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Chapter 262: Deadly Ray
Darkseid, a renowned destroyer in the Multiverse, was a celestial catastrophe that was nearly impossible for the vast majority of civilizations to resist.
At this very moment, he had descended upon this Earth.
A troop of Parademons followed him out of the Boom Tube.
Evidently, this was the first time this world's Justice League had encountered their fated nemesis.
"I'm guessing this guy is a villain?" Hal said. "He just has the face of a villain."
Superman said, "He doesn't look all that powerful."
"Really? Why do I have a very bad premonition?"
The Flash, sandwiched between his teammates, looked left and right, seemingly trying to find a hint of unease on anyone's face but his own.
But there was none. Some of his new teammates had solemn expressions, while others even seemed a little excited. Yet, no one appeared to be afraid.
He suddenly had a strange feeling that there wasn't a single normal person in this squad.
"You guys wait here, don't move. Just wait for the free light show."
Hal flashed a confident smile, a green glow flaring around his body as he soared into the air with a loud shout.
"Watch how a Green Lantern handles this!"
With that, he accelerated and charged forward, trailing a streak of green light. He brandished a giant baseball bat manifested from green light, all while yelling something like, "Fear my light!"
And then...
And then he was sent flying.
It might sound a bit disrespectful, but the way Green Lantern came flying back looked just like a skipping stone, thudding and bouncing several times across the ground before rolling to a stop.
And the dark demon god seemed to have only casually swatted his hand, as if slapping a mosquito. No, it was as if he hadn't even used much force at all.
The nearby Parademons immediately spread their wings and flew forward, surrounding Hal and stomping him underfoot, pummeling him with a barrage of fists and kicks. It was The Flash who saw the dire situation and rushed over in a flash. Where the blur of lightning passed, the circle of Parademons was instantly scattered, and a disheveled Hal clutched his dizzy head as he scrambled to his feet.
Superman and Supergirl launched their attack simultaneously, flying forward from the left and right. Compared to this half-formed Justice League, which was assembling for the first time, the coordination of the two siblings was clearly more reliable. Both moved with extreme speed, locking onto the weak points on Darkseid's flanks at almost the exact same moment to attack, their goal to force him into a panicked state.
But Darkseid stood his ground, neither dodging nor evading. The terrifying super-speed of the Kryptonians seemed laughable in his eyes. He casually blasted Superman away with one palm, then struck Kara's wrist to deflect the angle of her charge, and immediately followed up with a supersonic knee strike. Kara took a heavy blow to her abdomen, letting out a muffled grunt as she was knocked sideways through the air.
"Hey, I'm not done with you yet, big guy!"
Hal roared as the green light coiling around him transformed into a train that charged straight ahead. Darkseid shot it a sidelong glance, standing his ground as if he couldn't be bothered to move. The green light train shattered against Darkseid's face like glass. Caught in his momentum, Hal flew headfirst toward the god, who casually swatted him down into the Underground, shattering the force field barrier around him.
Darkseid followed up by raising his foot and stomping down viciously, aiming straight for Hal's face. Hal's pupils contracted. With his force field broken, he was now just a mortal, whereas Darkseid's casual attacks were at supersonic speed at a minimum. In that split second, there was no time to reform his defense.
The shadow of death descended at extreme speed. Dust flew and fragments splattered as time itself seemed to freeze. A red afterimage stepped on the mid-air, stationary brick fragments and metal debris, tumbling and flipping between the countless suspended objects like a gymnast. Trailing lightning, he accelerated to Hal's side, lowered his center of gravity, and executed a ground-hugging slide, grabbing Hal and pulling him out from under that Grim Reaper-like foot.
Darkseid's foot landed, making the very ground tremble and kicking up a wave of dust, but the Green Lantern beneath his foot had vanished in the blink of an eye, as if he had teleported.
Darkseid frowned slightly. It seemed that even in his conquests across the Multiverse, he had rarely encountered such heaven-defying speed. He turned his head and saw The Flash, having slid Hal hundreds of meters away, panting heavily.
"Speedster..."
Darkseid murmured, a red glow igniting in his eyes.
Kryptonians were undoubtedly powerful in all aspects, but in the recent exchange, the strength and speed that Superman and Supergirl prided themselves on had clearly been suppressed by Darkseid.
This speedster, however, although his stats were severely skewed toward speed, was unbelievably fast. In that fleeting clash, Darkseid could already tell that he was nowhere near as fast as him.
This was not good. He disliked anyone being stronger than him, even if it was just in a single attribute.
The Flash's heart skipped a beat as he instinctively realized he was being targeted.
Darkseid leaned his body to the side, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, and dodged Diana's lunging sword strike. He neutralized the attack with a skillful maneuver, then followed up with an elbow strike fueled by absolute power, blasting Diana backward.
Throughout the entire sequence, he never looked back. The red glow in his eyes flickered, and a beam of destruction erupted like lava.
Omega Beams!
An energy ray famous throughout the Multiverse. Besides its indescribably immense power, its most famous property was its ability to bend at will, tracking and annihilating anything.
Once a target was locked on, it was impossible to escape, even if they fled to the ends of the earth or the edge of the universe. And once struck, even a god would be instantly erased from existence, with no way to defend or resist.
And now, this world-destroying energy had locked onto the fastest man in the world, the creator of the Speed Force.
Perhaps it was through his connection to the Speed Force that he sensed the law-defying power of annihilation within the Omega Beams, because even before Darkseid fired, The Flash turned and ran without a second thought.
The Omega energy gave chase!
A terrifying wave of heat swept by, leaving a scorched black trail on the ground in its wake. The Flash didn't dare to look back, nor did he need to, to feel the deadly energy behind him, like a burning Grim Reaper chasing him with a scythe.
He tried his best not to feel fear, not to think about what would happen if he were caught, and just kept running.
The scenery around him stretched and blurred, and even the lightning of the Speed Force seemed to be left behind. In an instant, he had already rushed out of the borders of Deherein and onto the surface of the ocean. He ran across the salty seawater, spanning oceans, crossing mountains, and passing through valleys and plains. In a moment too fast for an ordinary person to react, he had already crossed more than half the Earth, but the shadow of death had still not vanished.
He could feel it. The Omega was still in hot pursuit.
The entire world stood still in his eyes. Water splashes were frozen in mid-air, aircraft were suspended in the sky, the traffic and pedestrians of the city were motionless, and in the valley, leaves hung in the air, not yet touching the ground after falling from their branches...
At such high speed, everything was static. It was as if even the air had stopped flowing, the entire Earth frozen in time, unable to turn.
Yet the Omega, the Omega chasing him, could not be stopped even when time was frozen. It desperately continued its pursuit.
"It won't stop. I can't keep running like this..."
Barry tried to force himself to calm down.
"That's right, Ultraman! He'll have a solution. He always has a solution. I have to find him, he can definitely—"
As this thought reached its conclusion, a flash of inspiration struck him, and a conversation he had with Orin Vale not long ago, when they were studying the Speed Force together, surfaced.
"This... move... will it really work?"
Barry had looked at Orin Vale with doubt.
"It's not that I doubt you; I know you're usually right. But this... isn't it a bit too outrageous?"
"It is a bit outrageous, but the Speed Force itself is pretty outrageous, isn't it?"
Orin Vale smiled and patted his shoulder.
"Don't worry, trust me, it's not that hard. You are the fastest man in the world—no, in the Multiverse. There's nothing you can't outrun."
"..."
Barry took a deep breath.
"Yeah, I'm fast. I'm the fastest. Even he said so. There's nothing I can't outrun. I just need to have Light in my heart, have Hope in my heart..."
His gaze became firm, and lightning flickered in his eyes.
Then he accelerated again!
It wasn't just a brute-force kind of acceleration where great effort begets a miracle. Orin Vale had helped him study many of the Speed Force's attributes, allowing him to be more deliberate when using its energy, performing specific operations based on his understanding of spacetime, rather than just plowing through everything with raw Speed Force energy.
Barry was a science fanatic to begin with. Even without Orin Vale, he would have figured out many new moves on his own in the later comics. Orin Vale had merely helped him speed up the process.
For Barry, it was a life-and-death race that took him around the Earth countless times, but for everyone else, not even a second had passed.
The Flash turned and ran as Darkseid's Omega Beams fired. In a mere instant, The Flash returned to the scene from the complete opposite direction with a screeching power-slide, a braking trail several kilometers long behind him.
And the Omega Beams that had been behind him were gone.
Even Darkseid's eyes widened, his face blank.
*Where are my Omega Beams?*
How could he have run back so nonchalantly? What happened to my Omega Beams?
Even his Justice League teammates had dumbfounded expressions, completely unable to understand what had just happened.
"Barry, what happened?" Hal asked.
Barry let out a long breath and said, "That was close. That beam... it's sinister. It chased me around the Earth several times. Then I had to time travel a little, about 0.35 seconds into the future."
"The ray on the timeline 0.35 seconds ago lost its target, which is how I finally shook it off."
It wasn't just Darkseid; even his teammates couldn't help but reveal expressions of utter disbelief upon hearing this.
Hal's mouth hung open.
"What did you just do???"
(end of chapter)
Darkseid, a renowned destroyer in the Multiverse, was a celestial catastrophe that was nearly impossible for the vast majority of civilizations to resist.
At this very moment, he had descended upon this Earth.
A troop of Parademons followed him out of the Boom Tube.
Evidently, this was the first time this world's Justice League had encountered their fated nemesis.
"I'm guessing this guy is a villain?" Hal said. "He just has the face of a villain."
Superman said, "He doesn't look all that powerful."
"Really? Why do I have a very bad premonition?"
The Flash, sandwiched between his teammates, looked left and right, seemingly trying to find a hint of unease on anyone's face but his own.
But there was none. Some of his new teammates had solemn expressions, while others even seemed a little excited. Yet, no one appeared to be afraid.
He suddenly had a strange feeling that there wasn't a single normal person in this squad.
"You guys wait here, don't move. Just wait for the free light show."
Hal flashed a confident smile, a green glow flaring around his body as he soared into the air with a loud shout.
"Watch how a Green Lantern handles this!"
With that, he accelerated and charged forward, trailing a streak of green light. He brandished a giant baseball bat manifested from green light, all while yelling something like, "Fear my light!"
And then...
And then he was sent flying.
It might sound a bit disrespectful, but the way Green Lantern came flying back looked just like a skipping stone, thudding and bouncing several times across the ground before rolling to a stop.
And the dark demon god seemed to have only casually swatted his hand, as if slapping a mosquito. No, it was as if he hadn't even used much force at all.
The nearby Parademons immediately spread their wings and flew forward, surrounding Hal and stomping him underfoot, pummeling him with a barrage of fists and kicks. It was The Flash who saw the dire situation and rushed over in a flash. Where the blur of lightning passed, the circle of Parademons was instantly scattered, and a disheveled Hal clutched his dizzy head as he scrambled to his feet.
Superman and Supergirl launched their attack simultaneously, flying forward from the left and right. Compared to this half-formed Justice League, which was assembling for the first time, the coordination of the two siblings was clearly more reliable. Both moved with extreme speed, locking onto the weak points on Darkseid's flanks at almost the exact same moment to attack, their goal to force him into a panicked state.
But Darkseid stood his ground, neither dodging nor evading. The terrifying super-speed of the Kryptonians seemed laughable in his eyes. He casually blasted Superman away with one palm, then struck Kara's wrist to deflect the angle of her charge, and immediately followed up with a supersonic knee strike. Kara took a heavy blow to her abdomen, letting out a muffled grunt as she was knocked sideways through the air.
"Hey, I'm not done with you yet, big guy!"
Hal roared as the green light coiling around him transformed into a train that charged straight ahead. Darkseid shot it a sidelong glance, standing his ground as if he couldn't be bothered to move. The green light train shattered against Darkseid's face like glass. Caught in his momentum, Hal flew headfirst toward the god, who casually swatted him down into the Underground, shattering the force field barrier around him.
Darkseid followed up by raising his foot and stomping down viciously, aiming straight for Hal's face. Hal's pupils contracted. With his force field broken, he was now just a mortal, whereas Darkseid's casual attacks were at supersonic speed at a minimum. In that split second, there was no time to reform his defense.
The shadow of death descended at extreme speed. Dust flew and fragments splattered as time itself seemed to freeze. A red afterimage stepped on the mid-air, stationary brick fragments and metal debris, tumbling and flipping between the countless suspended objects like a gymnast. Trailing lightning, he accelerated to Hal's side, lowered his center of gravity, and executed a ground-hugging slide, grabbing Hal and pulling him out from under that Grim Reaper-like foot.
Darkseid's foot landed, making the very ground tremble and kicking up a wave of dust, but the Green Lantern beneath his foot had vanished in the blink of an eye, as if he had teleported.
Darkseid frowned slightly. It seemed that even in his conquests across the Multiverse, he had rarely encountered such heaven-defying speed. He turned his head and saw The Flash, having slid Hal hundreds of meters away, panting heavily.
"Speedster..."
Darkseid murmured, a red glow igniting in his eyes.
Kryptonians were undoubtedly powerful in all aspects, but in the recent exchange, the strength and speed that Superman and Supergirl prided themselves on had clearly been suppressed by Darkseid.
This speedster, however, although his stats were severely skewed toward speed, was unbelievably fast. In that fleeting clash, Darkseid could already tell that he was nowhere near as fast as him.
This was not good. He disliked anyone being stronger than him, even if it was just in a single attribute.
The Flash's heart skipped a beat as he instinctively realized he was being targeted.
Darkseid leaned his body to the side, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, and dodged Diana's lunging sword strike. He neutralized the attack with a skillful maneuver, then followed up with an elbow strike fueled by absolute power, blasting Diana backward.
Throughout the entire sequence, he never looked back. The red glow in his eyes flickered, and a beam of destruction erupted like lava.
Omega Beams!
An energy ray famous throughout the Multiverse. Besides its indescribably immense power, its most famous property was its ability to bend at will, tracking and annihilating anything.
Once a target was locked on, it was impossible to escape, even if they fled to the ends of the earth or the edge of the universe. And once struck, even a god would be instantly erased from existence, with no way to defend or resist.
And now, this world-destroying energy had locked onto the fastest man in the world, the creator of the Speed Force.
Perhaps it was through his connection to the Speed Force that he sensed the law-defying power of annihilation within the Omega Beams, because even before Darkseid fired, The Flash turned and ran without a second thought.
The Omega energy gave chase!
A terrifying wave of heat swept by, leaving a scorched black trail on the ground in its wake. The Flash didn't dare to look back, nor did he need to, to feel the deadly energy behind him, like a burning Grim Reaper chasing him with a scythe.
He tried his best not to feel fear, not to think about what would happen if he were caught, and just kept running.
The scenery around him stretched and blurred, and even the lightning of the Speed Force seemed to be left behind. In an instant, he had already rushed out of the borders of Deherein and onto the surface of the ocean. He ran across the salty seawater, spanning oceans, crossing mountains, and passing through valleys and plains. In a moment too fast for an ordinary person to react, he had already crossed more than half the Earth, but the shadow of death had still not vanished.
He could feel it. The Omega was still in hot pursuit.
The entire world stood still in his eyes. Water splashes were frozen in mid-air, aircraft were suspended in the sky, the traffic and pedestrians of the city were motionless, and in the valley, leaves hung in the air, not yet touching the ground after falling from their branches...
At such high speed, everything was static. It was as if even the air had stopped flowing, the entire Earth frozen in time, unable to turn.
Yet the Omega, the Omega chasing him, could not be stopped even when time was frozen. It desperately continued its pursuit.
"It won't stop. I can't keep running like this..."
Barry tried to force himself to calm down.
"That's right, Ultraman! He'll have a solution. He always has a solution. I have to find him, he can definitely—"
As this thought reached its conclusion, a flash of inspiration struck him, and a conversation he had with Orin Vale not long ago, when they were studying the Speed Force together, surfaced.
"This... move... will it really work?"
Barry had looked at Orin Vale with doubt.
"It's not that I doubt you; I know you're usually right. But this... isn't it a bit too outrageous?"
"It is a bit outrageous, but the Speed Force itself is pretty outrageous, isn't it?"
Orin Vale smiled and patted his shoulder.
"Don't worry, trust me, it's not that hard. You are the fastest man in the world—no, in the Multiverse. There's nothing you can't outrun."
"..."
Barry took a deep breath.
"Yeah, I'm fast. I'm the fastest. Even he said so. There's nothing I can't outrun. I just need to have Light in my heart, have Hope in my heart..."
His gaze became firm, and lightning flickered in his eyes.
Then he accelerated again!
It wasn't just a brute-force kind of acceleration where great effort begets a miracle. Orin Vale had helped him study many of the Speed Force's attributes, allowing him to be more deliberate when using its energy, performing specific operations based on his understanding of spacetime, rather than just plowing through everything with raw Speed Force energy.
Barry was a science fanatic to begin with. Even without Orin Vale, he would have figured out many new moves on his own in the later comics. Orin Vale had merely helped him speed up the process.
For Barry, it was a life-and-death race that took him around the Earth countless times, but for everyone else, not even a second had passed.
The Flash turned and ran as Darkseid's Omega Beams fired. In a mere instant, The Flash returned to the scene from the complete opposite direction with a screeching power-slide, a braking trail several kilometers long behind him.
And the Omega Beams that had been behind him were gone.
Even Darkseid's eyes widened, his face blank.
*Where are my Omega Beams?*
How could he have run back so nonchalantly? What happened to my Omega Beams?
Even his Justice League teammates had dumbfounded expressions, completely unable to understand what had just happened.
"Barry, what happened?" Hal asked.
Barry let out a long breath and said, "That was close. That beam... it's sinister. It chased me around the Earth several times. Then I had to time travel a little, about 0.35 seconds into the future."
"The ray on the timeline 0.35 seconds ago lost its target, which is how I finally shook it off."
It wasn't just Darkseid; even his teammates couldn't help but reveal expressions of utter disbelief upon hearing this.
Hal's mouth hung open.
"What did you just do???"
(end of chapter)
