Earth.
A forgotten corner.
Deep within the heart of a mountain range lay an altar formed naturally from black rock. The place exuded a sinister aura, and the air was thick with the sweet, metallic scent of sulfur mixed with stale blood.
Twisted runes were carved into the rough stone walls, filled with blasphemies against Heaven and God. Under the flickering torchlight, they seemed to squirm like living things.
A dozen figures clad in tattered black robes prostrated themselves, pressing their bodies against the cold ground. They chanted ancient, convoluted prayers in frantic, hoarse whispers, their voices blending into a deeply unsettling resonance. These individuals were the most loyal and secretive cultists of Trigon.
Unlike low-level demon worshippers who only knew how to cause chaotic destruction, this group sought deeper rewards: the dark knowledge and raw power belonging to the dimensional demon lord himself.
"Aba aba aba~ Kabuda~"
The cultists were clearly in the middle of a ritual.
Incantations spilled endlessly from their lips.
Suddenly—
The eerie green demon fire burning quietly at the center of the altar flared up violently! The flames no longer flickered randomly; instead, they twisted and condensed frantically as if possessed by a living will.
"What is happening?"
"What is going on!"
"Has our great master answered us?" The cultists stopped chanting abruptly. Everyone raised their heads in a mix of terror and excitement, staring at the mutating fire.
The eerie green flames corporate and swirled in the air, finally outlining a crystal-clear silhouette made of pure magical energy. It took the shape of a teenage boy, defined down to the smallest detail—even a specific, blood-pressure-raising expression of arrogance was vividly captured by the fire.
The image was unmistakably Ian.
Trigon's artistry was surprisingly excellent. If he ever lost his job as a demon king in Hell, he could probably apply to art school and pass with flying colors.
Of course, Trigon remained completely oblivious to that specific irony. He was currently using his power to pierce through the dimensional barrier to deliver his will directly to his followers on Earth.
Trigon was utterly furious.
He was launching his revenge plan overnight.
Through the cultists' ritual, a massive, freezing will filled with endless rage and majesty boomed directly inside the depths of every follower's soul.
It was the voice of their supreme master—Trigon!
"Find him!"
"Uncover everything about this boy! His true name! His hidden bloodline! The weaknesses of his body and mind! Everything he cares about and cherishes!"
"Offer his information to me! And I shall grant you... the true power of the Abyss!" Obviously, Trigon did not genuinely believe Ian was Superman's son.
He suspected Ian must have another identity, perhaps a demon child born to Superman's wife through the manipulation of some other demon lord. It was hard to imagine anyone who wasn't born in Hell being quite that monstrously malicious.
To conceal his weakened state, Trigon did not allow his consciousness to linger in the mortal realm for long.
After delivering the absolute divine decree, the silhouette of Ian formed by the demonic fire exploded violently.
It shattered into countless green sparks that drifted away into the air, leaving only the quietly burning flame on the altar, a thickening scent of sulfur, and a lingering pressure that refused to fade even after the supreme entity withdrew his gaze.
"!!!"
The cultists fell into a dead silence before bursting into even more fanatical cries!
They slammed their foreheads hard against the frozen ground, making dull thudding sounds to demonstrate absolute obedience to the oracle and sheer ecstasy over the promised rewards.
"We obey your will, Great Lord of the Triad!"
"We will dig three feet into the earth to bring every piece of information about this blasphemer before you!"
"For the glory of the Abyss!"
The mad vows echoed through the cavern. This pack of vipers hidden in the shadows of human society had begun to bare their fangs, aiming directly at the "God of Light" who remained completely unaware of the threat.
Ian Kent.
...
Meanwhile.
Deep beneath Gotham City.
The Batcave.
Strikingly different from the classical luxury of the manor above, this place was a domain of cold technology and absolute order.
At the very core of this specific Batcave, within one of its most heavily fortified sectors, lay the medical ICU under maximum security.
The reason was simple.
Batman had hidden quite a few outsiders here behind Superman's back.
Inside the medical bay, harsh white surgical lights illuminated several advanced medical pods lined up side-by-side like high-tech coffins. Constructed from reinforced glass and dark metal, the pods featured faint bands of data streaming across their surfaces, while the interiors were filled with life-sustaining nutrient fluids and precise monitoring probes.
Two very high-profile individuals slept inside these pods.
One was a bald, pale Lex Luthor. Because his body had been hijacked by another Luthor from the multiverse, he had been comatose ever since, eventually "retrieved" and put under strict monitoring by Batman.
Bruce Wayne's research on Lex Luthor had already achieved significant success. Keeping everyone else in the dark, he would soon master a miraculous technology capable of locking onto alternative multiversal variants through a single anchor variant.
Naturally, Batman did not intend to limit this tracking method to just finding other versions of Lex Luthor.
Aside from Lex Luthor, the other figure sleeping inside was Injustice Superman, who had recently been pregnant with the "Calabash Brothers." He was also placed here with his powers suppressed and his consciousness frozen.
However.
Even though Batman had frozen Injustice Superman's bodily functions according to his own request—keeping his vital signs at the bare minimum—the pregnancy symptoms remained entirely unaffected. There was no telling when his heavily swollen abdomen would reach the delivery stage.
Batman had no choice.
He had to take advantage of this opportunity to study the Kryptonian genome and the unique life forms developing inside Injustice Superman's body due to Ian.
Whether out of curiosity or risk assessment, Batman had to conduct this research in absolute secrecy, which was why he had built this hidden sector of the Batcave to be so incredibly well-concealed.
Today, a new guest had joined them.
Lying in the third medical pod was the unconscious Raven, Rachel Roth.
Her pale face still bore traces of the pain and exhaustion from her struggle against Trigon, and her deep blue hooded robe had been replaced with standard medical scrubs.
Initially.
Raven's comatose state resembled that of a sleeping beauty.
But right now, the gem on her forehead—the symbol of her half-demon heritage and one of her primary power sources—began to emit an incredibly faint but unusually active dark red glow. This was a direct reaction to her father Trigon's massive activity in the mortal world, triggering a slight resonance within her shared bloodline.
On any other day.
Raven could use this connection to judge Trigon's movements and spy on his plots. However, Batman had injected her with an untold amount of sedatives today.
Her slumber continued.
There was no sign of her waking up.
Surrounding the medical pod, besides the gene-sampling drones, dozens of sensors continuously scanned her vitals, energy fluctuations, and the status of the gem. Any abnormal data would immediately trigger an alarm, sending a direct alert to Batman's main console and his portable receiver.
"Beep, beep, beep~"
Right then.
Beside the medical pod, the reading on a high-precision energy fluctuation monitor suddenly jumped! The needle swung toward a red zone indicating "high-dimensional interference" and "unknown dark energy!"
However.
Just as the alarm system was about to activate—
The harsh blaring sound was already forming within the circuitry, ready to echo through the speakers of the entire medical bay and send a maximum-priority warning to Batman.
In the next instant, an intangible, formless force carrying absolute dominance quietly descended like the deepest midnight, instantly blanketing the entire medical ICU! The impending alarm sound was choked back down as if strangled by an invisible hand!
The abnormal data stream on every monitoring screen was forcibly overridden and reset by a superior level of clearance, instantly returning to smooth, green, normal parameters!
It happened so quickly and covertly that even the highly sophisticated quantum-grade sensors inside the medical pod failed to record the momentary interference.
"Bzzt, bzzt~"
Within this artificially maintained illusion of normalcy, a dark shadow that seemed to be woven from the densest darkness materialized out of thin air.
It solidified silently right next to Raven's medical pod.
The shadow had no concrete physical form; one could only discern a vague, mountainous, majestic outline and a pair of destructive eyes that could be clearly felt even in the dark.
Those eyes burning with a destructive scarlet glow were the definitive facial features of Darkseid!
Of course, as the saying goes, a man bitten by a snake fears a piece of rope for a decade. This shadow was not Darkseid's reconstituted true body, nor was it a complete clone of any kind.
To describe it accurately, the shadow was merely a sliver of power projected across dimensional barriers—a shadow harboring his essential will.
Evidently.
After realizing certain issues concerning himself, Darkseid had learned a few lessons and mastered this method of projecting himself from a higher dimension down to a lower one.
"Trigon's daughter." His crimson gaze swept coldly across the sleeping Raven inside the medical pod, eventually locking onto the faintly glowing gem on her forehead.
"She will become the sharpest weapon in my hands."
The shadow raised a hand forged from darkness.
A single finger condensed from primordial shadow slowly pointed toward Raven's forehead, targeting the crystal that held her extraordinary power!
Although there was no physical contact, the moment the shadowy finger drew near the gem, streams of pure, subtle black smoke emerged like living serpents.
They poured from the tip of Darkseid's projection and silently seeped into the crystal!
The dark red glow on the gem flickered violently a few times as if resisting, but it was quickly suppressed and saturated by the deeper, more fundamental dark power.
The entire process lasted less than three seconds. Then, Darkseid's shadow vanished without warning, exactly the way it had appeared, as if it had never existed.
Inside the medical ICU, all monitoring data continued to display "normal." The only change was inside the gem on Raven's forehead, where an exceptionally subtle, undetectable trace of black energy swirled slowly before vanishing completely like dormant venom.
The gem returned to its slightly active dark red luster.
It looked as if absolutely nothing had happened.
Even the surveillance equipment failed to capture any anomaly—or rather, they had captured it initially, but the data had been forcibly altered by a high-dimensional power.
The footage showed no disruption whatsoever.
Even Batman remained entirely unaware that anything had taken place.
He was currently occupied with an entirely different headache.
Inside the Batcave's command center, Bruce Wayne stared intently at the largest screen before him, his brow furrowed, his expression darker than the Gotham night sky.
The screen did not display Gotham's crime grid or a global crisis warning. Instead, it showed the internal forum interface of the Superhero Popularity Center—a platform he had built himself that usually went ignored, but had skyrocketed into a global sensation after Ian hijacked it.
Right now, a trending section of the forum had exploded due to a post with an incredibly shocking title.
Shocking Exposé! The True Face of the Dark Knight! Stabbing Comrades in the Back for Wealth?! Photos and Proof Inside! The author of the post was none other than Green Arrow, Oliver Queen!
He was clearly driven mad with rage.
He had started cranking out smear campaigns against Batman.
Heaven only knew how many professional ghostwriters the billionaire had hired. The post was highly provocative, detailing the "entire process" of how the "God of Light" Ian Kent achieved a "pyrrhic victory" over the demon, only to be backstabbed by Batman at the final moment, offering a completely twisted interpretation of the event.
Though entirely fabricated, it was written with such passion and conviction that it felt real. Oliver bitterly condemned Batman in the post, claiming that he, along with many allies who trusted Batman and the deceived public, had been stabbed in the back.
Furthermore, he claimed the root cause had nothing to do with Batman deeming them threats to Earth.
Money.
It was entirely about money.
Batman was actually a greedy fraud who cared only about coin—a claim Green Arrow fabricated with plenty of circumstantial "evidence."
Naturally, a large portion of the public was eager to believe it.
"We always thought he was a silent guardian, but he turns out to be the deeply hidden plunderer! Figures! Only an idiot would think anyone decent could come out of Gotham anyway."
"You are being geographically biased! Wait, you are talking about Gotham? Oh, carry on then."
"We demand an explanation for all the victims! I was scammed too; I bought tons of Batman lotteries before and never won a single prize. I demand Batman open his ledgers and refund all illegal gains!"
"My grand-aunt's brother's friend told me that whenever Batman runs out of money, he goes to Bruce Wayne, the richest man in Gotham, to rob and extort him."
"Yes, yes, I've heard similar stories."
The post was flooded with replies. While figures like Flash, Barry Allen, dropped a "..." to express his speechlessness, and Wonder Woman, Diana, replied with "We must judge with caution" trying to cool things down, the vast majority were anonymous accounts driving the smear campaign forward.
They fabricated all sorts of dirt on Batman, ranging from "extreme control freak" to "suspected of catching jock itch from Catwoman." Green Arrow's methods were not a single bit more merciful than Ian's.
They pulled out all the stops. Someone had even launched a poll for the "Least Trusted Superhero," and Batman's name sat comfortably at the very top—leading the vote by a massive landslide!
Bruce watched the absurd accusations and malicious comments on the screen, feeling his temples throb violently.
He had faced countless crises and fought numerous insane enemies throughout his life, but being targeted by a fellow superhero leading a public crusade on a trivial internal forum to be publicly "judged" and "slandered"—
This was absolutely a first for him.
"That miserable playboy!"
Batman's expression shifted through varying shades of anger.
He knew this was a mess engineered by Ian. The fake Batman and the global betting pool were both Ian's handiwork. But Oliver Queen, with his stubborn, straight-line thinking, was completely convinced that Bruce Wayne was the puppet master, venting all his fury directly onto his head.
He tried contacting Oliver through an encrypted channel.
But the other party blocked the call entirely.
He had sent Alfred to physically cut the internet lines at Queen Manor, but the feedback report indicated that Oliver had come prepared, taking precautions by using defense-grade fiber cables to stay online.
"Has that guy's brain been infected by some kind of Ian Virus?"
Bruce could not help but curse under his breath.
He had no way to defend himself now unless he could drag Ian out for a face-to-face confrontation, but anyone with half a brain knew that the boy would only muddy the waters further.
As Batman sat there scratching his head in sheer frustration, he completely failed to notice that just a few minutes prior, a shadow from the Dark Lord had breached the deepest sector of his supposedly impenetrable Batcave.
A dangerous seed had been silently planted.