What was Jor-El searching for?
That was an excellent question.
Especially when the question came from his own son.
At first, when Kara Zor-El began transmitting the various parameters of this primitive planet back to him, Jor-El—far away beyond Sector 2682—had not paid it much attention.
Not until a truly eye-catching piece of information arrived.
Only then did he begin seriously examining this uncivilized world sitting practically on Krypton's doorstep.
The universe had once been filled with ancient gods.
Krypton alone had possessed its own divine pantheon—Rao the Sun God, along with the gods Rao created: Vohc, Nightwing, Flamebird, and others.
But even Krypton had been only one mythological system among many.
This primitive planet, however, possessed an absurd number of ancient deities.
One after another, the cloaked probes scattered across Earth returned increasingly precise reports.
The vast majority of these ancient gods were not mere products of human imagination.
They had truly existed.
And they had left traces behind.
"I am searching for something beyond your understanding," Jor-El said openly in response to his son's question, showing no intention whatsoever of hiding what should have been an extremely classified matter.
"A weapon."
"The most powerful weapon in the universe."
...Here we go again.
Hearing yet another dramatic statement like that, Joey honestly felt a little bored.
Recently, he had already encountered far too many so-called 'the most powerful weapon of the universe.'
Hell, barely thirty minutes ago, he had rejected one himself.
The Blue Lantern ring could manifest the power of Hope into a force capable of reversing entropy itself.
That very power had once restored Saint Walker's dying star system—turning an aging red giant on the verge of catastrophic collapse back into a young blue star.
And even then, Joey had still refused it.
To him, a Lantern ring was both support and restraint.
He still remembered the first times he had been forced to kill.
The exhilaration of violence had nearly consumed him.
And if that side of him ever truly lost control, the Blue Ring would probably abandon him immediately.
So it was better to stay realistic from the start.
Better to reject that unrealistic kind of hope entirely.
Which raised the question:
What kind of weapon was Jor-El searching for now?
At the moment, Joey genuinely could not imagine any weapon more dangerous than a fully unified Kryptonian Empire.
But Jor-El's answer immediately taught him something important.
That the Dark Multiverse was truly, truly insane.
"The thing I seek," Jor-El said calmly, "is called the Anti-Life Equation."
The others present did not react much to the strange term.
Only Joey and Batman instantly changed expressions.
One of them had once read the script.
The other had already survived the ordeal.
The two of them understood better than anyone exactly what the words Anti-Life Equation truly meant.
Unlike the Life Equation—represented physically through the Life Entity, the white light of life itself—the Anti-Life Equation possessed no physical form.
It was an abstract conceptual existence.
The beauty of life lay in uncertainty.
Endless evolution.
Infinite possibilities.
And from those possibilities emerged limitless hope.
The Anti-Life Equation existed to calculate the final answer to every living thing on the level of mathematics and universal law itself.
To erase uncertainty.
To annihilate all hope.
That was why anyone who mastered the Anti-Life Equation gained the ability to dominate the will of every intelligent species in existence.
Because once you could perceive every possible outcome and conclusion of life itself—
The fate of all living beings naturally became something you could manipulate at will.
Under normal circumstances, the Anti-Life Equation should have existed within the Anti-Matter Universe, just as fragments of the Life Equation existed throughout the positive matter universe.
But this was the Dark Multiverse.
The chaotic sea beneath both matter and antimatter realities—the foundation from which newborn universes were forged.
And within a universe born from such chaos...
Anything was possible.
"So," Jor-El said slowly, his eyes narrowing with interest, "you two know what that is?"
The change in expression on both Joey's and Batman's faces had not escaped his notice.
And at that moment, Jor-El realized he had absolutely come to the right place.
Then his gaze shifted toward Batman, who was already halfway through discreetly escaping the room.
"Is there anything else you would like to tell me?"
Joey immediately stepped forward, blocking the line of sight between the two of them.
"You need to order your cloaked ships out of Earth's atmosphere immediately... Father."
Even Joey himself knew how ridiculous those words sounded.
On one hand, Earth in this universe possessed virtually no ability to resist a complete Kryptonian Empire.
Even now, hundreds of Kryptonian vessels were sweeping through the atmosphere unchecked, openly scanning every inch of the planet.
And under their invisibility fields, not a single human nation was even capable of detecting them.
"Very well, my son. They will withdraw."
Jor-El's response to Joey's unreasonable demand was unexpectedly accommodating, as though he truly intended to indulge his son completely.
"This matter is simply too important to all of Krypton. Forgive me for acting somewhat hastily."
Within Joey's field of vision, he could clearly see that Jor-El was not playing any tricks.
The moment he finished speaking, the cloaked Kryptonian vessels hidden across Earth immediately turned around and departed toward the upper atmosphere.
"I understand how you feel," Jor-El continued. "I have seen cases like this many times before."
"In recent Kryptonian sociological studies, we usually refer to it as displacement syndrome."
"During the early stages of Krypton's expansion, we sent many children like you to star systems with yellow suns."
"Some of them, just like you, spent too long away from home and eventually developed emotional attachments to their new worlds."
Jor-El gently grasped his son's wrist and lightly shook it, as though trying to hold onto the twenty lost years that had already slipped through his fingers.
Now, he only wanted to seize this moment.
"This is only natural, my son. There is no need to trouble yourself over it."
"After all, Kryptonians were never a cold and emotionless people."
For one brief moment, Joey truly wanted to believe him.
"Come."
Jor-El gestured behind him.
Another tall guard stepped forward and handed him a palm-sized metallic crest engraved with the emblem of the House of El.
"While the beginning of this reunion may not have been particularly pleasant, at least we managed to resolve the misunderstanding in the end."
"Take this."
It was equipment similar to the living-metal armor Kara had worn earlier, though the serial markings suggested this version was newer.
Joey accepted the compact armor module and replied in Kryptonian:
"Thank you for your understanding, Father."
"Haha... I understand. Everything has happened far too suddenly."
Jor-El gently patted Joey's cheek, and for the first time, the smile on his face finally carried a trace of genuine warmth.
"What I'm giving you is armor reserved only for true Kryptonian warriors."
"I look forward to the day you wear it and stand before me again."
A moment later, the bandwidth of the teleportation system was seized once more.
Jor-El effortlessly reclaimed control from Cyborg and teleported himself, Kara, and the accompanying Kryptonian officers away from Earth.
Before disappearing, he left Joey with only one final sentence.
"I will give you time to think."
"You know where to find me."
And Joey did know.
At that very moment, at the edge of the Sun's gravitational well, 3,768 Kryptonian ships of varying sizes were gathering in the dark regions of the Kuiper Belt.
"Moth—!"
After suffering yet another humiliating defeat in cyberspace—a domain where he had once been practically invincible—Cyborg nearly let a curse slip out before the faster half of his electronic brain stopped him in time.
"...Sorry, Superman."
The question now was whether they should fight or not.
And Cyborg could tell Joey was wavering.
So he wisely shut his mouth before unleashing the full vocabulary he had accumulated from years of surviving places like 4chan, Baidu Tieba, and various other extremely "friendly" online communities against Joey's biological father.
"It's fine. Help me analyze this armor first."
Holding the gift from his bargain-bin father, Joey and Cyborg carefully scanned the armor's composition before finally deciding to test it.
The living metal absorbed Joey's bio-field and completed its synchronization with him.
Then it rapidly spread across his body.
Unlike the heavy black external armor worn by Kara and Faora, this suit used far less material, forming only a thin hidden layer beneath Joey's existing red-and-blue uniform.
Before Joey could even fully experience the amplification granted by the suit, an encrypted message was transmitted directly into his mind through the armor's onboard AI.
[ My son, what I am about to tell you is extremely important—important enough that you should begin considering it carefully right now. ]
[ I do not know whether you have already encountered beings from New Genesis or Apokolips. Even by Kryptonian standards, their power is astonishing. ]
[ They are the New Gods—an entire race that ascended after the age of the Old Gods came to an end. ]
[ Do not fear the thing I seek. Fire in primitive Kryptonian history could bring death... but it could also bring warmth. ]
[ Any tool, no matter how dangerous, can become magnificent when wielded by the right hands. ]
[ The Anti-Life Equation is such a tool. I have searched for it for more than ten years. ]
[ And your sudden appearance revealed its location to me. ]
[ It makes me believe all of this is fate. ]
[ Ever since the expedition departed Krypton over a decade ago, I have crossed thousands of sectors and star systems... only to finally return to this primitive planet right beside our doorstep. ]
[ I believe this journey has finally reached its destination. ]
[ And once I obtain that thing... ]
[ This journey itself will become the path by which Kryptonians ascend to godhood. ]