The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4449 Dark Prelude (Thirty-Four)
No wonder old Kent didn't come back to life, Clark thought to himself. So this Grim Reaper can trace back to his bloodline, requiring biological parents to do so. Of course, it's also possible that he was rejected by his own father in Hell and had to settle for second best. But to be honest, he's gone a bit too far.

Clark was very sentimental, but only if he had developed a relationship with the person. He had virtually no feelings for his biological parents, since he had never even met them.

Although he saw the projection on the spaceship, it was only a brief encounter. The level of intimacy and familiarity wasn't even comparable to that with his colleagues at the Daily Planet. If Death had killed the editor-in-chief and then resurrected him, calling him and demanding he return to work, Clark might have fallen for it. Right now, he had absolutely no intention of going back.

Clark was checking text messages while Diana continued talking. Because she was worried that she hadn't explained things in enough detail, and that Clark might still be influenced by the mutant's plan, Diana recounted Luthor's entire plot.

Clark found the name increasingly familiar. He interrupted Diana and said, "You have to come and see this."

A few minutes later, Diana and Ron flew over first. Barry even brought Lex, who was tied up, along. Diana went to Clark's side first.

"What's wrong? How did you suddenly end up on this spaceship?"

Clark didn't speak, but simply pointed to the communication screen. Diana saw that it was written in Kryptonian script, which she couldn't understand, but Clark had already read it to her.

Upon hearing the details of the text message, Diana looked at Clark in shock, then abruptly turned to look at Lex.

She walked over and picked Lex up. Lex saw the text on the communication screen; he could read Kryptonian. Although he didn't recognize a few words, he could roughly guess the meaning.

"He plagiarized me!!!" Lex roared, "He stole my plan!! That shameless thief!!!"

Clark and Diana exchanged a glance. If Lex denied it outright, it was still possible that he was the one who did it, but his current reaction suggested that he might genuinely be unaware.

Besides, he's currently bound by the Lasso of Truth, and Ron is there to back him up, so the chances of him lying are slim. Diana sighed and said, "That's why they say birds of a feather flock together. Bad people even seem to think of the same bad ideas."

Clark fell into deep thought. He said, "They must have tricked me back here because they didn't want to deal with me on Earth, or they felt they couldn't deal with me on Earth, so they thought of tricking me back to Krypton to make me lose my powers. But the question is, how could they think they couldn't deal with me on Earth?"

“Isn’t it obvious?” Barry said in surprise. “Who on Earth could possibly deal with you? Seriously, it’s only because you came back late that Steppenwolf would have been in trouble if he had run into you.”

Clark shook his head and said, "Don't forget, I just survived an assassination attempt, and I even faked being seriously injured. They'll think the assassination was successful and that they've found my weakness. Killing me on Earth would be the best option for them."

His words stunned everyone. They all realized something was wrong; Clark was right. Luthor wanted to use this plan against Superman because he understood Superman very well, even realizing that the essence of Superman's power was idealism.

He knew that on Earth, Superman's power was limitless. He could overcome any obstacle, no matter what it was. Therefore, the only way to defeat him was to take him far away from Earth.

The problem is, the mastermind went to great lengths to investigate Superman's weakness and "successfully" carried out the assassination. This means they essentially grasped Superman's weakness; if one attempt failed, they could try again, without needing to look for other methods.

Clearly, the assassination attempt and the sudden text message are contradictory. While it's possible the mastermind made two preparations, the two plans are completely different in style. One is entirely a conspiracy, while the other is straightforward; they don't seem like the work of the same group.

This situation baffled everyone. Diana scratched her head, unsure what was going on. Clark pondered for a long time but couldn't figure it out. The others were even more clueless, completely bewildered.

Only Lex, who was described as "rotten to the core," seemed to have figured things out. He said, "I don't think this was done by a group of people."

Everyone looked at him. Lex seemed to enjoy being watched, his brilliant mind racing again, and he said, "This proves that more than one group wanted to kill Superman, they just happened to run into each other, which led to this situation."

“That makes some sense,” Diana said. “Clark is president now, he has many enemies, so it wouldn’t be surprising if someone hired someone to kill him. But if his biological parents really did come back to life…”

Diana turned to Clark. Clark understood her meaning. Clearly, if the text message was indeed sent by their resurrected biological parents, this was the mastermind's plan.

This aligns with the mastermind's modus operandi: he doesn't use financial incentives to coerce, but rather emotional manipulation. Reviving deceased relatives is a way to emotionally blackmail them. He's always done this, his style consistent and unchanging.

Who carried out this assassination on Earth?
Clark began to think again. He did have some enemies on Earth. In fact, if Luther hadn't been tied up and left here, he would have been the first to suspect him, even though this straightforward style didn't fit Luther's usual approach. Taking him down first was definitely the right thing to do.

But Diana had already used the Lasso of Truth to force him to reveal that Luther wasn't the one who assassinated him. So who else could it be? Who hated him so much that they would use such violent means to kill him?
The atmosphere on the spaceship fell silent again as everyone fell into deep thought. But this was indeed beyond their reasoning.

An opposition is possible, but they're not a force to be reckoned with. Clark hasn't been president for nothing; he's been keeping a close eye on those people, so it's unlikely they could cause anything significant. Darkseid's previous attack on Earth isn't out of the question either. Maybe he left some subordinates on Earth just to cause trouble for himself. But it doesn't seem necessary to hire human assassins with sniper rifles; his men are all highly skilled and capable—they could just take matters into their own hands. Wasn't that exactly what Steppenwolf did?

In his contemplation, Clark grasped the key point. The key wasn't who had a grudge against him, but who knew that kryptonite was his weakness. Not many people knew this.

Before the theft of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's documents, only the allies and Luther knew about it. Therefore, the problem must lie with the stolen documents, and the reasoning now returns to square one: who stole the documents?

This was getting a bit confusing. So Clark decided to try a different approach: it wasn't important who had the ability to steal the data; the key was who could analyze it and find the kryptonite. Someone with insufficient expertise probably couldn't do it.

Don't be fooled by these historical documents; the English language barrier is quite significant. Even humanities materials are difficult to understand for non-specialists. For example, many ancient Egyptian terms are derived from foreign languages, and nobody knows their meaning. Without expertise in this area, it's practically impossible to comprehend stolen materials.

In other words, he would only steal something if he was confident he could understand it. So this person is definitely not a novice; he must be at least an intellectual with research capabilities.

As for why they didn't hire others, it's actually quite simple. All the experts with any skill across the Federation are currently studying the captured Martians, all staying in the same place, working tirelessly day and night. Victor is there to oversee things, fearing something might go wrong. It's very difficult for them to cause trouble under Victor's surveillance; information can't get out, let alone access any data.

In other words, this person had to be a researcher with some ability and skill, but outside of surveillance, and also had to have a grudge against Clark. With this in mind, Clark locked onto his target almost instantly.

He turned to look at Ron and said, "Has Dr. O'De contacted you?"

Ron was taken aback, then his expression turned serious. He understood what Clark meant, then shook his head and said, "No. I've been looking for him, but I haven't found him."

Diana realized what was happening too. They'd mentioned Dr. O'Deh's resurrection, but they'd never seen him. He perfectly matched the characteristics of the data thief: he was an expert, albeit in space, but Ron said he had four doctorates. It would be too easy for someone like him to access specialized materials. Moreover, he was dead, so he wouldn't be on the list of scholars, yet he was resurrected; it was highly likely he was being manipulated by Death and had a grudge against Clark.

But if it's Dr. Ode, a new problem arises: this scientist probably doesn't have such good marksmanship, does he?
Clark described the attack to Ron. The others hadn't heard the details, and after listening, they couldn't help but feel a chill for Clark. If he hadn't developed antibodies, he'd already be in the cemetery by now.

Oh no, the mastermind won't give him that chance. They'll make him come back to life immediately and wipe out the entire Justice League. Now it's everyone else's turn to hold their breath in fear.

After listening, Rong En slowly shook his head and said, "It's absolutely impossible that Dr. Ode fired the shot. He doesn't have that ability. Although he has great academic achievements, he's the kind of scholar who can't even kill a chicken. Let alone firing a gun, he probably doesn't even know how to assemble a sniper rifle."

“He could hire a hitman, right?” Barry asked.

“But the problem is that this assassin is a bit too skilled,” Diana said. “If it’s really as Clark said, then this kind of assassin can’t be found just anywhere, right? Since Dr. O’De has never done anything like this before, and he couldn’t possibly have such connections, how could he have hired one in such a short time?”

Barry was speechless. He understood that top-tier assassins were rare finds. They didn't act easily and rarely took jobs from strangers. Just contacting them was difficult. If Dr. O'De had never dealt with this circle before, he probably wouldn't have been able to hire them.

“I think you’ve got one thing wrong.” Just then, Lex spoke up again, “Is it possible that the person who did this never intended for you to die?”

Clark couldn't help but turn to look at him and said, "Ridiculous. If you didn't want to kill me, why assassinate me? Don't you think that's a contradiction?"

"Only fools like you would believe that behind every contradiction lies a real contradiction, rather than a deeper, more rational logic. If you were willing to use your brains, you wouldn't be standing here staring blankly."

(End of this chapter)