In the central region of the galaxy, Abin was exchanging information with his old friend Gambino.
In the sector overseen by the Green Lantern Gambino, a planet called Taskur had been attacked by Brainiac seven cosmic days ago.
Since Taskur was a purely semi-primitive planet—its life forms still in the age of eating raw meat and drinking blood—Gambino hadn't treated the matter with much urgency.
Every sector contained an enormous number of civilized planets. The Green Lanterns were an organization that safeguarded peace, not one that guided and nurtured unformed civilizations toward prosperity.
The disaster on Taskur was, to Gambino, just another story of a civilization in its ignorant age suffering an attack from forces beyond its control.
So Gambino had only mentioned the matter to a few old friends in passing.
Clearly, Abin was one of them.
Bezier and Abin found Gambino quickly. Within just a few hours, the team hunting Brainiac had grown to three.
As the administrator of the central galactic sector, Gambino was practically Brainiac's neighbor. The two had clashed far too many times—though those clashes always followed the same pattern: Brainiac swaggering about openly, while Gambino crept past with utmost caution.
So when he learned, through his conversation with Bezier and Abin, that the Sun God held a grudge against Brainiac—
Gambino, now flying with Abin toward the end of Brainiac's usual route—
his eyes lit up.
Beside him, Bezier scanned the surrounding signals and tapped lightly on the console.
"Quiet. I think we've found our target!"
"Indeed. This planet... it appears to be Huixin, already destroyed."
Abin acknowledged, then brought the ship to a halt. The three of them flared with green light and shot toward the ruined planet in the distance.
When they reached the planet's surface, the barren environment and quicksand-covered terrain made all three shake their heads in disgust.
The faintly visible building remnants half-buried in the sand made Bezier mutter in displeasure.
"Honestly, I've seen plenty of civilizations destroyed by time, but every time I see new remnants, I can't help feeling a sense of grief—like a fox mourning the rabbit's death."
Having said that, Bezier flew over to the edge of one building remnant and used his green light to cut off the sand above and below the structure.
Thus, a precarious tower-shaped building wrapped in green light appeared fully before the three of them.
"It's definitely Huixin architectural style."
After seeing the building, Abin nodded.
Bezier withdrew his green light and turned to Gambino, the blue-bearded man beside him.
"Buddy, this is your sector. Tell us—how likely is it that Brainiac's holed up here?"
"Who the hell knows? He's always been here one moment and gone the next. Level-twelve intelligence and Möbius technology let him shake off our tracking whenever he pleases.
The reason I brought you to this planet—first, it's relatively close to Taskur, which Brainiac attacked not long ago. Only sixty-two light-years.
Second, I once tried tracking Brainiac's routes, and many of his chosen trajectories had convergence points near this planet.
As for the last reason..."
Gambino paused, then shook his head.
"When I took the Green Lantern ring from my mentor, he told me there were three enemies in my sector who were the most dangerous.
One was the Chaos Titan Ua, one was the cosmic wanderer the Macrobeast.
And the last was the Destroyer of Huixin—or rather, the final legacy of Huixin...
The Collector of Cities, Brainiac!"
As his words fell, Gambino pulled out a cigar rolled from Mannisk wild grass and lit it with Green Lantern energy.
He took a drag, blew the smoke toward Bezier, and said:
"In any case, in the knowledge passed down through my lineage, Huixin is Brainiac's planet of origin.
Perhaps even an intelligent life form like him still harbors some special feelings for his birthplace, right?"
With those words, Gambino clenched his fist and pressed it to his chest.
"You two be careful as well. This planet has been abandoned for a long time, but there's still potential for development.
Yet no one has claimed sovereignty over the ruined Huixin.
So even if he isn't on this planet right now, there should be traces he's left behind!"
Gambino flew off into the distance, his final words drifting back through the air.
"Old rules—split up, search the globe from three directions, comms fully open, regroup every six hours. That's it!"
"Got it!"
"OK!"
Bezier and Abin acknowledged, then immediately shot off in different directions.
And when Abin released his control over the building, the structure that had barely managed to stand upright moments before came crashing down in all directions.
But no one noticed that within the ruins now buried once more beneath the sand, two pale-green biomechanical robots silently rose.
Meanwhile, beneath Huixin's surface, in an empty hall, a computer suddenly spoke on its own.
"Base breached. Biological identification: Green Lantern Corps members. Technological capability assessment: primitive. Threat level: extremely low..."
...
On Earth.
...
Heisenberg slowly awoke, then clapped his hands, opening the sun for the God Kingdom.
In an instant, the once-dark Mogo was bathed in sunlight again.
The little planet gradually took shape beside him and immediately hopped into his arms.
With the return of sunlight, the Kryptonians eagerly rushed out of their hibernation pods and resumed their tedious routine of sunbathing and sparring.
But one thing was different...
Bach immediately came to Heisenberg's side and asked tentatively:
"Lord Heisenberg, has Lady Mogo come to you again?"
"Hm? What's wrong?"
Heisenberg frowned slightly and lifted up the silent Mogo in his arms.
He'd been wondering why Mogo wasn't as lively as usual today. Now it seemed something unpleasant had happened to her.
At the same time, upon seeing Mogo's avatar, Bach smiled and said to Heisenberg and Mogo:
"My lord, it's nothing serious. Lady Mogo and I simply have a small disagreement regarding planetary modification. I—"
"No more nonsense! I absolutely refuse to be modified! Absolutely not!!!"
Before Bach could finish, Mogo's unyielding voice cut him off.
The little planet instantly switched to a pitiful emoji face and threw herself into Heisenberg's arms, thrashing about.
"Dad, do something about him! What is he doing!!!
I'm only this big, and he wants to give me plastic surgery!!!
He wants to increase my gravity, change my terrain—I'm Mogo, not Krypton!!!
And this isn't the 'minor touch-up' he promised—this is a full body replacement!!"
Having said that, Mogo looked at Heisenberg pitifully and asked in a small voice:
"Dad, you wouldn't... you wouldn't agree to his suggestion, would you..."
"Of course not!"
Heisenberg nodded without hesitation. He then planned to explain to Bach that Krypton was a thing of the past—there was no need for sun-bathed Kryptonians to live in an environment identical to old Krypton.
But before he could say what he'd prepared, Mogo suddenly froze.
Then, putting on an extremely serious expression, she said:
"Dad, this is an emergency message from Bezier. Let me play it for you!"
With those words, Mogo promptly opened the communication channel, letting Bezier's voice reach Heisenberg's ears.
"My lord, good grief—we've arrived at just the right time!
We've found Brainiac!
But the way we found him isn't quite what we expected!
Brainiac doesn't bother hiding at all. His technology is so advanced that even standing right in front of me, my detectors can't scan him.
But I doubt either he or I expected Apokolips to show up!!!
I'm on the edge of the battle right now. You'd better bring support fast—there are too many life forms here!
Apokolips's Parademons and Brainiac's biomechanical robots are blanketing an entire planet!
I don't know who Apokolips sent, but they're fighting with incredible ferocity.
After investigating, I've discovered that Apokolips's objective in attacking Brainiac is the same as yours—your Kryptonian people. I—!"
The transmission cut off there. Heisenberg broke into an excited grin!
He clapped his hands sharply, and countless rainbow bridges burst into existence before him.
The Amazon warriors, already prepared, along with the entire Justice League, emerged from the rainbow bridges.
Aside from the Amazon warriors, the others looked anything but prepared.
Barry was still brushing his teeth with his toothbrush. Mera hadn't even tied up her hair.
But Heisenberg gave them no time to speak. He announced directly:
"Apokolips has attacked Brainiac, fighting over the Kryptonian cities and my Kryptonian people he has collected!
So—the time for war has come!"
"Right now?!!"
Bruce, fully armored, furrowed his brow and asked quietly:
"I need to bring the weapons and equipment I've prepared recently into the God Kingdom!"
"OK!"
Hearing Bruce's words, Heisenberg nodded and said:
"You have five minutes."
Heisenberg then sent Bruce and the others who'd raised their hands indicating they needed to return and prepare back home.
But it didn't even take five minutes—just thirty-some seconds—before people began calling out Heisenberg's name one after another.
Once everyone had returned to the God Kingdom, Heisenberg played Bezier's transmission for the Justice League leaders.
Meanwhile, the Amazon and Kryptonian warriors, unconcerned with the reasons for war, waited in solemn silence for the true beginning of battle.
The Amazon swords gleamed with blinding light. The black combat suits and black capes of the Kryptonian warriors seemed to darken the nearby sky itself.
After explaining the war's origins to the Justice League, Heisenberg turned to face the warriors who would fight for him.
He no longer needed to rally them with impassioned speeches.
The Amazons had awaited war for far too long. The Kryptonians' thirst for vengeance needed no tedious words to ignite.
Heisenberg spread his right hand, flames burning along his arm.
His armor gradually materialized over his body.
He nodded gently to the assembly, then said in a soft voice that nevertheless reached every ear:
"Bach, remain on Earth. Maintain communications. Investigate and confirm Darkseid's movements for me—prevent him from launching a surprise attack on Earth as the Flash from the future described.
The God Kingdom ship will descend on Huixin with me. We cannot let my people fall into Apokolips's hands.
The war has begun."
/-\
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