DC: A New Beginning-Chapter 64: Collapse (Bonus - )

"If the person on the other side is a Lex Luthor from another world, I think you’d both better not act rashly."

Batman’s voice came through the earpiece, shutting down Reverse-Flash’s immediate idea of going to the next timeline.

"But how much longer can the Flash hold on?"

Seeing Reverse-Flash hesitate with something clearly on the tip of his tongue, Viktor went ahead and said it for him.

"No, strictly speaking, the Flash is not in immediate danger for the time being. But if the two of you charge in recklessly, you’ll only end up getting yourselves trapped."

Batman tapped his screen.

With Cyborg and Oracle helping him, Batman was quickly analyzing the data from the other world.

The Batcomputer showed that those chaotic and meaningless mixed-up time structures had now been reduced to only a few.

"Luthor likely already has some information on both of you. Based on the data we’ve captured, he’s already pulled out most of the temporary timelines. This move will give the Flash some time to catch his breath."

"But if you two charge straight into the next timeline, whatever is waiting for you will definitely be a trap specifically designed to target you."

Viktor found this puzzling.

"So what do we accomplish by going back? Just give the other side more time to prepare?"

Reverse-Flash, who had originally disagreed with Batman, let out a somewhat helpless sigh at those words and waved Viktor over.

"Time doesn’t work that way. The amount of real time the other side can actually use has always been one fixed number from the very beginning. It will not change."

As a university professor from the future who had been obsessed with the Speed Force, Reverse-Flash couldn’t help but explain while sketching shapes in the air with both hands.

Those red lightning bolts were somehow left hanging in the air by Reverse-Flash, leaving strange, slow-moving trails of electricity wherever his fingers passed.

"Think of the other side’s world as a circle."

Reverse-Flash drew a circle in the air with his hand.

"If we step into their circle while they are prepared, then usually they get to choose where we land."

"If they split off multiple temporary timelines, it’s like mixing in a bunch of smaller circles. This makes it easier for them to hide their real base, but it also means that no matter how they arrange each temporary timeline, the ambush in each one will not be too overwhelmingly strong."

That was why Reverse-Flash had earlier been rushing to drag Viktor past Superman and move on to the next timeline.

He was planning to use the fastest way possible to eliminate all the small "circles" that were meant to confuse them.

But now that the other side had anticipated them and was actively narrowing down the timelines on purpose.

"It doesn’t matter whether we talk here for an hour before leaving or leave right now. They will still throw us into the circle they chose for us. The timing of our departure makes no difference because it won’t affect the thorough preparations they’ve already made."

"Only in the real circle where their actual base is located does time flow at a fixed rate. If we delay for one hour, it means they gain one extra hour to think and plan."

"As for the temporary timelines, they are only distractions to delay us. They only activate and start flowing the moment we step in and become observers."

Viktor’s brow twitched throughout this explanation. Honestly, this was a bit too deep for him, and he didn’t really understand it.

"Then how can they prepare anything if those timelines only start when we go in and observe them?"

Reverse-Flash stared at him with wide eyes.

Reverse-Flash widened his eyes.

He clearly hadn’t expected that after explaining for so long, Viktor would end with a question that, to him, was like asking why one plus one equals two.

"That’s exactly WHY they’re called TEMPORARY timelines!"

"It’s only after an observer enters that everything in it has meaning. Before that, they don’t dare spend the extra energy, so every timeline is basically just a copy-paste from the original state of their world."

"But now that most of the time points have been narrowed down, there’s a lot more they can do."

"For example, before splitting a timeline, they can turn the clock back a little and make the starting time of that timeline become yesterday from their point of view."

"If you were an ordinary person who needed to transport a gun from America to Australia before a duel, one minute obviously isn’t enough. You’d need more time, but no problem because you’ve been preparing since yesterday, and it would be enough."

"A program can plan all of that for you automatically. It can be assumed that you already got the gun yesterday. You only need enough Speed Force because none of it truly exists yet. Before we go in and observe, none of the settings mean anything."

"But the moment we step in and begin observing, we may already have a gun pointed at our heads."

"From the perspective of their actual reality, they’ve prepared and placed inside those timelines exists in a state of both existing and not existing at the same time. If we never go to that timeline and activate it, then when the time runs out, and the timeline collapses, it’s like nothing changed and nothing was lost for them."

Reverse-Flash spread out his hand, bent down two fingers against his palm, and used them like a tiny running person.

"So when I was running earlier—every timeline I stepped into, I became the observer, and all the manpower and resources they had prepared were locked into the reality of that temporary timeline. However, I didn’t engage them in battle. Those people could only watch helplessly as I left, and wait for destruction to come."

"That way, I could keep causing them real, actual losses in manpower and resources."

Now Viktor finally understood.

No wonder the other side had been so shocked when they discovered Reverse-Flash.

It was because, in their original setup, they never even considered that there might be a speedster on the other side.

"So in other words—if their computer power was strong enough, their technology advanced enough, and they had enough energy, then if we had rushed into the next timeline without any preparation, we might have run into a super-Earth that could turn into a cosmic-level machine?"

Reverse-Flash snapped his fingers, with the expression of someone thinking now you’re getting it.

"Not quite that dramatic—otherwise we might as well just surrender. Clearly, you’ve just grasped the beginner-level knowledge from five hundred years from now: The Contraction and Expansion of Time and Theoretical Frameworks for Speed Force as an Energy Source."

Reverse-Flash spread his arms wide.

"You could practically come to the future and sit in on my lectures. Before I lost my job, I used to take one or two students a year."

Viktor was speechless and activated the locator while holding Superman’s corpse, which was so thin it was almost uncomfortable to hold.

After Viktor and Reverse-Flash appeared in the Batcave one after the other, Shazam was sitting in a corner.

He held a donut he’d found from who-knows-where in one hand and a steaming cup of hot chocolate in the other, occasionally dipping the donut and taking a bite.

He looked like he had recovered some of his energy.

As someone with the temperament of a child, Shazam almost never stayed discouraged for long, no matter what happened.

Of course, when the Shazam spotted the corpse in Viktor’s arms, he was shocked all over again.

He put down his food, walked over with his mouth wide open, stared at the thin but familiar face, and carefully reached out to gently touch the body’s chest.

He left a chocolate fingerprint on the skinny Superman’s chest.

"Oh! He’s dead!"

Reverse-Flash put his hand on his forehead and walked to the other side of the room, getting as far away as possible from this person he had no desire at all to talk to.

Shazam couldn’t be bothered to care whether a registered supervillain from the Justice League files was ignoring him.

He looked over at Viktor with a slightly sad expression.

"So there really was a Superman who kills people, and you killed him?"

"I would swear on Zeus himself that I never wanted to kill him in the first place."

Viktor looked at the skinny Superman in his arms, found a fairly empty table, and gently laid him down on it.

"He had no idea how to communicate with people, and equally no idea how to fight. Hitting him felt like bullying a child who didn’t understand anything, and I’m not into that."

Even though he had said some pretty harsh things the first time he pinned Superman down, Viktor was really just trying to scare him into talking.

"The one who killed him was a Lex Luthor from another world."

He absently removed the locator he had hastily strapped onto the corpse earlier.

"In Viltrum, the remains of a powerful species like this are classified as a valuable trophy, so I figured I’d bring him back while I was at it."

...

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