"I want to go check on Rachel first."
Viktor put the helmet back on, and his voice became low and hard to recognize again.
Batman frowned and started thinking.
"Regarding that other you who's taken your identity, do you have anything more about him?"
"A future version of me…Reverse Flash should know more."
Batman shook his head slightly.
"Reverse Flash is always unpredictable. Ever since the other you entered this world, I've lost contact with him."
He sneered under the helmet.
Obviously, when that other version of himself forced his way into this world from the hypertime, Reverse Flash must have noticed immediately.
That bastard Thawne definitely hid immediately.
A speedster who can travel through time at will and is determined to hide—who could possibly find him?
"The future me naturally can't possibly be weaker than I am now, but when entering this world, he should have sacrificed part of his strength. He should also be about as strong as me right now."
"Then, if I asked you to speculate, what would your future self actually do?"
Batman's question hit the key point again.
Viktor's expression became somewhat awkward.
Batman smirked, like he already expected that reaction.
Superman, who had been sitting quietly, was shocked again. He suddenly sat up straight, like he was seeing Viktor for the first time.
"Conquer Earth? You've actually thought about that? I thought we were friends who could be honest with each other!"
Viktor somewhat embarrassedly turned his head away, avoiding Superman's sad and disappointed blue eyes.
"Ahem... Who wants to keep living in seclusion by the sea, catching fish to eat? Wearing better clothes, eating better food, having people serve you every day—don't tell me you never fantasized about that when you first got your powers as a teenager?"
He became more and more justified as he spoke and clapped his hands at the end.
"I'm not like you. The first fourteen years of my life were really abusive. What's wrong with wanting to enjoy life a bit?!"
He finally stood his ground and stared back at Superman without backing down.
Batman, however, fell unusually silent.
After quite a while, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence that almost broke Viktor's defense.
"Wait… your ambitions were only that small? I've been treating you like some world-level villain this whole time."
The atmosphere in the conference room becomes cheerful for a moment.
Superman's disappointment disappeared, and his shoulders were shaking like he was holding back laughter.
Viktor, still wearing the helmet, raised his hand and rubbed his face, letting out a cold laugh.
"Those small ambitions?"
"I'm an alien with no real identity and a really messed-up past. If I show my face to any kind of authority figure, one wrong test, one annoying question, or anything that pisses me off could set me off—and I might end up killing someone."
"If I kill someone, the whole military will come after me. If I take down the military, then I'll have to deal with you guys. In the end, what I do would be just as brutal and destructive as what any typical supervillain does."
"I'm not like Superman, willing to show mercy to the weak, much less willing to obediently put on handcuffs and go to court to defend myself just to prove my harmlessness."
"If I arrived on Earth and found that the Justice League wasn't that powerful, I would directly choose to jump to the final step."
Superman's expression becomes serious.
"But don't you reject Viltrumite's way?"
Viktor paused for a moment.
He suddenly remembered Thragg, who, even when beaten to near death punch by punch, still cared about the Viltrumite Empire.
After he realized Viktor was stronger than him, Thragg even immediately begged him to fight for the position of regent.
Thragg's entire mind was thinking about how the Viltrumite Empire could prosper by conquering a planet.
No matter whether his beliefs would later be corrupted by power after entering the main story a thousand years later, at least during the previous thousand-year war, the faith of people like Thragg never wavered at all.
If it weren't for Viktor finally using some "Talk-no-Jutsu" talk to break his mindset…
No matter how many times he killed Thragg, Viktor still wouldn't feel any real satisfaction or relief from revenge.
The Viltrumites could live too long, and that extreme aggression was also deeply ingrained.
The real revenge would mean killing all the old, stubborn ones who couldn't change their thinking, and then slowly changing the mindset of the next generation.
That kind of goal would take at least a thousand years to achieve.
Viktor originally was willing to do it.
He lowered his eyes, sounding a bit down.
"There are good and bad parts, but at least Viltrumite ways of doing things are very efficient. The conquest and killing may not be the best way, but it's the fastest way they found to develop after tens of thousands of years."
"After all, compared to the vast majority of civilizations in the universe, Viltrumites can all be considered naturally strong. Just like even though I fled to Earth, and the Justice League couldn't balance the power difference, the result of my interaction with Earth would eventually lead to violence."
"Taking technology from other civilizations to strengthen themselves is the choice of Viltrum. In theory, even if the first batch of Viltrumites who explored space had good intentions toward other civilizations…"
Superman understood the part he didn't finish saying.
What would happen if a race where every individual could fly and destroy mountains tried to approach other races?
It's like how humans are wary of Kryptonians.
It's just that Superman himself is special that he's truly willing to wear handcuffs and go to Earth people's courts to defend himself.
The Viltrumites just go straight to the result.
They don't have time to play long games of suspicion for decades or centuries where the weaker side secretly tries everything to kill the stronger one.
Batman wasn't scared by this and calmly replied:
"Unfortunately, Superman is stronger than you, and he's someone who sticks to justice. In the end, you could only catch fish to eat by the sea."
He went quiet for a while, then started mumbling things Superman and Batman couldn't understand.
After considering Viktor's complicated past and all the things he had experienced recently, Batman didn't look into it further.
He just assumed Viktor had met some strange people during his past "adventures."
Batman then brought the conversation back on track.
"I have a plan to distract the other you for now."
No matter how Emperor Viktor was dealt with in the end, Batman needed to first handle Viktor… and Rachel's situation.
...
600 POWER STONES = 1 BONUS CHAPTER
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