Chapter 223: Editor, Say It! Du Wa is the Multiversal God!
How could this be?
The God of Xenomorphs, Du Wa, gave him the godhood of New 52 Darkseid, and then, after he finished fusing, just disappeared?
"The xenomorph larva inside my body isn't reacting either... That guy didn't pay too much attention to me."
Thanoseid hurriedly observed the others, and even every xenomorph in the entire universe, confirming that these creatures were just ordinary xenomorphs, ungraced by Du Wa's presence.
With Du Wa's immense conceptual volume, if he were to truly use a single xenomorph to contain his true form, it would be impossible to hide.
"Where... where the hell did that guy go? I don't believe he ran away!!" Thanoseid was fuming with rage, frantically roaming Universe 3, searching for any trace of Du Wa.
But... there was nothing!
Du Wa's true form had vanished from this world into thin air!
"Bastard, that bastard! What could possibly be more important than me finally having the strength to kill him?" Thanoseid raged impotently.
Just then, Black Hand silently swung his scythe at him again, but he was immediately struck by Thanoseid's counter-punch. His form trembled violently, as if it would shatter along with the endless space-time.
But Black Hand ultimately managed to stabilize his being.
"He's different..." Black Hand twisted his stiff, skeletal head. If he still possessed sufficient emotion like before, he would have been shocked.
After absorbing the power of New 52 Darkseid, Thanoseid had vaulted into a league of his own among the "Darkseids" of the Multiverse. His strength was terrifyingly formidable!
At the very least, the current Black Hand was no match for him at all.
"Get lost, you disgusting thing! Go back to your Emotional Spectrum and stop getting in my way!" Thanoseid was extremely impatient; more than anyone, he wanted to know Du Wa's whereabouts.
Did he return to the DCEU Universe? Or the New 52 Universe? Or did he simply go back to Universe 9602 and abandon this multiverse?
Thanoseid refused to believe it. He considered himself to have a certain understanding of Du Wa, knowing that the man was not one to give up easily.
"I don't care where you've gone! Since you brought me such great humiliation, I will repay you a hundredfold! Even if you've fled to the Sphere of Gods, I will find you!"
Thanoseid was about to go mad with rage. Endless fury transformed into infinite divine power, erupting in an instant and unleashing it all upon Black Hand.
In an instant, Black Hand went from being an even match for Thanoseid to being at a disadvantage, struck by a series of heavy blows.
*Pzzt!*
Streaks of Omega Beams refracted across the entire universe, returning from one end to the other in an instant, their paths impossible to trace. But they all ultimately converged on Black Hand, drowning the God of Death in a sea of red rays.
The terrifying Omega Effect corroded Black Hand's body, destroying the God of Death's power, but it was temporarily unable to kill him completely.
Each time, Black Hand would lunge forward, wielding his half-broken scythe.
"Normally, only the power of the White Lantern of Life can truly harm Black Hand... The fact that this guy can shake Black Hand with pure divine power and beat him into this state is already astonishing."
Metron let out a sigh. This was Black Hand, after all.
However, this only further proved how powerful Thanoseid was now—even if the Black Hand taking the beating was weakened and far from his fully energized form.
The already precarious Universe 3 was now even more doomed. Even its most basic framework had suffered immense destruction.
But at this moment, no one had the mind to care about the life or death of this universe.
The battle between Thanoseid and Black Hand was still ongoing and would likely continue for a while longer.
"How could this happen? Du Wa disappeared? Where did he go? He even left the Power Ring behind..."
Alexander Luthor was utterly bewildered. He incredulously picked up the Power Ring from the ground and examined it repeatedly, but he couldn't detect any special changes in the ring.
But, was that all there was to it? Du Wa abandoned everything, controlled that human body, and just vanished into thin air?
"My calculations can't be wrong. Could he have gone to Universe 0 already? Even if, as I suspect, the crucial Universe 0 is his destination, why abandon all of this..."
It wasn't just Lex Luthor; all the brilliant minds present were confused. They wracked their brains but couldn't figure out where Du Wa had gone.
And so, someone looked towards the God of Knowledge, whose expression remained unchanged throughout.
Steel Lantern flew directly in front of Metron. "You know the reason for all this, don't you? Tell me, where did Du Wa go? Can't you see that Thanoseid guy is about to lose his mind? If he can't find Du Wa to get his revenge, he'll really destroy the entire universe."
"If Universe 3 is gone, it will just face another reboot. The total number of universes will ultimately remain at 52. That is one of the Rules of the Multiverse."
Metron was in a foul mood because he also wanted to figure out where Du Wa had gone. "As Du Wa's vassal, can't you sense his location?"
"I only know that he's still alive because the xenomorph inside me hasn't changed at all. The other xenomorphs are all normal too, remaining stable," Steel Lantern said.
*Useless!*
Metron cursed inwardly, maintaining an aloof and profound appearance as if he couldn't be bothered to speak. In reality, he was frantically activating the Mobius Chair, collecting massive amounts of information from the multiverse in an attempt to lock onto Du Wa's position.
But it was useless. There were absolutely no findings.
It was as if Du Wa had completely dissolved his true form into every single xenomorph, making each one a part of him, yet no single xenomorph was the real him.
This wasn't right. Before, every xenomorph was Du Wa, carrying a part of him, and could also serve as coordinates to host Du Wa himself at any moment.
Something unimaginable had happened in this world, something whose truth even the God of Knowledge could not ascertain.
Metron, as well as the other brilliant minds, had realized that Du Wa's series of actions were all for the sake of this current outcome. Yet, none of them could figure out the logic behind it.
...
At the same time, in another universe.
This universe's Earth was not shattered and broken like the one in Universe 3. Overall, it could be considered a picture of peace.
Of course, this peace didn't mean this world was absolutely peaceful. For beings who had destroyed countless planets, looking down upon the minor chaos that occurred on this Earth from a higher perspective, the losses this Earth had suffered were simply negligible.
At most, it had been blown up during a few major crises that affected the multiverse in the past, only to be repaired afterward.
Besides that, the time it suffered the most severe losses was undoubtedly during the Blackest Night. But make no mistake, this wasn't the Earth of Universe 0, nor was it the Earth of the Dark Universe invaded by Black Hand.
This Earth was simply affected by the Blackest Night of Universe 0. It should have been peaceful, but the pre-Flashpoint Alexander Luthor brought the Black Lantern Ring to this Earth, causing a Black Lantern Corps to appear and many unlucky souls to become Black Lantern Zombies.
It was all thanks to a guy called Superboy-Prime who turned the tide, wiping out all the Black Lantern Zombies in one go.
"This is bad, really bad. Is Clark still giving you trouble, Morrison?"
"Yes, I don't even dare to go outside now. Though we all know there's no hiding from that guy. His super vision and super hearing can easily pinpoint our location... In our entire universe, he's the only superhuman."
In an office building somewhere in Manhattan, inside a conference room filled with computers and drawing boards, a group of people gathered, puffing out clouds of smoke.
The cigarette butts littering the floor indicated that these worried-looking fellows had been discussing for a long time but still hadn't found a solution.
In fact, they had no doubt that their entire conversation might have been overheard by that Superboy-Prime.
"Supreme—Superman, has given us a difficult problem. How are we supposed to draw a 'Story' that hasn't happened yet?"
A man with an imposing presence spoke up. He crushed his cigarette butt into an ashtray, extremely irritated.
"Jeff, you almost let it slip. If Clark heard that, he'd definitely burst in here and slap you a few times." Morrison took a deep breath, now somewhat disgusted by the smell of cigarettes.
As everyone knew, Superboy-Prime hated it when people called him Superboy-Prime. He preferred to call himself Supreme Superman and would brandish his fists to demand others call him that too.
But everyone present knew, Supreme Superman? That title didn't belong to the Superboy-Prime from this Earth, but to the Golden Superman who had joined the Fifth Dimension.
That Superman, who had stewed in the sun for over ten thousand years, went in red and blue and came out shining gold, and successfully ascended from the third to the fifth dimension, was the true Supreme Superman.
But the people present had no ability to summon Golden Superman to this Earth for help, because it was simply impossible.
"Let's put Clark's problem aside for now. I'm more worried about something else. After the Blackest Night, the comic sales for the Flashpoint event were better than we expected, and that's an achievement we got without being able to draw the real inside story. But the Darkseid War, which was supposed to launch as planned, has run into a huge problem."
"Yeah, who would have thought a guy named Du Wa would pop up, the God of Xenomorphs? What's a Xenomorph? Never heard of it."
"I've gone through all the comics, from Superman's debut until now. I've flipped through every single one and haven't found a single clue about the xenomorphs. This species seems to have appeared out of thin air, yet it possesses an extremely complete social structure and racial abilities, and has even enslaved a large group of powerful warriors from other universes."
"Hey, guys, the latest reader poll results are out! Guess what? Du Wa is ranked number one, voted as the 'Character Whose Origin We Most Want to Know'!" a person shouted, waving a freshly printed list as he burst through the door.
The others all looked over, glancing at each other in dismay.
Geoff Johns' eyes lit up. "I have an idea. How about I personally pen an issue about the xenomorphs? I've even thought of a title: 'Green Lantern vs. Xenomorph'."
"Bullshit, you're always like this, completely lost in your Lantern stories. Haven't you recovered from the Blackest Night yet? If you hadn't messed around, our world wouldn't have been invaded by the Black Lanterns!"
"Damn it, I'll sue you! I can't decide the development of the story! I'm just replicating what happened in another world! How can you be sure which parts of what I draw are my original creations and which parts happened naturally? I can't even figure it out myself! Fine, I'll change the title. How about 'Superman vs. Xenomorph'? The story begins with Superman losing his powers and then getting parasitized by a xenomorph..."
"That's terrible! How can you be sure the Superman in your story won't see through the fourth wall and discover our ability? If he comes looking for trouble with us too, we're done for. Scott, everyone says you're the number one Batman fanboy, you should get on this trend and do a 'Batman vs. Xenomorph' story."
The group of disagreeing guys started arguing.
Everyone was under a lot of pressure, especially after experiencing the Blackest Night. Alexander Luthor from Earth-3 mysteriously appearing on this Earth, which should have been isolated from the multiverse, and bringing a bunch of Black Lantern Rings had a huge impact on this mortal society that had no superhumans besides Superboy-Prime.
And now this. They had intended to use the Flashpoint event to correct all those accidents, but they never expected the God of Xenomorphs, Du Wa, to appear, and at his peak from the get-go. He had already parasitized a bunch of minions, and there were two powerful and strange xenomorphs—one was practically a xenomorph version of Superman, and the other seemed to be a demon xenomorph. They, the editors, hadn't figured out their origins.
They didn't know the xenomorphs' origin, didn't know when the xenomorphs began their operations, and had no idea how this Du Wa had forcefully barged into the Darkseid War event and killed off the two main characters, the Anti-Monitor and New 52 Darkseid.
He even manipulated and dismembered the Crime Syndicate.
Just then, the phone rang.
Morrison answered, and after a brief conversation, hung up. He announced to everyone, "Guys, bad news. Zack Snyder is going to sue us. He claims the DC Editorial Department is utterly villainous for revealing the contents of his script in the comics ahead of time."
"Huh? Is it because of the lines Du Wa and his minions said? Or is there information among the subordinates Du Wa enslaved that Snyder cares a lot about?"
"Martha."
"I see."
All the editors understood, having a sudden realization. They then turned to discussing how to handle Du Wa. Should they launch a solo publication for Du Wa, or ignore him and let Du Wa and the xenomorphs reveal themselves bit by bit in the normally progressing story?
"Anyway, the original story is already unrecognizable. The Darkseid War? Might as well call it the Xenomorph War. Look, in the latest issue, this strange Darkseid is fighting Black Hand..."
After the meeting, Jeff returned to his office and picked up the latest issue of the comic to read. As an editor, he only knew the content a day before the readers. The things that were drawn weren't necessarily "drawn" by him; it was more likely that the historical evolution in the multiverse was just like this, a projection reflected through his pen.
This was very normal. Many of the new concepts born within the DC World were born in a similar fashion.
"Xenomorphs... this concept is very interesting, but it's too mysterious. There's no way to explore the xenomorphs' origin. I know nothing about Du Wa either. Making contact rashly would be very dangerous. But then again, if I don't make contact, it will be difficult to understand him quickly. And how can I be sure that Du Wa doesn't have the ability to break the fourth wall?"
Jeff was very troubled, but in the end, he decided to try putting pen to paper.
He first piled up all the comics about Du Wa and the xenomorphs, carefully reading through them to ensure he had a detailed understanding of the existing information. After forming a concept in his mind, he began to draw carefully on his drawing board.
Before long, a lifelike xenomorph leaped from the paper.
"Beautiful, just like this. No matter how the Darkseid War—no, it should be called the Xenomorph War—ultimately progresses, or what plan Du Wa, this God of Xenomorphs, has, I just need to avoid the cutting-edge story and try to create something based on his origin and growth..."
Jeff muttered. In a daze, he felt like the posture of the xenomorph before him had changed. He immediately thought he was just tired and his eyes were playing tricks on him. He even took off his reading glasses, wiped them, and put them back on to take a closer look.
Hmm, there was clearly no change at all.
"Honestly, am I getting senile..."
Just as Jeff breathed a sigh of relief, a sudden change occurred!
On the drawing board, the xenomorph's form distorted, and a human hand grew out of thin air, breaking through the drawing board and grabbing Jeff's collar!
"My efforts were not in vain. This is very good..."
The voice, as if coming from the depths of a hellish abyss, made Jeff feel as if he'd been plunged into an icy cavern, his heart nearly stopping in an instant.
(end of chapter)