Chapter 43: Through Time to Reunion
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Switzerland, 1920s
After leaving the battlefields of 1918, Lin Chen settled in Switzerland. He purchased a quiet lakeside villa overlooking the pristine waters, far from the chaos of the recovering world.
He spent his days perfecting his Matter Transmutation ability. He would take bags of ordinary stones and, with a simple touch, turn them into pure gold. Slowly, methodically, he built enormous wealth.
But Lin Chen was careful. He didn't just build wealth—he built a ghost network of banks and shell companies that would ensure he remained "The Richest Man No One Has Ever Met." His name never appeared in newspapers. His face was never photographed for public records.
Lin Chen traveled the world throughout the 1920s, moving from the rebuilding ruins of Europe to the untouched beauty of the Swiss Alps, from the bustling streets of New York to the ancient temples of Asia. He lived as an enigma—a young, refined tycoon who never aged, never drew attention, and never left traces.
By 1930, his Matter Transmutation had reached a new peak. He no longer needed to touch materials directly. He could simply gesture, and the carbon molecules in the air would crystallize into flawless diamonds. Nitrogen could become rare compounds. Lead could become gold.
He was becoming something beyond human, but he remained patient. I still have a long way to go before reaching Boundless tier again, he reminded himself.
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1943
During the height of World War II, Lin Chen was living in a coastal villa in Lisbon, Portugal—neutral ground where spies, refugees, and information brokers all mingled freely.
His mental power, allowed him to scan an entire city easily. He could sense every human, every conversation, every hidden movement within miles.
One evening, his mental scan detected an anomaly in a hidden alley near the docks. The energy signature was unlike anything from this era—it was futuristic and strange.
Lin Chen flew there silently, arriving within few seconds. He found a man wearing a strange brass-and-chrome suit, frantically recalibrating a device that looked like a pocket watch made of advanced technology.
Lin Chen's System activated automatically:
[CHARACTER STATUS]
Name: Per Degaton
Age: 30 (Living Paradox)
Strength: 140 kg
Physique: 1.7
Speed: 5.5 m/s
Mental Power: 7.8
Abilities:
- Time Paradox Immunity: As a living paradox, he is untethered from normal timeline cause-and-effect rules. Killing a younger version of him in the past would not erase his current existence—he exists as a glitch in the timeline that escaped erasure. However, he can still be harmed or killed in any specific moment in time.
- Genius Intellect (Temporal mechanics, weapons engineering, strategic planning)
Skills: Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced), Firearms (Advanced), Temporal Technology (Expert)
Lin Chen recalled what he knew about this villain. Per Degaton was a time-traveling conqueror from the future who repeatedly attempted to alter history to ensure his own reign. This version had clearly traveled back to World War II, intending to provide the Axis powers with advanced weapons technology.
If he succeeds, millions more will die, and the timeline could become unstable, Lin Chen thought.
Lin Chen stepped out of the shadows. "You're early, Degaton."
The time traveler spun around, his hand diving for a weapon at his belt—a chronal-blaster. "Who are you? You aren't in the historical records! How do you know my name?"
Lin Chen smiled calmly. "That's my best feature—I'm not in anyone's records."
Degaton fired without hesitation. A beam of compressed temporal energy shot toward Lin Chen, designed to age a target to old in seconds.
Lin Chen didn't move. The beam hit him directly.
But nothing happened. Because of his Immortality ability, Lin Chen's cells could not age or decay. His biology acted as an anchor against the time-accelerating effect.
[ABILITY ACQUIRED: TIME ACCELERATION]
"Impossible!" Degaton shouted in disbelief.
"I'm the part of history you can't read," Lin Chen replied, walking forward calmly.
Degaton panicked and slammed a button on his Chronos Disc—a device worn on his wrist. A Temporal Stasis Field exploded outward, freezing dust particles and even air molecules in the alley.
[ABILITY ACQUIRED: TIME FREEZE]
But Lin Chen felt the temporal freeze wash over him, then fade. His newly acquired Time Acceleration and time freeze gave him resistance. He moved through the frozen time like a ghost, his movements slightly slowed but still functional.
He reached out and gripped Degaton's wrist with crushing force.
"No! You can't—" Degaton's protest was cut short as Lin Chen ripped the Chronos Disc from his wrist and stored it in his System Space.
Then Lin Chen released a surge of lightning directly into Degaton's body. The time traveler screamed briefly before his body was reduced to ashes, scattering in the wind.
[TEMPORAL PARADOX IMMUNITY ACQUIRED]
Lin Chen retrieved the Chronos Disc from his System Space and examined it carefully. The technology was fascinating—decades, perhaps centuries ahead of anything in this era.
He put the device on his wrist and studied its controls. After several minutes of experimentation, he set the time coordinates to 1984 and activated it.
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1984
The world blurred and shifted. Lin Chen materialized in on a building he flew inside a museum in Washington D.C. at night. The building was empty and dark.
[ABILITY ACQUIRED: TIME TRAVEL]
He walked through the quiet halls until he found what he was looking for—a strange normal looking stone locked in a display case. The Dreamstone, an ancient artifact of immense power of wish Granting.
Lin Chen shattered the case easily and picked up the stone, feeling its strange energy. He stored it carefully in his System Space for future study.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: FUSING ALL TEMPORAL ABILITIES...]
[NEW ABILITY CREATED: TIME MANIPULATION]
Description: Can reverse, stop, and accelerate time. Time travel is possible. Current range of effect: City scale. Power and range will improve with Mental Power growth.
Additional Effect - Temporal Displacement: Can shift personal timeline forward or backward slightly, becoming out of phase with immediate reality. This allows energy attacks or physical objects to pass harmlessly through the body.
Lin Chen smiled. Now this is useful.
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2013
Lin Chen set the Chronos Disc to 2013 and activated it. He jumped forward through time, materializing in his Metropolis penthouse apartment.
The moment he arrived, he felt the shift in the atmosphere. Somewhere in the city, two godlike beings were about to clash.
The Superman and Zod fight, Lin Chen thought excitedly. This event will drop incredibly powerful Kryptonian attributes across the entire city. I need to be there.
He used his flight ability and an illusion technique to become invisible to human perception, then flew toward the sounds of destruction.
The battle was already underway. General Zod, a military commander from the dead planet Krypton, was fighting Superman—Earth's first known alien hero—in the heart of Metropolis.
The destruction was catastrophic. Every punch created shockwaves that shattered windows blocks away. They crashed through skyscrapers as if they were made of paper. Heat vision beams carved through steel and concrete like butter.
Lin Chen flew closer, staying invisible, and watched as Clark Kent—Superman—fought desperately against the more experienced Kryptonian warrior.
His System displayed Superman's status:
[CHARACTER STATUS]
Name: Kal-El (Kryptonian name), Clark Joseph Kent (Earth name)
Title: Superman
Species: Kryptonian
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Attributes:
- Strength: 34,425 tons
- Physique: 205,370
- Speed: 120,400 m/s
- Mental Power: 8.3
Abilities:
- Kryptonian Physiology: As a Kryptonian, near a yellow sun, his cells continuously absorb and store solar power, which improves his strength, physique, speed, brain processing, and grants additional abilities. Different colored sunlight produces different effects.
- Heat Vision: Releases concentrated heat beams with temperature up to 5,500°C
- Flight (via Bio-Field): Uses biological field to escape gravity and fly freely. Bio-field also protects surrounding objects and people from damage caused by his movements.
- Superbrain: Brain processing speed faster than supercomputers
- X-ray Vision: Can see through all objects and biological structures except lead
- Weaknesses: Red sun radiation, Kryptonite, Magic
Skills: Farming (Expert), Journalism (Advanced), Investigation (Intermediate), Hand-to-Hand Combat (Intermediate)
Lin Chen watched in awe as attributes began flowing into him from the intense combat:
[PHYSIQUE +10,839]
[STRENGTH +2,408 TONS]
[ABILITY ENHANCED: FLIGHT - Bio-Field Effect Added]
The battle intensified dramatically. Zod, having finally mastered his heat vision and flight abilities, gained the upper hand. He ripped off his armor, which had been limiting his movement, and attacked Superman with renewed ferocity.
[STRENGTH +3,250 TONS]
[ABILITY ACQUIRED: SUPERBRAIN]
[SPEED +12,085 m/s]
[PHYSIQUE +1,335.2]
The two Kryptonians clashed in mid-air with earth-shattering force. Zod hurled Superman through numerous skyscrapers. They grappled and shot upward, breaking through Earth's atmosphere into outer space.
Lin Chen followed at a distance, watching as they destroyed a Wayne Enterprises satellite during their struggle. Then they crashed back down, smashing into Metropolis Central Station.
[PHYSIQUE +3,460]
Inside the ruined station, the fight reached its climax. General Zod, realizing he was losing, opened his heat vision directly on a group of terrified civilians trapped in the corner.
Superman grappled Zod from behind, trying desperately to divert the deadly beams away from the innocent people.
But Zod wouldn't stop. His eyes burned brighter, inching closer to the civilians.
Superman had no choice. With a scream of anguish, he twisted Zod's head with all his strength and broke the General's neck.
[STRENGTH +3,570 TONS]
[PHYSIQUE +6,890]
Zod's body went limp and collapsed. Superman knelt beside the corpse, screaming in grief and trauma—he had just killed someone, even though it was necessary to save lives.
[MENTAL POWER +0.3]
Lois Lane rushed into the station moments later and embraced the devastated Superman, consoling him as he wept.
Lin Chen absorbed every attribute released during the battle, feeling his body grow exponentially stronger. But he didn't interfere—he let events play out exactly as history demanded.
After the battle ended, Superman flew back to his mother's home in Smallville, Kansas. Lin Chen remained in Metropolis, sensing the world's mixture of gratitude and fear toward this powerful alien.
I'm still not the strongest in this world, Lin Chen realized. I need to be careful and continue growing.
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Lin Chen used his Time Manipulation ability to jump forward three years to the next major event.
He arrived just as a monstrous creature—Doomsday—emerged from a Kryptonian scout ship. The beast had been created by Lex Luthor using General Zod's corpse and forbidden Kryptonian genetic technology.
Doomsday was a towering abomination of grey flesh, bone protrusions, and raw destructive power. It broke free from the ship and leaped into Heroes Park.
Superman pursued immediately. The two battled viciously, with Doomsday destroying the Superman memorial statue in the process. The creature's strength actually surpassed Superman's, but Clark managed to send it flying into a building.
Military helicopters opened fire on Doomsday, but bullets bounced harmlessly off its hide. Worse, the creature adapted—its skin became thicker and harder with each attack.
[ADAPTIVE EVOLUTION ACQUIRED]
[REGENERATION ACQUIRED]
Superman grabbed Doomsday and launched it into space.
[PHYSIQUE +4,905]
[STRENGTH +2,640 TONS]
The U.S. President, desperate to stop the monster, ordered a nuclear missile strike. General Swanwick carried out the command.
Superman saw the missile approaching and made a choice—he held Doomsday in place, determined to destroy the beast even at the cost of his own life.
The nuclear warhead detonated with a blast so massive it could be seen from Earth's surface. Lin Chen used Temporal Displacement to shift himself out of phase with reality, allowing the radiation and shockwave to pass harmlessly through him.
[PHYSIQUE +24,562]
Doomsday fell back to Earth, crashing onto Stryker's Island. Doomsday was far from dead—the nuclear explosion had only made it stronger. Its body regenerated and mutated, developing larger bone protrusions and a more massive physique.
[ENERGY ABSORPTION & PROJECTION ACQUIRED]
[PHYSIQUE +12,409]
[STRENGTH +16,789 TONS]
Batman arrived in his Batwing aircraft, firing powerful weapons at Doomsday to draw its attention. The creature followed Batman from Stryker's Island to an abandoned port in Gotham City.
Doomsday cornered Batman and prepared to kill him with an energy blast. But suddenly, Wonder Woman appeared, blocking the attack with her shield and bracelets.
[MENTAL POWER +0.5]
Superman recovered by yellow sunlight and charged from Earth's orbit, slamming into Doomsday and sending it crashing into a chemical storage silo. The resulting explosion was enormous.
Unable to contain the influx of power, Doomsday unleashed a devastating wave of energy that leveled the entire port. The Trinity—Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman—barely withstood the blast.
Emerging from the rubble, Doomsday roared with deadly intent.
Clark and Diana attacked in perfect coordination while Bruce tried to expose Doomsday to Kryptonite gas using specialized weapons. Superman left briefly to save Lois Lane from drowning and retrieved a Kryptonite spear from underwater.
Batman successfully deployed the Kryptonite gas, weakening Doomsday. Diana seized the opportunity and cut off the creature's arm with the Sword of Athena.
[SPEED +145 m/s]
[PHYSIQUE +28,450]
But a sharp skeletal protrusion immediately grew back in place of the severed arm. Diana managed to temporarily restrain Doomsday with her Lasso of Truth, holding the creature in place.
Superman saw that the only way to stop Doomsday was to risk his own life. Weakened by Kryptonite exposure himself, he charged forward and impaled Doomsday through the chest with the Kryptonite spear.
[STRENGTH +4,240 TONS]
[PHYSIQUE +23,045]
But the spear didn't pierce completely through. Doomsday, with its last strength, impaled Superman in return with the bone protrusion on its arm.
[PHYSIQUE +21,067]
[STRENGTH +2,386 TONS]
A mortally wounded Superman used his final reserves of strength to push the spear completely through Doomsday's body, finally killing the monster.
With a final bellow of agony, both hero and monster collapsed lifeless to the ground.
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Lin Chen watched from a distance as Diana held Superman's dying body, her face a mixture of grief and fierce resolve. Lois Lane and Batman stood nearby, both stunned by the sacrifice.
As the battle ended and emergency responders arrived, Diana turned to leave. But she stopped dead in her tracks.
She saw a figure standing on debris—a man she hadn't seen in ninety-eight years. A man who hadn't aged a single day since 1918.
"Lin?" Diana whispered, her mind struggling to reconcile the impossibility.
She had mourned him for nearly a century. She had believed he died in that plane explosion. But this was unmistakably Lin Chen, alive and exactly as she remembered.
A flash of fury crossed her face. "If you was alive,Where have you been?! " she wanted to scream. I mourned you for a hundred years!
But the anger evaporated in few unspoken movements, replaced by overwhelming relief and joy. The isolation that had defined her entire century was suddenly over.
Diana didn't move at first. She couldn't speak. Lin Chen simply walked toward her through the wreckage and debris, stopping just a foot away.
"You look exactly as I remember, Diana," he said softly, his voice the only calm sound in the destroyed city.
She finally reacted after conformation, launching herself at him with a desperate, all-encompassing embrace that nearly crushed his ribs if he was ordinary. She buried her face in his chest, silent tears flowing freely for the first time in decades.
Batman approached cautiously, his detective's mind already analyzing this unexpected development. Diana had mentioned Lin Chen once, years ago—the man she loved who died in World War I.
"Diana told me about you," Bruce Wayne said quietly. "You were supposed to be dead in world war."
"I got better," Lin Chen replied simply, still holding Diana.
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Days later, Lin Chen and Diana attended Clark Kent's funeral in Smallville. The small-town ceremony was intimate—just Clark's mother Martha, Lois Lane, Batman, and few neighbours.
Diana stood beside Lin Chen, holding his hand throughout the funeral. For the first time in a century, she didn't feel alone.
After the funeral, they walked together through the quiet Kansas countryside.
"Where will we go now?" Diana asked.
"Wherever you want," Lin Chen replied. "I have many place if you'd like privacy. Or we can stay in any city. It's your choice, Diana."
She squeezed his hand. "As long as you're with me, I don't care where we are."
They left Smallville together.
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[FINAL STATUS]
Name: Lin Chen
Sealed Power: Boundless 1st fold (Supreme) - Marvel Universe
Current Active Attributes:
- Strength: 35,344.2 tons
- Physique: 137,387.9
- Speed: 12,346 m/s (approximately Mach 36)
- Mental Power: 100.8
Abilities:
- Immortality
- Regeneration (Enhanced)
- Omnilingual
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- Flight (with Bio-Field protection)
- Wind Manipulation
- Telekinesis
- Matter Transmutation
- Electrokinesis
- Energy Absorption & Projection
- Truth Speak
- Time Manipulation (City Scale - includes Time Travel, Time Stop, Time Acceleration, Time Reversal, Temporal Displacement)
- Time Paradox Immunity
- Adaptive Evolution
- Superbrain
Skills:
Expert Rider(Expert)
- Driving (Expert)
- Street Fighting (Expert)
- Construction Work (Expert)
- Swimming (Expert)
- Hacking (Intermediate)
- Gun Shooting (Expert)
- Swordsmanship (Expert)
- Archery (Intermediate)
- Mechanical Knowledge (Intermediate)
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Abilities Explain
☆☆☆
Time Paradox Immunity
- Lin Chen becomes "untethered" from normal timeline cause-and-effect
- If someone changes the past to prevent his existence, he still exists and past events remain same as his killed past will be restored like permanent glitch as nothing happened
- Acts as a "glitch" in the timeline that cannot be erased by temporal manipulation
- Can still be harmed/killed in any specific moment, consciousness can still run through time travel and timeline changes won't erase him.
Time Manipulation (Fusion of all temporal abilities)
- Comprehensive Control: Can reverse, stop, accelerate, and travel through time
- Current Range: City scale (will expand with Mental Power growth)
- Temporal Displacement Sub-ability: Can shift his personal timeline slightly out of phase with reality, allowing attacks and objects to pass through him harmlessly
Adaptive Evolution
- Body automatically adapts to threats and injuries
- Each time damaged, becomes more resistant to that damage type
- Example: If burned, develops heat resistance; if cut, skin becomes tougher
- Evolution is permanent and cumulative
Regeneration (Enhanced)
- Can heal from severe injuries rapidly
- Makes him extremely difficult to kill through physical damage
Energy Absorption & Projection
- Can absorb various energy types: electricity, radiation, heat, kinetic force
- Absorbed energy makes him temporarily stronger
- Can project absorbed energy as powerful attacks
Superbrain
- Brain processing speed exceeds supercomputers
- Can analyze situations, calculate trajectories, and process information at superfast rates
- Enhances combat reflexes and strategic thinking
- Makes learning new skills extremely fast
Flight - Bio-Field Effect
- His existing flight now generates a protective bio-field
- Bio-field protects anything he carries from damage during high-speed movement
- Example: Can fly at supersonic speeds while carrying a normal person without harming them
- Bio-field prevents his own movements from creating destructive shockwaves
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