Multiverse: Deathstroke

Chapter 418: Ch.417 Changing Seas and Sands

Invisible light? Su Ming pondered while flying.

But if Saint Walker wanted to bait him, he wouldn't get the chance.

Those priests were all like that.

It's like walking down a street, where a fortune teller looks at you, shakes his head, sighs, turns away, and deliberately mutters something like "disaster of blood" under his breath.

Many people would be curious or feel some other impulse, chasing after him to ask for an explanation.

When Saint Walker said that line as they passed each other, it was probably the same routine, but it didn't work on Su Ming.

He had curiosity, but he understood Saint Walker's habits better.

That alien talked in riddles; everything he said was cryptic.

If he were to ask Saint Walker how he knew about the ring, he'd surely be met with a heap of unrelated answers—something like "the birds in the sky saw it," or "the heart hasn't moved; it was just the shadow."

It would seem like he said a lot, but it wouldn't actually be of any use.

At present, these things weren't important. Su Ming needed to prioritize the problems on Earth.

That ring, which was like a tattoo, was still imprinted on Su Ming's middle finger, though it no longer glowed.

It hadn't shattered or disappeared, which meant that Eclipse still hadn't truly perished. Su Ming had long known this.

That explosion, which almost sent him to his death, certainly caused some damage to Eclipse, but it hadn't completely destroyed it.

It was probably hiding once again—it was an entity that manipulated light and shadow by nature.

When he returned to Shangri-La, he almost thought he had taken the wrong route.

The once Potala-Palace-like castles were gone, and the mountainous city had been suddenly swallowed by yellow sand.

Pyramids and obelisks rose abruptly from the ground like bamboo shoots after rain, scattered everywhere.

The yellow sand filled the valleys and blocked the rivers, and the once snow-covered mountains were now nothing but a vast desert.

A fully realized desert—he could hear the sound of wind-blown sand hitting his armor and feel the dryness in the air as if it was drying all the water inside him.

He saw Donna and the others fighting against a massive monster.

It was a giant humanoid creature with a raven's head, its elongated head adorned with six eyes in pairs.

Behind it were three pairs of black wings, which, when spread, covered the sky and cast a shadow over everyone.

Its withered, ancient-tree-like hands held a giant black scythe. Though the weapon swung silently, it left behind a black trail in the air, glimmering with a scent of decay and death.

How long crossing worlds had taken was unclear—it probably wasn't too long, seeing as everyone was still here.

But how had everything suddenly turned into a "changing sea and sands"?

He made a circle in the air and landed behind an obelisk, where Barry immediately greeted him.

"How long was I gone?"

Golden lightning enveloped the two of them, and everything around them slowed down.

"Less than five minutes."

Barry answered his question.

Hecate and Kushina were nowhere to be found. At that moment, the only thing in the sky was this "Raven Dragon," and naturally, Su Ming wanted to inquire about what had happened.

It turned out that Deadman, seeing the futility of their efforts, immediately persuaded his goddess to flee. Under the cover of other monks who threw themselves at Hecate like moths to a flame, Kushina successfully escaped.

She burrowed into the body of a monk on the ground, wrapped herself in a sheet, and ran off on two legs, avoiding Hecate's notice.

Or rather, Hecate's focus wasn't on that. After Kushina fled, Hecate directly used powerful magic to reshape the area.

She turned the second magic pillar into something she wanted.

"Zatanna said this place is a place where death converges. Hecate transformed it through witchcraft—it's now the new realm of the dead."

"Hah, she's got big ideas, but maybe Hades and the others fear her. True death isn't so easy to replace." Su Ming shook his head, not optimistic about Hecate's plans. "We just received communication from Swamp Thing—the Parliament of Trees in the Amazon has been attacked by a new force called the Parliament of Flowers. Made up of massive flowers, they intend to replace the Green as the power of life."

Barry then quickly delivered the bad news.

Su Ming took a deep breath. Hecate first created the pillar of death, then the pillar of life. If she changed Olympus into the key place of reincarnation, then in terms of hardware, she might truly fulfill the requirements to become Death.

As long as she reclaimed the other fragments of her power, the fire beyond the Source Wall might really fulfill her ambitions.

"So this Raven-man is a new god of death? Hecate just created a god?"

Barry tilted his head, then nodded: "Yes, she just created a god."

The current Death was responsible for death, rebirth, and reincarnation. Hecate probably knew she couldn't handle all of that, so she split the responsibilities.

Indirect control would also achieve the same effect.

The key was the transformed locations—they were provided to her by the Green and the gods. She was just repurposing them.

If it hadn't been for Su Ming instructing Arabela to destroy Doctor Fate's Spire—removing a magical pillar—she would've already used that, along with the Tree of Wonder, to serve as the pillar of life.

Su Ming considered this. In the Speed Force, he had plenty of time to think. He touched his mask and asked Barry a question.

"Does the Justice League have any nukes?"

Since the Parliament of Flowers was made up of giant blossoms, the plant nature wouldn't change. No matter how long it took, dropping a few nukes on the Amazon was bound to have some effect.

As for the still-living Parliament of Trees, well, sorry, but this is for the greater good—the Green will remember you.

Barry hesitated. He didn't like the idea of nuclear detonations on Earth.

"We don't have nukes..."

"Nukes? We do. But we have weapons stronger than nukes." Batman's voice came from Barry's utility belt.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Here's your phone back."

Barry handed the phone to Su Ming, and it was clear Batman intended to send Clark to Swamp Thing's location.

"We're enveloped in Speed Force right now, in a bullet-time realm. Our time is flowing at a different rate compared to the outside. How are you talking to us?"

Su Ming was more interested in that point—relativity didn't explain this.

"Subspace network communication transcript, using Cyborg's Mother Box to open boom tubes, allowing a communication processing unit in the Hall of Justice to constantly jump across tightly connected timelines while transcribing the voice."

Batman wouldn't answer Deathstroke's question, but the Flash, being so open, explained everything.

After all, he was a physicist, especially when it came to Speed Force-related tech—he was directly involved.

He loved explaining how mechanical systems worked.

Alright, the Mother Box was just that unreasonable—its technology was so advanced even Su Ming couldn't fully understand it. There was no point dwelling on it.

At least knowing Superman was going over there to handle the plants bought them some time.

"Will Superman kill the plants? The talking kind?"

"...Call terminated."

Batman seemed to lose interest in conversing and hung up abruptly. Su Ming figured it was because he didn't have an answer.

Once plants gained self-awareness and could communicate, could Superman still bring himself to destroy them? That was a question.

Against aliens and robots, Clark showed no hesitation. But what about native Earth plants?

But that was just amusement for Su Ming. Batman's implied message was that this situation was up to Barry and Deathstroke now.

Now they had a giant god of death to deal with.