Malrick soared to an altitude of nearly a hundred thousand feet, his Mark Armor glinting against the edge of the stratosphere.
Jarvis's calm voice broke through the comms. "Sir, shall we begin the time-jump sequence now? Based on Mr. Stark's brainwave activity, he's in REM sleep—he'll wake in about five minutes."
"To be honest, Jarvis, I'd rather not give Tony that chance," Malrick said, smirking faintly. "He'd just pass out again once we jump through time anyway."
"Understood, sir."
Malrick remained suspended above the clouds for a moment, deep in thought.
During his stay on Paradise Island, he had learned much about this version of the world—the DCEU universe. Here, the gods of old had either perished or vanished. Only Diana and Ares remained. Extraordinary beings were scarce.
Atlantis was the only major power with any real structure.
In such a reality, the course of human history—especially the great wars—would follow a brutal trajectory. Without forces like the Strategic Scientific Reserve in the United States or the Eastern Spear Bureau back in his own universe, World War II would unfold without superhuman intervention.
And that meant countless preventable tragedies.
Malrick clenched his jaw. "If I'm already here, I might as well do something about it."
"Jarvis," he said, "wait here for a few minutes."
"Understood, sir."
In an instant, Malrick vanished into the clouds. The next moment, he reappeared high above East Asia.
His enhanced hearing expanded across thousands of miles. He could hear the pulse of nations—the unrest in the Eastern continent, the rising militarism on the nearby island nation.
"The history here isn't quite the same as in my original world," he murmured. "Still… this is as good a place as any to start lending a hand."
Reaching into his internal dimensional space, Malrick withdrew the Super Mark I, one of his earliest and most powerful creations. With a thought, he projected an electronic interface onto the armor's surface and began coding at lightning speed.
He infused the system with advanced AI algorithms and a portion of his own technological database—his knowledge of bio-energy control, armor synchronization, and combat integration.
When the program was complete, he opened a golden-hued portal. Through it, he could see a modest home where a young man slept soundly.
"1916," Malrick whispered. "A time when ambition burned young and bright."
He sent the armor through the portal and watched it vanish into the past.
Satisfied, Malrick turned toward the island nation east of the continent. His gaze grew cold.
"Decades from now, two bombs will fall here—Fat Man and Little Boy. They'll end the fires of war." His eyes narrowed. "Since that fate is already written, maybe I'll speed things up."
Hovering motionless, Malrick's expression hardened. "Besides," he muttered, "there were two bombs. I'm only throwing one punch. That's merciful."
His super hearing picked up the chatter of military bases, factories, and politicians drafting invasion plans. His body tensed.
Then he struck.
A single, seemingly effortless punch.
He wrapped the impact within a protective bio-field to shield the surrounding seas, directing the force entirely downward.
A heartbeat later, the world screamed.
A shockwave thundered across the sky. The very air fractured. The earth below split open like paper under a blade.
The entire Honshu region cracked from one end to the other. The continental shelf tore apart. Magma surged upward, glowing like veins of fire beneath the ocean floor.
Even the heavens seemed to weep.
Tsunamis hundreds of meters high swallowed the coastline. Cities crumbled under the crushing force of nature unleashed. The Imperial Palace vanished beneath a wall of roaring water.
Millions cried out to their gods—but there was no salvation.
Within moments, the island was drowned in chaos. Magma met seawater, hissing and boiling until the land began to collapse upon itself.
Malrick hovered silently above it all, his face impassive.
The nation that had once thrived on conquest was now gone—consumed by the very power it sought to wield over others.
The explosion of power had been brief but absolute. The continental structure beneath the island fractured completely, sending most of it sinking beneath the waves.
Still, Malrick's bio-field ensured the destruction did not reach the mainland.
Within minutes, silence returned.
The ocean steamed. Only the faint hiss of cooling magma remained.
Then, with precision control, Malrick summoned a surge of geothermal energy. He manipulated the molten rock, reshaping it through intense bursts of heat and freezing breath. Slowly, a new island chain began to form.
When the steam cleared, a barren but stable stretch of land replaced what had been lost.
He studied the result, nodding slightly. "That'll do. In a few decades, it'll be habitable again. The Eastern nations can rebuild—and maybe this time, without bloodlust."
Satisfied, Malrick turned back to the stratosphere and rejoined Jarvis.
The entire operation—from his departure to the rebirth of an island—had taken less than ten minutes. To the world below, it was an unexplained cataclysm; to Malrick, it was a footnote.
"My business here is done," he said calmly. "Let's move, Jarvis."
"As you wish, sir."
Malrick placed his gloved hand on the Mark Armor's shoulder.
The world around them shimmered as his traversal field activated. The universe folded inward, a ripple of light distorting reality itself.
Every world he entered became a coordinate within his traversal system—permanently accessible, ready for future jumps. But every new leap required an anchor point, a springboard world.
So, using the Superman and Lois timeline as his base, Malrick began tracing the DCEU's chronological flow.
Images flickered through his vision—the rise of heroes, the fall of gods, the passage of decades.
Ten years.
Twenty.
Thirty.
He stopped when his scan reached a familiar point in history: the day General Zod arrived on Earth.
A thin smile touched his lips. "Perfect. If I help deal with Zod, Superman will owe me. And he won't think twice about lending me the Codex afterward."
The energy around him surged again.
"Then let's go greet our Kryptonian guest. Brace yourself, Tony!"
The traversal field expanded.
A flash of white light swallowed them both.
Malrick and Tony vanished from the timestream—
and as Stark began to stir, his consciousness slipped once more into darkness.
____
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