Just as Alex stood in stunned silence, the enemy's attack was already upon him.
A razor-sharp blade slashed toward him—Alex leaned back swiftly, narrowly dodging the lethal flying sword. But before he could recover, Deathstroke's obsidian blade was already thrusting toward his heart.
He raised his black umbrella to block. The immense force instantly sent Alex flying. After just a few exchanges, Alex had already analyzed the opponent's energy signature and origin.
"This power… it's definitely not normal. It's more like—"
His eyes narrowed sharply. Alex suddenly gripped the umbrella's handle tight and yanked it free. In a flash of steel, the three shadowy figures before him were all severed at the waist.
With a flick of his dark blade, Alex spun it in a flourish. Thick, oil-black droplets scattered into the air, but evaporated into nothingness the moment they touched it.
Watching this eerie scene, Alex couldn't help but recall the moment he returned from the Sentry's mental realm. In that vast darkness, there had also been a figure just like these—
Cthulhu Batman — Arthur Arkham.
"No reason left in them at all."
A figure wielding a staff leapt high into the air. With a sweeping motion, the shattered space around him condensed into a storm of razor-sharp shards and rained down upon Alex. Alex raised his umbrella to shield himself, deflecting them all. In the next instant, a laser burst from the tip of the umbrella, piercing clean through the attacker's skull.
"No thought either."
Space twisted behind him. A mutant possessing a hybrid of top-tier abilities had silently appeared behind Alex and was now thrusting a palm straight at his head. Without turning around, Alex stabbed backward with a knifehand. The blade sank into flesh without resistance.
"Not even the slightest control over their power."
Alex's gaze turned cold as he stared at the endless black figures charging toward him. His eyes were filled with complex emotion.
"These things aren't real. Or rather, they're projections—corrupted manifestations born from higher-dimensional pollution. Spawned from the minds of the Creators, born from stray thoughts and fragments of imagination, twisted together into these unspeakable abominations."
The rift grew wider—no, more accurately, the destruction of the Wasteland Universe was gradually eroding the 'lid' that had sealed the rift. And now, the pollution from the other side surged through freely.
"This is…"
Alex could already feel the overwhelming energy signatures and the aura of pure destruction.
"The truth behind the Worms!"
These beings, born from psychic corruption, weren't truly alive. They were like ghosts buried deep within one's psyche, or fragments of fading memories.
In their own worlds, they had once lived stories, faced adventures, and stirred emotions. But here, they were hollow puppets—soulless and mindless—carrying boundless corruption, trying to spread it to every reality.
In essence, these husks weren't truly a threat to Alex.
But in order to keep the endless tide of infection from pouring into the two universes behind him, he had no choice but to stand his ground. And with every passing second, his strength was being worn down.
"So this is your trump card, Watcher."
Alex smirked with a hint of irony as he fought several inky figures at once, speaking aloud.
"If you've got the guts, just send them all here at once."
"To let you unite and corrupt even more universes? Time Bard, I'm not that foolish!"
The Watcher's voice slithered into Alex's ears, laced with spite and rage.
Suddenly realizing something, Alex burst into laughter.
"Hah! I should've figured it out sooner. The moment I saw these things, I should've known. Back when I found you injured, I told you to stay in the Wasteland and recover. Even then, I sensed you were hiding something."
Alex deflected a corrupted version of Spider-Man with a slash, then drove his blade into the gut of another twisted creature wearing a Kamen Rider-style transformation belt.
"And the corruption left on you at the time was strange—don't look so surprised. I've fought these extradimensional parasites enough times. I'm sensitive to their energy signatures."
"If I'm not mistaken, you weren't hurt by accident. You reached into the world beyond the rift yourself—got too close. And then… you got smacked down by others like me, didn't you?"
Although Alex's words were phrased as a rhetorical question, his tone was firm and unwavering.
It was no surprise. Unlike his own existence—his true form hailing from a higher-dimensional reality—the Watcher and the shadowy figures before him were fundamentally two-dimensional constructs. In terms of power defined by higher-dimensional standards, while the Watcher was formidable, he didn't stand a chance against the true forms of those entities. That is, unless they were underdeveloped—once matured, he wouldn't stand a chance.
And the truth, as Alex suspected, wasn't far off. That much was already evident from the Watcher's visibly flustered reaction.
"Don't get ahead of yourself!" the Watcher's voice rose sharply.
"I may not be able to control those corruption sources, but I can still gather the thought echoes drifting outside the multiverse. Those vestiges—formed from endless minds observing, debating, loving, and hating—can still serve as my fuel!"
"So that's where these symbiote-like worms come from..."
Alex kicked one of the approaching parasites away and spun around, unleashing several blasts of Chaotic Wind to scatter five weapon-wielding monstrosities.
"They aren't from alternate universes... They're born of readers' emotions and perceptions."
This was quite similar to the abstract entities Alex had come to wield.
Just as Alex was processing this, a surge of malevolent energy suddenly erupted from the deepest part of the dimensional rift.
The moment it hit him, Alex felt an oppressive weight bear down on his body—not enough to threaten his life, but clearly unlike any energy emitted by the surrounding shadow creatures. This was something else entirely.
With a sweep of his arm, arcane power burst forth. Demonic energy surged and flung back the encircling shadows. Alex frowned and looked toward the rift—where he saw strange humanoid figures clawing their way into the world.
Like wraiths from the Abyss, these monsters were entirely different from the shadows. Their features were more distinct, their auras far more intense. The very instant they emerged, entire nearby realities began to quake and destabilize.
The fractured earth trembled, lava surged, crimson volcanoes erupted with plumes of deathly smoke. In the sky above, frigid winds howled through the void, echoing with the wails of countless dead—bone-chilling and vile.
"These things..."
Alex licked his dry lips, his expression turning grim.
"Hehehe..."
The Watcher was utterly unsurprised by Alex's reaction. In fact, he looked satisfied, as if he had longed to see this exact moment.
"You're right. With the power I have, I'm no match for those fully corrupted worlds. But the multiverse I've observed isn't just made up of them."
"In the vast fabric of existence, there are countless universes that didn't fall to external corruption—they collapsed from within. Born of corruption. Died from corruption."
"And these beings you now face... are the carriers of that rot. Survivors of annihilated worlds."
"Surprised, Time Bard? Isn't it comforting, in a way, to see others who walk a path unlike yours?"
Ignoring the sarcasm in the Watcher's voice, Alex scowled and let out a cold snort. In that moment, much became clear to him.
"How dare you... These monsters don't belong here. You must have sensed how they're poisoning the multiverse. Letting them descend—do you intend to obliterate this world entirely!?"
His story had been abruptly torn apart. An entire world and all its living beings were reduced to nothingness. Even as the anchor of this realm, Alex could do nothing to stop it. These creatures weren't just invaders—they were the sole survivors of their own ruined realities.
Just witnessing their arrival, Alex could feel their seething hatred and madness, almost material in form.
"To eradicate the infection completely, I'm willing to sacrifice everything."
The Watcher's colossal form loomed across the cosmic nebula, vast and all-consuming.
"Perhaps I lack the strength to threaten the other side of the Rift, but purging this world of corruption is enough. Once that's done, I will seal the Rift and preserve what's left of this vibrant multiverse—"
BOOM!!!
Before the Watcher could finish his sentence, a thunderous explosion suddenly tore through the distance...
Not only the Watcher, even Alex paused at that moment, instinctively turning his head toward the direction of the sound.
In the distance behind him—within the inner core of Earth-1's universe—a blinding golden light slowly began to rise. At first, it was as faint as a firefly, but gradually, the light grew larger and brighter, until it radiated like a miniature sun.
""Impossible?!""
The Watcher, who had remained calm all along, now shouted in alarm. From the beginning of this plan, it seemed like nothing had gone as expected. Even now, when victory was supposedly in his grasp, even the Flashpoint Universe had slipped beyond his control.
But as Alex felt the comforting warmth from that beam of light, a smile formed on his face.
"Kara."
.....
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