"Beep—!"
Harley pressed the button.
"Boom————!!!" The bomb detonated right in front of Darkseid.
This old-fashioned bomb, seemingly from an inferior civilization, erupted with terrifying power.
A mushroom cloud, small in radius but exaggerated in shape, rose high into the sky above Metropolis.
The smoke and dust from the explosion cleared.
Darkseid was still standing in the same spot.
His body was indeed indestructible; he hadn't been blown to pieces.
However, his majestic face was now covered in black soot. His armor was heavily damaged, making him look incredibly disheveled.
Most importantly, Darkseid reached out a finger and touched his nose.
A smear of crimson liquid stained his fingertip.
Blood.
He was bleeding.
Darkseid stared intently at the blood on his fingertip. He hadn't been injured in many years; the last time he bled was during his last... invasion of Earth.
That crazy woman had not only made him lose face but had actually managed to wound him.
Darkseid's gaze changed.
If Harley had previously been just an annoying bug, she had now become a stinging venomous wasp.
She was a genuine threat.
"This... is not a power possessed by humans."
Darkseid spoke in a low voice, the previous contempt vanishing from his eyes.
"You possess a chaotic power that distorts reality and rewrites rules."
"It is a waste for such power to remain here."
Darkseid reached out a hand toward Harley, actually beginning to recruit her.
"Join my Dark Elite. Submit to me."
"I will bestow Earth upon you as your playground. You may display your madness to your heart's content."
Hearing Darkseid's recruitment offer, the hearts of all humanity hung in suspense once again.
If Harley defected now, Earth would truly be doomed beyond redemption.
"Rule the Earth? Sounds pretty good," Harley rubbed her chin, appearing to be in deep thought.
Darkseid thought she was tempted. "Very well, as long as you—"
"However..." Harley suddenly split her mouth into a wide grin and interrupted him. "This old lady is already the First Lady of Earth! Earth is already mine! Who do you think you are, trying to recruit me with my own stuff?!"
She pulled a giant cream pie out of thin air from behind her back.
"This is my rejection letter! Please accept it!"
She swung it with force. The massive cream pie, as if it had eyes of its own, traced an elegant arc through the air and landed with a "splat," covering Darkseid's face with pinpoint accuracy.
White cream dripped down Darkseid's face.
The global audience erupted into even more frantic laughter.
Desaad, who had been watching the whole time, flew into a rage upon seeing his Master suffer such a great insult and ordered the surrounding Dark Elite to attack.
"Kill her!! Kill her!!"
Hundreds of energy rifles fired frantically at Harley.
"Oh-ho! A hail of bullets!"
Harley wove through the dense laser beams like a ballet dancer.
Spinning, jumping, she closed her eyes and struck various poses in mid-air that defied human anatomy, as those lethal rays always grazed past her by a hair's breadth.
"Bang!"
A stray energy beam struck a half-collapsed residential building at the edge of the square.
The building was already teetering, and after the hit, a large section of the load-bearing wall came crashing down.
The collapse revealed over a dozen civilians who hadn't had time to evacuate.
The floor of one apartment gave way completely, and a mother and daughter lost their footing, screaming as they fell toward the exposed rebar below.
The little girl flailed her hands desperately in mid-air, her hopeless cries tearing through the night sky.
"No!!"
The heroes in the distance rushed toward them, but they were too far away to make it in time.
Harley, who had been busy taunting and mocking Darkseid, suddenly turned her head.
"Damn it!"
Seeing this, Harley ignored her mockery of Darkseid and immediately launched a rescue.
She was the First Lady of the Human Federation! Those were her people! And she hated seeing children get hurt most of all!
Her legs remained in place, but her upper body stretched out infinitely like rubber, extending dozens of meters in an instant.
Just as the mother and daughter were about to be impaled, Harley's elongated arms caught them steadily, pulling them into her embrace.
But at this moment, Harley, in her effort to protect the civilians, could not perform any evasive maneuvers, making her a sitting duck.
"Got you."
Darkseid gave a cold smile.
The crimson Omega Beams slammed into Harley's elongated back.
"Agh!!!"
Harley let out a cry of pain as she crashed heavily to the ground while shielding the mother and daughter.
It was at the very moment she was hit.
The glow of the mask on her face dimmed slightly.
The edges even loosened briefly, though the process lasted for only a mere 0.01 seconds.
But Darkseid's keen tactical intuition immediately captured this fatal detail.
"I see..."
A flash of realization crossed Darkseid's eyes.
He seemed to have found the key to breaking this rogue fighting style.
That was to stop attacking the slippery, ridiculous monster and instead attack the things she cared about!
He ceased his attacks on Harley and turned his crimson gaze toward the rest of the civilians.
"Don't you dare!!!"
The loki mask would amplify the wearer's strongest inner emotions.
At this moment, in Harley's heart, besides her fanatical obsession with Homelander, the strongest thought was: I am the First Lady of the Human Federation! These are my people!
Now, Darkseid actually dared to use civilians to test her!
Harley was furious.
She took a deep breath.
Her chest swelled up like an inflating balloon.
"Toot-toot————!!!"
Accompanied by the loud blast of a train whistle, white steam erupted from her ears and nostrils.
She lifted the hem of her white wedding dress.
In that instant, her legs vanished, replaced by a frantically spinning wheel.
In a flash, she crossed the hundred-meter distance and appeared right in front of Darkseid.
Darkseid was preparing to release his Omega Beams. Facing the Harley who had suddenly appeared before him, he instinctively threw a punch, smashing it toward Harley's face, which was distorted with rage.
"Bang!"
The punch connected solidly.
But the expected scene of Harley being sent flying did not occur.
He looked closely, his face filled with disbelief.
Harley had actually caught that fist, which was larger than her head, with a single hand.
"This is impossible!"
Darkseid let out a low growl of shock and anger, attempting to pull his arm back.
It wouldn't budge.
Harley's hand was like an absolute locking pincer, pinning his fist firmly in place.
"You're dead wrong..."
Harley looked up, a hideous and brutal smile slowly appearing on her face.
Then, her arm suddenly exerted force. Grabbing Darkseid's wrist, she began to spin him frantically in mid-air.
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh—!!"
One rotation, two, ten, a hundred!
The speed grew faster and faster. Darkseid's body became a gray afterimage in the air, and the immense centrifugal force made him feel dizzy.
"Let go! You lunatic!" Darkseid roared in fury while spinning.
"I'll let you down right now!!"
Harley suddenly stopped spinning and slammed Darkseid violently toward the ground.
"Boom!"
Darkseid crashed heavily onto the stone slabs, causing the ground to fracture.
Before he could react, Harley leaped up and stomped her feet heavily onto Darkseid's back.
"Bang bang bang bang bang—!"
In an instant, a massive cloud of white dust rose from where the two were fighting.
Inside the smoke, only various limbs could be seen wildly extending and retracting.