American comics: You're asked to fish, but you catch a Superman template?

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The other person stood still, casually extending one hand, his fingertips twirling black metal, slightly bent backward, as if in a contemptuous provocation.

"as you wish!"

Without hesitation, Mike raised his right fist, and the green ring erupted with violent energy. Thousands of green rays illuminated the earth, the light condensing into a solid shockwave that swirled towards the figure in black.

A strong light shone on the black armor, and the black glass of the other eyepiece glowed green. But the man in black didn't blink or flinch, as if everything was under control. He calmly stroked the smooth back of the short wand sheathed with fishing line. Mike released a beam of light, and as if by an invisible force, everything was drawn into the wand. Mike watched in astonishment as the energy he was pouring out from the other side burst forth from his mind, flowed into the wand, and vanished instantly.

Since obtaining the Ring of Light, he had never encountered such a strange situation. It wasn't that he hadn't faced enemies far stronger than himself, nor that he hadn't faced defenses that even the Ring of Light couldn't penetrate, but this was the first time he'd encountered anything like this. It felt like swinging your fist, not to meet a more powerful hand, but to punch right into a ball of cotton; all your divine power covering this cotton world was the same, simply ignored.

Mike instinctively asked, "What evil thing is inside you?"

The man in black ignored him, simply pointing the short staff at his chest. A stream of green light flowed like water along the lines wrapped around his body, the powerful beam converging at the light-emitting hole at the end of the staff, instantly blinding him like a torch. Mike only hesitated for half a second before a massive burst of green light erupted from the staff, even more powerful than his previous attack!

Like lightning, Mike instinctively raised his hand, and green light coalesced into a square shield in front of him. A powerful beam of light pierced the shield, sending Mike soaring into the air before crashing into the stairwell wall behind him with a thud, tumbling through the broken bricks.

Of course, what Mike didn't know was that the prototype of this short stick was created by a survivor from a destroyed planet with a blood feud with the Green Lantern Corps, specifically to fight the Green Lantern Rings. The prototype could freely absorb the energy of the Green Lantern Rings and convert it into its own weapon, making it a veritable nemesis of the Green Lantern Corps.

The man in black was holding a replica of the original. Although the efficiency was slightly reduced, the sudden burst of light would be enough to overwhelm any experienced Green Lantern, let alone a rookie Green Lantern who was still in the learning phase.

Thirteen seconds—Mike had kept him lingering for so long. The man in black suddenly turned and strode away, mentally calculating the time. So far, everything was proceeding according to the script; he had written down every detail clearly, planning everything down to the second. The entire plan was like a giant clock in his mind, all the gears running smoothly and with perfect precision.

As the man in black walked out of the opera house through the back door, he continued to calculate rapidly.

Three, two, one... Time is almost up.

Almost at the same time he thought of this, the remnants of the defeated army descended from the sky, their high-heeled boots leaving marks on the floor tiles, and their cloaks falling gently.

Kara stared coldly at the enemy in the black uniform, then covered his mouth with her hand. "Sorry, you're not going anywhere."

Chapter 1798: Repeated defeats

Faced with the sudden appearance of a Super Girl contestant, the man in black did not back down; his fingers merely reached deliberately towards his belt...

"Don't even think about it!"

Kara almost instantly regained her composure, grabbed the man by the throat, and shoved him more than ten meters away until his back slammed into the wall of the opposite building with such force that it left a thin crack in the wall.

It is believed that the normal human nerve reaction speed is 0.15 to 0.4 seconds, while even in exceptional cases that exceed the normal range, the reaction speed can exceed 0.1 seconds.

0.1 seconds is enough for Carla to get up, wash, change clothes, and put on makeup every morning.

“I know you’re a smart man, and you probably have a bunch of cunning ideas up your sleeve. Maybe just now you were even planning to take some kryptonite out of your weapon belt,” Kara said in a deep voice. “However, as long as I don’t blink, I guarantee you won’t have a chance to lift a finger.”

“I don’t need it.” The man in black met her intimidating gaze and said calmly, “I got everything I needed a second before you landed. Now it’s right at your feet.”

Kara froze, her mind remaining alert. But it was too late: the device on the sole of her boot activated, and dark red crystals burst forth from it like living things. They rose from all directions, enveloping Kara's entire body like a self-growing eggshell, binding her.

Kara paused for a moment, but quickly regained her composure, raised her fist and said, "Smart, but whatever you try to trap me with, it's still..."

Her words came to an abrupt halt, for she had struck the dark red crystal with all her might. To her astonishment, the crystal's inner walls remained perfectly smooth and mirror-like, without a single crack, even after her earth-shattering blow.

She then tried attacking the crystals on the four walls with her heat vision and freezing aura, but to no avail. Not only that, she could clearly feel the energy in her body draining away frantically, like flowing out of a rapidly drying reservoir. Soon, when she struck the crystal wall again, she could no longer bear it and grimaced in pain.

"What did you do!" she asked in surprise.

“A crystal cage custom-made with red kryptonite will strip you of your superpowers, turning you back into an ordinary human.” The man in black didn’t slow his pace, his movements elegant and unhurried. “I’d be happy to explain how it works, but if I’m not mistaken, your friend will be able to put out that little fire over there in five seconds and then charge at you, and I don’t want to face him right now. So let’s talk about it another time.”

As he spoke, he retreated to the corner of the sidewalk, turned around, and disappeared around the corner.

Thinking about it carefully, everything that has happened in the opera house so far has been entirely within his calculations. First, he stunned the unsuspecting Flash by attacking a passerby. Then, Green Lantern, who was closest to him, would undoubtedly catch up with him first. Of course, he wouldn't obey the order to stay still, because there was no such rule in his user manual. Next, the new Superman would also catch up with him, but he accidentally set fire to the first-floor restroom behind the new Superman's seat. Fortunately, he had left a building notice there beforehand, so no one was injured. However, rescuing people and extinguishing the fire would delay the new Superman for a few seconds, and Supergirl would block his way when he left.

Then, he counted down, waiting for the Super Girl to land, and set up a red kryptonite cage as a trap beforehand. Everything proceeded smoothly, and he did an excellent job without making any mistakes.

He had barely finished speaking when, five seconds later, the tree stump fell from the sky, whipping up a gust of wind, and landed with a "whoosh" beside Kara. Xu Fu's attack shattered the red kryptonite cage that had trapped Kara, and dark red crystals scattered all over the ground, glittering under the light.

Kara was knocked to her knees, but she reached out to stop Xu Fu from helping her up: "It's okay, over there... He walked that way, follow him!"

Xu Fu nodded, his figure blurring as he chased after the direction the black man had disappeared in. But when he turned the corner, he saw a smooth main road ahead, and pedestrians on both sides stopped in surprise, pointing and whispering. Where were the black man's footprints?

Xu Fu immediately took to the air, looking down. His superhuman vision covered all the nearby streets and rooftops. He had memorized the masked man's face and could recognize him even after he removed his black armor. But the man had vanished without a trace, disappearing for several blocks, like a ghost that had vanished from the ground.

But his eyes can see a spectrum that humans cannot see, and he can see a very special kind of energy slowly dissipating in space.

This guy obviously slipped away with some kind of teleportation device that can travel through space.

"What a ghost!" Xu Fu muttered.

From the moment the Flash fell to the moment the Man in Black flew away, only a little over a minute had passed. The new Justice League had laid a trap at Gotham Opera House, but the enemy moved in and out with ease, eliminating three more members in the process.

As for the sudden appearance of alliance members at the opera house and the explosion in the restroom, the alliance may need to explain everything to the public seriously after the incident, but not now.

After the battle, Wally West, the Flash, was unable to stop the high-speed shockwaves no matter what methods his opponent used, and his symptoms were very similar to Cisco's—he was also unconscious. Helena speculated that his opponent might have used similar methods to those used against Cisco, affecting Wally's connection with his divine power and disrupting its stability, resulting in this outcome.

So the enemy has also done considerable research on supersonic speed... Who exactly are these guys? How much do they know about them?

· ·Requesting flowers····· ·······

Meanwhile, a new problem arose for Mike.

Back at headquarters, Mike stared at the halo in his fist, focusing with twice the concentration he usually did. His thoughts flooded the halo, causing the green light to flicker and dance within it. Finally, the green light erupted from his body like a tangible entity, driven by his frantic thoughts... transforming into specks of starlight that dissipated into the air.

"Damn it!" No one knows how many failures finally drove Mike to his wits' end, or perhaps he simply had no patience at all: "What the hell is going on?!"

“You need to calm down,” Xu Fu said, looking at the feedback data from Mike’s full-body checkup on the screen. “Your full-body checkup results show that there are no problems, and the energy frequency emitted by the ring is also within the normal range. Statistically speaking, there is nothing wrong with either you or the ring.”

0.....0

“But I can’t imagine it!” Mike said, a little frustrated. “Why?”

“It can only be explained as a psychological effect.” Helena walked over from the side of the infirmary where Cisco and Wally were lying side by side. “I suspect that the other party used special methods to put you into a hypnotic state without your knowledge. The Green Light Ring should be controlled by willpower and courage. In other words, it directly affects a person’s nervous system. If the other party used hypnosis to disrupt the connection between your nervous system and the Green Light Ring, that’s very likely what happened.”

She paused, then her expression turned serious: "But let's assume someone could actually do it..."

“So he is also very familiar with how the halo works,” Xu Fu replied softly.

Helena turned around and looked at the infirmary: the thought of Wally and Sisco lying there in unknown condition, and Mike who had temporarily lost his ability to materialize, filled her with frustration.

This was a trap from the start. Batman sending recordings and sketches... it was part of the trap from the beginning. The other side set a snare, revealing their trap at the Gotham Opera House, and she led the team without hesitation. The other side cleverly seized on her growing restlessness after two days of doing nothing, and planted a crucial clue at the right moment, luring the entire team into another trap.

If the confrontation between the two sides were a game of chess, Helena felt she had lost. The invisible opponent had planned everything from the very first move, and she was a step too slow; her teammates were paying the price.

There were no further instructions or new plans. Helena remained silent, turned, and walked towards the hall exit. Xu Fu watched her weary figure disappear behind the automatic doors, opened his mouth to comfort her, but remembering the somewhat awkward and unspoken relationship between them, he didn't know what to say and subconsciously closed his mouth again.

Chapter 1799 Anxiety

Xu Fu's mood has been getting worse lately.

An unseen enemy is targeting them from the shadows, and from what they can see so far, it seems to know all their data and situation. So far, they have suffered defeat after defeat, and the enemy remains completely unknown to them.

Not only Xu Fu, but everyone has become increasingly frustrated and anxious these days, as if they have been living in an invisible shadow every day since they got up, avoiding every corner and passing through every shadow, for fear that a black knight will jump out like a ghost and subdue them quickly in unexpected ways.

Sure enough, at the opera house, Xu Fu saw another person's face. His eyes were like a camera; he would never forget a face he had ever seen. Back at headquarters, based on his memory, he accurately sketched every feature of the other person's face—"093"—within seconds, comparing the sketch with data in the database and all camera recordings accessible to the alliance's computers, but to no avail.

Aside from his physical strength and manner of operation, this enemy's identity was also like a ghost. There was no record of him in the national database, no camera captured his face, and he seemed to appear out of thin air as if he didn't exist in this world.

Xu Fu wasn't worried about himself: unlike Kryptonite, he didn't have weaknesses. Although the radiation from the red sun had some impact on his superpowers, it wasn't as strong as Kryptonite's, and he wasn't difficult to deal with. He believed that if he faced this guy face-to-face, he could definitely defeat him, but this guy just didn't want to fight him one-on-one. In the last battle at the opera house, Green Lantern, Flash, and Supergirl had already fought him, but Xu Fu hadn't had a chance, which was likely intentional on the other side's part.

Xu Fu's biggest worry was Karl. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid the enemy would use his parents as a leverage point to blackmail him, but judging from their actions, they didn't like attacking with his family; they preferred to defeat them one by one. Therefore, all things considered, Karl's risk level was relatively high.

Although Super Girl is one of the most powerful people on Earth, her weakness is also the most obvious and vulnerable point in the entire team. For those launching a surprise attack from the shadows, Super Girl is undoubtedly the perfect entry point. Xu Fu is very concerned about her safety and flies to Nachino almost every day to ensure her well-being. He even suggests that Kara temporarily hide at his house and be protected by him.

But this overly cute attitude greatly troubled Kara. She emphasized that she had been a superhero for a long time, capable of standing on her own, and had even started working earlier than the newcomer Xu Fu. Xu Fu's overprotective behavior made her feel insulted, and in the end, she simply pulled a long face and ignored him.

While worried, Xu Fu couldn't help but feel anxious. He could understand Kara's reluctance to be seen as a primary school student and needing protection, but that didn't lessen his worry for his friend. These past few days, he had been absent-minded in almost everything he did, and as he walked, his thoughts would involuntarily drift to the person in the black uniform.

During a test on Wednesday, he was still talking non-stop, even unknowingly making a mistake on a question. Of course, this wouldn't prevent him from getting an A+ in the course, and the professor would probably understand—after all, everyone makes careless mistakes sometimes. But Xu Fu knew in his heart that this was very abnormal. Everyone makes careless mistakes sometimes, but he shouldn't be doing this. To say that he was inattentive to the point of accidentally making a mistake on a small question is almost equivalent to forcing his entire mind out of the classroom.

The small company he and Kara started has grown into a sizable enterprise. While it can't yet be compared to large corporations, it's certainly thriving for a fledgling tech company. This weekend, a fire broke out in the company's lab, and because the radiation protection suits haven't been finalized, the company's researchers are unable to make any progress.

The employees dared not ask, but everyone wanted to know why the boss was so fascinated by such clothing. In the short time since the company's founding, the lab had created many things that attracted industry attention, largely thanks to the boss's endless stream of ideas and his near-omniscient abilities in the eyes of his employees. But the boss seemed uninterested in these inventions, except for this radiation-proof coat, which was almost crucial. He was incredibly picky about everything else.

“Boss, forgive my bluntness,” the lab director said cautiously after Xu Fu finished his outburst, “but what you need is a defense system that can absorb sunlight, must be isolated from external radiation, and at least be able to withstand the impact of tactical missiles, and I’m afraid…” He adjusted his glasses and said helplessly, “…current technology makes it difficult to achieve this.”

"Otherwise, what do you think I hired you for?" Xu Fu rolled his eyes, but his expression softened slightly.

He didn't want to lose his temper for no reason: he knew that almost everyone in the lab was working overtime on that demanding suit, and if he lost his temper under these circumstances, he would seem like a jerk to his employees. But they didn't know what the suit was for, especially not at a time like this.

"Anyway, everyone should keep going," Xu Fu said helplessly at the end. "Consider it a favor I'm asking you for."

“He’s losing patience,” the man in black said softly, taking off his helmet and tossing it onto a table piled high with various equipment and weapons.

“They’ve all lost patience,” came the reply through the earpiece. “I think you’ve done enough, but how much further do you want to go?”

“Until he reaches the critical point.” The man removed the sling again and hung it on the shelf against the wall. A dim light bulb hung from the ceiling, its bare wires an antique model from who-knows-how-many years ago. Its orange glow illuminated the shelf, reflecting the neatly arranged darts, bombs, and other portable equipment.

The man pushed aside the chair in front of the only desk in the room, sat down, and after a long silence, said, "I stripped him of the reward he could have expected...most of the reinforcements. I believe he's now beginning to realize that he has to solve problems on his own. If all goes well, he should be pushed to his limits in the next phase...we'll wait and see."

"Are you sure it's safe?" The voice on the other end of the phone sounded worried. "Of course, I believe in your abilities. But if you can foresee how things will develop, you might be facing..."

“Of course, I know there are risks. But I can handle it,” the man said calmly, a hint of weariness in his eyes. “Besides, ...I personally tend to trust this boy; I feel he's worth it.”

Chapter 1800 Invasion

This week proved to be particularly difficult for all members of the new Justice League.

For the past seven days, the enemy has not launched another attack, but everyone's nerves are on edge, and they dare not relax for a moment. Kara has come to Xu Fu more than once to complain that she has not been focused on her work and has been scolded by Mrs. Grant. Each time, Xu Fu comforts her and tells her not to worry, that everything will be alright soon, even though deep down he has no reason to say that.

Every evening at dusk, Xu Fu would soar into the sky, looking down upon the brightly lit city from near atmospheric level. Time and again, he would scan every street, every corner, every nook and cranny of the metropolis with his X-ray vision. His scans were destined to be futile, like performing a routine task, and the outcome was always the same. Yet, the next day, he would take to the skies again, relentlessly trying to find her once more, hoping, with a bit of luck, that he might find something else.

It wasn't until Monday that he noticed something else.

A deafening roar filled Xu Fu's ears, a cacophony of horn blares, engine noises, airplane turbine sounds, and the murmurs of people on the street. This sound was unlike any other; it was like the simultaneous roar of countless engines, or the rumble of thunder in the sky.