svetikya Chapter 73 Barbatos's Gaze
Chapter 73 Barbatos's Gaze
Chapter 73 Barbatos's Gaze
The story begins again with Thomas Wayne's attempt to resurrect the Flash using the "Lazarus Pool."
Unlike Bruce Wayne himself, who was always shrewd and calculating, old Thomas sometimes acted purely on instinct.
Just like now, he only found a pool of liquid that could heal wounds and revive humans, and he thought that thing was the legendary "Lhasa Pool", so he was willing to try it with the Flash's corpse without hesitation.
This pool of liquid is the source of all Lazarus pools in the world, the root of the Joker's lingering spirit in the main universe, and the Dionysian Factor, one of the five essential metals in the DC Universe.
The real Lhasa Road Pool is just a pool of water mixed with a bit of Dionysian influence. How could it possibly be compared to that pool of liquid beneath Gotham City?
In another normal timeline, Batman destroys this dangerous object, which could trigger an apocalyptic crisis, during a battle where he is determined to destroy the Joker.
But in this universe, Batman clearly doesn't have the same determination to destroy the Joker. The Dionysus Factor was found intact by the old Batman and used to revive the Flash immediately.
When Thomas Wayne stood beside the pool that shimmered with an eerie metallic sheen and carefully placed the Flash's body, which had been charred black by lightning, into it, something unexpected happened.
It was like putting a large chunk of sodium into water; the Flash's body exploded violently the moment it came into contact with the Dionysus factor.
After a golden storm of lightning, the old bat was astonished to find that the entire pool and the Flash's body had vanished without a trace, replaced by a terrifying shadowy creature.
This was a massive bat monster with an extremely wide wingspan. Its dark red, blood-red, broken wings, like those of a bat, could not even extend in this huge underground cavern. Its torso and limbs, which were partially obscured by its wings, were covered with scars, as if cleaved by knives and axes, revealing numerous bones.
The monster was hanging upside down on the ceiling of the underground cave, its entire face covered by a bat-shaped hood, but Thomas could clearly feel the dark gaze it was casting at him.
The old bat, who was used to bringing fear to Gotham City's criminals with guns and blades, now felt almost the same way: the instinctive fear of a prey facing its predator.
It was as if the nightmares that tormented Thomas as he fell asleep in the dead of night at Wayne Manor had materialized into the real world.
At that moment, on the other side of the Earth, Joey abandoned Starfire in almost 0.4 seconds and returned to Gotham from East Africa. After clearing a path with his head and passing through thick layers of rock, he found himself in the same space as old Thomas and saw the same nightmare.
Barbatos, the great dragon and bat god, is the creator of the Dionysian factor at its origin.
Originally, Joey's idea of slapping Old Bat twice was just a way for him to relieve stress.
But now that he sees this thing, he really wants to put this idea into practice.
So much so that his first words upon arriving at the scene were about launching an attack starting from zero frames:
"You old bat, I've got to call you Feng the devil...!"
But before Joey could finish speaking, Barbatos, hanging upside down above the rock wall, reached out with its claws and, as if by teleportation, grabbed Joey in its claw-like palm.
Feeling immense pressure emanating from all around, Joey fought back with all her might, but could barely manage to avoid being squeezed into a red and blue bursting cream puff for a short time.
Seeing that things were not going well, the old bat below reached for his belt and threw seven or eight explosive bat darts at Barbatos' head. He then pulled out his pistol and emptied his 9mm magazine.
Seeing this scene, Yang Yi felt a sense of despair.
Honestly, isn't there something wrong with the matching mechanism in this universe?
Putting aside what he will have to fight in the future, the enemy he is currently fighting is a multiverse-level monitor, the bat god Barbatos.
His teammate was an old bat named Badden, whose firepower was inferior to that of the Middle Eastern mercenaries. His main ability was to use a small pistol and some gunpowder explosives to damage the enemy.
Moreover, if he continues to exercise so intensely, there is at least a 5% chance every minute that he will have a heart attack and die on the spot, especially since he was the one who opened the monster!
Just as Joey, in his grip strength meter form, was locked in a stalemate with Barbatos, a black energy wave swept across, the immense impact sending Barbatos flying.
A huge, jet-black raven emerged from the shadows of the cave, attracting Barbatos's attention before disappearing back into the darkness.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Joey pulled an arm out of Barbatos's hand and slammed his fist into Barbatos's wrist joint. The huge impact finally forced Barbatos to let go.
He made up his mind that if he survived this time, in addition to slapping Thomas, that old man, twice, he would also keep a close watch on him around the clock, from eating and sleeping to using the toilet.
Even if doing so would harm Joey's mental health, it would be better than causing such great damage to his physical health as he is doing now.
The idea of escaping in Joey's mind lasted for less than a microsecond before it was extinguished. After all, in the face of a being like Barbatos, a thousand miles and a foot were no different.
He had no choice but to rush forward and fight to the death, throwing a punch with all his might, ready to smash it into Barbatos's huge forehead.
Barbatos watched with great interest as this superman from a decaying universe charged toward him. This universe had long exceeded its expected lifespan, so it must be that the fate of this "superman" had taken an unexpected turn.
Superman is the core of every independent universe. This universe should have lost its own Superman from the very beginning, which is why it should have perished so quickly.
But for some reason, the universe itself found its own Superman, and Superman did not die, which is why the universe has not yet turned into ash.
He had only sensed that the Speed Force, which did not belong to this dark universe dimension, was interacting with his creations, so he appeared to take a look and was surprised to find such novel things.
These creations trapped in nightmares struggle for a glimmer of hope, only to be met with ultimate despair by fate—this is the most fascinating part of the countless dark multiverses.
In a normal universe, there is nothing inherently wrong with Batman resurrecting the Flash using the Dionysus Factor.
The problem is that the universe Old Bat inhabits is not normal.
All the material worlds that make up the entire multiverse are divided into three categories: the world of matter, the world of antimatter, and the deeper world of dark matter.
The matter universe and the antimatter universe are harmonious and stable worlds of order, but the dark multiverse composed of dark matter is different.
The Dark Multiverse can be considered the lower bound of the matter and antimatter universes; they are the reflections of the Order universe in the pool of nothingness.
Every dark universe is forged from the hopes and despair of beings from other universes, and often, despair outweighs hope.
Every nightmare in an ordered universe could give birth to a universe with no future; and every wrong choice in the universe could have devastating consequences.
Countless universes, seemingly destined for destruction, began to self-destruct before they could stabilize, only to be reborn repeatedly.
Just like the bubbles blown out by the Creator.
Just as almost no bubbles can actually fly into the sky, only a tiny fraction of these dark multiverses can truly stabilize.
As for remaining stable long enough to ascend to the world's order, enter the ranks of the matter and antimatter universes, and become a universe that can truly exist for a long time?
Barbatos, who was responsible for overseeing these shattered worlds and constantly cleaning up the remnants of their destruction into the cosmic forging pool for reforging, had never seen a universe like this since his birth.
As for this superhuman attack?
Barbatos didn't care. Within the Dark Multiverse, none of the creations could truly kill it. Rather than worrying about this little bug, he'd rather find the entity that could actually harm him.
From the black raven that had just appeared, Barbatos smelled a familiar scent—a sulfurous odor from the Hell dimension.
That barbarian who only knows how to seize and not create, is a veritable parasite of the multiverse, the Demon of the Three Realms.
To be honest, Joey and Barbatos shared the same idea. He also believed that it was unlikely to defeat someone like Barbatos with physical attacks alone, but he couldn't just sit and wait to die, so he still threw his strongest punch.
But soon, both Barbatos and Joey realized they were terribly wrong.
Joey's fist slammed squarely into Barbatos's chair, which was hidden under the bat-hood. The superhuman strength caused a crack to appear in the theoretically indestructible chair corner.
Barbatos roared in pain and then, on a whim, prepared to wipe out the superman of this universe, but encountered an unexpected obstacle.
Joey's presence clashed with Barbatos's thoughts, and a huge energy wave shot out from Joey's body.
Barbatos possesses supreme power bestowed upon him by his creator, and theoretically, he could erase any individual existence in the Dark Multiverse with a single thought. However, this time he unexpectedly failed.
A seemingly cold-outer, but actually scorching-hot stone has been mixed into the usually cold and cruel Dark Multiverse.
This was clearly beyond Barbatos's authority.
The collision of light and dark matter is like the collision of matter and antimatter universes, which triggers a violent chain reaction that acts like a catalyst, resulting in a massive explosion of matter and information.
Barbatos roared in agony as he was swept away by the torrent of matter:
"What the hell are you?!"
Joey couldn't answer any of Barbatos's questions because he wasn't in much better shape than Barbatos at the moment.
The massive energy fluctuations caused his skin to crack inch by inch, and blood gushed from his capillaries. The intense pain in his head made Joey feel as if the punch he had just received had hit his head.
Meanwhile, under the influence of the information fluctuations reflected from Barbatos's body, Joey's mind gained many memories belonging to this universe.
For example, how a Kryptonian spaceship escaped this universe during a failed jump and became lost in the endless void of outer space.
And how this universe repositioned itself to its core amidst the spacetime fluctuations between the two worlds, then unhesitatingly pulled it back and sealed off the path of return.
Barbatos realized that there was a rejection reaction between the Superman and his own existence, and that he should not and could no longer maintain his physical existence in this universe.
The entire space began to shatter like glass around his presence, and it was about to affect the nearby Joey. Seeing this, Barbatos endured the pain and prepared to reach out and grab Joey, who was still writhing in pain in the air, in an attempt to banish him and himself to the outside of the material universe.
From the shadows, a jet-black raven swooped down, its massive beak seizing Joey's cloak and pulling him out of the spatial rift.
"This isn't over! I'll be back! Superman, and you Sannomiya bastard...!"
Before Barbatos could finish his angry curse, a crisp sound of shattering glass rang out, and he and everything around him were banished to the outside of the universe.
But before he left, he left a "gift." He opened his mouth and spat out a piece of the soon-to-be-destroyed cosmic fragment that he had collected on his way here, and threw it into this universe.
That glittering fragment of space was like the edge of a shattered mirror, reflecting glimpses of its own world. The spatial tremors caused by Barbatos's exile had made it extremely unstable, triggering an even more violent impact.
This caused an unprecedented massive explosion beneath the already disaster-prone Gotham City.