American comics: From Hogwarts to God on Earth

Chapter 575 The Reasons for Clark's Depravity

The moon is much harder than I imagined.

Clark lay in the crater he had created himself, lost in thought. From this angle, the planet was actually quite beautiful; under the influence of the six fundamental forces, its landscape was far more diverse and colorful than Earth's.

But Azeroth is not Earth.

"Azeroth has two satellites, and the one you crashed into is called the White Lady." Rune came to his side, as if he knew what he was wondering about. "It's called that because the people of Azeroth generally believe that it is related to the moon goddess Elune."

Clark adopted a slightly more comfortable posture.

"By the way, Elune is real."

"So, the moon goddess can hear everything we're having right now?"

Rune nodded; he had just tasted the joy of being a warrior, engaging in close combat with the enemy. It was indeed the easiest way to vent one's anger.

Clark calmly said, "Go ahead and ask. The reason you're not killing me now is because you want to get information about them from me, isn't it? I don't care if I've betrayed those pathetic creatures. I never belonged to them to begin with. Now, I'm only fighting for my own interests, nothing more."

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"Pathetic?" Rune frowned. "You are starting wars in the multiverse, you are enslaving..."

"You persecute the native inhabitants of other universes, you are the embodiment of this multiverse-level catastrophe—"

"Don't lump me in with them," Clark said calmly, looking at Azeroth. "I've said it before, I'm not like them! And the horror and pathetic nature of those Forsaken are not contradictory, Rune."

Clark turned to look at the mage who had defeated him.

"But before that, I need to tell you something: you defeated me, you defeated Superman with the Omega Effect—which means you have the power to join their ruling class. If you want to bring peace to your world, then joining the Forgotten Ones is a good option."

His eyes were filled with an inexplicable light.

"Be their dog, eliminate those tough guys, whether righteous or evil, and beg them to save your world, to save the person you care about—"

Clark's words were tinged with personal emotion: "This is what I'm doing, Rune, this is why I've fallen, do you understand?"

"You weren't originally one of the Forgotten, were you?"

Clark scoffed. "Of course not. I've told you many times not to lump me in with those pathetic creatures. It seems you've taken my words to heart."

Rune was silent for a moment, then said, "Tell me about your organization."

"Hmph, you didn't mention my suggestion to surrender at all because you're tempted, right?" He sneered, but didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he replied, "Since I'm going to die today anyway, I might as well give them a hard time before I die."

"As I said, those Forsaken are nothing but a bunch of pathetic wretches. I guess you've encountered them before. They'll do anything to survive, like starting wars between different multiverses. But what you don't know is that there are far more factions within them than you can imagine."

"Among them are righteous teams and evil organizations, but under the threat of death, the lines between these groups are not so clear."

Clark chuckled, as if mocking those who broke their principles out of fear of death.

"Some people just want to survive, so they go through all sorts of hardships to find a vibrant world where they have died and live on in their place. We call these people the Adventists."

Rune had encountered such Forsaken before; Professor X, who granted him telepathic abilities, was one such person. Even, strictly speaking, the Red Skull who collected all six Infinity Stones was an Adventist.

Rune knew that Red Skull, who had arrived during the Secret Wars and gathered all six Infinity Stones and his Berserker form, was definitely up to no good. If he hadn't stopped him, the course of this major event, the Secret Wars, might have been very different.

Seeing Rune's expression, Clark chuckled in a low voice, "It seems you've already met them. That's not surprising. Many years ago, these Adventists were the mainstream. Although they outwardly maintained noble virtues, in reality—"

"How many people can actually find a world where they themselves are dead and have a high popularity? Even if they do, there's a lot of competition, so—the phenomenon of personally killing one's past self and taking their place happens quite often. Until a certain event occurs—"

"Someone with immense power, whose name cannot even be spoken, tried to replace herself in another universe. She spent a fortune hiring someone who could pass through the fourth wall, but that bastard messed it up."

When this was mentioned, Clark gave a mocking smile. "It was this incident that wiped out her decades of savings and ultimately prompted this terrible entity to fuel the change in the way the council operated. She also formed a new team, which is how those warmongers came to be."

"In addition, this organization has various experimental bases, where highly intelligent mages and scientists gather, trying to find a way to survive without needing high-dimensional attention—" Clark sneered, "but they keep failing."

"And what about you?" Rune asked, "Why didn't you protect your world back then?"

"Protect?" Clark's smile vanished, his face turning expressionless. "I didn't care about it when my Louise died at the hands of that damn clown."

Upon hearing this, Rune finally understood Clark's background—he was none other than the god among men in the Injustice universe.

In this universe, the Joker uses illusions to make Superman accidentally kill his pregnant wife, Lois Lane, and in the process destroy Metropolis, which directly leads to Superman breaking his moral code.

Clark then blamed Batman and others, believing that it was because they had long "indulged" criminals with only lenient methods such as imprisonment that they committed evil deeds time and time again.

Superman's personality has changed drastically; his ideology has shifted from simply fighting crime to wanting to create "permanent peace and stability."

With him at its core, the Justice League began to forcibly interfere in international affairs.

Ultimately, Superman even established a harsh, oppressive regime, using extreme iron-fisted policies to control Earth's society in order to achieve the "peace" he desired.

Batman, Clark's longtime rival, naturally gathered his few allies, hoping to overthrow Superman's dominance.

The final outcome of this universe is consistent with DC's usual style: after a series of events, Superman realizes his mistakes, and the Flash reboots the entire universe, leaving nothing to happen.

However, at present, this Unjust Superman has obviously not experienced all of that before being invaded by that group of outsiders, and his universe seems to have been destroyed as a result—otherwise he would not have been chosen by the Omega Effect.

"Since that's the case—" Rune finally asked a question, "Do you regret it?"