American comics: Damn it, I’m surrounded by those who worry about their fathers!.

Chapter 1009: Dr. Manhattan wipes out the DC heroes!

In the hospital ward, the pungent smell of disinfectant could not mask the acrid smell of molten metal and burning energy that lingered on Bruce's body.

He suddenly opened his eyes, his vision blurred by a severe headache and a tightness in his chest, but his instincts instantly overwhelmed his physical weakness.

He ripped off the oxygen mask from his face, the movement aggravating his wounds, and he let out a muffled groan.

"Don't move, Bruce."

Peter's voice rang out from the side.

"godfather?"

Bruce paused for a moment when he saw Peter standing next to him.

He then excitedly asked Peter, "Godfather, where is Clark?!"

Peter slowly turned his head, avoiding Bruce's scorching gaze, his eyes fixed on the cold metal floor, his voice low and flat: "I don't know. The signal was completely cut off in Red Square. After that white light, there were no signs of life."

After a brief silence, the last glimmer of hope in Bruce's eyes went out, leaving only bottomless darkness.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, all that remained was a burning calmness.

"The mastermind behind it all"

He practically forced out the word through gritted teeth, "Godfather, have you found him?"

"Ah."

Peter's voice remained heavy, "The target is Mars. The Green Lantern Corps, the Justice League, the Dark Justice League, the Doom Patrol—all the forces you can think of, and even those you can't, are on their way to Mars to settle scores with the killer."

"Settling accounts?"

Bruce jerked his upper body up, the violent movement instantly turning his face pale and causing cold sweat to bead on his forehead.

But he didn't care at all; his blue eyes were fixed on Peter, and a storm was brewing within them.

"No, Godfather, they've all been fooled, fooled from beginning to end!"

"I'm certain that the firestorm and the bombing are unrelated, but the culprit is definitely not that being from Mars!"

Bruce spoke rapidly, “Someone, or rather, something, took advantage of the chaos in Red Square, took advantage of Firestorm. Firestorm wasn’t the culprit, but the one on Mars probably wasn’t either.”

"I need time, Godfather!"

Bruce struggled to get out of bed, but the excruciating pain caused him to fall back onto the bed. He gripped the edge of the bed tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"I need to quickly transmit the analysis data from my chip to Hal, to Zatanna, to everyone who can understand it, so they know what the real enemy is, so they are on guard. This will take at least seventeen minutes—complete decoding, encryption, hyperspace directional transmission, and avoiding possible interference. Seventeen minutes is the most conservative estimate!"

He looked up at Peter, his eyes filled with an unprecedented urgency.

"And those seventeen minutes were the closest they ever came to death. That being, the being on Mars, I suspect it was Dr. Manhattan, a huge threat to everyone."

Peter listened to Bruce's words and fell silent.

"It's too late, Bruce..."

Peter's voice was filled with weariness and a deep sense of powerlessness as he slowly shook his head.

"The signal has been sent, the fleet is already deployed in Mars orbit, anger has been ignited, there is no turning back, and there is nothing we can do to stop it."

He seemed to be stating an unchangeable fact, or perhaps trying to convince himself to accept this inevitable ending.

Peter doesn't believe he can stop these superheroes from going to Mars.

Because these people were blinded by anger, Peter did not believe his prestige could persuade them.

So Peter did not go to Mars.

And I just sent a message to Zatanna, telling her to return to Earth.

"Can't be stopped?!"

Bruce's voice suddenly rose, and he grabbed Peter's arm.

"godfather!"

"Of course we can't stop what has already happened, we can't stop the tragedy on Red Square, we can't stop the fleet from going to Mars, but we can stop things from getting worse."

He released Peter's arm and pointed to the data chip again: "Information, Godfather, the key is information. As long as we can buy these damn seventeen minutes, as long as we can get the truth into their hands, they will be able to react!"

Bruce's body trembled slightly from excitement and weakness, but his eyes were unusually firm.

Peter shook his head and said to him, “You think I can solve everything? No, Bruce, I’m not a god. I can neither persuade those who are blinded by anger nor fight against that Martian being.”

Bruce stared into Peter's eyes, his expression unusually serious.

"No! You say we couldn't stop it? What about Gotham?! Godfather! Tell me, if you had known back then that someone was going to plant fear gas in Gotham, would you have just sat on the farm and done nothing because you 'couldn't stop the gas from being produced'?! Would you have given up warning Gordon, helping me as a child, evacuating the people, and grabbing the scarecrow because you 'might be too late'?!"

He stared into Peter's eyes, which were beginning to waver, and spoke each word carefully.

"You won't, because you're Peter Patrick, you're the 'Father of the Fathers' who would rush into a fire to save people, you're the one who told Clark to have faith in humanity, and now, those heroes in orbit, those unsuspecting people on Earth—they're heading towards another fire, and you know where the fire is, you know someone is hiding in the shadows with a gasoline can."

Bruce's voice lowered.

“Godfather, this isn’t about whether we can win, or whether we can save everyone. It’s about whether we did our last bit of effort before it happened, whether we gave that warning cry seventeen minutes before death, even if only one person heard it, even if only one person survived because of it. That’s not in vain.”

“Godfather, I know you won’t stand idly by, because Zatanna is there. You’re just waiting, waiting for me to wake up before you take action, right?”

Bruce gave him a look that said he knew exactly what Peter was thinking.

Peter: ".?!"

I've always been the one lecturing the fathers, and you, Hakifu, you dare to lecture me?!

And what did you just call me?
The father of the one who is sorrowful?
And, Hachibat, that "I totally understand you" look on your face is just asking for a beating.

at the same time.

Deep in the shadows of Olympus Mons on Mars stands a fortress not built by human hands.

It is composed entirely of an unknown crystal that is almost absolutely pure and refracts cold starlight, with sharp edges and corners.

The Crystal Fortress had no doors or windows, but when the heroic fleet, led by the Green Lantern Corps and comprised of almost all the top forces on Earth and in the universe, approached, the fortress's smooth walls rippled like water, revealing an entrance just large enough for everyone to pass through.

The interior of the fortress was eerily empty.

The crystal floor was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the wary figures of the crowd.

In the center of this cold space, a figure emitting a constant, eerie blue light stood with its back to the crowd.

Dr. Manhattan's aloof and detached attitude, treating everyone else as nothing, instantly ignited the anger in some people's hearts.

"That blue-skinned bastard who pretends to be a ghost!"

Among the Green Lantern Corps, Guy Gardner, known for his fiery temper, was the first to lose his temper.

The Green Lantern Ring burst forth with a blinding light, and he transformed into a green meteor, carrying long-suppressed anger and hatred for the Red Square massacre. In an instant, he traversed space and appeared behind Dr. Manhattan.

Without resorting to fancy energy attacks, Gai chose the most satisfying way to vent his anger.

With his right hand imbued with all his willpower, he gripped Dr. Manhattan's faintly glowing blue neck like an iron clamp.

"Crack!"

A crisp, teeth-grinding crack echoed clearly in the silent hall.

Gai was stunned.

The sensation in his hand was so real, and then... then it broke?

He stared in disbelief at Dr. Manhattan's head, which was tilted to one side at an eerie angle. The blue light quickly dimmed, and his entire body slumped to the ground.

died?

This guy who tried to kill Superman, this guy who destroyed Red Square, just like that, his neck was snapped?
An even deeper silence enveloped everyone than before.

Hal Jordan's green light froze in mid-air, Zatanna's spell stuck in her throat, Big Bada's giant hammer fell, and even the most insane Doom Patrol members gaped in astonishment.

A sense of absurdity and a touch of unreal ecstasy simultaneously overwhelmed them.

The terrifying white light that devoured everything in Red Square—did its source just disappear like that?
"Hahaha!"

Gai looked at his hands, which were specks of blue light, and let out a dry laugh.
"What kind of bullshit gods are they? They're nothing special, Lao Tzu."

But the next second, his laughter stopped abruptly.

Because the "corpse" on the ground, along with the scattered specks of blue light, disappeared completely without warning, as if the delete key had been pressed.

It's like it never existed.

Immediately afterwards, less than half a meter behind Gai, the space rippled like water.

A perfectly intact Dr. Manhattan, radiating a constant, eerie blue light, reappeared calmly, as if copied and pasted.

He even maintained the same posture he had been using to look at everyone, without the slightest change in his expression.
It's as if the fatal attack and the disappearance of the "corpse" were just a skipped, insignificant scene in the film.

"hiss"

Gasps of astonishment echoed throughout the ranks of heroes.

Constantine's horror replaced the absurdity.

resurrection?

No, it's more like the timeline has been reset, or he simply exists at all points in time.

Gai turned around abruptly, his face drained of color, leaving only fear.

Almost instinctively, he raised the hand wearing the green light ring, and a surge of violent green will energy began to coalesce, attempting to launch an attack.

For the first time, Dr. Manhattan's gaze truly fell upon Guy.

Those emotionless eyes looked at the ring on Gai's hand, which radiated a strong light of will.

"This ring."

Dr. Manhattan's voice resounded directly in everyone's consciousness, calm and undisturbed, yet possessing an all-knowing penetrating power.

"I'm very interested. What kind of energy is inside?"

He was like a child who had just discovered a new toy, slowly raising his hand that was emitting a faint glow.

Guy wanted to resist and retreat, but his body and will seemed to be frozen by an invisible force. He could only watch helplessly as the blue hand appeared, ignoring the violent green light emanating from the ring.

The green light was silently absorbed the moment it came into contact with the blue finger, as if it had encountered a black hole.

Dr. Manhattan then easily passed through his will barrier and removed the green light ring that was connected to his life.

The ring floated in Dr. Manhattan's blue palm, like a restless, beating green heart.

It flickered violently, trying to resist this external control, its violent will energy surging outward like an out-of-control torrent.

An energy storm powerful enough to tear an ordinary hero apart raged around Dr. Manhattan's palm, yet it couldn't even lift a sliver of his clothing (if he was wearing any).

The ring's violent energy was nothing more than a "gentle breeze" to him.

Dr. Manhattan's pupils brightened slightly, his gaze seemingly penetrating the ring's material structure and reaching its core essence.

In a fraction of a second, the incredibly complex emotional spectrum energy structure of the Green Light Ring, its connection to the central energy battery, and the fundamental laws governing the manifestation of willpower were revealed.
He understood these things completely, as if they were unfolded blueprints.

"Ingeniously structured, based on the emotional spectrum"

Dr. Manhattan was evaluating something as interesting as a work of art.

Then, he gently pinched with his blue fingers.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no blinding light.

The Green Lantern Ring, which embodied countless efforts of Guy Gardner and represented one of the most powerful forces in the universe, was like a glass bead that had been crushed. With a soft "pop," it turned into countless tiny dust particles that drifted away from between Dr. Manhattan's fingers.

"Do not!!!"

Gai let out a heart-wrenching scream; the destruction of the ring seemed to have ripped a part of his soul out of him.
He staggered backward, his face ashen.

Hal Jordan and the other Green Lanterns were shocked and their expressions changed drastically upon seeing this, their rings glowing with intense shock and rage.

It's now!

Zatanna had been waiting for her opportunity.

While Dr. Manhattan's attention seemed completely absorbed in the "process" of analyzing and crushing the ring, one of the most powerful magicians on Earth made his move.

Her hands moved so fast they left afterimages, and the ancient incantation from her mouth exploded like thunder.

"Ignis Infernalis, Concrema Hostem! (Hellfire, burn my enemies!)"

A raging purple demonic flame appeared out of nowhere.

That was no ordinary fire, but a purgatory fire that directly drew upon the very essence of the hellish plane, powerful enough to incinerate the soul.

The flames coalesced into a roaring python, instantly engulfing Dr. Manhattan.

The temperature in the Crystal Hall suddenly soared, and the space itself distorted slightly due to the violent fluctuations in magic.

A glimmer of hope had just risen in the hearts of the heroes.

Amidst the flames, Dr. Manhattan's calm yet despairing voice rang out once more, clearly piercing through the roar of the demonic flames.

"Magic, you think you're manipulating fragments of the Creator, weaving rules, but in my eyes..."

The blue figure emerged unharmed from the purple flames.

The hellfire that Zatana unleashed, powerful enough to incinerate everything, coiled around his fingertips like a docile pet.

He then easily gathered them together, eventually forming a deep purple fireball in his palm, only the size of a fist, yet containing a hundred times more terrifying energy than when Zatanna summoned it.

"...but it's just low-level code that isn't fully understood yet, like this."

His blue fingers casually flicked across the surface of the fireball, as if modifying a string of data.

Countless complex and mysterious magical runes, emanating ominous fluctuations, instantly appeared on the surface of the deep purple fireball.

These runes share the same origin as Zatanna's spells, but are more ancient and more fundamental.

At this moment, the destructive power contained in this magical fireball, which Dr. Manhattan had casually "optimized," was more than a hundred times that of Zatanna's full-force attack.

"Now."

For the first time, Dr. Manhattan's gaze swept over all the heroes before him, who looked as if facing a formidable enemy, his eyes like those of a creator looking down upon the microorganisms in a petri dish.

“You will witness what it means to reconstruct the rules, and what you call a ‘miracle’.”

He made no unnecessary movements, simply pushing the modified, deep purple magical fireball, radiating destructive energy, gently towards the densest center of the crowd.

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

The fireball spread silently, transforming into a purple light curtain that expanded instantly.

Wherever the light curtain passes, the space itself seems to be forcibly rewritten.

"Boom! Bang!"

The sounds of impact and shattering energy shields filled the air instantly.

The Green Lantern Corps' hastily constructed massive barrier of will was torn apart like paper.

Hal, John, Kirowog, and the other Green Lanterns were struck as if by a giant hammer, spitting blood as they flew backward.

The Metal Squad's spaceship was twisted and deformed by an invisible force.

Big Bada roared and used his giant hammer to block, but was smashed into the crystal wall along with the hammer by the overwhelming force.

Mr. Miracle Scott's prized escape technology failed under the crushing force of the rules and was slammed to the ground.

Zatanna's magical defenses shattered like bubbles, and she groaned as she fell to the ground.

Constantine tumbled and rolled in front of the light screen to dodge, a large piece of his trench coat being torn off by the energy that grazed it.

The Doomsday Patrol's spaceship was spun around and sent flying.

The entire hall was in a mess, and the heroes were like fallen leaves swept by a hurricane, instantly routed.

"SHAZAM!"

Young Billy Batson, or Shazam, seeing his companion injured, was overcome with rage, shouted a spell, and his entire body erupted with dazzling golden lightning.

Then he transformed into a divine incarnation and roared as he charged toward Dr. Manhattan.

Dr. Manhattan didn't even look at him, only glancing at him casually in his path.

hum!
The golden lightning was extinguished instantly.

The strong and mighty Shazam, halfway through his charge, shrank instantly like a punctured balloon, and then turned back into Billy Batson, a teenager wearing a tattered coat, with a look of astonishment and confusion on his face.

Shazam crashed heavily to the ground.

With just one glance, Shazam's divine power vanished without a trace.

Starfire, a warrior from the planet Tamaran, erupted with scorching orange-red stellar energy from his entire body. He condensed destructive energy shockwaves in his hands and slammed them into Dr. Manhattan from the flank.

Dr. Manhattan simply raised his left hand casually.

There are no energy barriers, and no spatial distortions.

The violent stellar energy shockwave stopped abruptly just centimeters from his palm, as if it had struck the hardest barrier in the universe.

Then the energy silently vanished and dissipated.

Xinghuo watched in horror as his attack, powerful enough to incinerate mountains and boil seas, vanished as if it had never been unleashed.

Despair, like icy seawater, drowned every hero who could still think.

Their greatest strength and most exquisite teamwork are as fragile as child's play in the face of absolute understanding and control of the rules.

The gap was so large it was breathtaking!

Just at this moment of utter despair, a figure shimmering with crimson and orange-yellow, accompanied by a piercing shriek that seemed to tear through the air, burst through a broken entrance in the hall.

Firestorm Ronnie Raymond arrived at the scene.

"asshole!!!"

Firestorm roared, pushing forward with both palms and releasing all the violent plasma energy within its body without reservation.

A destructive torrent, even larger than the one at Red Square and hot enough to instantly vaporize a starship, roared toward the blue figure.

"For Uralsk! For Clark! Die!"

The final strike, imbued with the hatred of the raging storm, carried the power to incinerate everything and instantly engulfed the location where Dr. Manhattan was standing.

The entire Crystal Hall was bathed in a ghastly white light, and the terrifying heat caused the surrounding crystal walls to turn red and soften.

The light dissipated.

Dr. Manhattan remained standing in the same spot, not even the hem of his clothes fluttering.

The devastating plasma torrent, at a distance of half a meter from his body, was diverted as if by an invisible barrier, bypassing him and blasting into the crystal wall behind him, melting a deep pit with molten material flowing along its edges.

He calmly watched the Firestorm, whose energy was unstable from the all-out attack, now panting heavily.

"The structure is unstable, and emotions are interfering with your core energy matrix."

Dr. Manhattan's voice was completely flat, as if he were stating an objective physical phenomenon.

Then he slowly raised his right hand and gently made a "separate" gesture towards the direction of the firestorm.

There was no light, no energy fluctuation.

The figure of the raging firestorm suddenly froze.

The crimson and orange-yellow light disintegrated and vanished in an instant.

Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein's bodies were forcibly separated with a short scream and crashed heavily onto the cold crystal floor.

"Pfft!"

Then, to everyone's horrified surprise, the two were instantly dismembered into a pool of flesh and blood by Dr. Manhattan.

Inside the Crystal Hall, only a deathly silence remained.

(End of this chapter)