The stained glass of the church refracted a magnificent halo in the sunset. Ian's Hellcat was parked at the curb, its engine emitting a low roar like a form of restless anxiety.
Ian narrowed his eyes. Using his super-vision from a distance, he saw his elder brother, Jonathan, walking out of the church, clutching something in his hand.
"Big brother!" Ian pushed open the car door, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden peal of bells. Jonathan seemed not to hear at all, keeping his head down as he focused intently on the object in his hand.
It was a small statue of God. The size designed to be slotted into a belt.
"Baby, this is a real treasure. The statue He gave me can actually unlock the God Armor! I knew it—God really does respond to every pious believer," Jonathan muttered to himself. His cautious, obsessive posture had a few shades of Gollum from Middle-earth—those who knew the context understood he was stroking a statue; those who didn't would think he was fondling the One Ring.
Ian's super-hearing caught his brother's murmurs, and he felt more certain that his intuition wasn't wrong.
God wanted to be a lazy bum and use his big brother Jonathan as a "smurf" account to go on dates with Goddess! This might be an honor, but Heaven only knew what would happen when a couple started dancing to "reminisce about the past." If they decided to take a stroll into the bedroom, would the resulting child belong to Jonathan or God?
This was a philosophical question, but one thing was certain: if that really happened, the Kent family would likely end up raising a new child for the Almighty!
Not far away, Jonathan was ecstatic, completely unaware that all gifts are marked with a hidden price. The young man didn't yet know what he would have to pay.
"Wait! Big bro! Throw it away! Throw it away! You can't handle it!" Ian shouted, trying to rush over, but he was blocked by a garbage truck making a sudden turn.
*Beep beep beep—!!!*
*Clang!!!*
"Are you fucking blind?!"
The entire street seemed to be conspiring against him. The previously sparse traffic instantly became congested. Taxis, trucks, private cars, even an old-fashioned fire engine—all converged as if possessed, engines roaring and horns blaring, creating a wall of sound.
Jonathan didn't notice Ian and simply continued walking into the distance. Having lost his line of sight, Ian couldn't even teleport to his brother's side. Or perhaps, even if the teleportation succeeded, Ian wouldn't land next to Jonathan but might end up in the Sahara Desert due to some "skill malfunction."
Ian tried to vault over a blocking car, but just as he leaped, a truck full of sodas slammed on its brakes. The metal cargo box swung open with a *clatter*, and hundreds of crates of drinks spilled onto the ground. The floor was covered in broken glass and rolling marbles from the bottles. Even with Ian's level of power, he nearly slipped.
If there wasn't some divine will influencing this, Ian wouldn't believe it even if you took his super-brain out and put it in a refrigerator. "Smart Ian" had turned into "Immobilized Ian" in the blink of an eye.
"Dammit!"
Ian covered his face and jumped back into the Hellcat, intending to fly over the obstacles. The Hellcat's tires retracted, and blue flames erupted from its sides.
However, the moment the car took flight, the sky cracked.
A crimson rift tore across the heavens as if the universe itself had been sliced open. Immediately after, an enormous meteorite fell from the rift. Ian's vision was suddenly occupied by a blinding red light—in an instant, a massive meteorite trailing a tail of fire was plummeting straight down!
Yes, it was that exaggerated, without a shred of subtlety. Just as Ian performed an emergency landing, the meteorite weirdly dissipated into specks of starlight less than a hundred meters from the ground.
It was as if it were merely a holographic projection. But the scorching air current was real enough to make Ian's eyelashes curl.
The strangest part wasn't the disappearing meteorite, but that the pedestrians on the ground continued as if nothing had happened. A mother pushing a stroller even walked right through the phantom image of the meteorite without noticing a thing.
The moment Ian touched down, the meteorite, along with the rift in the sky, vanished into thin air. The street returned to normal, and even the traffic congestion cleared instantly.
People were oblivious, as if everything had just been his hallucination.
"Only I can see it?" Ian muttered a string of curses. When he looked back at Jonathan's last known position, the place was empty. The cars and crowds gradually dispersed.
"Leap!" Ian gritted his teeth and activated his ability. Space distorted before his eyes. The next moment, he appeared at the corner where Jonathan had last been, but all that remained was a pile of torn paper.
Jonathan had vanished. The street was cold and quiet; not even a stray cat was in sight. Only a discarded newspaper fluttered past Ian, featuring a report with a picture of an old man grinning.
"My brother walks faster than I can teleport?" Ian ran back and forth through the alleys, his super-vision scanning the surrounding streets, even lifting manhole covers to check the sewers. However, he still couldn't find a trace of Jonathan. Even his super-ears couldn't pick up Jonathan's breathing or muttering.
No Jonathan. No footprints, no scent, no information. Even when Ian pulled out his phone to call his brother, he only heard the automated message: "The number you have dialed is out of service due to insufficient funds."
Even the Black Box was useless. One could only say that the "Little Brat" had been thoroughly outplayed by the "Old Bastard." Ian was so angry he couldn't stop cursing God for not playing fair.
"I asked for a forty-year-old middle-aged man! An ordinary office worker! A middle-aged man... my brother's vibe is not appealing at all!" Ian kicked an empty soda can in frustration.
"Don't You know the charm of a middle-aged man is much greater? Like..." Ian's rambling stopped abruptly. His super-brain had a sudden flash of insight, making him realize an even more serious problem. As cold sweat slid down his forehead, Ian quickly performed a Face Change.
His previous complaints and annoyance vanished, replaced by a deep, genuine calm.
"Oh, praise You, the All-Powerful Creator, the Infinitely Great God... If my big brother has to suffer, then my father and I won't have to." As the saying goes: better to let Jonathan suffer so the rest of the Kent family can stay harmonious. If God wanted Clark to "suffer," the joke would be way too big.
Ian shouted tentatively toward the sky. Naturally, there was no response, only a gust of wind swirling flyers on the ground—an ad for an e-sports hotel that read "500 for the night, a Heavenly Experience."
Across the street, a disheveled man was going mad in front of a delivery station. His face was covered in pustules, he wore a dirty T-shirt printed with conspiracy theories, and he roared in a broken mixture of French and English.
"You people! Why won't you let me register as a rider? Am I not American? Bruce Wayne must be a spy planted by the
Other Country!"
"You're all spies! You all want to persecute me! Freedom and democracy are a scam! You don't give me freedom at all! Listen, if you don't give me democracy and won't let me join, I'm going to 'lubricate' over to Mexico!"
"Trust me, it'll be your loss! I'll expose all of you! You'll all be thrown into Guantanamo!" This was a typical illegal immigrant—a representative of the "Runners."
In his excitement, the pustules on his face burst, and foul-smelling fluid ran down his cheeks, causing nearby pedestrians to avoid him. His provocation caused a conflict to erupt within seconds.
The man continued to roar at the air, spitting accusations about Bruce Wayne's spy network.His voice was shrill and his content absurd, but the raw anger in his madness acted like a fuse, igniting the irritation of the delivery station employees.
The crowd surged forward. Fists, belts, umbrellas—someone even grabbed a shared-bike lock and smashed it against the disheveled figure.
"Aaah—! Don't hit me! I'm a patriot! I'm exposing the truth!" The homeless man let out a shrill scream as pustules burst, blood mixing with... other fluids.
He curled on the ground, fruitlessly shielding his head, his mouth still mumbling: "I'd rather scrub toilets than live in that hell... but you won't even let me scrub toilets!"
The guy actually felt victimized.
Ian stood at the corner, witnessing the whole process. He couldn't stand the sight of such a beating, so he clicked his tongue a few times and turned back to his Hellcat.
"Let's go home and intercept my brother." Ian climbed onto the car roof. He was preparing to lie down and use his super-brain to think of a counter-strategy.
*Knock knock~*
A tapping sound suddenly came from the window below. Ian poked his head down.
His eyes met a pair of grayish-blue eyes. Dr. Hannibal Lecter's face was pressed against the window. His soul-bound face appeared distorted, like a goldfish in a bowl, due to the refraction of the blast-proof glass.
"Ian, did you forget something? For example, a psychiatrist locked in the back seat all morning?" Hannibal's utterly helpless voice drifted through the glass. His soul still wore a crisp suit, his tie meticulous, looking as though he had just returned from a high-end banquet rather than being imprisoned in the iron belly of a hellish creature.
The air froze. Even the Hellcat's engine seemed to stall.
Ian blinked. His face instantly switched to a state of near-innocent naivety. "Of course not, Dr. Hannibal! I was just busy for a little while... handling some small street trouble."
Ian's mouth was definitely the toughest part of his body. Hearing this, the expression of the King of Lies, who had also been locked up all morning next to Hannibal, became very strange.
He currently maintained the form of a Chihuahua, but that didn't mean he had lost his authority. The syllables "This is a lie" rumbled in his throat, yet he didn't dare speak them aloud. Facing Ian's bottomless eyes, the King of Hell's rebuttals turned into a whimper, and he could only pitifully squeeze out:
"Fortunately, we don't need oxygen to breathe." Belial, the King of Lies in Chihuahua size, covered his mouth with a paw, his round black eyes darting between Ian and Hannibal.
This might be a comforting perspective, but Dr. Hannibal didn't necessarily agree. Fortunately, Ian's skin wasn't that thick. Realizing he had the King of Lies in his car, he decisively chose another tactic. "I've been sitting on the roof; of course I didn't know the situation inside."
"Oh, right, do you remember? I'm just a child. It's normal for a child to have a bad memory." Ian suddenly used the voice of a twelve-year-old boy, "frankly" admitting his mistake.
He played the victim card again, even controlling his mimicry to grow beautiful lashes several centimeters long, making it hard for anyone to scold him.
Yes—when you're so speechless you can't talk, isn't that the same as being unable to scold? Ian had simply grasped the essence of the situation. The Hellcat's radio suddenly turned on, playing the guitar solo of Hotel California, as if expressing its own amazement at Ian's behavior.
"Alright, how about this? I'll take Dr. Hannibal to be resurrected right now."
Without waiting for Hannibal to express an opinion, Ian patted the Hellcat and started the car, intending to make up for the oversight of locking Hannibal in the back. Correcting mistakes is a great virtue. Another wave of merit points added.
Upon receiving the command, the Hellcat's engine gave a beastly roar. The needles on the dashboard all pointed to 666. It floored its own gas pedal, and the car shot out like a rocket.
The tires left burning claw marks on the asphalt. When the car slammed its brakes in front of the iron gates of Ian Manor, Hannibal's ghost nearly flew from the back seat to the front.
The building complex was wrapped in ivy like a mummy, every window looking as if it were bleeding—this was the special residence Crowley had given to Ian earlier.
"Welcome to my humble abode!" Ian hopped off the car, his sleeve brushing past two statues of the Virgin Mary with octopus tentacles at the gate, wiping away the dust. He remembered that Darkness (currently his Auntie) had said she was imprisoned underneath, but after sensing for a moment, he felt nothing.
"Maybe the seal is too deep. I'm of meager talent and lack the power." Ian felt he had tried his best, or at least had an excuse for having tried. He certainly wouldn't choose to actually release her. Life in the mortal world was great right now. The "Descent of Darkness" was not a fun expansion pack.
"Dr. Hannibal," Ian opened the tentacle-covered manor gates and made a "please" gesture. "Wait in the drawing room for a moment; I'll be right back!"
He led Dr. Hannibal to the drawing room.
In the drawing room, Hannibal sat elegantly on a sofa made of spliced skeletons, while the Chihuahua King curled up on a human-bone piano, looking as satisfied as if he were back in Hell.
"I didn't expect... the things Ian said during his therapy sessions weren't actually delusions or metaphors..." Hannibal looked around. Tapestries made of human skin hung on the walls, dried demon hearts hung from the ceiling, and the air was filled with a strange aroma of blood mixed with roses.
At that moment, a portrait of the *Mona Lisa* suddenly shifted its eyes. It must have been the original version.
"Doctor, I need a psychiatric consultation. I've been trapped in this painting for five hundred years." The demon portrait saw through Hannibal's profession, attempting to seduce him but failing.
The psychiatrist's soul floated to the window and looked out. He saw Ian humming a song, dragging a chainsaw and a gardening shovel from the tool shed, beginning to dig up the bulging mounds of earth like he was harvesting potatoes. Perhaps one didn't even need to plant to get a harvest—every time Ian shoveled, two or three living corpses popped up like sprouted carrots.
"Whoa!" Ian dragged out a male corpse wearing a ballet tutu. "This Achilles tendon is perfect!" He slapped the corpse's ankle like he was picking out a watermelon, satisfied to hear the hollow echo.
Dirt flew. Soon, a series of seemingly un-decayed corpses were dragged out—businessmen in suits, students in school uniforms, muscular bruisers, even a woman in a wedding dress.
"Hmm..." Ian, like a picky tailor, squatted among the corpses, inspecting them closely. "This eye... amber, spirited, perfect for the 'Eye of Insight'..." With a *crunch*, he scooped out a female corpse's eyeball and stuffed it into a small vial.
"This mouth... perfect curve, naturally suited for smiling and lying..." He twisted off the lips of a male corpse.
"These legs... Wow, long-term fitness, extremely high muscle fiber density. The 'Frog Legs' belong to him!" He turned over a particularly sturdy male corpse, pulled open the pants to check, and suddenly let out a gasp of wonder: "Hiss—! Dr. Hannibal, the size of this 'Root of Trouble' is a masterpiece!"
"Just for this, it's worth charging you! It's just like the sales pitch I heard at the 4S dealership when I wanted to buy a sports car for my child who hasn't picked a reincarnation date yet—real premium configurations always require an extra fee!"
Ian even picked up the large component of the corpse and showed it off to Dr. Hannibal at the window.
"?????"
Dr. Hannibal's expression was quite a sight; he could no longer tell where the real Hell was. Under his gaze, Ian was enthusiastically performing the work of a "Corpse Assembler."
The backyard under the sunset looked like a bombed-out cemetery. Inside the drawing room, Hannibal Lecter was left alone, facing a hall constructed of madness.
He watched the backyard through the window, his soul twitching. At that moment, the demon Bar's true body completed another evolution. He opened his eyes and immediately began his professional duties.
"Oh! Look at God Ian! He's displaying his startling talent again. The Great God Ian always nourishes us with creativity; his corpse-assembly technique is much more refined than before!" Bar's head rested on a walnut tray like a decoration, his newly grown horns gleaming like asphalt in the shadows.
Evolution didn't stop him from frantically licking Ian's boots. The Chihuahua-form Belial curled up on another leather sofa and immediately scratched his ear with a hind leg to provide backup vocals.
"This is objective fact, not a lie." He issued a gasp like a heartless lie-detector. When it came to flattering others, this King of Hell was just as powerful.
"A masterpiece. A symphony of soul and flesh should be composed by a master like God Ian!" The Chihuahua "King of Lies" wagged its tail. It even gestured with its small paws, trying to imitate Ian's movements of gouging eyes and cutting lips, looking like a ridiculous comedic sidekick.
Bar and the King of Lies sang in harmony, praising Ian's "masterpiece" to the high heavens. The air was filled with the unspoken sycophancy and awe of power shared among demons. The walls suddenly seeped a pale yellow liquid, emitting a strange fragrance of lemon and Hell's sulfur—this was the demon manor's way of expressing joy.
"I feel out of place with you all..."
Hannibal Lecter sat quietly on the bone chair, hands folded on his knees, his eyes as deep as an ancient well. He looked neither at the corpse nor the two crazed demons, but slowly turned his gaze out the window. Ian was still busy in the backyard, his figure flickering in the moonlight, dragging new "materials" from the ground.
Dirt flew, and corpses piled high. Hannibal watched the mountain of corpses for a long time; he really didn't want to ask Ian exactly how many people he had buried in the backyard.
As a top psychiatrist, he knew well: out of sight, out of mind. Hannibal's ghost turned toward the television—the only object in the room that looked like it wouldn't suddenly bite. The TV sensed his gaze and automatically lit up its screen. In the depths of the cathode-ray tube, dozens of eyes emerged, longing to be watched.
"Change of mood? I have three hundred hours of *Records of Human Collapse* saved. Oh, it seems you don't like that. Honored guest, what program would you like to see?"
"Is it those absurd human TV dramas? I can go grab a few actors right now, stuff them into my belly, and let you experience true 'immersion'—their screams will travel directly from my speakers to your nerve endings, guaranteed to be an unprecedented surround-sound effect~"
It looked like it wouldn't bite, but it was still a demon television.
"No, thank you. At this point, I only want to see... a normal TV program. News is fine. I want to know how long... I've been away from the mortal world." Hannibal declined firmly, his tone resolute. His perception of time in Hell was not clear.
"Fine, watching those fake programs is truly your loss." The "face" on the TV let out an exaggerated sigh, as if mocking Hannibal's "vulgarity." Of course, as a home-appliance demon, it still had some "hospitality" and switched the screen. A standard news logo appeared.
The first news item was the military's emergency lockdown of Washington D.C.
The scene cut to D.C., where a large number of military armored vehicles and fully armed soldiers had sealed off the area around the White House. The reporter standing outside the cordon sounded very nervous. No one knew what was happening. The government had initiated a maximum-level response, and the entire D.C. area was under temporary martial law. Experts speculated it might involve the President.
The second news item: the camera shifted to a city street where a warrior clad in shimmering armor was holding a gang leader by the neck with one hand. Other gang members were dancing a twisted, painful dance in front of him, tears of regret streaming down their faces. The narrator was ecstatic.
"The Armored Warrior strikes again! With the power of 'Spiritual Purification,' he makes sinful souls repent through dance!"
"..."
This also wasn't the news Hannibal wanted to see.
He had the demon TV change channels. The Metropolis news channel appeared—a dim sewer scene where a search-and-rescue team with headlamps was searching through the mud.
"Metropolis City Hall confirms that sixteen sewer inspectors have gone missing over the past week. Search teams found a large amount of unknown slime and giant claw marks deep in the pipes. Biologists warn that a mutant creature, fused from 'urban resentment' and our 'secretly discharged nuclear wastewater,' may be quietly evolving underground."
The reporter's voice was low and surprisingly honest. But because of his honesty, the feed was quickly cut, switching to a breaking live event.
An alien creature had crawled out of a meteorite crater in the suburbs. It was a dog. Just as it was about to attack the press corps, a red-and-blue blur flashed by—it was an orange cat wearing a Superman cape, the 'S' symbol on its chest stretched into a fat '$' shape.
The two creatures were fighting, both using Superman's methods.
"The century showdown between Super-Cat and Alien-Dog!" the reporter screamed while filming the two creatures blasting each other with heat vision. The shockwave knocked over the reporter, who happened to be holding a phone.
"My God! Superman did... no, what did Superman *do* to the animals?!" Even on the ground, the reporter didn't forget to shout.
While Hannibal remained silent, feeling that the mortal world wasn't worth it, the banquet hall doors were suddenly slammed open. Ian walked in dragging a stitched-together doll. The scene looked like a massive sale at a realistic doll factory.
The doll had a Greek-sculpture nose (from an influencer who died during plastic surgery) and long pianist fingers (the original owner was reportedly a very famous musician).
"My dear psychiatrist, come, let us complete the miracle of resurrection!" Ian was eager to show Dr. Hannibal his latest masterpiece.
"??????" Hannibal looked down, his gaze slowly sweeping over the Frankenstein corpse—especially that exceptionally "grand" lower body. He was silent for a few seconds, his elegant face finally showing a crack. It couldn't be helped; he had witnessed exactly how "rigorous" Ian's attention to detail was!
He had seen Ian cut a truly well-deserved "dog waist" off a Hellhound and attach it to this body. The kid had even held up the Hellhound to inspect it carefully before cutting!
"..."
Dr. Hannibal felt his patient's goodwill but was a bit afraid to accept it. He discovered his germaphobia had reached its peak.
"Ian... how about I prescribe you some medicine first? We can talk about other things after you take it," Hannibal spoke diplomatically, ignoring the King of Lies who was using his talent to scream that this was a masterpiece.
The air was silent, as if the sound had been sucked out.
Ian tilted his head, about to say, "Doctor, if you don't like this body, I can contact some friends on the internet and let you pick a fresh one from the morgue yourself—" before the promise to find a "warm-hearted" body could be fully spoken...
The drawing room door was suddenly pushed open.
The demon butler walked in, beside him was a thin man with skin the color of dead ash. The man wobbled as if he would fall apart at any moment. His eyes were sunken, his lips parched, and he wore a tattered white robe that barely hinted at his former holiness.
"This is...?" Ian blinked, sensing that the other party was a god.
"I am Shiva... child, I have come to beg you." The man shakily raised his head, his voice as weak as if it were floating out of a grave.
"I beg of you, Ian Kent, go home and persuade your brother. He can't see me... but you can. Quickly, make your brother Jonathan Kent stop trying to borrow power from me... I really can't hold on much longer!" Like an elf that had been drained dry, Shiva wept hot, aggrieved tears.
He fell to his knees with a thud in front of Ian. Like an exhausted spirit. He wailed.