Joey had no idea which star system he had been dragged into by Doctor Fate's battle earlier. The only thing he knew was that this system was still extremely far from the solar system where Earth was located.
So far that even he would need an hour or two to return.
Every encounter with Raven seemed to only create more trouble for him, and yet he was completely powerless against her. This time, he had finally decided to punch her hard on the right side of her face—but instead, her entire right half was already gone.
This would be a rather boring journey, because the deep void of space was not the sea of stars most people imagined.
Only when the scale of the universe is compressed into Earth's tiny sky does it appear crowded. If one places themselves as a microscopic existence within the universe, they would realize that this cold cosmos is composed of at least 99% void and less than 1% matter.
Anyone would come to understand just how empty it truly is—even Kryptonians, who can physically traverse space and fly faster than light in the vacuum.
During this uneventful journey, Joey began organizing the matters he needed to resolve.
First, Earth should be relatively stable now. With no war between Amazons and Atlanteans, the planet at least wouldn't explode in the short term.
He could slowly figure out what went wrong with Cable's time wrist device, in order to return to his previous universe and then find Raven for answers.
Next was the order of Earth itself. Stopping the Third World War did not mean Earth should become his personal property.
But as the founder of a new order, the protector of Amazons and Atlanteans, and the savior who spared tens of billions of lives, Joey believed he had sufficient reason and power to fix some of Earth's flaws.
In theory, if you want to create an equal order, such a system cannot be stable. Conversely, if you want a stable order, inequality must exist within it.
After all, nothing on Earth is truly equal to begin with. The gap between nations can sometimes be even greater than the gap between humans and Kryptonians. But Joey could make everything equally unequal.
Within this system, there would only be a single form of inequality—but at least it would be fair.
After maintaining it for several years, humans might eventually transcend race, religion, and nationality. They would no longer hate each other—they would only have him left to hate.
Joey snapped out of his temporary thoughts and realized he might have been overthinking. He had thought too fast, and his journey had not even passed one percent.
But soon, he was no longer bored.
Because a green glow emerged from the dark depths of space. The green light gathered into a powerful energy beam that shot directly toward him.
With a sidestep, Joey dodged the attack, and his gaze locked onto a four-person squad in the distance. Each of them wore a green ring and was surrounded by green light that sustained their survival in the vacuum of space.
The Green Lantern Corps.
Why were they attacking him?
Before Joey could think further, they conjured a more lethal weapon with their rings—a giant sword spanning the void of space, sweeping toward him.
Nonsense. Why was the Green Lantern Corps acting like this?
Joey merely shifted slightly, dodging the seemingly slow swing of the massive sword. But then the sword transformed into a gigantic hand large enough to cover half a planet, suddenly grabbing him.
The green willpower construct then rapidly reassembled, forming layer after layer of nested cages. Over a hundred Russian-doll-like boxes spun around him, making Joey feel dizzy.
No—this wasn't just visual dizziness. The green light composing the cages contained something familiar: kryptonite radiation.
The four Green Lanterns pulled the imprisoned Joey in front of them. Only then did he get a clear look at this strange squad.
Green Lanterns were supposed to be peacekeepers recruited by the Guardians of Oa. Although they often failed at their noble duties, they were still 'good guys'—so why were they attacking him in deep space?
And why were they so specifically using kryptonite radiation? Even though the ring's projection was incomplete, it was enough to weaken him significantly.
The team looked like a zoo: a pig-faced alien humanoid, a small fish-like creature with fins on its back, a squirrel no longer than twenty centimeters, and the only human-like member—a woman.
She had thick orange-red hair flowing like wild flames under the green light, a tall and graceful but powerful figure, and skin the same orange-red tone as her hair.
What drew Joey's attention most were her turquoise eyes—not because they were beautiful, but because they were fixed on him, burning with visible rage and killing intent.
Among the others, the squirrel noticed her emotional instability and hurriedly wagged his large tail, trying to stop her:
"Koriand'r! Stop! The Green Lantern Corps does not use lethal force unless absolutely necessary! The Kryptonian is already restrained—turn off the kryptonite radiation!"
Like the Green Lantern rings' own limitations, Kryptonians could survive in space thanks to their bio-field—but kryptonite would drastically weaken all their abilities.
It would shrink their bio-field and reduce them to something as fragile as ordinary beings.
If not for the ring's restriction against lethal force, the orange-skinned woman named Koriand'r would have already skinned Joey alive. How could she possibly want to deactivate the kryptonite radiation?
"Chip, all Kryptonians deserve to die!"
Joey, however, didn't care much—he was already starting to feel less dizzy.
In his battles with Wonder Woman and Aquaman, he had discovered something: unlike Superman, his resistance to certain things seemed to increase through prolonged exposure—and it increased extremely quickly.
Wonder Woman's sword could initially pierce him clean through, but by the time he faced Aquaman's trident, such divine weapons could only inflict minor injuries.
Later on, Aquaman's trident had basically become scrap metal to him—it couldn't even break his bio-field anymore.
Joey simply sat back inside the translucent green cage, feeling the dizziness and weakness fading. In about ten seconds, he would be able to shatter this willpower prison at any moment.
But first, he wanted to understand why this Green Lantern squad had suddenly attacked him—and especially why they harbored such intense hatred toward Kryptonians.
"Why did you suddenly attack me? And what did Kryptonians ever do to you?!"