Chapter 2358

This is a city of dead silence.

There are no gunshots, explosions, or sirens; only the dark clouds, which seem forever too thick to disperse, obscure the last trace of moonlight. The only light in the entire city comes from a red figure.

He sprints through the ruins of the city, yet one cannot see the motion of his running. He is like a red bolt of lightning, but he leaves behind a heavy, pitch-black shadow.

The red figure stops before a tombstone. The dark clouds reveal their final mercy as a sliver of moonlight shines upon the tombstone, illuminating the crookedly carved name with a different kind of desolation.

"Barry Allen."

The Flash is dead, but there are no bones. He lives on in the world in another way, but beneath the tombstones covering the mountains and plains lie countless sinful bodies. The one in his arms is the last. When these mangled remains fall to the ground, the tiny dust motes that kick up are like a silent sigh.

When this figure turns, a bat emblem whiter than the moonlight is printed on his chest, only the space between the bat's two wings is sliced open by the shape of a lightning bolt, like a bat that has been torn apart.

The countless thorn-like edges on his shoulder armor gleam coldly under the moonlight. His turning motion is merciless; he does not linger for even a second over the name of his old friend. Perhaps as the culprit who buried the Flash here, he should indeed remain unmoved.

The moonlight grows increasingly hazy and blurred; the world seems to be covered in a layer of thin gauze. By the time he reacts, a thick fog has enveloped the cemetery.

He looks back to see a black shadow standing quietly in the center of the dense fog in the distance.

There is nothing there, yet it seems as noisy as ever. The shadows coming and going in the fog all make him feel deeply familiar: the Bat-Family, Gordon, the Justice League...

No, that is all in the past. A cold voice echoes in his heart—it is a past abandoned in time that will never return.

Nothing is more ruthless than time. It will never return those who are lost, no matter how hard he tries or how much he sacrifices. Never, never...

The moment he turns, he moves, transforming into a red bolt of lightning, sprinting toward that figure at a speed far exceeding the concept of speed itself.

He should have arrived in an instant, but in his field of vision, the distance between him and that shadow has never changed. He cannot run out of this dense fog, and the shadow remains there, watching him quietly, like a contemptuous mockery or a profound sigh.

He finally stops. A low voice comes from within the red metal faceplate: "Who are you?"

"Truth..."

In a daze, he hears a word drill into his ears like particles of fog; it sounds like the fog is whispering.

"Go..."

He hears it again. He feels his auditory organs being broken down and reorganized by the fog, becoming a receiver of another form.

"Go where?" he asks.

In a flash, the dense fog condenses and dissipates. The moment it condenses again, some fragmented images appear before his eyes.

It is a dimly lit study. The fireplace flames flicker behind delicate metal railings. On the heavy, solid wooden desk, on the left, is a peculiar ornament made of feathers, wire, and unknown shriveled organs; on the right is a giant globe. The light under the brass desk lamp flickers on and off.

The bookshelves on three walls are filled with all kinds of classics. On the blackboard in the very center are drawn strange, indescribable patterns and a pile of formulas, the handwriting sloppy and the characters distorted.

Open books and newspapers are piled chaotically on the desk. Several letters and a letter opener are tossed to the side. The cigarette butt in the ashtray has only recently been extinguished, and the whiskey is half gone.

The pocket watch hanging on the rack ticks away. This is the only thing that provides a useful clue. The time on it tells anyone witnessing this scene that the owner of this room is located in the Greenwich time zone.

Clang, clang, clang...

The sound of the wall clock chiming wakes him. When he wakes, the dense fog has already dispersed. Beneath the low faceplate, his mouth is turned down. He looks down at his palms.

Let me see your true face...

Accompanied by the reappearance of red lightning, crossing the ocean takes but a blink of an eye. It is raining in London again tonight.

To find a person in a city with only a few indoor fragments is harder than ascending to heaven, even for determining the location. But in the fragment that just flashed by, the scenery outside the window was captured—it is the upper reaches of the River Thames.

Bells, he thinks.

Turning his head, inside a street-side shop window, the wall clock shows it is 3:05. London uses Greenwich Mean Time; the region that is 5 minutes slower than this time is Oxford.

The red figure appears in the ancient city. Walking through Oxford on a rainy night feels like returning to the era a thousand years ago when herds of cattle waded across the upper reaches of the river. Monks in robes move in groups, and the exterior walls of the city's buildings, which are ancient by modern standards, begin to erode from the start of this rain.

It looks like a medieval scholar's office, he thinks. The oldest part of all of Oxfordshire is Oxford University in the city of Oxford, so he will start searching from the oldest university college. Time has never been an issue for him.

This is an extremely ancient school, with dark, narrow corridors and weather-beaten floors. In the narrow spaces of the bookshelves, it seems as though a ghost's hand could reach out at any moment. On a rainy night, everything feels like it has returned to that era when one could still hear steam whistles.

Finally, the red figure stops in the center of a grassy area. This is a neoclassical courtyard with an empty lawn in the middle, surrounded by buildings. The main entrance consists of two high towers, standing tall in the rainy night.

The red figure disappears into the gate, but this college is empty. He knows he has found the right place, but he still hasn't found the correct way to enter.

He runs again. Countless fragments of time fly past him. The rain lines become denser as he lands. The third bell chime has just fallen, and a room in the right tower is lit with a dim yellow light.

He walks in. The door is open a crack. A figure sits on a chair in front of the desk, back to the desk, head raised, staring at the blackboard.

He walks into the room. When the man turns his head, he seems startled. He sees that it is a mixed-race man with brown eyes, holding a thick book in his hands.

"Who are you?"

"That is the question I want to ask you."

"You broke into my office."

"Someone told me to come."

He sees the man close the book with a hint of helplessness, sighing softly as he says, "It seems there is trouble again, Nyarlathotep. And you?"

"Batman."

"No, you are not him." The man's brown eyes emit a faint glow. When he stares at him, it gives one a subtle sense of trance. "You are not just him. There are two souls inside your body."

"The Flash."

"Hello, hello, this is Psychiatry 3102... Oh, is that so? Help me tell him I miss him too. Yes, of course I remember, Grete, we agreed to go defeat the Crimson Flame Dragon together next time. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten... Mm, okay, goodbye."

He just silently looks at his own palm. A faint sound comes from there—Barry's voice, which only he can hear, comes through: "Please, don't continue any further, Batman. You can't save anyone using this method; it will only destroy us both."

"It seems your plan did not succeed," he hears Nyarlathotep say. "The answer you are looking for is not here either. Go back."

The red Batman runs, but at that very instant, he passes through Nyarlathotep's figure, touching nothing.

This is not within time. Nyarlathotep's voice comes from his ear: "Everything you see is just a projection. I am not in the period of time you are currently in, so no matter what, you cannot touch me."

"Tell me the truth about time." His tone is tinged with anger, almost roaring. "Someone said you have the truth here. Tell me how to reverse time."

"I said, the answer you want is not here." Nyarlathotep turns and walks back to the desk. He picks up the globe beside him, gives it a spin, and then says, "Follow me."

Nyarlathotep's figure suddenly becomes blurred. When he takes a step, he stands before the red Batman, walks through him, and the red Batman turns around abruptly.

He follows Nyarlathotep and runs, but he is almost unable to keep up. Traveling through the infinite Speed Force, the figure holding the globe in front always maintains a distance that is neither too far nor too close.

The moment he stops, the blurred shadows in the Speed Force dissipate, yet he finds himself still in the same place, but everything is vastly different.

All the objects in the study are floating, either rotating, inverted, or shattered in a bizarre posture, like a strange and absurd dream.

"This is inside a dream. Welcome to the Dream World." Nyarlathotep's voice appears hazily. The red Batman turns his head, and a book is handed over.

"Look at this." He seems very confident and says, "I guess they have the answer you want there."

The red Batman opens the book.

The first page of the book shows the slightly panicked expression of a young man with blue eyes.

"What the hell was that just now?!!" Charles roars. "Why was there a centaur?! Has he been reading too much fantasy fiction?!!"

"How should I know?!" A figure in front runs even faster than him; it is Spider-Man Reilly, who also yells: "That suit of armor just now was even weirder! I punched it and nearly shook myself to death!!"

"Stop shouting!" Jessica, the Spider-Woman flying in the lead, looks back at the huge fat man chasing them, who looks like a sumo wrestler.

Judging by the other's physique, he shouldn't be able to run this fast, but it is clear the other is not running. One can clearly see that with every step he takes, the space beneath his feet shrinks; he possesses the ability to fold space.

Jessica rubs her aching shoulder. She was just grazed by the other's fist, and she felt as if she were about to be torn apart. But she has to pull herself together, fly a bit higher, look toward the distance, and say: "Go that way. That is the Wildfire Gang's territory. They might be able to help us deal with him!"

"That vampire is here again!!!" Xu Shang-Chi, running at the back, turns in a panic and shouts: "He wants to block us from the right, turn left!!"

"There's an octopus on the left!!!"

The group slows down and slowly gathers together. There are strange personalities coming from all directions. Charles takes a deep breath and says: "Don't panic. Both the vampire and the sumo wrestler can be interfered with by psychic abilities. I'll hold them off for a second, and you guys run out."

"Then what about you?" Jessica asks.

"After you run away, I'll force an extraction," Charles gulps and says. "That will require me to rest for a few hours, but it doesn't matter. At least this time we've gathered enough intelligence."

"Three, two, one... Go!!"

In an instant, the sumo wrestler and the vampire flying behind both stall. Jessica, flying in the air, punches the vampire away, and Reilly and Xu Shang-Chi take the opportunity to jump over the sumo wrestler's head.

Suddenly, the screen glitches. Everyone's movements are completely frozen, and then someone presses the rewind button.

Reilly, Xu Shang-Chi, and Jessica, who have returned to Charles's side, are all bewildered. Charles looks up in disbelief and sees a black-haired man reaching out toward them.

Time begins to flow backward. Everyone returns to the center of the road, and the desperate flight begins once again.