course, having no money made it a completely different concept. Since the "online" service for this armor was provided by the Marvel Black Box, normally even in this place and environment, it wouldn't affect the network signal. However, while the network signal didn't falter, Batman's money power encountered its Waterloo.
"What?!" Even Batman was stunned. Although he had just grabbed a card at random, it shouldn't have been used up so quickly. The King of Gotham's eyes were nearly splitting at this moment.
"I have eight billion in this card! It only lasted eight minutes?!" Even for someone who doesn't care about money like Batman, he had a terrible feeling of being robbed at this moment.
Using money power is just like this.
A line of flashing red text was projected before his eyes by the armor's AI.
"FUC—"
Just as Batman saw the AI message, which prompted that it could provide an Ian Loan for Batman, the light arrived. Batman's final curse was completely swallowed.
Perhaps there wasn't a Clark Kent from any universe who would have no malice toward Batman, so their light contained a critical hit damage effect that was exceptionally effective against Batman.
The Kent-style Hellbat armor didn't have much of a problem, especially that card-swiping machine, which was higher in strength than any other component. However, this armor could not protect him from the light that could penetrate through it.
That light did not explode, and there was no impact. It merely covered him gently, but in the next instant—Bruce's flesh-and-blood body didn't even leave behind ashes.
Flesh, bone, nerves, and memories disintegrated like grains of sand. Everything that constituted the body of Bruce Wayne turned into nothingness in silence.
He didn't even have time to scream.
Like dust casually brushed away by a deity.
The golden light continued to spread, devouring everything.
"No! Uncle Bruce! You can't have a father-son reunion yet! Leave me a hand... leave me a hand that can open those secret treasures you hid in Gotham!" Ian hugged the mangled body of the Injustice Superman, tumbling in the light. His eyes could no longer see clearly. The last thing he saw was those two figures clashing fists again in the sea of light.
The entire Milky Way galaxy seemed to vibrate under that strike.
...
Simultaneously.
Earth, Gotham, inside the Wayne family's 666th Batcave. In the dark room, dozens of monitors lit up with a piercing red light at the same time.
Gotham's newly promoted hero, the Wheelchair Batman, Bruce Wayne, suddenly opened his eyes. His chest was heaving violently. His hands suddenly clenched the armrests on both sides of the wheelchair.
Sweat dripped from Bruce Wayne's chin onto the armrests of the Golden Throne. Drop after drop of sweat shattered on the exquisitely carved relief.
His entire body's muscles were spasming uncontrollably, as if he had just been pierced through by a hundred thousand volts—in fact, it was much the same. The sequelae of psionic overload left his nerve endings still burning with a stinging pain.
Due to his emotions being too intense.
The psionic energy that did not belong to him began to lose control again.
In the room without much equipment, various daily necessities still exploded, levitated, and even mutated because of this. Fortunately, a mechanical arm was injecting him with a psionic inhibitor.
The drug injector automatically plunged into his neck, and a pale blue nano-repair fluid was injected into his nerves. A few seconds later, those gray-blue eyes regained their cold sharpness.
Batman suppressed the power within his body that made him feel like an encumbrance.
"The 37th clone death. I suggest you suspend the neural link, Master." Alfred's voice came from the intercom, with a hint of worry in the old butler's voice.
He was afraid his young master was becoming addicted to this forbidden research.
Bruce did not answer. On his retina, the last field of vision of the clone remained. That golden light devouring everything was more violent than the sun and more cruel than the end of the world—before the clone's pain nerves were burned out in a thousandth of a second, it actually managed to transmit a fragment of absurd sensory data to the original body.
Yes.
Batman was still overestimated by Ian. He hadn't truly solved the wheelchair problem; he had only found a way to stand before everyone without being discovered by them.
People thought they were encountering the real Batman, little knowing that Batman was still deceiving everyone. That "Batman" who had his face stepped on by the Injustice Superman on Phobos and was eventually swallowed by the golden light was nothing more than a puppet he had painstakingly created. The real him had been hiding in this secret room ever since the Wheelchair Man craze.
He utilized the forbidden psionic energy forced upon him from the Warhammer universe to project his consciousness onto a clone, controlling its actions, its fighting, and even its side-by-side combat with Superman.
As for the origin of the clone, it was very simple; it was nothing more than normal commercial theft. Don't forget, the unconscious Luthor had always been in his hands.
"Damn it! I still underestimated the Kryptonians!" With the help of the drugs, Batman quickly recovered his flexible thinking. He controlled the wheelchair to the computer and continuously tapped on the keyboard.
"Activate the space-based defense protocol."
Bruce Wayne's voice was raspy to the extreme. The command was passed into the defense system he had established through nine authorization methods, including his voice authorization and fingerprint authorization.
In space, in Earth's orbit, thousands of devices disguised as space junk suddenly unfolded.
They were not weapons, but folding defense equipment composed of nanomaterials. They were things Batman had tinkered with after seeing a television program called "The Mystery of Dinosaur Extinction" one day.
No one would have thought they would actually come in handy at this time. Under Bruce's command, they moved, combined, and unfolded rapidly, like billions of metal bats weaving a giant net in the night sky.
These miniature devices were spliced and combined with each other, forming a huge black membrane in Earth's orbit—in just a few minutes, a giant, umbrella-shaped energy shield spanning the Earth-Moon orbit began to take shape. If viewed from the lunar observation station, one would find that a bat-shaped shadow was emerging over the entire Northern Hemisphere.
It was like a real, massive black umbrella.
It intended to shield the light shining from the direction of Mars, attempting to twist, deflect, and absorb that incoming flood of light, striving for a slim chance of survival for Earth.
However.
"I can't block it..." Bruce stared at the real-time astronomical data, his pupils contracting. The speed of that golden light far exceeded his cognition, and its energy readings had already exceeded the range of all instruments.
The shield's construction progress bar had just reached 37% when the vanguard of the light approached the Earth-Moon distance. On Earth, not only Batman, but even the general public could perceive that something was wrong.
When that golden light trail tearing through the night sky appeared outside the atmosphere, the entire Earth's social media exploded instantly. Among them, the various magical operations of the American people in their panic were the most amazing.
Arizona, a desert campsite.
A man with a large beard, wearing a "Welcome to Area 51" T-shirt, was holding a telescope and suddenly bellowed: "God! It's God's flashlight! He's coming to pick us up! Repent quickly!"
A group of people next to him immediately knelt down to pray. Someone started burning credit cards, calling them "secular sins."
"Family! The aliens are calling! This is the signal they gave us!" A group of young people sunbathing pointed to the sky; they were obsessed with UFOs.
The beautiful scenery of America was just like this.
In a gas station in Texas, a truck driver named Roy wearing a tinfoil hat slammed open the convenience store door, the hunting rifle in his hand pointing at the cashier.
"Quick! Give me all the radiation-proof beef jerky! The government has finally started Project Blue Beam! The end is coming!" Clearly, people with doomsday conspiracy theories were not a minority among the populace.
The cashier rolled her eyes and continued scrolling through the #LightInTheNightSky topic on TikTok. In the video, on a large screen in New York's Times Square, a certain well-known conspiracy theorist was screaming at the camera.
"This is Bill Gates' 5G nanobots! They will control our frequency of pooping through vaccine chips!" In the background, several young people wearing "I am an alien and I am proud" T-shirts were acting as hypemen.
"It's definitely a new Starlink feature, Musk said on Twitter last week that he would increase cooperation with the military!" The tech elites of Silicon Valley in California quickly held an emergency online meeting.
They didn't seem much smarter.
And the style of Florida is always unique. Images captured by police helicopters showed at least thirty old men wearing only inflatable dinosaur suits spraying disinfectant into the sky with garden hoses.
"We are conducting an ozone layer repair plan! Since disinfectant can kill viruses, it can definitely repair the ozone layer... Oh, by the way, is the ozone layer and the farts we release the same substance?"
The leader of the dinosaur men probably stopped his education at an American public elementary school. The drawback of severely unequal educational resources where everyone studied finance would always be more prominent at such a time.
At a White House press conference, just as the spokesperson said "this might be a natural astronomical phenomenon," the room erupted. A Fox News reporter jumped up and began to shout that the government was experimenting with secret lethal weapons again.
"It's clearly Russia's weather weapon!"
A CNN reporter immediately retorted, and the two almost fought on the spot. People who looked glamorous were competing for political struggles, while the real scientists were breaking down in the NASA control center.
Many scholars who could observe the space anomaly and had conducted some analysis were panicked. However, after looking at the #AlienDickLightingProject trending topic on Twitter, they calmed down again. Quite a few people silently adjusted their clothes, prepared to finish together with this shitty world.
Faced with such a disaster.
The reaction in society was very eerie. Perhaps everyone was used to superheroes saving the world, to the point that a certain online shopping platform had time to urgently list "Anti-alien peeping" curtains.
"It wasn't me, but I can consider it next time." Even the Great Open Source Emperor, the Saint Musk who was involved in rockets, cars, and various industries, sent a teasing remark on Twitter.
Of course.
The person who sent this tweet was only this capitalist's assistant. You might as well ride the internet popularity while you can. In fact, he himself had urgently hidden in a doomsday fortress deep underground.
"This... this isn't destruction, but it is more... magnificent than destruction." Wonder Woman Diana suddenly looked up, the Lasso of Truth tightening unconsciously.
Those eyes of hers that could see through lies were now stinging from the light. The Flash was eating a hot dog in Central City when he was suddenly choked by the alarm sound. He looked up, and the sausage in his mouth fell to the ground. Aquaman stood up from his deep-sea throne, the trident humming in his hand. The seawater boiled around him, and schools of fish fled in panic.
Cyborg's electronic eye flickered frantically, and the system constantly popped up warning windows. Green Lantern Hal Jordan was on duty on Planet OA when the ring suddenly transmitted an emergency alarm from Earth.
"What's the situation?" He constructed a giant telescope. The moment he saw Earth being swallowed by white light, his heart almost stopped. At this time, Batman's emergency communication cut into everyone's headsets.
"Everyone who can fly, take off immediately! This isn't a request, it's an order!"
Without hesitation, the heroes soared into the sky. Even those who couldn't fly used technological equipment. They gathered above the clouds, striking defensive poses in the face of the overwhelming light.
"Can we block it?" The Flash swallowed.
"Even if we can't, we have to!" Green Lantern bit his teeth, the ring erupting with the strongest green light.
The moment the light descended.
Everyone closed their eyes. At this moment, they all felt it was difficult to resist, felt a sense of their own insignificance, and only hoped to block the oncoming brilliance by raising their hands.
Almost every hero thought it was over.
However.
The terrifying end they had imagined did not arrive. What they felt was not a destructive impact, but a strange warmth, like a mother's embrace, or like a newborn morning sun.
"This—" Wonder Woman opened her eyes and found her armor was unscathed. "We're okay?"
On Earth, people were equally confused. Couples on the street stopped arguing and looked up at the sky; patients in hospitals felt their pain eased; even the punks in Gotham's Crime Alley put down their guns.
Inexplicably, they helped an old lady pick up her dropped shopping bags.
Only on Batman's monitoring screen was the shocking truth displayed—at the moment that white light touched the atmosphere, a transparent membrane quietly emerged.
It filtered out all harmful radiation, leaving only the energy symbolizing beauty and hope.
"Did someone make a move?"
Bruce pushed the wheelchair out of the Batcave and came to the streets of Gotham. His pale face was lit by the last trace of light, and old injuries that hadn't healed for years suddenly no longer hurt.
In the sky, that mysterious membrane was dissipating, quietly exiting as if its task were complete.
"Who is it?"
Batman's voice was very shocked.
"Who can do such a thing?"
He had both the celebration of surviving a disaster and the worry of a fixed-onset persecution mania. There was certainly no answer to this question, only a little hand being slowly lowered in an alley known to no one.
"How did I do?"
A boy of about ten years old looked back, the red cape fluttering behind him.
"Very well, it seems you've absorbed the power of the Spectre quite well. However..." The black-robed person was just about to speak. However, before the words were finished, the sound of breaking air suddenly came from the back of the head.
"I heard it! I saw it!"
Amidst the flamboyant exclamations, a black bald head flew toward them. The black-robed person only had time to shout "Who are you!" before being smashed to the ground by the Joker, who was holding the Archangel Amenadiel as a human cannonball.
"Don't be afraid~"
The Joker used the angel's head to frantically smash the black-robed person while comforting the boy. "This is my mount, occasionally playing a cameo as a murder weapon—believe me, you definitely won't find a more righteous murder weapon than this!"
He patted the blood-soaked "weapon" cordially.
The boy tilted his head and looked at the blood-spattered scene, actually showing a curious expression.
"Why do you kill people?"
He spoke in a calm tone.
"Because—this is the best way to change guardians for you! It avoids many secular procedures. Yes, kid, don't look at me with that look, you have no choice. I announce, you've changed guardians. From now on, you're my child. Hmm, not bad, the child I picked up definitely belongs to my flesh and blood—I actually also know who you are, the Clark Kent from another universe."
"You will feel the fatherly love I squeeze out from others to use on you, I promise."
The Joker, out of breath, put the "weapon's" head on the ground. His whole body was covered in blood, and the black-robed person he had ruthlessly smashed with the angel was already completely unrecognizable as human.
The boy's eyelashes didn't even tremble. The smell of blood was as common to him as air.
"In the multiverse, there are many Clark Kents," he said calmly. "I prefer the name given to me by those two Supermen who brought me to this universe and said they wanted to train me—Superboy-Prime."
The boy's mouth curled into a dangerous arc.
"Very cool, isn't it?"
He seemed very satisfied with such a chuunibyou name. It was also normal; after all, he was only about ten years old, younger than Ian, and it was exactly the most chuunibyou time in a person's life.
"I just like your smugness!"
The Joker laughed and clapped his hands. "By the way, are you going with me yourself, or should I 'help' you go with me?"
He was eager to try.
The boy calling himself Superboy-Prime raised an eyebrow. If Ian were here, he might be able to recognize his origin. Superboy-Prime came from Earth-Prime, a parallel universe that existed before "Crisis on Infinite Earths." In this universe, superheroes like Superman and Batman were fictional characters in comic books.
Only he was a real Kryptonian.
He was also the Superman with the fastest growth rate in the multiverse. In a short period, he obtained power sufficient to rival the Anti-Monitor and possessed what was said to be the most "cheating" potential.
Clearly.
The so-called Supreme Council wanted to use the body of this underage Superboy-Prime to accommodate the power named Spectre—that was the truly supreme-level power.
"You want to take me away? Give me love? With all due respect, you are looking for trouble for yourself." The boy looked at the body on the ground. That wasn't his guardian, but his keeper.
"I know much more than you or Batman." The Joker shook out a sack like a magic trick. "I will be the most powerful Joker. Whatever Batman Who Laughs will have to be pushed into the gutter by me."
The moment the sack was put over him, the boy actually didn't resist.
"Every Joker is as confident as you."
His voice came out muffled.
"Oh? Is that so?" The Joker carried the sack on his shoulder and dragged the angel he had drugged for many days. "Then we'll see. I don't believe every Joker actively infected himself with the Ian virus."
Gotham's streets were miraculously empty. Everyone felt they had done something good and felt a bit abnormal, so they swarmed toward the direction of Arkham, wanting to get some medicine.
When the Joker hummed a song while walking past an office building, the night wind blew the bloodstains on his hem, and a few dark red spots drifted toward the glass curtain wall printed with [Museum].
On the stained-glass windows of the History Museum, several drops of scarlet blood slowly slid down. The moonlight passed through the bloodstains, casting spider-web-like shadows on the floor of the Egyptian exhibit.
Those drifting blood drops were about to fall from the windowsill.
Suddenly, it crawled upward as if violating gravity, drilling through the gap in the window frame like a living thing. One drop, two drops, three drops... constantly "moving" in the monitoring blind spot.
"What's going on?"
"Why, why is there such an anomaly?"
"It's the influence of that mysterious light in the sky just now!"
"God—"
The white-haired professor touched the hot coffin lid with a trembling hand.
"These Egyptian inscriptions are reorganizing!"
In the center of the exhibition area, a stone sarcophagus glowing because of being illuminated by the Superman light was humming. The archaeologists gathered around, and the instruments showed that the radiation value in the coffin had soared to the critical point.
"Incredible... the previous light changed its molecular structure!" A white-haired professor recorded with a trembling hand.
"No, it activated some dormant energy!" the young assistant exclaimed. They didn't notice that the blood drop from the universe had quietly landed on the marble floor and begun to crawl.
Unnoticed by anyone.
The blood drop crawled along the sarcophagus relief into the coffin, as if some unknown force were pulling it—the blood drop entered the coffin. In an instant, this coffin exploded!
Wood chips flew like blades, and all the glass in the museum shattered instantly.
The airwave overturned three scholars, and gravel splattered like raindrops in a slow-motion scene where time seemed to slow down. In the smoke, a skeleton wrapped in a shroud slowly sat up.
Pitch-black energy surged from its empty eye sockets.
The skeleton's vision swept over the panicked crowd. It raised a finger bone, and a drop of blood was meandering and crawling on the cervical vertebrae—wherever it passed, withered muscle fibers squirmed and regenerated like snakes.
Outside the museum's glass dome, lightning flashed and thunder rolled in Gotham's night sky. The smoke slowly dissipated, and a fragmented figure slowly stepped out of the broken coffin.
He slowly raised his hand, his five fingers splayed out, as if feeling this long-lost air.
"I was in a nightmare... trapped for a long, long time..." The voice of the blood-and-flesh fragmented mysterious existence was low and raspy, with a fatigue and violence that crossed a thousand years.
"Now... I, Teth-Adam, have returned." He lowered his head and looked at his newborn body—flesh was growing from the skeleton, covering it at a speed visible to the naked eye, muscles knotting, full of explosive power. And those black clothes seemed to be an extension of his will, undulating slightly with his breath.
"Bringing the gifts of the nightmare to me..."
The words hadn't even fallen when he suddenly looked up. Everywhere his gaze reached, all the scholars, regardless of gender or age, regardless of distance, all froze in place.
Their eyes were instantly stained with the same color as the man, becoming puppets—the ancient monarch looked out the window, and the world where things had changed made him feel unfamiliar.
However.
"I will dye it the color I want, I promise the nightmare..." Black Adam levitated in front of the glass window, looking at the streets outside and whispering constantly.
As if in conversation with some existence.
...
The crisis on Earth was resolved, but in space, the two Supermen were still fighting. They fought very fiercely. Ian, who had put himself back together, was carrying the unconscious Injustice Superman.
He swallowed and looked at the two receding figures. His father and the opponent were fighting until the starry river reversed and the sun and moon were dark. There was no chance or qualification for Ian to intervene.
"This isn't just a fight; this is about to grind the Universe into extinction." Ian looked at the two receding figures, feeling that the two Supermen were fighting in the universe until it was hard to tell who was winning.
It was also normal. After all, everyone was an idealistic Superman. Rounding it off, it was equivalent to everyone actually being an ordinary Superman, so the battle was reasonably deadlocked except for the grand momentum.
The starry sky was mourning.
The two glowing Supermen looked as though they were going to fight to the edge of the universe—of course, Ian had actually guessed wrong. Darkseid, who was in his old nest thinking about the changes in the universe, could prove this.
It wasn't fighting to the edge of the universe.
Because the moment Darkseid looked up.
He saw two figures fighting their way into his territory.
At this moment.
The dazed cosmic overlord was very willing to open a bet for the entire universe, to wager whether this was an intentional act by the fighters.