"Clang clang..."
Su Ming once again clashed twice with the Hell Bat, watching the shallow marks he had just made quickly get covered by flowing black metal, causing him to grimace painfully.
The opponent can fly, so it's impossible to make Laughing Bat fall freely in the endless space, and its flying speed is extremely fast. Its reaction is also quick, making it unrealistic to set a trap on the path it must take.
It seems the only option is to target the person inside the iron shell. But Batman combined with Joker—does he really have any psychological or character weaknesses?
This is really quite difficult. Although a bunch of support magic has temporarily restrained the Laughing Bat, there is still no way to resolve the opponent, which is honestly quite frustrating.
Even summoning the Hell Demon King temporarily to make a deal won't work with the Laughing Bat present. Madmen have no principle and could offer a higher price than oneself, dragging everyone down to ruin, which would only make the devil delighted.
Su Ming deeply exhaled and wiped the blood flowing from his nose; the impact had been too severe, and now his internal bleeding rate had surpassed the repair speed of the strangulation.
He must control the rhythm, slightly adjust his tactics; having tried almost everything he could, he needs to think harder.
"Clang clang..."
"Hmm?"
Su Ming seemed to hear some echo, coming from a distance.
He rubbed his ears; the sound didn't go through his eardrums but directly appeared in his mind, resonating with every bone in his body.
Watching the Laughing Bat, still tangled with tentacles, continue to hunt him as he ran circles underground, Su Ming pondered.
The only ones who can use X Metal to send signals to him are Cindy, Oliver, Sea King, and Diana.
It definitely wouldn't be from Gotham or Metropolis people; the voice in his mind seemed to come from another world, far away—perhaps not even through the Blood Domain's Earth -11, but another all-powerful universe.
Could it be Gin? Probably not, as the Marvel world has been calm in recent years; at least when Su Ming left, everything was fine. Although he left some X Metal with Gin to enhance her Hundred Flowers Armor, she wouldn't know X Metal has the ability for cross-universe, cross-time communication.
If anyone knew this and transcended time, it would be The Ancient One and the Leopard God.
Master Gu Yi's whereabouts are unknown, as if planning to travel the Multiverse in his final days, so perhaps this is Leopard God playing games with him?
Simulating X Metal vibrations with vibranium? That Big Black Cat surely is bored.
"Clang clang..."
So Su Ming also extended a section of X Metal from his finger and tapped his Great Sword, like tapping the radiator pipe at home to greet the other side.
"Clang clang clang clang clang..."
After a few seconds, rapid tapping sounds came from the other side, nearly merging into one fast and hurried piece.
Su Ming looked back at the relentlessly chasing Laughing Bat, tuning out his trash talk, and analyzed the sound signal.
He wouldn't assume that the tapping means "only you;" he's not Don, but it did give him some inspiration.
If Laughing Bat likes to babble nonsense, pulling out references to jumping over walls, then Su Ming should give him an opponent who comes with rap.
I don't know if this will work, but it's worth a try!
"Inverted Man!"
Almost instantly as he spoke, a white monster wearing a black suit slid out from the teleportation gate, flying alongside Su Ming in a sideways reclining pose.
Floating in mid-air, it rested one hand on its head, with a cigar in the other hand.
"Phew~~~ What now?"
Despite his sharp fangs gnawing the cigar into tatters, the Inverted Man still puffed out smoke to speak.
"No, where did you learn this outfit and smoking?" Su Ming was somewhat surprised to see the Inverted Man mastering knowledge so quickly.
This anthropomorphic concept first appeared as a beast, and now how much time has passed? It's already learned to enjoy itself!
"What's there to be surprised about? Someone paid with their knowledge as a casting cost, and I just accepted it. Across the Multiverse in various worlds, many people are willing to do this; don't view us with human concepts."
Though lacking eyes or other facial features, the Inverted Man's face had only a wide mouth, but Su Ming felt like it threw a disdainful look his way.
"Alright, now I need you to manifest the Ancient Divine Attendant—the strange humanoid I once gave you as an image. Can you grant it temporary life?"
Su Ming didn't waste time discussing humanity but directly stated his request.
The Inverted Man swapped to lying on his back, crossing his legs: "Of course, but I need to read part of your memory to give it a living soul; otherwise, it'd just be a vegetative figure and not the one you want."
"...Fine, but don't look around randomly. Some things might be worldview-destroying."
"We can sign a contract, I'll just take a look at your memories about him. Is he your cousin?" The Inverted Man's blood-red mouth curled up; he was quite fond of that puppet.
Even though the first time he saw it, the Ancient God-ified Deadpool made the Inverted Man understand the concept of disgust, it was like an addiction—it grew on him, he liked it more with each look.
After obtaining the Justice League's virtual imaging device from his agent, the Inverted Man first made an action figure to play with, and then simply used magic to replicate a bunch of Ancient Divine Attendants.
Letting them collect debts across the multiverse, all the warlocks who saw them could not escape their debts, upon seeing these rotten monsters, they would cry and pay dearly.
The Inverted Man was satisfied; he only needed to float within the void phase of the Main World, waiting for profits to come to him.
But these Ancient Divine Attendants were powered by magic; they were like puppets remotely controlled by the Inverted Man, slightly imperfect.
Now there's a chance to give them the original personalities they had, the Inverted Man thought this deal was worthwhile.
"It's a deal."
Su Ming extended his hand to shake with the Inverted Man, providing part of his memories to this magical concept through X Metal and Strangulation.
And the Inverted Man seemed to be getting happier, even scratching ears and cheeks with joy, despite lacking those organs, he mimicked the actions.
In just a second, it was satisfied withdrawing its hand, first gagging a bit, then wiping its mouth, gasping:
"Really strong... whew! Earth's former gods secretly learned Soul Casting Magic, merging souls into artifacts. Now I'll show you the true power of the Soul Casting Technique, and that's creating life through magic!"
With that said, the Inverted Man pointed into thin air, and an Ancient God-ified, stark naked Wade appeared mid-air, able to fly on his own and use magic.
Upon appearing, he spewed indescribable words, lunging at the Laughing Bat.
Su Ming turned his head in another direction, closing his eyes to avoid it; this fabricated monster's slightest movement shed rotten flesh and scales like snowflakes to the ground, and that Ancient God-ified modified body was really an eyesore, best not to look.
The appearance of an Ancient God meant nothing to madmen; Joker or Harley would probably applaud joyfully upon seeing such a monster, but Laughing Bat was half Batman, and not entirely insane.
Upon seeing the Ancient Divine Attendants appear, the Hell Bat Armor seemed to crash, standing amidst the tentacle cluster, bound by them, Laughing Bat unable to recover his senses quickly.
Presumably, he was already enthralled by the Ancient God's 'beauty', with his sanity plummeting...
"Great, now with this guy's help, I can relieve a lot of pressure. Now help me check what exactly is causing the X Metal to vibrate, it seems strange."
The Inverted Man, enthusiastically watching the Ancient Divine Attendant climbing on the Hell Bat Armor and biting it, saliva soaking that set of armor, casually replied: "Our multiverse has a backdoor, a world that can be considered as 5.5 dimensions, that woman with you previously is knocking on the X Metal; they're about to die, with a multiverse-level existence watching them."
"Your information is quite well-informed." Su Ming slowed his flight a bit, took off the mask, and spat out a few mouthfuls of blood.
"We are magic itself, ubiquitous, so you can think of it as us seeing it firsthand." The Inverted Man extended two noodle-like white fingers, pointing at his face where human eyes should be located.
"Can you help me save them back?" Su Ming knew the Inverted Man could affect there, feeling reassured.
"Blowing up the Origin Wall was indeed a good choice, if it were yesterday daytime, I wouldn't have dared say I could do it, but now..."
With that, the Inverted Man snapped his fingers; a writhing teleportation gate directly spat out the entire Justice League. They were not in good condition but at least alive.
"The cost is recorded on your account, you need to pay more attention to the multiverse. If Papetua wakes up, I'm afraid I'll be affected too, making our future days difficult."
It seems selecting the Inverted Man to board the multiverse ship previously was the right decision.
Su Ming slowly floated, clutching his own head, glancing at the few individuals on the ground.
They struggled to stand from the black oil but were kept off balance by the flailing tentacles, he calmly asked the Inverted Man:
"Who traded you information about Papetua, or did you know long ago?"
"I was previously kept out of the wall while she was confined within. You're currently within the fourth dimension, not the third dimension that represents reality; so-called Mother of Witchcraft, Hecate, shouldn't even exist, multiverse's God of Magic should have been me."
"Ah, I see."
"Looks like you understand my meaning. I concealed much from external existences for the multiverse, for our common benefit." The Inverted Man rotated his head 180 degrees to watch the Ancient Divine Attendant's performance, like it had no spine.
"Does the view differ when heading outside the Origin Wall from different dimensions? I get it."
Su Ming nodded; he finally understood why passing through the Origin Wall, he saw nothing but the void outside—swimming a bit in the Endless Sea of Chaos, he could reach other cosmic systems.
Simply put, exiting from the fourth dimension is akin to sightseeing from the fourth floor, nothing underfoot is visible.
Whereas exiting from the third dimension is like looking outward from the third floor, above remains a level and even existing plan gets in addition—heaps of obstructing existences naturally amass, blocking the view.
"It's just that you'd better not harbor luck; our universe is now in a state akin to cheating, but facing the ultimate Judgment Day, the Judge isn't easily fooled...."
With that, the Inverted Man faded like fading colors, leaving behind only a soft laughter.