DC: A New Beginning-Chapter 99: Emperor of Fear

"You dealt with Doomsday?"

In the channel, Batman’s voice seems somewhat puzzled. Originally, he prepared backup plans but didn’t expect they wouldn’t be needed.

Before Batman could keep asking, Shazam’s loud voice rang out again.

"Doomsday?"

"Buddy, that name sounds really fierce, but fortunately we each solved our problems."

Shazam’s tone clearly carried that feeling of "I’m pretty awesome too, hurry up and praise me."

Unfortunately, Shazam’s presence was still pretty weak.

Superman opened his mouth slightly, wanting to tell how Viktor solved Doomsday single-handedly, but was interrupted by him first.

"Problems always come one after another. You people actually managed to create something this terrifying. Lex Luthor... looks like this guy is a troublesome figure in every world."

Seeing the topic being diverted to Lex Luthor, Superman’s expression appeared somewhat tense.

He cautiously watched Viktor’s expression, scared that once they got back to Earth, the first thing this man would do was go looking for Lex Luthor.

Even Batman’s attention is diverted by Viktor’s words to Luthor.

"Deathstroke obtained enough evidence from LexCorp. He’ll be charged with multiple crimes. This time, Luthor can’t leave prison for fifty years."

Seeing that both Batman and Superman had been distracted, a sharp glint flashed in Viktor’s eyes, but he still spoke in an impatient tone.

"I know how you people do things. You send criminals to prison, then either wait for them to escape or wait for them to be bailed out."

Batman frowned and cut in firmly.

"No. This time it’s not something minor. Luthor and LexCorp are finished. I guarantee it."

Superman quickly adjusted his flying posture, turned around, and looked seriously at him.

"I think you might have some misunderstanding about us."

"That doesn’t matter."

He interrupted Superman again, avoiding eye contact, gazing at Earth in the distance.

"I’m tired. I don’t want to interfere in extra nonsense anymore. Don’t come looking for me for any bullshit reasons anymore—just as you said to me on Ganymede, I’ve done enough for Earth. I think that should be enough to earn me permanent residency on Earth."

"Don’t come looking for me as an emergency backup anymore. I know you’re listening, Batman."

The channel fell into complete silence. Even Shazam didn’t dare breathe too loudly.

Superman raised his hands somewhat helplessly, but in the end, he just lowered his head in frustration.

"Alright."

He narrowed his eyes.

Just before passing through Earth’s atmosphere, Viktor suddenly seemed to remember something.

"Is Rachel there?"

Hearing the question through the earpiece, Batman didn’t get suspicious.

After all, Viktor asking about this kind of thing is perfectly normal.

Batman glanced at Rachel, who was manipulating dark magic together with Zatanna, who had finally recovered, and Kara, cleaning up the battlefield where several people had fought Doomsday just now.

Batman responded calmly.

"She’s beside me."

"Oh, please have Rachel take the communication. Damn, her phone can’t receive signals from space."

After a few moments, Rachel expressionlessly took the earpiece from the equally expressionless Batman.

"Mm-hmm?"

"Ah, Rachel, can I ask you to go home first? I think I may have used up more energy than ever before."

Rachel tilted her head and thought for a moment.

"There are only some snacks in the refrigerator at home."

"Didn’t we catch several fish and put them in the fish tank that we haven’t cooked with yet?"

"Oh, okay."

Rachel thought it over for a bit and realized she didn’t really know how to cook anything else.

"Then let’s make grilled fish again."

The way he spoke to Rachel was clearly different from how he spoke to everyone else—gentle and soft.

"Really? That would be wonderful."

Rachel returned the earpiece to Batman and went to say goodbye to Zatanna and Kara.

To be honest, after going through that helpless situation together, Rachel seems to have become more cheerful.

Especially after a short chat with Zatanna and getting some advice about magic, Rachel no longer seemed so resistant to interacting with other people.

Zatanna was obviously happy too to have met a very promising young sorceress, and together with Kara, they arranged to gather at Rachel and Viktor’s home when they have time in the future.

Finally, Rachel politely said goodbye to everyone, waved her hand, and released teleportation magic.

Rachel’s figure disappeared into the black shadows.

After activating teleportation magic just twice, Rachel returned to the two’s seaside villa.

She stood by the fish tank and thought for a moment, then used magic to pull out the big grouper, entering the kitchen beside the living room.

Rachel looked at the kitchen utensils hanging on the wall, carefully recalling in her head how Viktor had cooked before.

After a few minutes, Rachel was holding a kitchen knife, looking helplessly at the grouper, which still refused to cooperate.

The latter keeps twisting on the cutting board, splashing Rachel with water droplets.

Just then, the sound of the door opening came.

Rachel put down the kitchen knife in frustration and turned her head toward the direction outside the kitchen. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"I don’t seem to know how to handle..."

A strong, almost pungent smell drifted into Rachel’s nostrils.

"Ah."

Viktor came in and was covered in blood and flesh.

He glanced at the fish on the cutting board with a slight smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

After thinking for a moment, Viktor leaned a little to the side, bent down, and flicked the fish lightly on the head with his finger.

The grouper that Rachel had been struggling with instantly went limp and stopped moving.

"Before cooking fish, you have to kill it first. Otherwise, if it keeps struggling and moving around, even I would have a hard time dealing with that."

After straightening up, Viktor smiled and gently patted Rachel on the head.

"I almost forgot just now. You can tell an age by the soul. Good thing I sent you back alone first."

Seeing the kitchen knife gripped tightly in Rachel’s hand, Viktor raised his eyebrow.

He wrapped one arm around her waist and guided her arm with the other hand, turning the knife around so it pointed at the dead grouper.

"Now, tell me."

Viktor guided Rachel to stab the kitchen knife into the grouper’s gill opening.

"How old is my soul now?"

Rachel’s eyes looked dull and lifeless.

Even though all the muscles in her body were still trembling uncontrollably, the familiar yet strange person beside her controlled her with a very precise touch.

"1105."

"Is that so?"

Viktor sighed.

"In fact, before the timeline that belonged to me was erased, I was about eight hundred-some years old."

"After assimilating Parallax, that beast split the soul you helped me stitch together back then. The three different consciousnesses kept arguing and fighting inside my head, and in that mental chaos, my sense of time kept getting weaker."

"I was losing huge chunks of my memory, but because I reached the top of the world, I became far too arrogant. I forgot that Reverse-Flash still existed in the future."

"That bastard disrupted the past. The timeline that belonged to me was erased, and I was exiled to the hypertime stream, spending several hundred years in a daze."

"That feeling was horrible. There was nothing at all. I could only watch time from the past flowing around me."

"That loneliness was strong enough to tear everything apart, and the other two consciousnesses eventually fell into slumber as they could not endure loneliness, and I was finally able to control and merge all my powers."

"That bastard Reverse-Flash thought erasing my timeline would destroy me, but I, Emperor of Fear, have plenty of patience in the world to do it again!"

...

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