Ian's sophistry regarding his own human anatomy fell silent.
He didn't give Black Adam a single chance to ponder the oddity of his words. Instead, Ian abruptly jerked his head back and then slammed his forehead violently into Black Adam's.
"Let me see what kind of filthy thing has bewitched you!"
Ian's voice carried the manic excitement of a researcher, as if the person in front of him wasn't an enraged ancient God-King, but a precision instrument that needed to be dismantled for maintenance.
Before the words even finished hanging in the air, the impact occurred.
That level of force... there was a certain beauty in how little Ian seemed to care about the structural integrity of his own frontal bone.
Even Black Adam saw stars.
DONG!!!
A dull, heavy roar, like a giant temple bell being struck, echoed within both their minds.
Sucker-punched, Black Adam's vision went dark. Countless golden stars and black crows swirled and flew wildly across his sight; his brains felt like they were being shaken into a smooth puree! The magic resistance and physical defense he took such pride in seemed like a poorly-told joke in the face of this completely unconventional spiritual (physical) attack.
Ian, seizing the moment while Adam's consciousness wavered and his mental barriers fractured, forcibly inserted his own incomparably "righteous" consciousness into Black Adam's inner world.
His previous words weren't the goal; they were merely the setup to create this opening. Countless memory fragments, violent emotions, and ancient runic images washed over him like an uncontrolled deluge. Ian's consciousness zipped through the flood, filtering out information irrelevant to the outer universe and pointing straight toward the source of that abnormal dark power.
Meanwhile, in the reality dimension.
THUD!
Two muffled sounds rang out almost simultaneously.
Two figures collapsed flat on the floor inside the specialized cage. Black Adam's limbs twitched unnaturally, while Ian's eyes, just like Adam's, rolled back into his head.
White foam began to leak uncontrollably from the corners of Black Adam's mouth. However, Ian's preparations were clearly more thorough. The foam he emitted wasn't an ordinary transparent liquid, but... a vibrant, multicolored froth. It looked like an overturned palette and carried the faint, sickly-sweet scent of Skittles.
It didn't serve any practical purpose.
It was mostly because Ian had stuffed effervescent tablets in his mouth beforehand.
If you're going to foam at the mouth, it might as well look good.
That counted as a win.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—the foam refracted a dreamlike luster under the cold lights of the cage, looking like streamers sprayed at a festival.
Bathed in the blue glow of the force field, he presented a bizarre and surreal visual. Of course, there were very few people present capable of appreciating or judging such aesthetics.
"..."
Queen Mera blinked her large eyes and instinctively tugged on Clark's cape.
"Clark... your son... his mouth is more impressive at blowing bubbles than the belemnite fish in the Atlantic... is this... truly okay?"
Mera's tone was thick with uncertainty.
"Mm."
Clark Kent.
This God among men, who had faced countless universal crises, now looked at his son rolling his eyes while spitting rainbow bubbles. His face held only a deep, practiced numbness.
He nodded heavily and was about to speak, but Batman, standing beside him, beat him to it. His voice, filtered through the voice modulator, was cold and devoid of emotion.
"You get used to it."
Concise and to the point, containing the weight of countless memories he'd rather forget.
Wonder Woman, Diana, rubbed her still-aching temples. Looking at the two figures in the cage who seemed to be having a collective seizure, she asked helplessly, "So now we... just stand here and wait? Wait for Ian to 'futz around' in that ancient emperor's head until he gets a result?"
She still felt that entrusting such a heavy responsibility to Ian was not a wise choice.
"We could also find something else to do. At least we can 'interrogate' this... 'guest' from a parallel universe that Clark and the others brought back."
Batman turned his wheelchair around, his gaze beneath the cowl sweeping over everyone before finally landing on the broken wall nearby. There sat Injustice Superman, still radiating an aura of philosophical despair.
The wheelchair glided silently toward him. Injustice Superman remained with his head bowed, staring blankly at the ground as if he had become utterly indifferent to everything around him.
Batman didn't beat around the bush. He didn't even use a polygraph; he simply stared at the man with eyes that could see through any lie and dropped a bombshell.
"I assume you don't want to be left without assistance while 'giving birth.'" As expected of the brilliant Batman, Bruce Wayne had locked onto Injustice Superman's stomach with a single glance.
He saw exactly why Injustice Superman was depressed. This sentence was like a silent thunderclap, instantly frying the brains of everyone present except for Clark and Batman.
Aquaman spat out the mouthful of water he had just taken; Mera covered her mouth, her eyes going wide; the expression on Wonder Woman's face shifted from shock to confusion, and then to a strange sort of realization.
Mixed with a lingering sense of dread.
It was quite a show.
"Shut up!"
Injustice Superman, who had been as still as a stone carving, suddenly snapped his head up! His cheeks, ears, and neck flushed with blood at a visible rate, eventually turning the same rare shade of liver-purple Batman had displayed minutes prior! It was a color born from a mix of extreme shame, humiliation, and unspeakable mental collapse.
"You—!" Injustice Superman squeezed the words through gritted teeth, glaring at Batman with a fierce warning. "That child you're indulging... he doesn't belong to any of our universes! He's a heresy that should never have been born! You have no idea what you're raising! He's a demon crawled out of hell!"
Clearly.
Injustice Superman had been "knocked up" by Ian.
(T/N:- Ayoo 🤨)
The psychological shadow was severe.
"Listen, that's not something you need to worry about." Clark frowned, stepping forward to stand in front of Batman, his tone firm as he shut down Injustice Superman.
"Heh."
Hearing this, the liver-purple hue on Injustice Superman's face faded, replaced by a deep, almost tragic mockery. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile that looked more painful than crying. "Fine. Anyway... I won't be the one who has to face that 'disaster' in the end. It's not my place to worry."
As he spoke, Injustice Superman gave the Clark Kent of this universe a long, meaningful look.
"Disaster?"
Batman immediately caught the keyword. His voice dropped an octave, his contingency-planning instincts flaring up.
"What final disaster? Why exactly did the High Council send you and that Golden Superman here this time?" His intuition told him that Injustice Superman's reappearance was more than just a simple dimensional incursion.
"Of course we were assigned a mission." Injustice Superman seemed to have given up on caring. He sneered, "There are two missions. The overt one is simple: let you two 'Supermen' fight it out to see which is superior, to see which better fits their standard of the strongest and most perfect."
He paused, his eyes flickering. "But I have a feeling... the High Council is using that as a pretext to search for something... in your universe."
When he said this, Injustice Superman's tone carried a hint of uncertainty. It was all just a hunch; he had no actual evidence.
"Searching for what?" Clark pressed.
Injustice Superman rolled his eyes.
"If I knew that, would I still be brainwashed and controlled, turned into a biological weapon that only knows how to follow orders?" His voice was thick with bitterness. "I am a failure, Clark. In an organization like ours, a failure is just a stray dog on the side of the road, unworthy of knowing the core plan."
His words caused the group to frown. Such a cruel hierarchy was unsettling; not a single member of the Justice League was willing to accept that the so-called High Council was supposed to be their "advanced" form.
"I will conduct a detailed investigation into what you've said. For now, tell us: what exactly is this 'final disaster' you mentioned?"
Batman steered the conversation back to the main point.
His tone was like that of a man interrogating a criminal, but Injustice Superman didn't care. The fallen hero shook his head, his eyes appearing to recall some blurred, terrifying fragments.
They flickered incessantly.
"Only by standing at the end of time can one truly 'see' it... but everyone who tries to return and tell of it forgets... that is the rule, a protection, or perhaps a curse." He withdrew his gaze, his voice low. "I can only guess... it must be related to the incursion from the outer universe."
"The scale... is likely beyond anything we can imagine." This was the core belief Injustice Superman held from the start: the outer universe's incursion would eventually cause the entire multiverse to collapse.
On this point, Wonder Woman was also pensive.
"You aren't sure? It's just a guess?"
She asked with a hint of suspicion. As an Amazonian "savage" embraced by modern society, she didn't yet have a definitive judgment on the idea that all outer-universe incursions were inherently harmful.
"Yes, just a guess. For something like this, you should either ask the Batman Who Laughs—he might know more clearly..." Injustice Superman paused before adding another detail.
"Or, of course... you could ask his partner. I have faint memories of what happened while I was under mental control. I know there is a collaborator behind the Batman Who Laughs."
He had mentioned the name of the Batman Who Laughs twice in a row, yet those eerie void chains didn't appear, nor did any power attempt to drag Injustice Superman back to the High Council's headquarters.
This fact made Injustice Superman... extremely uneasy.
Of course, it wasn't the unease of being unable to escape, but rather the realization that if the Batman Who Laughs no longer cared about being exposed, there must be a terrifying reason behind it.
Just as Injustice Superman's heart climbed into his throat.
"Collaborator? Who?"
Arthur, the King of the Seven Seas, couldn't help but join the questioning.
He was, after all, a member of the Justice League and needed to make his presence felt. Much like how he usually just put in a bit of effort during a fight, it didn't stop him from joining the "group photo" once the battle was over.
"If I remember correctly."
Injustice Superman looked up at the gloomy sky, as if wary of something.
"It's a woman named Paradox. I'm not sure what's special about her, but even that lunatic, the Batman Who Laughs, seems to be slightly wary of her."
His words were packed with information.
While the others were still digesting this, Clark Kent's mind was in total upheaval.
Paradox!
Clark Kent remembered that name very clearly. Hearing it, his pupils flickered almost imperceptibly.
His super-brain instantly retrieved a memory—not long ago, in the eerie ruins of a military base, a woman had mysteriously appeared and resolved several supernatural riots. She had ultimately played a trick on him while he was searching for her before quietly vanishing. The name she left behind was "Paradox"!
Realizing this, Clark Kent's super-brain began to operate and analyze, even if he didn't want it to. He didn't make a sound, keeping his expression calm.
The others didn't notice.
However, the only other person present with world-class observation and reasoning skills—Batman—had already keenly captured that fleeting, minute reaction from Clark behind his white lenses.
"Paradox, huh..." Batman also remained unfazed, but in the list of dangerous individuals in his mind, he silently bumped that name—which he had already heard Clark mention once—up several levels.
Furthermore.
He drew a question mark representing uncertainty regarding the relationship between that name and the Kent family. He would need more useful information before that question mark could become a definitive symbol.
"You need to tell us everything you know about the High Council, about this 'Paradox,' and about the 'final disaster' you suspect. Every detail."
Batman's wheelchair rolled forward half an inch, nearly touching Injustice Superman's knees. His voice, icy and processed, carried an unquestionable pressure.
Injustice Superman slowly raised his head.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he lifted a hand and gently tapped his stomach—which looked flat but seemed to carry a weight of a thousand tons.
"Want information? Fine."
Injustice Superman mimicked Batman's tone, though it was laced with reckless mockery. "But first, you have to help me solve the trouble that 'otherworldly kid' caused in here."
He deliberately emphasized the words "otherworldly kid," his gaze pointedly shifting toward the distant cage where Ian was still happily spitting rainbow bubbles.
This was clearly a negotiation.
Behind the mask, Batman's brow furrowed ever so slightly.
In his view, while Ian's actions were absurd and unrestrained, the "trouble" he caused was mostly within controllable limits. With the technology of the Batcave and a Kryptonian's physiology, resolving it shouldn't be difficult. Compared to the value of the intel Injustice Superman could provide, this trade was acceptable.
"Very well. We will handle the 'situation' in your abdomen." Batman hadn't yet realized the severity of the problem; thinking it was just a minor issue, he agreed decisively.
He even used a relatively neutral term.
Injustice Superman seemed a bit surprised by the other's bluntness. A flicker of doubt crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a numbness that said, "It won't get any worse anyway."
He nodded, about to say more—
"Uh... guys?" Aquaman's voice cut in, sounding awkward and urgent. He shook something in his hand that looked like an old-fashioned pager.
"I might... have to head out for a bit."
The screen of the pager in Arthur's hand was flashing with red wave signals.
Clark turned his head, asking with concern, "Is there an emergency in Atlantis? Do you need help?"
He instinctively assumed another undersea kingdom had launched a rebellion or some ancient sea monster had awakened. However, Aquaman gave a bitter smile that looked worse than crying.
"Clark, my friend, you can lift tectonic plates, you can move planets, you can shoot lasers from your eyes... but you can't stop humans from dumping trash into my home every single second." He shook his head, his smile full of powerlessness. "Yes, you can do many things, but you can't stop humans from polluting the ocean."
Clark fell silent instantly.
He understood, of course.
As a superhero, he could solve countless world-shattering crises, but against this slow, continuous poisoning of the environment stemming from human civilization itself, he truly felt a deep sense of impotence.
His super-senses had long ago told him what the oceans were enduring, but that was a massive, complex systemic issue—not something that could be fixed with a few punches.
Wasn't the destruction of Krypton also rooted in this kind of flaw inherent in a civilization's development?
"Is it... the nuclear-contaminated water?"
Clark's voice lowered, heavy with the weight of confirmation.
Aquaman nodded solemnly, his expression starting to turn peculiar. "My brother Orm just contacted me on an encrypted channel... he said his legs might have undergone some... unexpected 'mutations' because of that damned radioactive water. He begged me to come back and bring him to the surface to see a doctor or a biologist."
"Oh, speaking of which—you guys tell me... for a situation like this, should I book him an appointment with a 'veterinarian,' or should I just take him to an 'aquarium' to find a professor or a specialist?" Arthur scratched his head, looking at the land-based representatives with genuine confusion.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Aquaman always had a way of being shocking in the most unexpected ways.
After a strange silence, Diana couldn't help but look away, her shoulders shaking slightly; Clark coughed awkwardly; even Batman's jawline seemed to soften for a brief moment.
"He can come to me first," Batman's voice remained steady, showing no emotion. "The Batcave has the most advanced medical scanning equipment. We can analyze his... mutation."
"No! Thanks! Really, no thanks!" Arthur shook his head like a rattle, refusing almost reflexively. He'd rather his brother grow twenty fluorescent tails than send him into Batman's "medical bay," which looked like a place where people were sliced up for research.
That would turn this into a real "War of the Princes"!
"To be honest, I'd rather trust Ian's 'Master Plan Kit.'" As he spoke, he seemed to remember something and hurriedly pulled an object from his leather holster. It was a bulging small pouch woven from colorful fish scales and glowing seaweed, with the words "Master Plan Kit" embroidered on it in crooked land-script.
It appeared that Aquaman had already discussed this ocean pollution problem with Ian earlier.
The group looked at the pouch, which radiated an ominous aura, then at Ian, who was happily blowing bubbles in his cage. Suddenly, everyone began to doubt if Arthur was actually just a fish.
"Then I wish Atlantis the best of luck." Batman didn't seem inclined to push, offering only a dry blessing. After all, letting Ian's "master plan" deal with human-made pollution was, in a way, fighting fire with fire. He'd bet that if the job got done, Atlantis would definitely no longer be a sovereign civilization.
It would more or less be tainted with what had recently become a popular term in Gotham—the Ian Virus.
Unaware of this, Aquaman nodded and turned, preparing to summon a current from the sewers. Just then, Mera hesitated before stepping forward to face Batman.
Her beautiful face—which seemed more burdened with worry than a person without a private toilet—was full of anxiety.
"Bruce, I know you don't easily interfere in politics... but could you please use your influence on land... to at least make an appeal? It's not just a matter of pollution anymore..."
Mera's voice lowered, carrying a trace of imperceptible fear.
"I can feel the ocean's pain intensifying. Something... ancient and terrible, slumbering in the deepest trenches, seems to be being... awakened by this pollution."
She looked at Batman, her tone earnest.
The atmosphere instantly became even more somber.
Right then, a slightly hoarse and mocking voice rang out abruptly.
"Perhaps... I shouldn't give my opinion."
The previously silent Injustice Superman suddenly raised a hand like a student asking a question in class. Clearly, despite what he said, he couldn't resist the urge to lecture.
Everyone looked at him.
He met their gazes, his tone calm but carrying a coldness that made spines tingle.
"I'll give you a simple and direct suggestion: mobilize your forces, find and cut all major undersea fiber optic cables, and sever all offshore energy corridors and shipping routes."
"Once the people on land lose their global network, their instant communication, their stable energy supply, and their transoceanic trade... ninety percent of human 'industrial civilization' will collapse instantly. They won't have any 'extra' time or resources to argue, bicker, or dump pollutants they themselves are afraid to handle into the sea."
Injustice Superman paused, looking at the changing faces of the group, and continued: "Survival will become humanity's only goal. For the sake of survival, life will find... a new way."
This move was incredibly ruthless.
As his voice fell, the ruins sank into a dead silence. Everyone looked at this Superman from a parallel universe with extremely complex eyes.
Everyone realized the difference between Injustice Superman and Clark Kent.
This was the mindset of an iron-fisted ruler—efficient, direct, and regardless of consequences. To solve a problem, he wouldn't hesitate to first destroy the entire system that generated it.
Batman's gaze behind the white lenses was sharp as a knife, as if trying to dissect him completely. Clark's brow was tightly knit, his eyes full of disapproval. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman and Mera felt a wariness rooted in ancient memories of absolute power and coldness.
Meeting their gazes, Injustice Superman simply shrugged indifferently, as if he had just suggested what to eat for dinner.
"Just a suggestion," he added softly, then lowered his head again, returning to his none of my business silence as if the person who had just proposed such a shocking plan was someone else entirely.
Meanwhile.
Ian and Black Adam were still spitting bubbles.
This was mainly because Ian's consciousness incursion had brought a significant burden to both himself and Black Adam. It wasn't just about gaining experience points; neither Ian nor Black Adam had expected what would happen next.
At first, things developed normally.
Ian's consciousness was like a slippery fish, zipping freely through Black Adam's vast and violent sea of memories. He skimmed past the ancient temples of Kahndaq, witnessing the bestowing of Shazam's power. He felt the pain of kin-slaying and a millennium of imprisonment, and experienced the impact of modern society on Black Adam along with the man's own thirst for revenge.
Ultimately, Ian was drawn by a deeper, more viscous dark power, diving deeper and deeper until he sank into the lowest level of that consciousness. There, it was no longer about specific memory fragments, but a chaotic spiritual realm contaminated by an external will. Suddenly, an irresistible suction force pulled him in.
Ian felt his consciousness being violently yanked! When he regained his senses, he found that he wasn't floating in a spiritual space, but was actually standing on a street.
The street was lined with typical Japanese-style buildings. Wooden signs featured kana characters he couldn't understand. Pedestrians in various outfits bustled about, and the air was filled with the sounds of rapid Japanese dialogue.
The smell of takoyaki mixed with gasoline hung in the air.
"What's going on?"
Ian instinctively pinched his own cheek.
"An echo of the past? A landscape built of memory fragments? Or a mirage created by that outer universe power to deceive me?" He hadn't expected that deep within the consciousness of an ancient, rough guy like Black Adam, there would be such a... mundane and seemingly normal scene. This was completely different from the lair of evil or dark temple he had envisioned.
While Ian was warily surveying his surroundings, trying to find a flaw in this illusion, a boy about seven or eight years old, clutching a massive, strange egg, came running up to him.
The boy looked up at him with large, expectant eyes and opened his mouth to deliver a earth-shattering sentence in Japanese.
"Big brother, you're still a virgin, right?"
"?????"
Ian didn't expect that he'd be the one rendered speechless by a kid younger than himself. Even with his varied and bizarre experiences, he was stunned by this soul-piercing interrogation.
"Shut up. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. Whose kid is this, being so rude? Believe it or not, I'll send you eight hundred sets of test papers." This kind of threat didn't hold much power over a kid.
The boy seemed startled by the aggression and shrunk his neck, but he held the egg even tighter. He hesitated, pulled a few coins from his pocket, and said cautiously: "I... I'll pay! This egg of mine needs the urine of nine hundred and ninety-nine virgins to hatch! Please, big brother!"
These words didn't sound like something a normal person would say.
"Do I look like someone who needs your pocket change? Also, kid, let me tell you—although I have a super bladder with incredible capacity, I've long passed the age of playing with poop and pee! Don't come to me with these low-level collection quests!" Ian rolled his eyes. He was nearly fifteen, after all.
It was an age where one cared about their personal image.
Of course.
The kind family upbringing Ian received meant he still had a kind heart at his core.
"I'll show you the right path. Go find an orphanage, dig up their sewers. You might just hit the jackpot." Ian gave a very constructive suggestion. The kid didn't fully understand, but he nodded thoughtfully anyway.
Mainly, Ian's matter-of-fact and righteous demeanor made the kid feel a sense of conviction. It was impressively obscure; the boy seemed to think this strange big brother made a lot of sense.
The kid left.
Waving his sleeve, he set off toward the orphanage.
"What kind of universe is this? One with a Pallet Town?" Ian watched the boy run off. For a moment, it was hard to judge which bizarre worldview was behind the act of trying to hatch a strange egg. He continued to wander aimlessly down the street, observing this world that seemed normal but felt slightly uncoordinated in every detail.
The pedestrians, the cars, the shops... everything was lifelike, but he felt something was off, as if a thin veil was draped over everything.
Unknowingly, Ian walked into a huge plaza in the center of the city. The plaza was bustling with people. He instinctively looked up at the tallest statue in the center—with one look, his expression froze. His mouth fell open in shock, and even his desire to crack a joke temporarily vanished.
The statue stood tall and majestic, but it wasn't made of ordinary stone or metal. It was made of a special substance that seemed to condense endless darkness, radiating an ominous faint light.
The statue was of a giant, ferocious... being, possessed of an eerie beauty!
It had fingers like sharp claws, and its chest featured a twisted decoration shaped like fragments of a colored timer. Its entire body was covered in sharp protrusions resembling a biological exoskeleton.
Its face was contorted and sinister, its mouth curled into a grin that seemed to hold mockery and disdain for the entire universe. Despite being a statue, it radiated a heart-pounding pressure as if it were a living thing.
"No way. No way. No way."
Ian's heart hammered against his ribs.
That design, that vibe, that overwhelming sense of a final boss... he was far too familiar with it! Perhaps due to Ian's stare, the statue emitted a strange ripple.
"Hmm?"
Ian felt the cold, lifeless eyes of the statue come alive. Two invisible rays of consciousness, condensing the ultimate darkness, projected onto his retinas like physical objects. They flickered and outlined a blurred yet incomparably clear image in front of his eyes—a giant, dark figure radiating an aura of destruction!
In the next moment.
A low, majestic voice, filled with absolute power and dark will, seemed to cross infinite space-time, booming directly in the deepest part of his mind.
"Only darkness can rule the universe, and I am the incarnation of that darkness! The creator of the New Land of Light! Ultraman King Belial!" The figure became clearer and clearer.
Ian's consciousness blinked. Far from being afraid, he felt a surge of massive, unspeakable excitement. He had known all along that Ultramen must exist in this world.
Sure enough.
At this sudden moment.
He had finally seen a live Ultraman.
Even if it was Ultraman Belial—who didn't have the best reputation—he was still a popular enough NPC. An Ultraman like this would definitely have the chance to become Lord Ian's human host.
"Who's talking about a New Land of Light?"
***
Read 30 Chapters early on P-atreon.com/Redestro666