Metropolis.
The morning sunlight spilled over the ruins that had been ravaged by war.
On the broken streets, the atmosphere was tense and busy.
The Amazon Warriors were silently clearing the battlefield. They lined up the bodies of their companions neatly, covered their faces with shields, and softly sang an ancient requiem.
Queen Mera commanded the soldiers of Atlantis, using currents of water to wash away the viscous blood on the streets.
Barry The Flash was like a hardworking worker ant, shuttling back and forth through the ruins. He dug out the buried Resistance soldiers one by one and sent them to the temporary Medical Point.
His speed was much slower than usual; every time he paused, he would clutch his chest and gasp for breath, his physical exhaustion making him unsteady.
Everyone was busy, except for Harley.
She was focused on scrubbing the mud and bloodstains from the hem of her white wedding dress, humming the Wedding March.
"Why is this bloodstain so hard to remove..." Harley frowned, vigorously scraping at a stubborn stain. "Mr. Mr. Milk Candy won't be happy if he sees me wearing something so dirty."
She looked up and shouted at Bruce Wayne, who was bandaging his wounds not far away.
"Hey! Batsy! Do you have any stain remover in your Utility Belt? The strong kind!"
Bruce stopped what he was doing and looked up at this unreasonable woman.
"Harley, now is not the time to worry about a dress. We don't even know if he can still come back."
"Shut your jinxing mouth!" Harley immediately bristled. "He'll definitely come back! He promised me!"
"He's Homelander; he won't lie to me. If you dare say that again, I'll blow your balls off!"
With that, she walked to the heart-shaped flower arch in the center of the plaza.
The arch had been half-blasted away during the fight just now, and rose petals were scattered all over the ground.
She crouched down, carefully picking up the broken flowers and trying to put them back in place.
"Vrrr—Boom—!!!"
Without any warning, the familiar gravitational distortion field descended upon the sky once again.
Everyone stopped their actions at the same time.
Everyone in Metropolis took to the streets and looked up at the sky.
"The portal is opening..." Barry's voice trembled as he spoke the question that concerned everyone most. "Who is it? Who won?"
"Mr. Mr. Milk Candy... is back!?" Harley dropped the roses in her hand and looked up in surprise, her eyes shining with anticipation.
"Everyone, point the cameras at the sky!" She didn't forget to shout at the operators nearby, "I want to make sure every angle captures Mr. Mr. Milk Candy's handsome face!"
Survival or destruction? This was the question the whole World was concerned about.
The audience around the World also gathered before their screens in unison, waiting for the miracle reward.
However, the one who rushed out of the Boom Tube was not the red and blue figure draped in the stars and stripes.
But rather, that tyrant who destroyed everything.
Darkseid.
But his appearance at this moment was tragic to the extreme.
The armor on his body was in tatters, and his gray skin was covered in horrific scars deep enough to see bone.
There was still a massive hole where his heart was, and blood was constantly flowing down his chest.
Like a Beast driven into a corner and fleeing in panic, he tumbled wretchedly out of the portal and slammed heavily into the center of the Metropolis plaza.
"Boom!"
The ground shattered, and dust flew.
"It's Darkseid!" Barry cried out, "He... how did he get hurt like this?"
Bruce narrowed his eyes and did not immediately order his men to open fire.
Darkseid's wretched state was clearly caused by being crushed by some kind of absolute violence.
Does this mean Homelander won?
Darkseid struggled to prop up his upper body from the pile of rubble, panting incessantly, each breath accompanied by a spurt of blood.
He slowly raised his head; his gaze no longer held the previous lofty disdain, but was filled with a desperate madness.
"Homelander—!!!"
"You destroyed Apokolips! You destroyed everything of mine!!"
These words sent a shock through the hearts of viewers worldwide.
Homelander did it!
He really uprooted that hell!
Before joy could spread through people's hearts, Darkseid's next words were like a bucket of ice water, chilling everyone to the bone.
"But you can't save Earth!! I'm going to let you taste what it's like to lose everything too—!!"
Darkseid's gaze swept over the people in Metropolis, and he shouted harshly, "You think that damned Homelander won? No! You're all going to die! The entire Universe will hear your wails!"
He raised his right hand, palm upward.
A metal cube emitting a dark red glow appeared out of thin air in his hand.
father box!
One of the ultimate artifacts of Apokolips, the opposite of the mother box.
"I will let pain shroud every corner of this Planet!"
Seeing this, Cyborg's face changed drastically.
"Stop him!! That's the father box!!" he roared, his arm turning into a Plasma Cannon and firing wildly.
The Amazon Warriors, Mera, Deathstroke, and everyone else launched their most violent attacks at this moment.
But Darkseid only gave a cold laugh.
"Too late."
"Vrrr————!!!"
The father box erupted into a dark red lightning storm.
This light wave had no physical destructive power, but it swept across the entire Earth in an instant at an unimaginable speed.
At the same time, the sky let out another deafening boom.
This time, it was Homelander who came out, a red and blue figure rushing out of the portal like a meteor.
Although his uniform was a bit messy, his momentum was like a rainbow, and a fire of anger burned in his eyes.
"Darkseid!! Your opponent is me!" Homelander roared in mid-air, his voice shaking the sky.
Darkseid turned his head and looked at the pursuing Homelander with a cruel smile on his face.
"You're late, Savior."
"Matrix, activate."
As the words fell, time across the World seemed to stop for this second.
The next second.
"Aaaaaaaah——————!!!"
Shrill screams erupted simultaneously from every corner of Metropolis, from every bunker on Earth, and from the throats of a billion people!
Homelander had experienced its power on Apokolips. To ensure the authenticity of this performance, Homelander had specifically instructed Ego to adjust the power to a subtle critical point.
Maintaining a level of roughly level fifteen pain.
This was an agonizing pain that could make one wish for death, yet not so extreme that it would cause ordinary people to instantly go into shock and die from neural overload.
But for superhumans and warriors with higher life levels, the Matrix would automatically adjust its frequency to grant them matching pain.
Batman clutched his head tightly with both hands, his knees slamming heavily onto the stone floor.
Even with a will as tough as his, he was grinding his teeth, and the veins on his forehead were bulging.
The Flash's body curled into a ball from the intense pain; he couldn't even control the Speed Force, as blue electric arcs crackled wildly across him, scorching the surrounding rubble.
The only one standing was Cyborg Victor.
As a semi-mechanical lifeform, the moment the pain hit, he forcibly cut off his human Neural Pain Sensors.
But he could only stand there helplessly, watching his comrades rolling and howling on the ground.