Obviously.
It didn't even take a working brain to figure it out.
Because of the unknown anomalies the three kids had triggered in the past.
The future was now undergoing a correction and overwrite from a temporal paradox—in a way that was common to the DC universe, yet almost always heart-stoppingly terrifying.
Metropolis, the city that symbolized light and hope, was in the midst of a silent, horrifying transformation. The once clean and bright glass-curtain-wall buildings were now sprouting thick, neon-glowing pipelines and irregular metal patches across their surfaces—and the taxis on the streets were changing too.
The old-fashioned yellow cabs, even as they drove, were warping as if touched by an invisible brush, gradually twisting into more streamlined silhouettes of hover-wheeled vehicles with exaggerated tail fins and colored light strips.
In the air.
A faint, indescribable scent began to spread—a mix of engine oil and cheap perfume. More bizarrely, things that hadn't existed before were materializing out of thin air.
Beside Metropolis's Centennial Park, a building bearing a sign reading "Metropolis First People's Hospital," its style utterly out of place here, was shifting from blurry to crisp.
As though it were forcing its way into reality.
None of this happened instantly—it spread at a pace that was neither fast nor slow, but unwavering, like a tide swallowing up the original reality.
It was as if some enormous eraser, marked with a "New America" aesthetic, were brutally wiping away everything that had existed before, then redrawing the picture it considered "correct."
"Bloody hell! Did they overthrow America in the past? What in the world is going on?!"
Constantine stared at the nightmarish scene shifting around him, his face draining of color. Even the magical rules he relied on to understand and manipulate reality were becoming chaotic.
Impossible to use properly.
"You've got to do something!"
With no other option, Constantine—blood at the corner of his mouth—could only look toward the Flash.
His last several spell attempts had all failed, and had even triggered some backlash against his own body, the kind caused by botched casting under the current, unstable magical rules.
But right now, the so-called "Master of the Mystic Arts" had no time to worry about his own body.
"The timeline's being rewritten on a massive scale!" Flash Barry Allen, whose perception of time was the sharpest of anyone present, could "hear" time itself groaning in pain. He was every bit as panicked as Constantine. "Yes—yes! I've got to do something! Quick—tell me, what can I do?!"
Someone was asking him.
But his mind went completely blank.
He looked like some hybrid of a startled quail and a headless chicken, glancing left and right for a moment without finding anyone better to consult, and so could only turn his pleading gaze back to Constantine—the only person on scene who might actually have an idea.
It really did feel like they were kicking the problem back and forth between them.
"...?!?!" Constantine stared at this so-called super hero, supposedly capable of outrunning light itself and traveling through time, who was now looking to him for help like a grade-schooler who'd lost his homework.
A deep wave of exasperation washed over him.
"Which one of us is the superhero here, you or me?!" Constantine couldn't help but bellow. "Use that speedster brain of yours!"
"Isn't your head supposed to run faster than time itself?!"
Constantine, naturally, knew plenty about the superheroes—after all, he operated in the gray zones, and for the right price, he'd sell a bit of insider hero intel to the villains too.
"Oh—oh, right, right."
Constantine's shout seemed to snap something loose in Barry.
He nodded rapidly, the golden Speed Force crackling around him like electricity, the rapidly circulating energy seeming to stimulate his cerebral cortex in an attempt to spark inspiration.
"Got it!" The Speed Force really was useful—Barry's favorite tool. A few instants later, he smacked his forehead, eyes lighting up as though he'd struck upon a brilliant idea.
"What idea?"
Constantine looked at him expectantly.
The Flash spoke with an utterly serious expression.
"I need to go find Superman and Batman!"
Yes. That was his brilliant idea.
Constantine: "..."
The answer was so "wonderful" that Constantine fell into three full seconds of silence, followed by an even deeper wave of exasperation and the urge to curse. He began to wonder if this speedster's brain had been fried by the Speed Force.
But the Flash didn't wait for any response or mockery from Constantine—lightning flared around him once more, and with a parting "I'll be right back!" he transformed into a streak of golden lightning.
Barry!
Barry Allen was running!
He sprinted along the increasingly cyberpunk-ified streets, racing toward Gotham at the limits of speed he'd only recently broken through. Along the way, Barry Allen saw even more surreal sights.
More and more "national highway" tollbooths were appearing out of nowhere on the roads, some of the tollbooth attendants already starting to solidify into form.
Small drones with flashing police lights patrolled the sky. The billboards along the streets had all turned into holographic projections, advertising every kind of cybernetic implant and neural interface.
"Cyberpunk?!"
Barry Allen seemed to sense which direction Metropolis was "mutating" toward, but even his mind—which thought faster than light—couldn't make sense of what kind of incident could trigger this kind of chain reaction.
When he tore across the border into Gotham, his heart sank even further—the anomalies here were just as severe, but in a completely different style! Gotham's buildings were twisting and growing more grotesque, the colors turning garish and manic, eerie grinning-face graffiti spreading across the walls—the entire city seemed to be evolving toward that mad aesthetic dominated by the Joker!
"Oh, God..." the Flash wailed internally, genuinely feeling like his poor heart couldn't take much more of this. "What in the world did those kids do in the past?!"
He forced himself not to think too hard about it.
Because if he did.
The implications were too terrifying to consider.
And he wasn't the only one asking that question—inside the Batcave, the atmosphere was as heavy as lead.
Superman, Clark, looked at Batman, whom he himself had carefully placed in a specialized containment unit moments ago, then turned to look at Bruce Wayne, who had "walked" out from the shadows in a wheelchair.
His face was filled with anxiety and confusion.
"Bruce... what exactly is going on? Those kids—what did they do in the past?" It was the exact same question on the Flash's mind. Clark's voice carried a faint, barely noticeable tremor; he couldn't imagine what kind of action could trigger such a horrifying chain reaction across time.
"Honestly, Clark... I don't know." Batman's voice was weak and hoarse, carried through the auxiliary vocal system built into his suit.
That rare, helpless-sounding answer made Clark's heart drop—if even Bruce couldn't predict or analyze the situation, it was nearly unimaginable to Superman.
This was, without question, an unprecedented catastrophe.
"I don't think it could be Jonathan and... well, fine, it just couldn't be something Jonathan caused."
Clark spoke in a low voice.
Not sure why, but they'd already fast-forwarded to the blame-passing stage. Just then, a flash of golden lightning, and Flash Barry Allen appeared inside the Batcave, panting.
"Bruce! Clark! It's bad! Outside—everything outside's gone crazy! Metropolis is turning cyberpunk! Gotham's turning into some kind of Joker theme park!"
Barry shouted, the words coming out rapid-fire.
He summarized the situation concisely.
Batman's gaze seemed to "turn" toward the Flash.
"Barry..." His voice was still weak, but it carried an unmistakable note of command. "You need to go back... bring them back... fix the impact."
His tone was utterly serious—this was the most direct solution he could think of right now. But upon hearing the request, an extremely complicated, troubled expression crossed the Flash's face.
"Go back in time? That... that I can't do!" Barry blurted it out almost instantly, without hesitation, his voice carrying an inexplicable awkwardness.
"What do you mean you can't?" Clark immediately sensed something was wrong, his brow furrowing. Wasn't time travel as natural to the Flash as breathing?
"Can't do it just means... that's beyond what I'm capable of." The Flash avoided Superman's gaze, giving a vague response.
"But that's an ability you've always had!" Clark's eyes were full of bewildered suspicion; the Barry in front of him suddenly felt like a stranger.
"I know that's what you all say, that's what everyone says... but..." The Flash trailed off, seeming to fall into some kind of cognitive confusion and inner conflict.
He didn't know how to explain it.
"Hm. Seems consistent with what my information suggested." At that moment, Batman, lying in the wheelchair, seemed to have seen through something with his preternatural insight.
"Barry isn't lying." Batman's voice carried the calm of someone who had glimpsed the truth. "Our memories... and his memories... might differ somewhat."
The words struck the Flash's ears like a thunderclap, his expression growing even more complicated, even tinged with confusion and pain, as if he'd brushed against some truth he couldn't understand and didn't want to face.
"He's not the Barry we know?" Clark's expression instantly stiffened, his mind leaping to possibilities like parallel universes or identity swaps.
"No—no, I remember everything that happened before too, and the things I used to be able to do. But... that memory feels more and more like some kind of dream..."
"Something's affecting me. Believe me, it's really not what you're thinking..."
The Flash waved his hands frantically.
But he seemed unable to offer a clear explanation.
So.
He could only turn a pleading look toward Batman.
"Barry's right—he's still our Barry, it's just..." At this point, Batman suddenly sighed, and when he spoke again, there was a note of exhaustion in his voice.
"As for the specifics... I'm afraid I no longer have a way to explain it to you in detail. In any case, if the time machine in the Hall of Justice doesn't work either..."
He paused, as if steeling himself, and spoke the name: "Go find Ian Kent! Find the one who locked time itself!"
With that.
Batman, seated in the specialized wheelchair, didn't even look at Clark's rapidly shifting expression—he simply turned his gaze toward the massive monitoring screens inside the cave.
On the screen.
Real-time footage of New York, London, Paris... and the increasingly bizarre transformations overtaking Gotham and Metropolis was being displayed. He slowly raised his hand, encased in his suit, and held it up before his eyes.
Under Clark and Barry's horrified gazes, that hand of Batman's was turning transparent at a visibly perceptible speed! As if his entire being were being erased from this world!
"Heh."
As if mocking himself.
Then.
Bruce Wayne's expression remained unmoved.
Without the slightest ripple.
As though he had long since expected exactly this.
"Bruce! What's happening to you?! No—wait, you're being affected by the timeline shift!" Clark's face drained of color in shock, lunging forward to try to grab hold of Bruce.
But his hand passed straight through the gradually dissipating afterimage, unable to grasp anything solid!
"Farewell."
He only had time to leave behind that one line.
Batman's figure, like a candle guttering in the wind, completely dissolved into nothingness under Clark and Barry's stunned stares, leaving behind no trace at all—as if he had never existed.
After a brief silence.
"They... Damian! Damian killed Batman!" Flash Barry Allen let out a sharp, cracking cry, instinctively clapping a hand over his mouth, though it did nothing to hide the terror on his face.
His voice was trembling.
Clearly, based on the horrifying scene he'd just witnessed, he'd jumped to some terrible conclusion in his head.
Barry Allen understood very well how time worked, and immediately concluded that Damian must have committed some act of patricide in the past, which had caused Batman's existence in the future to be completely erased!
"Let's go!"
Clark forcibly suppressed the shock surging in his chest—he knew this wasn't the time for shock or grief! He had to stop the situation from deteriorating any further!
So he shouted at Barry, and the next instant, his form became a blue blur, and at a speed far exceeding lightning, he shot out of the Batcave!
This was truly a speed that surpassed lightning.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—"
The Flash didn't even have time to react, only able to stare at the direction Superman had vanished. Once he came back to himself, he gritted his teeth, lightning crackling around him once more, and gave chase with everything he had.
By the time the Flash reached the Hall of Justice at top speed and burst into the chamber housing the time machine, he found Superman already standing there, his expression terrifyingly dark.
Superman had clearly already inspected the complex device.
"Judging by your face... it's not looking good." The Flash panted, reading Clark's expression. "Are we... going to go find Ian?"
Clark didn't answer, but his actions said everything. He whipped his head around, his gaze seeming to pierce through layer after layer of walls, fixing on the direction of Metropolis!
The next instant, Superman's figure vanished from the spot without a trace! By the time the Flash, relying on his speed once more, arrived outside the Devil's Manor deep in the Colorado mountains, Superman was already standing there, facing the manor's massive iron gate—carved with demonic skulls and giving off a thoroughly unsettling air.
"No trespassing, this is private prop—" A demonic butler, dressed in a classic butler's uniform but with deep red skin and horns sprouting from his head, had just materialized.
He didn't even get to finish his sentence, nor did he get a chance to show off his discerning eye. The next moment, the entire demon was planted headfirst into a giant decorative flowerpot nearby.
"Pfft pfft pfft~"
Only his two legs were left sticking out, kicking helplessly in the air.
Demon soldiers appeared, but Superman, with the Flash right behind him, simply ignored all defenses and warnings, forcing their way into the manor.
In truth, there wasn't much in the way of interceptors anyway.
Because—
"Intruders! We've got intruders!"
"This is bad! The intruder is the master's father!"
"Oh no! We need to play dead! No, wait—we need to poke each other's eyes out so we can claim we didn't see anything!"
The demons, as it turned out, knew exactly when to back off.
After all, the Lord of Hell who'd trained them understood human relations better than anyone.
...
It was hard to say how much time had passed.
Deep within the manor.
In the most opulent bedroom of all.
Ian Kent lay sprawled out spread-eagle on his massive bed imported straight from Hell, smacking his lips, still seemingly savoring the taste of those "Martian crabs" from his dream.
Suddenly.
A palm slammed down on his forehead.
"How dare you, you insolent commoner!"
Ian woke up groggily, rubbed his eyes, and then... whatever line he'd been about to deliver got stuck in his throat. The first face that came into view was Superman's, ashen with fury.
And there was also Flash Barry Allen, Wonder Woman Diana, Aquaman Arthur Curry, and other Justice League veterans, all gathered around, every one of them staring at Ian with a different expression.
"...?!?!?!"
The entire Justice League, practically all of them, had shown up! And they were all surrounding him!
Ian's drowsiness vanished into thin air in an instant!
"I've fought for Earth! I've bled for Earth! You can't do this to me!" Ian, assuming his earlier secrets had come to light and that the Justice League had all gathered here to confront him over having become Earth's most invisible billionaire, shouted while simultaneously teleporting toward the front gate.
His speed truly was impressive.
His escape technique was equally professional.
But.
His attempt to make a run for it only lasted that one brief instant.
The next moment.
That same familiar sensation, that same familiar feel—a steady, powerful hand sheathed in a red glove closed precisely around the back of Ian's neck.
"Damn it! I've gotten so much stronger, and it still didn't matter!"