After opening his eyes again, Viktor saw a clear blue sky with no clouds at all.
"My body wasn't torn apart?"
That sensation of every last cell in his body being ripped between two worlds was genuinely unforgettable.
The feeling of his whole body and even the tiniest cells being pulled by two different worlds was something he could never forget.
But Viktor didn't feel pain anywhere. He quickly sat up, but then his whole body suddenly floated up uncontrollably.
"What's happening?"
He instinctively tried to create a foothold behind him to stop himself from floating upward, but nothing happened.
Just as Viktor was rising into the sky like a balloon, a familiar force gently caught him, anchoring him in place and slowly pulling him back down.
He turned his head and saw Superman standing below him, looking up at him. However, the cold expression from before was gone, replaced by a faint amusement.
"Were you planning to float all the way out into space?"
Viktor first tried moving his arms and legs.
After confirming that his body was still really there, he finally spoke with a mixture of confusion and alarm.
"Where is this?"
"You simply returned to your own world as intended, just at the wrong point in time."
Superman used his bio-force field to hold Viktor suspended two meters in the air beside him, then turned to gaze out at the endless ocean stretching before them.
Viktor wriggled uncomfortably.
"Why is my body like this?"
"The collapsing spacetime current shattered your body down to the molecular level. Fortunately, I'm skilled enough with bio-force fields to reassemble you on the spot while still inside the turbulence. Don't worry—not a single cell is missing."
Superman explained this casually, like it was nothing.
"However, this is completely the wrong time for you to exist in. Every molecule of your body is still absorbing the impact of the chaotic spacetime energy. I have to maintain my attention on you at all times. Otherwise, you could be thrown off into space at any moment because right now you have no weight at all."
Viktor was silent for a long while.
Honestly, he was having a hard time accepting this.
This man's power level was completely off the charts. He physically held a spacetime portal open and tore it apart with his bare hands.
"So who exactly are you? Don't tell me, Clark. I know most Supermen go by that name."
"...I am someone who was left behind."
Superman pointed to the white hair at his temples and the wrinkles on his face.
"Or you could think of me as an old Superman from a world that no longer exists."
"For certain reasons, I didn't disappear with the old worlds when they ceased to be. Perhaps because at some point in one possible past, I evolved to a higher-dimensional form of existence—so I've continued to exist in a particular kind of state ever since."
"A certain individual told me that my purpose was to wait for a specific world to complete its reboot, and only that world could accommodate my existence."
"Even though a new Superman would appear there to take my place, and my old friends after the reboot or restart would no longer know me or remember me, at the very least, I could live a normal life there with the wife I secretly kept safe."
Superman looked at him.
"But now that world can no longer reboot. This should not have happened. I'm guessing the Flash from that world was also killed by you, right?"
Viktor said nothing.
He didn't dare respond and stayed completely silent.
Superman didn't seem to mind and just smiled.
"I wonder what kind of world could produce someone like you with such a strong bloodthirstiness. But since you killed the Flash who was supposed to reboot the new world, that so-called new world is no longer that place."
Superman glanced at his own palm and curled it loosely into a fist.
"Because of you, your world must take the place of what was supposed to be that critically crucial world. And because of that, I have no choice but to remain here..."
Viktor finally understood where this Superman had come from. It was not as if he had never thought about it before.
He vaguely recalled that in DC comics, the New 52 DC universe became the main continuity after the Flashpoint world reboot, and various cosmically powerful beings all centered their stories around the New 52 main universe.
And in the New 52 main universe, there really was a Superman who had come from the past.
The Superman who had existed since the DC comic universe was first created, who had lived through countless powerful enemies and adventures, experienced, and was immeasurably strong.
But after Viktor had arrived on this Earth, the one with Superman and the Justice League, he watched it carefully for some time.
However, it looked nothing like the main universe continuity at all.
Even though those famous superheroes were also fairly young, everything about them clearly felt different.
For instance, in the New 52, the old Superman was supposed to have stayed hidden and acted in secret without anyone ever discovering him.
However, Batman clearly knew this Superman existed. The two of them even seemed to know each other and had talked before.
Then there was the Flashpoint Flash who had shown up out of nowhere in a frenzy trying to kill Viktor.
The Flashpoint world was originally the previous version of the New 52 main universe.
But Viktor killed that Flash ahead of time.
Even though Lex Luthor from Flashpoint tried to save the situation by using the Flash of this universe to keep exploring and creating different timelines, Flashpoint Luthor had also been punched out of existence by Viktor.
Viktor raised a hand and knocked it against his own head.
'Damn. What a headache.'
From what Superman was saying, the New 52 would never come into existence now because of Viktor's interference.
The inexplicable universe Viktor had been treating as a vacation was now going to replace the New 52.
What was that supposed to mean?
The "New New" 52 main universe?
"How long are you planning to keep me 'imprisoned' like this?"
Viktor let out a sigh as if he had accepted his fate.
"I'm saving you until the chaotic spacetime energy in your body is fully dissipated. And besides that, I'm also waiting for something."
Superman stopped staring at the sea. He turned and walked toward a stretch of forest.
Viktor was locked in place by the bio-force field, floating behind the old Super, man like Yuumi from League of Legends.
Then Viktor saw the old Superman start chopping trees.
He suddenly understood something, and he could not help taking a sharp breath.
"What are you doing?"
"We need a place to live during this time, and a way to survive. I don't plan to use my powers often. This world is still too fragile."
Even though the old Superman said he would not use his powers, he started teleporting around and cutting trees right in front of Viktor.
With one hand strike, he could cut down a huge tree.
Viktor was forced to teleport around with him whether he liked it or not. He even floated into the trunk of a towering tree as he passed straight through it like a ghost.
Superman kept chopping away and muttering to himself.
"I've been observing this sea area for a long time. We can easily build a wooden house nearby. Then I can live here, catch some fish every day, and wait until the day you are supposed to meet me for the first time."
Viktor was starting to lose it.
"How much longer is that?! What year is this supposed to be?!"
"It doesn't matter. Consider it an opportunity to wear down that killing intent of yours."
"If this is going to take ten or twenty years, I think I'd rather be dead."
He knew the old Superman had already made up his mind to keep him here and gave up resisting.
Superman carried a fallen tree on his shoulder and gave him a wide grin.
"I said it before. In my eyes, everyone has the right to live. Those children had that right, and so do you."
After that, Viktor stopped talking.
He watched in silence as Superman built that familiar little cabin piece by piece from nothing. He watched him easily give up all of his powers except the bio-force field.
He watched him build a small fishing boat and settle into a life of fishing at sunrise and sunset.
He watched as some vast hidden crisis began to stir on the Earth, and Superman, going by the alias Tom, carried Viktor to the site of the crisis and resolved it with quiet ease.
At first, Viktor would find something to bicker about with Tom every day, but he slowly became quieter and quieter.
The various superheroes of this world began to emerge one by one.
The Justice League began to form.
Superman begins to go out less and less often.
Most of the time, Superman was simply Tom.
The Batman of this world was more mature and experienced. He actually found clues that led him to the old Superman, and he questioned why there was another Superman in this world.
That night, Tom and Bruce sat in the little fishing cabin and talked about all sorts of things.
As Bruce took his leave, Viktor clearly saw him bury a listening device in the trunk of the large tree beside the cabin.
As the days and nights passed, Viktor became more than just quiet.
This kind of life was far too boring for him.
Then, Viktor began sitting cross-legged in mid-air with his eyes closed, meditating to pass the time.
Until one day, Tom reminded him in a somewhat hoarse voice:
"You've already drifted out to the edge of the solar system."
...
600 POWER STONES = 1 BONUS CHAPTER
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