Chapter 61: Casual Blow Extinguishes Solar Flare, the Whole World Kneels
In the vacuum of the Universe, there is no sound, no temperature.
In the absolute zero of dead silence,
Shen Che's black figure hovered in low Earth orbit, three hundred kilometers above the Earth's atmosphere.
He wore no life-support equipment. His bespoke black suit fluttered slightly in the zero-gravity environment.
Less than ten thousand kilometers ahead,
the super-giant solar flare, judged by NASA to be enough to bake the Earth dry, was like an endless wall of fire, rolling and rushing towards Earth.
A deep-red torrent of plasma, carrying temperatures of millions of degrees.
The energy flow at the front of the flare had already touched the edge of Earth's magnetic field.
The moment they made contact, Earth's magnetic field distorted under the unbearable strain.
Auroras flashed wildly in the polar regions, blindingly bright.
But in Shen Che's eyes,
this stellar flame, capable of swallowing galaxies, was nothing more than a slightly larger bonfire.
On Earth,
the lenses of thousands of communication satellites now all turned in the same direction,
locking onto that seemingly insignificant little black dot in space.
Billions of people around the globe stared intently at this scene through televisions, mobile phones, and giant plaza screens.
In the news studio in Metropolis,
the white-haired old NASA expert felt his legs go weak, sliding down from his swivel chair to kneel on the coffee-stained carpet.
His hands gripped the edge of the monitor tightly.
His reading glasses fell to the floor and shattered. He leaned in close to the screen, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.
"This violates astrophysics... he has no protection..." the old expert mumbled, his lips trembling.
In the underground bunker in Washington,
the President and a crowd of high-ranking officials squeezed into the narrow command room.
No one spoke. Only heavy breathing echoed through the air-raid shelter.
The President's palms were drenched in sweat, making the handle of the nuclear football in his hand creak under his grip.
On the streets of Paris, the plazas of London, and the intersections of Tokyo,
the riots stopped. The wailing at car crash scenes fell silent.
The entire World had pressed the pause button.
Billions of people held their breath, their lungs aching from the tension.
They were waiting—waiting for the judgment of that god, or waiting for the destruction of Earth.
In space,
the wall of fire from the flare had already approached to a distance visible to the naked eye.
Violent thermal radiation crossed the vacuum, hitting Shen Che's face.
Shen Che didn't feel any heat.
This temperature, capable of vaporizing steel in an instant, didn't even register as a warm breeze to him.
He felt a bit bored.
He didn't act like the superheroes in those movies,
striking an exaggerated pose with hands pushed forward, teeth gritted, clashing energy against energy.
Nor did he summon any fancy, showy protective shield.
His hands remained casually slipped into his suit pants pockets.
He only raised his head slightly,
looking at the sea of fire that blotted out the sky.
And then,
he opened his mouth
and took a deep breath.
This was an action that completely defied the laws of physics.
There is no air in a vacuum.
But the moment Shen Che opened his mouth,
the cosmic void for hundreds of thousands of kilometers around suddenly warped.
Silver Age Superman's Super Breath was not about inhaling oxygen.
Instead, it directly emptied the conceptual energy of the surrounding void.
Cosmic background radiation, dark matter, and even light were forcibly pulled in at this moment,
forming a massive, invisible vortex.
The center of the vortex was Shen Che's mouth.
His chest, clad in a white shirt,
rose slightly.
He didn't swell into some exaggerated, monstrous shape; it was just the normal expansion of an ordinary person taking a deep breath.
But it was this tiny rise and fall
that caused every gravity monitor on Earth to max out completely in this second, their needles snapping right off the dials.
Shen Che closed his mouth.
His lungs subjected the inhaled conceptual energy
to a brutal compression.
The temperature inside his body plummeted rapidly,
breaking past the lower limits of thermodynamics and approaching the absolute zero that freezes time and space.
Then,
facing the overwhelming stellar fire ahead,
Shen Che gently blew out a breath.
"Whoosh—"
No sound could be heard in the vacuum.
But in the minds of the billions of people on Earth staring at the satellite feeds, a dull howling wind seemed to echo simultaneously.
A white cold wave
gushed out from Shen Che's mouth.
At first, this cold wave was only as thick as a finger.
But the moment it left his lips, it expanded wildly in a fan shape.
One kilometer, one hundred kilometers, ten thousand kilometers...
The white absolute-zero storm swept out at a speed far exceeding the speed of light.
Under this cold wave, cosmic space actually cracked with a bizarre, ice-crystal-like texture.
That was the physical manifestation of space itself being frozen.
The cold wave collided head-on with the wall of fire from the million-degree flare.
There was no explosion, no sky-splitting clash of energy.
It was simply an overwhelming, crushing defeat.
Within 0.01 seconds of contact with the white cold wave, the red plasma torrent
was instantly extinguished.
It was like someone blowing out a tiny candle on a birthday cake.
Effortless, without the slightest trouble.
That stellar breath, which could have baked the Earth dry, didn't leave even a single spark behind.
It dissipated directly into a cloud of cold cosmic dust.
The aftershocks of the white storm continued forward,
sweeping past Jupiter's orbit and the edge of the Solar System,
freezing the Asteroid Belt along the way into crushed ice,
before finally dissipating into the pitch-black deep space.
The crisis was resolved.
The blood-orange hue hanging over Earth's head vanished without a trace.
The night returned to calm. Starlight once again penetrated the atmosphere, showering Earth's surface.
In the satellite feed, that black figure still hovered in orbit.
His suit didn't even have a single extra crease.
Shen Che smacked his lips.
The freezing breath had made his lips a bit dry. He licked his lower lip with the tip of his tongue.
And then,
with his hands in his pants pockets and his legs together,
he dove headfirst like a diver, falling vertically toward Earth.
Manhattan.
The top floor of Vought Tower.
On the 112th floor, a large hole was blown in the ceiling of the CEO's office.
The mahogany paneling was burned to charcoal, and the obsidian floor was shattered to pieces.
A wild wind poured in through the hole.
Shen Che's figure landed silently in the middle of the messy office.
He patted his shoulder, flicking off a few shards of ice he had picked up in outer space.
His leather shoes crunched as he stepped on the broken glass.
He walked over to the leather swivel chair, which was covered in a thick layer of white frost.
He turned around and sat down.
He casually propped his long legs up on the ruined obsidian desk.
He picked up the frozen glass of Bordeaux wine at the corner of the desk, which he hadn't finished earlier.
Exerting a slight pressure with his fingers,
the ice in the glass cracked and shattered, and the red wine melted back into liquid.
He took a sip; the flavor was a bit diluted.
At this moment, Earth
fell into a dead silence that lasted for a full three minutes.
There was no cheering, no celebration of surviving the disaster.
There was only pure, bone-deep fear.
The brains of billions of people collectively shut down at this moment.
In Metropolis's Starlight Plaza,
the male news anchor holding a microphone
felt his knees buckle.
With a thud, he knelt on the melting asphalt road.
The scalding asphalt burned through his trousers, his flesh sizzling.
But he couldn't feel the pain.
The microphone in his hand fell to the ground and rolled into a puddle.
He looked up, staring at the man drinking wine in the office on the giant screen,
all life draining from his eyes, leaving only a blank stare.
In Washington's underground bunker,
the nuclear football in the President's hand fell onto the concrete floor with a clang.
The handle of the briefcase was soaked with his sweat.
This old man, the most powerful person in the nation,
felt his legs go weak and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
He gasped for breath, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
Nuclear weapons? Armies? Technology?
In front of the man who could casually blow out the Sun,
these proud trump cards were worse than a few pieces of moldy scrap metal.
He buried his face deep in his knees, clutching his head in his hands, his body shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.
Gotham City.
In the luxury penthouse private room of the Iceberg Lounge,
the Penguin, Cobblepot, slumped in his executive chair.
The diamond-encrusted long-handled umbrella in his hand fell onto the thick carpet.
The diamonds on the umbrella handle glinted coldly under the lights.
The Penguin's expensive custom suit was drenched in sweat.
The fat on his face trembled violently.
His monocle slipped from his eye socket, hanging from the gold chain on his chest.
"Madman... monster..."
His lips trembled as he repeated those two words over and over.
He had spent his entire life in the underworld, knowing how to deal with madmen and negotiate with thugs.
But he didn't know how to negotiate with a god.
A god who could casually blow out half the Solar System.
Gripping the edge of the desk, he slid down from his chair with great difficulty.
His obese body lay sprawled on the carpet like a lump of rotten meat.
Two-Face, Harvey Dent, stood by the window of the abandoned courthouse.
The scarred coin in his hand fell onto the windowsill.
He didn't go to pick it up.
The muscles on his scarred, half-burned face twitched out of sheer terror.
He fell to his knees, burying his head deep between his arms.
The entire Earth.
From the top leaders of various nations to the financial giants of Wall Street,
from Gotham's psychotic villains to the beggars wandering the streets—
billions of people,
in the face of this miracle that exceeded the limits of human cognition,
had their psychological defenses completely shattered.
Without any organization or discussion,
in unison,
their knees buckled, and they fell to the ground in worship.
Facing the direction of Manhattan, New York, toward that ruined Vought Tower,
they offered up a faith born of absolute terror.
In front of this man, resistance became the most ridiculous joke.
They finally understood
that this World had truly gained a new Master.
An unreasonable, bottomless,
plutocratic deity who only cared about money and mood.
Chapter 62: Wonder Woman Leaves the Island, She Thinks I'm a Tyrant
Earth went quiet.
Hours ago, the chaos, riots, and honking cars in Metropoliswere all flattened by a terror that stemmed from the bone marrow.
The melted asphalt road surface was hot enough to fry an egg.
Those suited politicians knelt in the asphalt. Their knees were burned raw, and no one dared to stand up.
The generals in the Washington fallout shelter lowered their heads.
Billions of knees. All facing the same direction.
New York. Manhattan.
That man in a black suit who froze a solar flare with a single breath of cold air.
Trampled this Planet into his own private property in the most brutal way.
But deep in the Aegean Sea.
A huge translucent energy shield covered the sea surface.
Outside the barrier, gales raged. Inside the barrier, it was spring all year round.
Paradise Island.
The territory of the Amazon female warriors.
This was the only piece of land on Earth that did not kneel to Shen Che.
The Amazon temple was built at the highest point of the cliff.
Twelve huge white Ionic stone pillars supported the dome.
The sea breeze poured through the stone pillars, stirring the rolling of white gauze curtains.
Right in the center of the temple.
Diana stood in front of that faintly glowing magic pool.
Ancient bronze runes were embedded around the pool.
There was not a single ripple on the water surface, like a flat golden mirror.
Inside the mirror, everything happening outside was being played.
Diana wore a loose white silk robe.
She was barefoot. Her toes tightly gripped the cold marble floor from the exertion.
The gods of Greece had passed down an oracle an hour ago.
Deep within the temple, that dozens-of-meters-tall statue of Zeus split a half-foot-wide crack from the center of its brow.
Pebbles smashed onto the floor tiles.
A muffled thunder came from inside the statue, carrying the panic of Mount Olympus.
The gods were warning Paradise Island.
An anomaly had appeared in the outside World, a monster attempting to usurp divine authority and disrupt the balance of the Universe.
Diana stared fixedly at the magic pool.
The images in the water surface switched back and forth.
She saw Shen Che sitting in the ruins on the top floor of Vought Tower.
Holding a glass of red wine in his hand, his leather shoes stepping on Clark's chest.
Pinning that man known as the body of steel into the mud pit like stepping on a dead dog.
The image shifted again.
The bank robbery on Fifth Avenue.
High-pressure water cannons blew away the civilians kowtowing and begging for help in the square.
An old man crashed into a street lamp pole, bleeding from his head.
Shen Che stood on the steps, looking at the tragic sight below, with not a shred of temperature in his eyes.
"Hand over money, live. Refuse, and die."
Shen Che's cold voice crossed thousands of kilometers.
Through the magic pool, it brought about a burst of echo in the empty temple.
This sentence was like a red-hot iron nail, piercing fiercely into Diana's ears.
Diana's chest heaved violently.
Her breathing became heavy, and the sea breeze blew her black hair somewhat disheveled.
Her hands gripped the edge of the pool.
Her finger knuckles turned white.
"Crack, crack."
The hard millennial marble was forcibly pinched with several cracks by her fingers.
Stone powder rustled down into the pool, sending golden ripples spreading.
She had lived for more than five thousand years.
She had fought Nazis and beheaded the God of War.
She had seen countless greedy dictators, and had seen the madness of Ares instigating Carnage.
But Ares only used human desires.
Those tyrants of the old era would at least put on a high-sounding cloak.
And this man named Shen Che in the screen.
He was even too lazy to pull away his fig leaf.
He directly hung human lives on the trading board, like pork sold by weight in a vegetable market.
Poor people who couldn't afford their lives deserved to be flushed into the sewers by water cannons.
Diana clenched her teeth, the masseter muscles on her cheeks bulging into a hard lump.
The tip of her tongue pressed against her upper palate.
The blood of an Amazon warrior flowed in her bones.
She believed in pure justice, and the glory of protecting the weak.
Shen Che's actions threw the things she had adhered to for thousands of years onto the ground and trampled them wantonly.
"A tyrant."
Diana squeezed these words out from between her teeth.
She looked at Shen Che's condescending and arrogant posture, looking at that black suit representing capital and power.
In her eyes, this was simply a male tyrant blinded by power and extremely selfish.
Earth was not his private playground.
This kind of monster that extorted all mankind by relying on brute force must be judged.
"Diana."
The sound of armor collision came from the entrance of the temple.
Amazon Queen Hippolyta walked in in big strides.
She wore golden battle armor, holding a bronze spear in her hand, the tip of the spear tapping crisp sounds on the ground.
Hippolyta stopped by the pool, looking at her daughter's taut profile.
"The thunder of the gods is trembling."
The queen looked up at the cracked statue of Zeus.
"The puff of cold air exhaled by that man extinguished half of the holy fire on Mount Olympus."
Diana turned around.
She did not look at the statue, casting her gaze toward the armory on the right side of the temple.
"He is insulting life, Mother."
She strode out with her long legs, stepping barefoot on the floor tiles with large steps.
"He makes the entire Earth kneel. He is building a slave yard that only recognizes money."
Hippolyta's brows twisted into a knot.
She quickly chased up and grabbed Diana's arm.
"The oracle is a warning! Not an offensive order!"
The queen's fingers gripped tightly, her bracers pressing against Diana's skin.
"He is not Ares. He blew out the solar flare!"
"What will you use to judge him? Will you take your sword to your death?"
Diana stopped in her tracks.
She turned her head, her black eyes staring straight at her mother.
"The Amazons have never learned to close their eyes and pretend to be blind."
She flipped her wrist, rudely shaking off Hippolyta's hand.
"If power can cover up all sins, if gods can slaughter civilians at will without paying a price,"
Diana pointed at the turbulent sea outside.
"Then what have we practiced swords for thousands of years on this island for?"
"To be like those billions of people, finding a place where no one is to kneel and tremble?"
Hippolyta was speechless.
She knew this daughter too well.
Diana's stubbornness was like the hardest reef at the edge of Paradise Island. The waves could not shatter it, and lightning could not split it.
Once she determined that it was evil, she would definitely go and overturn that table.
"This is a provocation to justice." Diana turned back around.
"And an insult to all warriors."
She strode into the armory.
She reached out and grabbed the collar of the white silk robe.
Pulled hard.
The silk tore. The robe slipped to the ground, revealing her explosive and well-built body.
She walked toward the mahogany weapon rack.
Taking down the red and blue battle armor symbolizing the highest glory of the Amazon.
The golden battle hawk emblem on her chest flashed with a sharp edge under the cold light.
The metal buckles clicked.
She put the armor on her body, tightening the leather straps around her waist, squeezing out hard lines.
Next were the silver bracers.
"Click. Click."
Two heavy silver bracers were buckled onto her arms.
This was a divine artifact forged from the fragments of Zeus's shield, capable of withstanding the magical bombardment of gods.
She clenched her fists, the edges of the bracers rubbing against each other, making a harsh metallic sound.
Turning around and walking to the stone platform.
A rope emitting dazzling golden light coiled quietly on it.
The lasso of truth.
Diana reached out and grabbed the rope, the golden light circulating in her palms, bringing a trace of burning sensation.
She skillfully coiled the lasso of truth into a circle, hanging it on the belt hook on the right side of her battle armor.
Finally.
She gripped the black hilt with both hands.
Pulling out that Sword of the Fire God little by little from the scabbard.
The blade rubbed against the leather scabbard, making a long metallic dragon roar.
An azure magic halo flowed on the blade. This sword had cut open the throats of old gods and severed the heads of demons.
She carried the long sword on her back, the hilt crossing her right shoulder for easy drawing at any time.
Her left hand grabbed a heavy bronze round shield.
Her battle boots stepped on the floor tiles.
Fully armed, Wonder Woman walked out of the armory.
Hippolyta stood in the empty temple, watching her.
The queen sighed, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes deepening.
"That man's power has no upper limit, Diana."
"He is a monster that leaps outside the rules."
"Then go test his upper limit."
Diana did not stop, striding toward the bronze gates of the temple.
"There is no god that does not bleed. If there is,"
She pushed open the dozens-of-tons-heavy bronze doors with both hands.
The sea breeze rushed towards her face, blowing the black hair in front of her forehead.
"Then I will personally smash a gap on his divine throne."
The edge of Paradise Island.
The translucent magic barrier rippled in mid-air.
For thousands of years, this layer of water ripples had isolated the prying eyes of countless outsiders.
Diana walked to the end of the beach.
The sea breeze slapped her red battle boots.
She did not look back at this island.
Her right hand backhanded and grasped the hilt of the Sword of the Fire God behind her.
Stepping out in big strides.
Her body passed through the magic barrier.
Ripples surged. Her entire person melted into the Worldoutside that was shrouded in panic.
She swore.
To use the sharpness of divine artifacts to make that arrogant false god bleed.
Chapter 63: Diana Draws Her Sword to Challenge, Unable to Even Pierce My Skin
Diana's right foot stepped out of the magic barrier.
The salty waves of the Aegean Sea rolled up, wetting her red combat boots.
The cold wind outside the barrier blew against her face, carrying away the last trace of warmth from Paradise Island.
She did not look back.
With her right hand, she reached back and drew the sword of hephaestus.
The crisp, lingering ring of the blade leaving its scabbard echoed in the sea breeze.
Her legs bent slightly, her combat boots crushing the reef beneath her feet.
*Bang!*
A red and blue afterimage soared into the air.
A sonic boom cloud blasted a massive circle of white water across the sea.
She flew straight toward New York.
Her target: Manhattan, Vought Tower.
The sky over New York had returned to calm.
After the solar flare was blown out, all that remained was the asphalt on the streets, half-melted by the high temperature.
The top floor of Vought Tower. The 112th floor.
The outer wall that had several large holes smashed into it had just been temporarily repaired with explosion-proof glass by the engineering department.
Shen Che leaned back in the leather sofa.
Holding an unlit half-cigar in his hand.
In the clouds outside the window.
His Super Hearing had long since caught a sharp sonic boom.
It wasn't a civil airliner, nor a military fighter jet.
The sound carried the metallic vibration of a cold weapon slicing through the air.
Its speed was incredibly fast.
Shen Che tossed the cigar onto the coffee table.
He didn't dodge, nor did he even change his posture.
He propped his chin up with one hand, his eyelids half-drooped.
Three seconds later.
*Crash!*
The explosion-proof glass wall that had been installed less than an hour ago.
Was once again violently shattered to pieces.
Large shards of glass rained down like hail onto the Persian carpet.
The fierce wind, carrying the coldness of the high altitude, poured inside.
Diana landed in front of the obsidian desk.
Her combat boots stepped on the glass shards, making a harsh crunching sound.
She held a bronze shield in her left hand and gripped the sword of hephaestus at an angle in her right.
Her long black hair danced wildly in the wind.
In her eyes burned the twin fires of an Amazon warrior's rage.
"Shen Che."
She spoke, her voice carrying a metallic resonance, powerful and resonant.
"You are a tyrant who tramples on life."
Diana pointed the tip of her sword at Shen Che's face.
Upon the blade's edge, a deep blue magical glow was flowing.
"You have turned the World into your slave pen, letting fear rule the common people."
"The Amazons will never bow to tyranny, let alone kneel to a false god like you."
Shen Che looked at her.
He looked at her red-and-blue armor, and at the golden eagle emblem.
He didn't even stand up.
His posture of propping up his chin with one hand remained unchanged.
His eyes held a casual, spectating indifference.
"Another one trying to reason with me."
Shen Che sighed.
"Do all of you who dress so flamboyantly have to prepare a lengthy speech for your grand entrance?"
He pointed at the glass shards on the floor.
"This glass, plus the installation fee."
"This is already the third time today."
Shen Che's tone was filled with undisguised mockery.
"When you're trying to kill someone, can you just get straight to the point?"
Diana's breathing grew heavy.
In her five thousand years of life, she had never seen such an arrogant outlaw who treated life, death, and divine authority as a joke.
Rage instantly incinerated her last shred of restraint.
"Die!"
She wasted no more words.
Exerting sudden force with her left leg, her combat boots cracked the marble floor beneath her.
Diana leaped high into the air.
Gripping the hilt tightly with both hands, she raised the sword of hephaestus high above her head.
Infusing it with divine power.
The magical glow on the blade's edge instantly doubled, the blue light blinding.
This sword had once slit the throats of Old Gods and severed the bodies of demons.
An artifact rumored to be capable of slicing through matter at the atomic level.
Carrying a screech that tore through the air.
It thrust fiercely toward Shen Che's heart.
The distance was too close, the speed too fast.
Shen Che did not dodge, nor did he raise a hand to block.
He still leaned back on the sofa, watching the sword plunge toward his chest.
"Clang—!"
A crisp, deafening metallic clash.
Exploded inside the CEO's office.
The sound was as loud as two bronze bells being struck right next to one's ears at the same time.
The sound waves instantly shattered the coffee cup on the desk into porcelain shards.
The sword of hephaestus.
Was firmly planted against the fabric of Shen Che's suit over his chest.
No blood splattered.
There was no dull sound of piercing flesh.
Diana gripped the hilt with all her might.
She felt as if her full-force strike had not pierced a body of flesh and blood.
But had instead struck an immovable cosmic singularity.
It had failed to penetrate even half a millimeter.
In fact, not even a single white mark was left on Shen Che's custom-tailored suit jacket.
Diana's pupils dilated in shock.
A massive recoil surged back along the blade.
*Crack.*
Under this terrifying recoil, the blade of the sword of hephaestus.
Bent into an exaggerated half-moon arc.
Its magical glow flickered wildly, like a short-circuiting light bulb.
Then.
With a sharp snap.
This proud Amazonian artifact.
Under Diana's unbelieving gaze.
Snapped directly into two halves from the middle.
The broken half of the blade spun through the air.
With a *shhhk* sound.
It embedded itself into the nearby mahogany wainscoting, sinking in up to the hilt.
Diana was forced half a step back by the recoil.
The webs of her thumbs instantly split open.
Blood flowed along her palm lines, dripping onto the glass shards on the carpet.
She held the broken sword, of which only half remained.
The hilt was still trembling.
This was impossible.
That was a sword forged by Hephaestus himself, imbued with the magical blessings of the Olympian gods.
Yet it couldn't even pierce a man's skin?
Shen Che slowly lowered the hand propping up his chin.
He looked down, glancing at his chest.
"This sword..."
He curled his lips.
"...is too dull even to chop firewood."
He raised his head.
His gaze bypassed the broken sword.
And fell directly on Diana's waist.
There, a rope emitting a blinding golden light was hanging.
Shen Che reached out.
Reaching toward the lasso of truth.
Chapter 64: lasso of truth? I'll Tie You Up on Vought TowerInstead
Shen Che's index finger had just touched a speck of golden light on the edge of the lasso of truth.
Diana's eyes twitched violently, her sanity forcefully dragged back from the shock of the sword of hephaestusshattering.
Her battle instincts reacted for her.
She tossed aside her bronze round shield with her left hand, and it hit the floor with a dull clang.
With a flick of her right hand, she threw the broken half of the sword at her feet.
Her hands naturally reached down to her waist.
She yanked off the lasso of truth, which was radiating a blinding golden light.
*Whoosh.*
The golden rope whipped through the air, leaving a dazzling afterimage like a nimble golden viper.
Accompanied by the howling wind, it violently lashed toward Shen Che's neck.
The speed was too fast, and the distance too close.
The golden rope wrapped twice around Shen Che's neck, tightening in a death grip.
Diana kicked back with her feet, her combat boots plowing two shallow grooves through the pile of shattered glass.
Using her body weight, she pulled back hard.
The rope stretched taut.
"Kneel!"
Diana barked, her voice carrying the majesty of an Amazonwarrior.
Crossing her hands, she tightly gripped the end of the golden rope.
The muscles in her arms bulged, and her armor's bracers scraped together, producing a screeching metallic sound.
She channeled all her power into activating the magic of the divine artifact.
The lasso of truth was not only indestructible.
Its most terrifying aspect was its ability to forcefully break through a living being's psychological defenses.
It forced the bound victim to confess their deepest, innermost fears, causing them to break down mentally and submit.
The golden light on the lasso flared brilliantly, illuminating the entire office.
The mysterious magical power, like an invisible awl, surged along the rope and drilled frantically into Shen Che's mind.
Diana stared fixedly at Shen Che.
She waited to see a look of terror on his face, waited to hear this tyrant confess the filth and fears hidden deep in his heart.
Then, the golden light on the lasso flickered.
*Sizzle—*
It made a sound like a short-circuiting electrical leak.
The brilliant golden light, which was bright enough to illuminate the entire penthouse floor...
...the moment it touched Shen Che's skin...
...was like a cheap light bulb having its plug pulled.
With a soft *pop*...
...it went out completely.
The golden light dissipated entirely.
The divine artifact gifted by the Olympian gods...
...now hung around Shen Che's neck, its color so dull it looked like an ordinary yellow nylon rope that had been left out for ten years.
Not even a trace of magical fluctuations could be felt from it.
Diana was stunned.
The rope in her hand suddenly felt light, and the divine power connected to her bloodline was forcefully severed.
The status panel of the Silver Age Superman.
Physical damage nullified. Absolute immunity to magical interference.
In front of a monster like Shen Che who transcended dimensions, the so-called Greek pantheon magic...
...was not even comparable to a static discharge.
Shen Che leaned back against the leather chair.
He didn't kneel, nor did he utter a single word of fear.
He raised his hand and tugged at the dull rope tightening around his collar.
"This glowing dog leash is the source of your confidence to judge me?"
He sneered.
In his pitch-black eyes, the mockery was thick and unmistakable.
Diana clenched her jaw, her cheeks bulging with anger.
"I am Diana, Princess of the Amazons..."
She loudly proclaimed her identity, trying to channel her divine power into the lasso once more to reactivate it.
Before she could finish stating her name...
...Shen Che's right hand grabbed back, seizing the segment of the rope around his neck.
With a slight twist of his wrist...
...he yanked it violently toward himself.
There were no fancy techniques, just pure, irresistible brute strength.
"Ah!"
Diana let out a short gasp of surprise.
Her feet instantly left the ground. Weighing over two hundred pounds, plus the heavy armor, she was pulled directly into the air by this immense force.
She lost her balance in mid-air.
Like a kite with its string cut, she pitched forward.
*Thud.*
Diana slammed heavily onto the obsidian desk.
Her chin struck the hard stone surface, scraping off a layer of skin.
Her armor scraped against the desk, making a screeching sound.
Before she could even push herself up...
...Shen Che had already stood up from his swivel chair.
...He moved so fast he was nothing but an afterimage.
He pinned Diana's back with his left hand, pressing her firmly against the desk.
In his right hand, he held the lasso of truth, which had lost its magical luster.
The rope looped twice in the air...
...and bound Diana's wrists with absolute precision.
*Click. Click.*
Shen Che's knotting technique was brutal, showing absolutely no tenderness.
In just two seconds...
...he had tied Diana's hands securely behind her back.
The knot was tied extremely tight, the lasso cutting deep into the flesh at the edge of her armor.
Diana struggled with all her might.
Her legs kicked wildly, her combat boots smashing the carved mahogany on the side of the desk to pieces.
But the hand pressing down on her back was like a mountain of cast iron.
Her proud demigod strength felt as weak as an unweaned infant under his palm.
Although the lasso of truth had lost its magic, its material as a divine artifact remained unchanged.
Not even Superman could break this material, and now it had become the perfect tool to bind her.
"You bastard! Let me go!"
Diana turned her head and glared at Shen Che, her eyes red with humiliation.
"Save your strength, Princess."
Shen Che grabbed the knot binding Diana's hands with one hand.
He lifted her up.
Diana was lifted into the air by him like a large trophy.
Her combat boots kicked futilely half a foot off the ground.
Carrying her, Shen Che turned and walked toward the shattered floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside, the cold wind of Manhattan's high altitude rushed in, making it hard to keep one's eyes open.
At a height of one hundred and twelve stories, looking down, cars and pedestrians were reduced to tiny black dots.
Shen Che walked to the edge of the window.
He didn't throw Diana down.
He wrapped the other end of the lasso of truth around the wrist-thick lightning rod frame outside the window.
He pulled it tight.
He tied a knot.
Then, he let go.
Diana's body plummeted under the force of gravity.
*Thud.*
The rope snapped taut.
She was hung upside down, dangling from the outer wall of the Vought Tower over a hundred stories high.
The howling wind immediately engulfed her.
The cold air seeped through the gaps in her armor, blowing her messy hair all over her face.
"Tyrant! You will pay for this!"
Diana swung in mid-air.
With her hands tied behind her back, she tried to use her waist's flexibility to arch her body and reach the knot.
But the lasso of truth was bound too tightly; the more she struggled, the deeper it cut.
The skin on her wrists was chafed raw, oozing tiny beads of blood.
She couldn't break free from her own divine artifact.
She could only hang like a billboard outside this glass curtain wall that represented corporate power.
Swaying helplessly in the wind.
Shen Che stood by the window, looking at the gnashing Goddess of War outside.
He ignored her shouting.
He turned and walked back to the center of the office.
His leather shoes kicked away the shattered glass and broken sword on the floor.
He dragged over a backless bar stool and moved it next to the floor-to-ceiling window.
He sat down.
He took a clean crystal glass from the nearby wine cabinet.
He poured half a glass of the unfinished Bordeaux red wine.
The wine sloshed in the glass, its color resembling blood.
Shen Che held the glass, his long legs casually crossed.
Through the ruined window frame, he looked at Diana, who was hanging upside down outside and still struggling in vain.
"Are you tired of screaming?"
Shen Che took a sip of the red wine.
His voice was flat, carrying a composure that drove Dianacrazy.
"If you're tired, shut up and listen to me."
He tapped his finger twice against the rim of the glass.
A crisp clink of glass echoed.
Shen Che leaned forward slightly, his gaze turning cold.
"Today, I'll teach you a lesson."
Chapter 65: Giving Wonder Woman a Lesson, Justice Can't Save Earth
A crystal goblet swayed slightly at Shen Che's fingertips.
Ice cubes struck the walls of the glass, producing a crisp "clang, clang" sound.
The sound passed through the tattered window frame into the howling wind outside.
Shen Che sat on a high stool.
His suit trousers were crisp and straight, and the tips of his leather shoes tapped against the broken glass on the carpet.
He looked out the window.
Diana was suspended upside down from the lightning rod, and the lasso of truth had left a ring of bloody welts around her wrists.
She swayed in mid-air like a pendulum, the metal scales of her armor rubbing together with a clicking sound.
She gritted her teeth, the muscles on her cheeks bulging from the strain.
Her black hair was blown across her face, making her look somewhat disheveled, but her gaze remained unyielding.
Shen Che was in no hurry to speak.
He picked up his glass and took a sip of Bordeaux red wine.
The wine slid past his Adam's apple.
He raised his empty left hand and pointed down at his feet.
That was the night view of Manhattan.
After the solar flare in Metropolis was blown out, the chaos on the New York side stopped as well.
But there were still burned-out car skeletons and shattered storefront glass all over the streets.
"Put away your ridiculous theory of justice, Princess."
Shen Che's voice was very calm, lacking any passionate preachiness, as if he were stating a boring fact.
"You spent five thousand years on Paradise Island."
"Come out and take a look at these people. See what they really are."
Diana spun half a circle in mid-air, facing downward.
She looked at Shen Che.
"They are suffering! What qualification do you, a tyrant enjoying power, have to judge them?"
Diana's voice was hoarse, the wind having dried out her throat.
"Suffering?"
Shen Che let out a short laugh, his chest vibrating.
"They suffer because of their own greed and cowardice."
"Do you think that by playing the superhero and saving people everywhere, they will be grateful to you?"
Shen Che tapped his fingers twice against the rim of the glass.
"Take a look at that bumpkin flying around the sky in red briefs."
"He knocked a robber out of a jewelry store and saved people. And what was the result?"
"The store owner demanded two million in compensation, and passersby cursed him as a mutant maniac."
Shen Che looked into Diana's slightly widened eyes.
"This is your so-called humanity."
"You save them once, and they take it for granted."
"You save them a hundred times, and the moment you arrive late just once, they will nail you to a cross and curse you for not coming sooner."
Diana froze for a moment.
She wanted to refute him, but flashes of humans slaughtering each other when Ares instigated wars flickered through her mind.
The words stuck in her throat and couldn't come out.
Shen Che stood up.
He walked over to the windowsill and tilted the goblet in his hand.
The crimson wine poured out along the rim of the cup.
It landed on the cement edge of the windowsill.
Then, it trickled slowly down the glass curtain wall of the exterior wall like a thin line of blood.
"Deep down in their bones, humans fear might but do not cherish virtue."
Shen Che threw the empty glass onto the windowsill.
"You talk to them about justice, and capital will package you into a commodity."
"Selling your merchandise, making movies about you, and squeezing out every last drop of your utility."
He looked down condescendingly at the hanging Diana.
"Justice cannot save Earth."
"Only fear can."
Shen Che pressed his hands on the windowsill and leaned forward slightly.
"I put price tags on human lives. If you don't pay, you die."
"Sounds cruel, right?"
He pointed toward the distant Brooklyn district.
That was New York's famous slum, a gathering place for gangs and drug dealers.
Usually, there were gunshots every night.
But tonight, it was dead silent there; even the dogs didn't dare to bark.
"Look over there."
Shen Che's voice lowered, exuding a hair-raising coldness and stiffness.
"Because of my rules. Because I casually burned down a street."
"Now the entire New York. The entire Gotham."
"Those lawless scum are all hiding in the sewers shivering."
"The crime rate has dropped to zero."
Shen Che looked at Diana.
"You've swung your sword for thousands of years and killed thousands of villains. Have you ever achieved this?"
Diana looked along the direction of his finger.
The wind made her eyes sting.
She saw that dark, dead-silent neighborhood.
No firelight. No gunshots. Only a suffocating calm.
That was absolute order born of fear.
Diana's breathing grew heavier.
She clenched her back teeth.
"You're a madman."
She cursed loudly, her voice cracking slightly in the wind.
"This is enslavement! Not peace!"
"Call it whatever you want."
Shen Che turned around and walked back behind his desk.
"The result is that Earth operates obediently under my rules."
He pulled open the swivel chair and sat down.
"The faith you built for thousands of years—protecting the weak, punishing the wicked and rewarding the good—"
"In front of my ledger, it isn't even worth a fraction."
Diana didn't curse anymore.
She hung upside down in mid-air, blood rushing back into her brain, her face flushed red.
She looked down at the city silenced by fear.
The string in her mind called justice—
Stretched tautly, then let out a faint, crisp snap.
A crack appeared.
Her perseverance of five thousand years was smashed by a few cold words from this man—
And this naked reality before her eyes, creating an unbridgeable gap.
Could it be that only tyranny can exchange for true peace?
Diana lowered her head.
Her chin pressed against her collarbone.
Her teeth bit hard into her chapped lower lip, beads of blood seeping out.
A trace of despair belonging to the God of War, mixed with confusion, had just crept into her dark eyes.
Right at this moment—
"Bang!"
The battered walnut double doors of the office—
Were rudely kicked open from the outside by a foot.
The door panel crashed against the rubber pad on the wall and bounced back violently.
Chloe walked in.
She had changed into a gray loungewear hoodie, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
She was holding a black tray in her hands, on which sat two cups of freshly brewed hot coffee.
The aroma of the coffee drifted away in the cold wind.
A sweet, credit-seeking smile hung on Chloe's face.
"Shen, I had someone go downstairs to buy hand-ground..."
Before she could finish her sentence—
Chloe's footsteps came to a halt.
Her blue eyes swept across the office, her gaze passing over the pile of broken glass.
And with absolute precision—
She caught sight of that woman hanging upside down on the lightning rod outside the window more than a hundred floors up.
Red and blue armor, long legs, black hair.
Although bound, that exotic face was dazzlingly pretty.
The smile on Chloe's face—
Froze instantly at the corners of her mouth.
The tray tilted slightly in her hands, and a few drops of scalding coffee splashed onto the back of her hand, but she didn't feel the heat.