Chapter 319: I… Am Not… Crazy…

"You want to be a hero?"

Jovian held Lex Luthor by the throat and smiled.

"Do you know what price you have to pay to become a hero?"

"Raising a couple of monsters doesn't make you a hero."

"The most important thing a hero needs is character..."

At that point, Jovian suddenly lowered his voice. He leaned close to Lex Luthor's ear and whispered, "Of course, what matters most is having enough power. More power than anyone else. Enough power to force every enemy to submit to you. Once you have that, you can become... a hero."

"You..."

Luthor stared at Jovian in terror.

All this time, he had underestimated Jovian far too much.

"When a god is willing to play make-believe with you mortals, you'd better not start believing the game is real. Because the moment you do, you tend to die very quickly..."

"Do you understand?"

Jovian patiently explained his philosophy to Luthor.

"Mmm..."

Luthor nodded frantically.

He felt that if Jovian did not let go of his throat soon, he was going to suffocate.

"Good!"

Jovian smiled.

Then he drove his hand straight through Luthor's abdomen.

"Huh?!"

Luthor's eyes instantly widened.

Agonizing pain tore through his entire body.

Squelch!

Jovian pulled his hand back out of Luthor's stomach and casually flicked away the bright red "ketchup" covering it before patting Luthor on the cheek.

Boom!

At that exact moment, Thragg descended in front of Jovian, dressed entirely in white and radiating an intimidating presence.

"Thragg... you finally came..."

"Save me. I can feel my life draining away. I'm going to die..."

Lex Luthor struggled across the ground toward Thragg.

His insides spilled from the gaping hole in his abdomen, leaving a trail behind him. By the time he finally managed to crawl to Thragg's feet, he looked up and found himself staring into a pair of cold, vicious eyes.

"You..."

The look in Thragg's eyes sent a chill through Luthor, but he had no time to care about that.

He desperately grabbed Thragg's ankle.

"Don't touch me..."

"You inferior human."

Thragg frowned when he felt Luthor grabbing him.

He shook Luthor's hand away, then brought his foot down and slowly ground it against Luthor's wrist.

"Aaagh!"

Luthor screamed as Thragg crushed his hand beneath his shoe, overwhelming pain surging through him.

"It hurts?"

"Don't be ridiculous. The instant my foot touched your wrist, you already lost all feeling in it."

Thragg's lips curled upward.

He looked down at Luthor from above, then lightly pressed the sole of his shoe against Luthor's cheek.

"Why?!"

"Aren't we on the same side?"

Luthor stared at Thragg in confusion.

"Don't be stupid. We were enemies from the very beginning!"

Thragg laughed.

He laughed happily.

Then he applied a little pressure with his foot.

Splat!

A watermelon burst beneath Thragg's shoe.

"Oh, my. I forgot that doing it this way would cover my foot in disgusting sauce."

Thragg frowned as he looked at the red and white mess splattered across his pants and shoes, resembling some grotesque mixture of ketchup and ranch dressing.

"Looks like Mr. Luthor won't be doing much talking anymore..."

Jovian helplessly sighed as he looked at the thoroughly dead Luthor beneath Thragg's foot.

"Yes. Truly unfortunate."

"What a shame. Looks like your mother wasn't named Martha."

Jovian shook his head and said nothing more.

Boom!

With a thunderous sonic boom, Jovian launched himself into the sky.

"Hmm."

Thragg watched Jovian leave and shrugged.

Then he lightly stomped the ground, destroying the entirety of Liberty Park before launching himself into the sky as well.

Once again, the world fell silent.

The next day...

New headlines appeared across every major news outlet.

Lex Luthor, a pathetic little man who overestimated himself, had foolishly challenged the God Among Men!

The editors writing those articles knew perfectly well that Lex Luthor had actually been humanity's hero.

But it did not matter.

History was written by the victors.

Lex Luthor was already part of the past.

No matter how inspiring his previous speeches had been, they could not change the reality of the world.

This was Jovian's world now.

"..."

No one condemned the newspapers for what they wrote.

Everyone understood that the media had no choice.

People like Bruce Wayne, who had personally escaped from Jovian, understood better than anyone just how incomprehensible Jovian's power truly was.

"What am I supposed to do?"

Bruce Wayne rubbed his temples as he stood in front of a mirror and asked himself helplessly.

"Maybe you could... threaten Jovian with his family."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha..."

"I'd love to know whether Jovian's little brother is immune to Kryptonite too."

"And what about his human parents? Do they have indestructible bodies as well?"

Inside the mirror before Bruce Wayne stood what appeared to be a madman with green hair and a suit.

He laughed as he offered Bruce his advice.

"Shut up!"

"I'm not you! I could never do something that cruel, you deranged psychopath!"

Bruce Wayne roared furiously and punched the mirror, shattering it into countless pieces.

"What do you mean, you're not me?"

"I am you."

"We've always been one and the same, my dear Dark Knight."

"Admit it!"

"You can't survive in this world without me..."

Within every shard of broken mirror appeared the same green-haired man in a suit, laughing at Bruce Wayne.

"Shut up..."

Bruce Wayne's formidable willpower kept him from succumbing to the madman's whispers.

He held on to himself.

"Shut up? Bruce Wayne, it seems you've forgotten why we're still alive in this world."

"The truth is, the reason I died, the reason that speedster kid died, the reason that little fisherman from the sea died, it was all because of your cowardice!"

"We are your sins!"

"Your arrogance caused our deaths!"

"Bruce Wayne, have you forgotten the promise you made to us?!"

The green-haired man's words echoed endlessly through Bruce Wayne's mind.

Bruce screamed in agony and clawed at his scalp.

The green-haired man's accusations struck directly at his deepest wounds.

He could still remember the helpless look in Barry Allen's eyes just before he died.

"Bruce Wayne! Accept me!"

"As long as we become one, Batman will never lose again!"

The green-haired man continued whispering to him while Bruce suffered.

"Enough! Enough!"

"I will never surrender to you..."

Bruce Wayne turned around and walked out of the public restroom.

Not long after Bruce left, an extremely pale face slowly appeared behind the door of the restroom stall directly opposite the mirror.

It belonged to a middle-aged man who had simply come in to use the bathroom.

When he heard all the commotion outside, he had leaned toward the crack in the stall door and peeked through.

What he saw had been horrifying.

A freak with green hair, a deathly pale face, and bright red lips had been standing in front of the mirror, talking to himself nonstop.

Even more terrifyingly, the man looked almost exactly like the Joker, yet kept calling himself Bruce Wayne.

He had even been muttering that if he and Bruce Wayne became one, Batman would never lose again.

"What the hell did I just see?"

The middle-aged man felt a wave of lingering terror.

After wiping himself, he cautiously peered through the crack in the door again.

He needed to make sure the freak was really gone.

Once he confirmed that no one was there, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He flushed the toilet.

Then, just as he was about to open the stall door and leave, a shadow appeared beneath the door.

The middle-aged man froze.

There was no mistaking it.

It was the shadow of a person.

Someone was standing directly outside his stall.

"Gulp..."

The middle-aged man swallowed nervously as he stared at the shadow.

Then he leaned forward and peered through the crack in the door again.

Strangely, there was nobody outside.

That made his skin crawl.

He quickly pulled back and looked down.

The shadow was still there.

Worse yet, the tips of a pair of leather shoes were now visible beneath the stall door.

"Shit!"

The middle-aged man cursed under his breath and immediately looked through the crack again.

There was still nothing outside.

Not even the shoes.

Cold sweat instantly covered his forehead.

He hurriedly looked down again.

Sure enough, the polished tips of the shoes were clearly visible beneath the door.

"Am I seeing a fucking ghost?"

The middle-aged man was genuinely terrified by what was happening.

Everything before him defied common sense and everything he understood about the world.

"Huff..."

Cold sweat continued dripping from his forehead.

He did not know whether it was his imagination, but the oppressive heat of summer suddenly seemed to disappear.

Instead, the restroom felt unnaturally cold, almost like late fall.

The middle-aged man sat there thinking for several minutes.

He still could not gather the courage to open the door.

So he pulled out his phone.

He began making calls.

His parents.

His wife.

His children.

His boss.

Everyone he could think of.

Not a single person answered.

"What the hell is going on?!"

The middle-aged man grew increasingly panicked.

He tried asking for help online.

He made a post saying that he was trapped inside a public restroom, then sent messages to every member of his family.

Minute after minute passed.

More than an hour later, the shoes were still there.

Yet whenever he looked through the crack, there was still nobody outside.

And no one ever responded to his messages.

"..."

Finally, with no other options left, the middle-aged man forced himself to gather his courage.

He bent down and decided to look underneath the stall door instead.

When he lowered himself onto the floor and looked outside, he saw a pristine pair of leather shoes.

Above them were expensive tailored pants.

Whoever was standing outside was dressed head to toe in designer clothing.

Strangely, that calmed him down a little.

Surely ghosts did not wear the latest luxury fashion just to scare people in public restrooms.

With that thought in mind, the middle-aged man lightly tapped the stranger's shoe.

"Hey, buddy. You're blocking my door."

"Oh? Am I?"

"Sorry about that. Sorry."

"I'll move right away."

The person outside immediately answered him and stepped aside.

The tips of the leather shoes disappeared from beneath the stall door.

"Huff..."

Seeing the shoes disappear, the middle-aged man finally relaxed.

He immediately opened the stall door and said, "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Standing outside was a tall man with short green hair.

His face had been painted like a clown's, with deathly pale skin and enormous red lips.

The freak smiled gently at him.

"Fu..."

The instant the middle-aged man saw his face, he tried to slam the stall door shut.

The freak caught it with one hand.

Then he grabbed the middle-aged man by the throat.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"It's wrong to secretly listen to other people's secrets, buddy."

"You need to forget everything you just saw."

"I heard that if someone takes your brain out, you'll forget everything you heard before!"

"Don't worry. Once I take your brain out, I'll install a better one for you!"

"Fuck you, you lunatic!"

The middle-aged man cursed and struggled with everything he had.

Then...

The next day...

The police received a call and arrived at the public restroom.

What they discovered left them stunned.

A pale, desiccated corpse lay inside one of the stalls.

Its neck was twisted at an unnatural angle.

Strange makeup had been painted across its face, forcing the dead man into a horrifying smile.

"This is murder!"

"The killer didn't leave any evidence behind. We may be dealing with a professional assassin!"

The police chief's assistant reached that conclusion after vomiting several times.

"Murder? A professional assassin?"

"Who the hell hires a professional assassin to murder some ordinary office worker?"

"And what kind of professional killer takes the time to put makeup on a corpse?!"

The police chief roared at his assistant.

"Uh..."

The assistant was left speechless.

"Chief! We haven't found the victim's phone. The killer may have taken it."

"We're about to call the victim's number and see whether it still connects."

Just as the police chief was puzzling over the case, the investigators inside brought him another piece of information.

"No phone."

"So maybe this dead idiot photographed something he wasn't supposed to see..."

The chief frowned as he reasoned through the possibilities.

Still, something felt wrong.

"Chief, we found a pile of white tissue inside the toilet."

"Forensics confirmed that it's the victim's brain."

Just as the police chief began to think he understood the case, he heard something he absolutely did not want to hear.

"You're telling me the victim's brain is in the toilet?"

"Well, that's interesting."

"Then what the hell is inside the victim's skull?"

The police chief froze.

A moment later, a horrifying possibility occurred to him.

His scalp went numb.

"Damn it!"

The chief cursed and rushed into the restroom.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The moment he entered, the sound of a phone ringing came from inside the victim's skull.

"Fuck!"

The police chief cursed.

The case had finally taken the exact direction he had desperately hoped it would not.

This had not been murder committed for money or some other tangible reward.

This was murder for the sake of murder itself.

And there was a very real possibility that whoever had done this was simply an insane psychopath.

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