Chapter 3529

"My God... here... here..."

Two small figures hovered above a huge planet. Besides them, there was a lot of wreckage floating in space, most of it so broken that its original form was unrecognizable, revealing a heavy aura of decay and destruction.

Kara opened her mouth slightly, watching the city on the surface. Even though they hadn't entered the planet's atmosphere yet, her super-vision had already allowed her to see the ruined state of the city.

"No time for sentimentality," Clark said, "Oliver sent a message that Hail is attacking the sun like a madman. We must find a way to stop him before the shield's energy runs out."

"Let's go down," Kara said.

The two flew toward the surface of Krypton together.

Krypton is much smaller than Earth and doesn't have as many oceans as Earth. Just looking at the geographical conditions, it looks more like Mars.

Kryptonian civilization is also a fairly advanced civilization; they have already reached the stage of extraterrestrial colonization, and the entire home planet has been transformed into a huge city, serving as the capital of the entire civilization.

Even so, it is very obvious that there is a more prosperous central area on this planet. Kara tried hard to search her memory for the time she lived here, and finally pointed in one direction and said: "Over there, that's the Breeding Center."

The two flew toward a tower-like building in the center of the prosperous area. Clark was also searching for details in his memory.

Kryptonians have memories from birth; even as infants just born, they can remember some things and store them deep in their super-brains.

After coming to Earth, Clark lived a very happy life, so he almost never thought back on how he arrived here. But thinking about it now, he could still find some scattered memory fragments.

He couldn't help but talk to Kara about it:

"I remember lying on a table with two very bright lights overhead. Someone grabbed my hand, then wrapped me in fabric, and ran out in a hurry while holding me."

"He... he seemed to be wearing a protective suit, with no skin exposed. He ran for a long time while holding me, then put me in a seat. I smelled a fragrance, felt very sleepy, and then I fell asleep."

"When I woke up again, my father was holding me. My mother rushed out of the house, but I couldn't understand what they were saying at that time. They carried me into the house and placed me in front of the fireplace..."

"It seems your adoptive parents were very good to you," Kara smiled and said, "Your parents' decision was correct. Many people wanted to send their children away at that time, but most failed. Even those who succeeded were like me, swept into some mysterious space, unable to get out for decades."

"I always feel like they seemed to know a lot of things," Clark said, "That I could escape successfully was definitely not an accident."

After thinking carefully for a moment, Kara said: "That's true. How do you think they knew the specific coordinates of Earth?"

"Kryptonian civilization is so advanced, maybe they had discovered Earth long ago. However, they had no reason to send me to such a distant place. In the sector where we landed, near the Green Lantern base, there were clearly many other civilizations, and it's not far from here..."

"This is indeed a bit suspicious. Let's check the Breeding Center first, and then go take a look around your house; maybe we'll discover something."

The two arrived at the entrance of the Breeding Center. With it being unused for years, a large amount of dust had accumulated everywhere. Clark took a deep breath and blew it out violently; after dispersing the dust, the two walked inside.

There was nothing to see on the bottom floor; it was basically just some operating rooms. The machines had long been damaged and had no utility value.

It wasn't until they reached the top floor that they saw the core breeding facilities—a huge circular hall. Several pieces of equipment were placed against the wall, and in the middle of the equipment was a transparent chamber. It might have originally contained some kind of liquid, but now there was nothing left.

Both of them discovered that two pieces of equipment were missing here. Clark walked to the gap, pointed at the broken cables and irregular equipment interfaces there, and said: "It looks like it was violently dismantled by someone."

"This proves Zod didn't lie to us," Kara said, "He must have dismantled these two breeding facilities; it looks like the process was quite dangerous."

Clark walked toward the intact equipment nearby. Just as he was about to check if there was anything left inside the transparent chamber, the panel his arm was close to lit up.

Clark quickly pulled his hand back. Kara walked over to take a look at the text on it and said: "You started it, but it shows insufficient power... wait, why is there still energy here?"

Ursa looked away. She took a deep breath and then said, "I will report truthfully to the General. Perhaps he has a way to persuade the people in the Council... perhaps."

Logically speaking, Krypton has been destroyed for so long; without anything to power the machines here, the machines should have had no reaction at all.

"Why do I feel like the equipment here was just started by someone?" Clark turned his head to look up and down at the room, but indeed found no traces of activity, so he could only take two steps back and stand in place to think.

Kara found another machine and tried it. She placed her hand on the machine's panel, but the machine had no reaction. She called Clark over, and when Clark placed his hand on it, the machine lit up.

Although it still showed insufficient power, it was clear that only Clark could start this machine.

"Why is this happening?" Kara frowned, full of confusion.

"Could it be because of the 'Codex' I'm carrying?"

"No," Kara said, "That's just a book. You can understand it as a reference manual. Do you need to carry a manual with you to start your refrigerator at home?"

Clark scratched his head, completely unable to figure it out.

"Wait, Oliver sent me a message." Clark opened the communication panel, but he didn't expect Oliver to send him a long string of text this time. After reading it carefully, his expression became solemn.

"What's wrong?" Kara asked, looking at him.

"Oliver said Barry hasn't returned for a long time; he might have gone time-traveling," Clark shook his head slightly and said, "The Justice League's think tank has made rigorous and comprehensive deductions; they believe Barry might have gone to Hail's past."

Kara gasped and said: "He ran to Hail's childhood? Is he trying to solve this crisis by directly killing the young Hail?"

"That is the problem," Clark looked at Kara and said, "Hail hasn't been solved; he's just crashing into the sun like a madman. This proves Barry didn't kill his past self, but possibly did something else, causing him to become what he is now."

"Then what did he do?"

"They are still discussing it."

About ten minutes ago, Oliver gathered Lex, Harley, and the two Batmen to enter the conference room for a meeting to study how the current situation came to be.

"It is known that Barry doesn't kill," Oliver said, "To be precise, he doesn't kill any sentient beings, including aliens."

"Why?" Batman couldn't help but ask, even though he doesn't kill either, but he only doesn't kill humans. He doesn't hesitate at all when killing aliens, and alien electronic lifeforms and monsters are even less of an issue.

But listening to what Oliver meant, the Barry of this universe almost doesn't kill anything—not only does he not kill humans, he also doesn't kill aliens with high intelligence.

"There is no why," Oliver said, "He is happy to do so. We won't interfere with his choices. However, he doesn't mind us killing."

"Because his Speed Force is very special," Lex stated his speculation, "His Speed Force is intertwined with the darkness of the world's origin, inseparable. And this dark power causes people to fall, so he must control the negative emotions in his heart as much as possible, not giving himself a chance to fall."

"Alright, that's understandable," Batman nodded and said, "Then, under the condition that he doesn't kill, why would he still choose to return to Hail's past?"

Everyone began to think, because this was clearly contradictory. Jumping to a past point in time is originally meant to kill a weak opponent so that a powerful future opponent also disappears.

But if one doesn't kill, that cannot be achieved.

If one doesn't kill the infant Hail in the past, then the Hail at the current point in time won't disappear. All of this would be futile.

But Batman immediately grasped the key point and said: "Jumping to the past to kill the infant-stage Hail is useless."

Injustice Batman also realized this point and said: "The intelligence you obtained mentioned that Hail can exist at every point in time. Then killing Hail at a certain point in the past alone might not be able to kill him at all points in time."

It sounds a bit convoluted, but Oliver thought of a good metaphor. He said: "If he can exist at every point in time simultaneously, it means time is non-linear for him."

"That is to say, the past is not necessarily before the future, and the future is not necessarily after the past; rather, the past, future, and present are arranged in parallel, existing simultaneously, without affecting each other."

"Every minute and every second he spends establishes an independent timeline, and the development on each timeline is independent. This is the root cause of his ability to exist at different points in time simultaneously."

"The life of an ordinary person is like a piece of air-dried sausage. If the sausage isn't made, then it can't be air-dried. The best way to kill an ordinary person by traveling through time is to not let the sausage be made; the subsequent air-drying process naturally won't happen."

"But for Hail, his life is like a bunch of grapes. Each grape grows in a sequence, but they are all independent. The Hail at this point in time is just one grape. If you want to eliminate this one grape, running over to kill the first grape that grew is useless."

"Unless you can directly kill the entire grapevine, there is simply no way to eliminate him. Eliminating the earliest one doesn't affect the later ones at all. Barry understands the structure of time better than we do; he must be clear about this."

"That's right, Barry must have thought of this before formulating this plan. Then he still chose to travel back to the past; he must have other intentions," Batman said.

"What does he want to do?" Oliver muttered to himself, then looked at Lex and Harley sitting on the same side of the table.

"I remember the data saying that Hail hates clones very much, but he is actually a clone himself," Harley said, thinking, "I suspect Barry might want to use this point to strike at him. This could also explain why Hail suddenly went crazy."

The more Harley said, the more she felt it made sense. She tapped the table lightly with her finger and said: "No living creature can be without weaknesses, even Doomsday is the same."

"Hail's physical body is indeed very powerful, but he is, after all, a sentient being, not some ignorant cosmic disaster. Barry might be trying to start from this aspect to cause him mental trauma."

"But he doesn't look like the kind of guy who would be devastated by mental trauma and then go hide in some corner and cry," Batman spread his hands and said, "Facts have also proven that striking him mentally only makes him even crazier."

"Barry's psychology is quite good; it's impossible he didn't anticipate this. This shows he might not be trying to make Hail retreat through mental stimulation, but has some other way."

(End of chapter)