Chapter 787: Chapter 744: Reflection
In a harmonious, stable society without Superheroes, if you want to hit the front page and have your photo spread everywhere, pulling off a major crime is the best way.
Among major crimes, the easiest way to get famous is robbing banks, bombings and arson, and serial killing.
Investigation takes time, so a more covert murder case is more convenient; he could control when the bodies were discovered, and thus decide when he’d get caught.
So he planned to kill a few people in this harmonious society and land himself on the front page.
His gaze naturally fell on the editor-in-chief—not because being a Black Man made him easier to kill, but because Su Ming was very familiar with the Demon’s aura, and he’d found that this Black editor-in-chief was a Demon.
So he approached the editor, only to find that the editor had no idea he was a Demon; instead he possessed complete human memories, believed himself to be human, and was living a peaceful life.
Interesting. Next, Su Ming used the office computer to run a preliminary check on all the open-source intel in the world.
The result almost blinded him.
Sea King couldn’t swim, Wayne Enterprises was bankrupt, Constantine was an internet pundit, and the Teen Titans were a psychedelic metal band.
At that point Su Ming was sure there was something wrong with the world, and it wasn’t just the timeline—it had to be something more serious.
But the culprit was still unclear; there were too many beings who could pull something like this off. Everything had changed, and as long as he was stuck in the Main World, an in-depth investigation couldn’t even get started.
Still, spending a few hours laying some groundwork himself was no problem.
What happened next was more or less what Kara had said: during the crime, Su Ming deliberately left a mountain of evidence just to screw himself over, get himself thrown into a police station, and wait for Cindy to come rescue him.
He knew that as long as Briss was willing, she’d definitely find a way to cross Parallel Universes in the shortest possible time.
Last night, he went to see the editor with a Dagger in hand—not to borrow money, but to directly tell the guy he wasn’t human, he was a Hell Creature.
Of course the editor didn’t believe him; he’d been living as a human for decades, how could he possibly be a Demon?
But Su Ming knew that all those decades of memories were fake; in real time, it hadn’t even been a few minutes since Su Ming left.
After talking for ages, Su Ming still couldn’t convince the editor to recognize his true identity, so he could only prove it with action.
As high-Dimension beings, Demons usually just possess someone when they come to make trouble in the Main Dimension. Su Ming used his blade and killed the Host’s existence on the Concept level, and the Demon naturally emerged.
The other side was like someone waking up from sleep; after it turned into Black Smoke from the corpse’s abdominal cavity and drifted out, it even thanked Su Ming.
Su Ming was pretty famous in DC, especially after he’d gone to Hell with Albella and made a deal with Maggie; plenty of Demons knew who he was.
He chatted a bit with the Demon, but unfortunately, that Demon wasn’t any Hell Demon King, just a mid-level grunt—the kind Constantine dealt with all the time—and it didn’t have any useful intel at all.
The editor’s whole family were actually Demons, so in for a penny, in for a pound—he freed them all. Everyone gathered around the table and held a meeting.
The lady cop thought he was dragging a corpse to dinner; in reality, it was the Black Smoke rising from the corpse—aka the Demons—dragging the corpses over.
To maintain his intimidation factor, Su Ming actually sat there eating and chatting with seven wisps of Black Smoke.
Likewise, there was nothing of value to be found. After they finished dinner, the other Devils said they’d head back to Hell first, and the corpses blew up. Only the one who had possessed the editor was willing to stay in the Main World for a few days to act as Su Ming’s inside man.
So Su Ming went to take a shower, while that remaining Demon actually waited until midnight before hanging its own corpse from the rooftop railing.
Once everything was set, Su Ming returned to the Daily Planet. If some entity really had altered Earth, then it was safer for him to lay low for now. After leaving behind a few clues, he started Hypnosis on himself, putting his primary consciousness to sleep.
Everything that came after was what had already happened.
Watching Su Ming shove a chicken leg into his mouth and spit out a snow-white bone after two gulps, Briss still remained silent.
Cindy leaned against a nearby lab bench. "So what do you think caused the change in the Main World? Keep in mind our Multiverse has at most half a year before total Destruction—you’d better move fast."
Su Ming sighed. It was precisely because he wasn’t sure that he’d insisted on staying on Earth-0 to scout a bit longer—did they really have to pull a stunt like this over that?
Dr. Manhattan could rewrite the world, no doubt about it; if it was really God making a move, that would work too; and of course, it could also be the Divine Speed screwing up.
Aside from that, there was a huge pile of other possibilities.
He just happened to favor another possibility: that a higher-Dimension reality had overwritten the original reality, layering a new Truth over the world’s original Truth, masking the original attributes of people, turning even Clark into an Ordinary person, and cutting off most of Su Ming’s Strangulation powers with something invisible.
"Whatever the reason, I need to restore my combat strength first. Without power, even if I uncover the Truth, I’ll have no way to change it."
Su Ming picked up a snow-white napkin, wiped his mouth, and replied like a gentleman.
"Earth-0 has been altered; where are you planning to start?" Cindy pressed. The whole thing was just too bizarre—after thinking it through, she still had no idea.
"Gather intel first. I can’t make a judgment yet." Su Ming left the table and walked on his own along the vehicle tunnel toward the outside of the Bat Cave.
There are too many people and too many eyes here, especially with a Bat around, so it’s best not to reveal too many cards in this place.
Cindy naturally followed him, while Briss still sat motionless on her chair. The members of the Legendary Squad looked at the two who left, then at Briss, and decided to stay here.
After quickly walking out of the bright underground tunnel, Su Ming was already a little out of breath. This body was really too weak.
"You shook them off because you’ve got a plan?" Cindy casually patted his back.
"Of course. There are just some people I don’t want them to meet." Su Ming smiled, stood under a tree and caught his breath. There was still a hint of chill at the bottom of the valley at night, and Gotham’s air quality had always been terrible.
Cindy didn’t ask more. She just made a "please" gesture and then folded her arms to watch from the side.
Su Ming started pacing around a tree in a rather mystic manner, circling it a few times. His hands began rapidly forming certain hand seals, and he lowered his head and began muttering.
"People inverted, people inverted..."
With a ’shlorp’, a snow‑white monster slipped out from a pitch‑black crack in midair, still covered in slime, like a snake wrapped in egg white.
It itself was a Concept, so the notion of bones didn’t apply. It drooped down from the air like a noodle.
"Tsk, isn’t this my business partner? What’s up this time?"
The only organ on its face—a huge mouth—suddenly split open, revealing rows and rows of dense teeth. Its snake‑like tongue licked the corner of its mouth.
Su Ming first checked and saw that the Inverted Man hadn’t brought its Deadpool doll this time. He let out a breath of relief. Right now his constitution was just that of an ordinary person; just seeing the Inverted Man was disgusting enough—if he saw Deadpool too, wouldn’t he go into shock?
"Yesterday I summoned you in the Main World as well. Why didn’t you show up?"
The Inverted Man’s neck stretched as if it had been pulled longer, bringing its face right up to Su Ming’s: "It’s not that I didn’t want to, but that I couldn’t. Earth was overwritten by a kind of higher‑dimensional reality, and my Concept is Witchcraft. I can’t appear in a world without fantasy."
Su Ming understood.
The new Earth 0 rejected all things of fantasy. Never mind foreign Concepts, even Mages had completely vanished from Earth. They’d probably all been altered and gone off to do some other line of work.
He just hadn’t expected that even someone as powerful as the Inverted Man couldn’t bypass this restriction. In that case, the suspect list got a lot shorter.
"So you’ve lost your income stream from Earth 0. Any thoughts on that?"
The Inverted Man cocked its head, saliva dripping from its mouth: "If possible, of course I want to get it back."
"Then let’s talk terms. I’ll investigate and resolve this matter, and you have to support me with everything you’ve got. No matter when I want to use some Witchcraft, you have to cast it."
"Deduct the Energy from your stockpile?" The corners of the Inverted Man’s mouth curled up, as if it were smiling.
"No way. When we take back Earth 0, the benefits in the Magic Realm are all yours. So for the price paid during the rescue process, you at least have to shoulder half."
Su Ming spoke the terms as if without thinking. The evening breeze in the woods blew, ruffling his short hair. Moonlight filtered down through the leaves, sprinkling him with specks of light.
"Deal."
The Inverted Man stretched its foot toward him.
Su Ming couldn’t be bothered to correct its mistake and could only lift his own long leg to high‑five it as a pledge. A foot is still a "palm"; close enough.
If Cindy had still been a little surprised when the Inverted Man appeared, by the end she was just resigned. So in the end, only monsters can deal with monsters, huh? Even if every Deathstroke from every Parallel World gathered together, Su would probably still be the weirdest one, right?
The white flesh vanished into the air, leaving only a scatter of purple sparkles. Su Ming looked at his own hand. As long as he was anywhere outside Earth 0, he was without a doubt the Supreme Mage.
It was just that it was a voice‑activated version: if he wanted to cast any Magic, he had to shout it out first, and only after the Inverted Man heard him would it actually cast the spell.
He still had to find his own powers back first.
Su Ming knew that Cindy was helping for the money, but the exact figure could wait until the job was done. The two of them had a pretty good relationship, there was at least that much trust between them.
Briss definitely wouldn’t leave Earth -11. She was the only Superhero in this world; if she left and the Laughing Bat showed up, there’d be no one to handle it.
As for the Legendary Squad, they were all pretty much useless. Getting involved in Main World business would just be sending them to their deaths. No need to bring them in for the early game. When they needed to return to Main Universe Earth, they’d just hitch a ride on their ship.
In the end, it was only Su Ming and Cindy acting together, which actually reminded him of how it felt when he first arrived—only now he was even weaker than he had been back then.
He glanced at the pale violet patterns on his fingers. The Invisible Light Lantern Ring was still there, which meant Eclipse Star was fine. So when everyone in the Main World got changed, why were Luthor and the others okay?
While researching online, Su Ming had of course looked up Luthor, Cheetah, Joker and the other members of the Destruction Legion.
But there was no information about any of them online, as if they simply didn’t exist in this world. Did Luthor manage to dodge it? In that case, their Doomsday Fortress isn’t on Earth?
Earth 0 had gone wrong, so what about the Pocket Universe that depended on Earth 0? Did it also undergo some kind of change?
