Facing everyone's reminders, David didn't move, still suspended in mid-air. He didn't believe Amazo could replicate all of his abilities.
Moreover, he knew Amazo's inherent weaknesses. Besides not being able to replicate magic or things it couldn't understand, its most significant flaw was its rigid, robotic thinking.
"Why can't I scan your abilities?"
Amazo, who had gained the superpowers of half the planet in just a few minutes and was continuously evolving, turned to David, its face filled with the indifference of divinity possessing its mind.
"If others' abilities are just a few bytes, I can copy them at a glance. But you... you are a vast and complex information cluster, like the universe."
"I... I can't process this."
The infinite information almost overwhelmed it. Amazo clutched its head and quickly shut down the scanning for replication. Even with its evolved super-brain, it felt like a monkey trying to understand the universe's deepest mysteries, unable to grasp even a fraction.
Everyone looked on in disbelief. Their abilities, even the Lantern Rings and mechs, had been completely copied. Yet, this strange robot couldn't replicate the Transcendent's power.
"How is this possible?" Lex Luthor, from the top of a distant skyscraper, looked grim. Amazo's admission that it couldn't replicate the Transcendent's power was an unexpected anomaly that greatly displeased him. He gritted his teeth and reassured himself.
"It's fine. Even if I don't know why, even without copying his abilities, Amazo's current power should be more than enough to deal with him!"
If it had copied the Transcendent's powers, it would have been a guaranteed victory. But even without that, Luthor believed the advantage still lay with Amazo. The current Amazo, with its unknown number of abilities, was as powerful as God.
"Since you are a creation of technology, you should understand that a machine's abilities have limits."
David waved his hand, creating a powerful gravity field that bound towards Amazo. Amazo's abilities naturally had limits, and the Phoenix Force was not something it could replicate. However, it was somewhat surprised that it couldn't copy any abilities from David, perhaps because the Phoenix Force within him made him a whole that Amazo couldn't comprehend.
"I can evolve infinitely, it just takes time."
Amazo felt the gravity surrounding it. Its expression remained unchanged as the tumultuous gravity bound and squeezed its body, though it didn't inflict much damage.
"How much time? A billion years, or until the universe depletes?"
After a small test, David confirmed that Amazo's strength had indeed evolved to a point where he couldn't solve the problem with a mere wave of his hand. He shot thick beams of heat vision towards Amazo.
"On this planet, there are not only humans, but also hidden aliens like Superman. Some are even stronger than Superman, but I can utilize everyone's abilities and talents."
Amazo extended its hand, its two hands merging to form a smooth mirror, deflecting the beams and sending them into space.
"You will be no exception."
"Aliens stronger than Clark? Body transformation?" David thought of someone on Earth. Martian Manhunter? As one of the Justice League's founding members, he was a surviving Martian with incredibly powerful telepathic abilities, as well as a powerful, shapeshifting body that could control density.
"Using the least amount of power to counter an enemy's attack. That's truly a robot's style. Let's try this."
A purplish-black energy beam shot out, exuding a terrifying aura of death that seemed capable of annihilating everything. It struck the mirror surface formed by Amazo's hands. However, this attack wasn't easily deflected like the simple beams. The mirror was blasted with a large hole. Amazo looked down; a portion of its chest had been annihilated, leaving a deep crater. It calmly looked up, and as it spoke, its body, like liquid silver, surged and rapidly recovered.
"I have replicated countless abilities related to self-healing and immortality, which humans, including my creator, have longed for. You cannot end me."
Immediately after, Amazo's body grew immense, as tall as a skyscraper. Coupled with its indifferent expression, it resembled a majestic, cold, golden deity. It reached out and grabbed towards David.
David released death beams from his left hand, continuously dissolving its body. But Amazo was unconcerned. From a distance, its body only showed a finger-thick penetrating wound, which was not serious compared to its massive size.
Boom!
A massive shockwave erupted, sweeping out in a circle and shaking the surrounding buildings. David threw a punch at Amazo's oncoming palm. The size difference between the two figures, one small and one large, was like an ant and an elephant, but then a highly impactful scene occurred.
Stumble, stumble, stumble!
Amazo's massive form retreated, crashing through several buildings. In contrast, David stood firm on the spot.
"Quickly evacuate the people in the city."
The ground shook, and dust filled the air. Clark shouted a warning, and Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash quickly moved into action. They all realized that a world-shattering battle was about to erupt, one that could potentially affect the entire city.
Boom!
David pursued, breaking through the air. His punches sent the giant-sized Amazo staggering backward, carving a path of destruction through the middle of Metropolis. With its increased size, Amazo's agility inevitably became slow. It threw several punches that created gusts of wind sweeping across entire blocks, but its powerful attacks all missed.
After several unsuccessful attempts, a flash of light occurred.
Amazo's massive body disappeared.
"Where did he go?"
The terrified citizens of the city were in chaos. The heroes who were evacuating them looked up, but the giant golden figure had vanished. They searched everywhere but found no trace of him.
"Did he get beaten by the Transcendent and leave?" Green Lantern guessed.
Suddenly, David, who was scanning his surroundings in mid-air, reached out and grabbed at the space in front of him.
A figure smaller than dust was trying to enter his brain through his nasal cavity. After failing to defeat David by growing larger, Amazo began to shrink instead.
"As expected of a robot, to solve an enemy, you'll use any means without batting an eye."
David pinched Amazo between two fingers, narrowing his eyes as he stared at him.
"Why did you destroy the city and target Superman?"
He asked about Amazo's original purpose.
The golden version of Amazo was created after Amazo was provoked into conflict with the Justice League. After defeating them, he felt empty and lost, flying into space to explore the universe and continuously replicate abilities.
And the person who instigated it, in the original storyline, was someone who was now dead – Lex Luthor.
It was unnatural for a robot to inexplicably destroy a city and target a specific person.
"Someone tricked me when my mind was immature."
Amazo looked in a certain direction.
After acquiring a super-brain and replicating many telepathic abilities, this world held almost no secrets for him. His brain could process information unimaginable to ordinary people in an instant.
Although only a little over ten minutes had passed, he had already grown rapidly by scanning people's memories, naturally seeing through Lex Luthor's deception, which even a child would find poorly executed.
"Lex Luthor, you truly are tenacious even in death."
David's gaze shot out, piercing through all obstacles in its path, and he instantly located Lex Luthor.
The previous Lex Luthor was irrevocably dead. This was most likely a backup clone left behind by Luthor.
Seeing David suddenly look in his direction, Lex Luthor was caught off guard and stumbled backward, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
In an instant, he realized a fatal point he had overlooked.
Hatred had blinded him. He was too focused on the Transcendent, and having easily tricked Amazo before, he had overlooked Amazo himself.
"Amazo has changed, this is bad!"
Lex Luthor turned to flee.
David pointed a finger, and an orange beam of light crossed several city blocks, piercing glass and hitting Lex Luthor.
Lex Luthor's attempt to flee instantly seemed frozen in time, as if encased in amber. His expression was one of terror, his eyeballs trembling imperceptibly.
This was the horror of "a fate worse than death," akin to living hell. As long as David willed it, he could allow someone's thoughts to continue functioning while their body remained utterly immobile, an eternal torment.
"However, he is no longer important."
Held between David's fingers, Amazo remained unhurried. It was difficult to make a robot panic.
"Oh, then what is important?"
"You!"
Golden energy waves emanated from Amazo, shaking off David's fingers. He returned to his original size and hovered in mid-air.
"I see the next step of evolution in you. Some human scientists feel excited when they encounter problems they cannot solve. I think my current emotions are similar to theirs."
"Someone else has said that to me before."
David raised an eyebrow.
The original Amazo had defeated the Justice League and stood at the pinnacle of power. Earth held no challenge or secrets for him, and in his emptiness, he had flown into space without hesitation. But now, there was himself.
This prevented him from doing so, even after successfully replicating numerous abilities. Instead, he was fixated on achieving the next stage of evolution from David, which was to replicate the "Phoenix Force."
"Is it true that after artificial intelligence develops human emotions, the first thing they pursue is evolution?"
He smiled and pulled his hands apart, forming a spear of divine lightning that shot towards Amazo.
When Brainiac discovered his unique physique, he immediately abandoned his original plan to collect Kryptonian samples and made capturing him his primary objective. The two were remarkably similar.
Amazo dodged the attack.
Then, David continued to unleash divine lightning, and a bizarre scene unfolded. Amazo kept dodging, making no attempt to defend or neutralize the attacks.
"What... what is this? This is completely different from the energy you emitted before!"
Amazo's mechanical voice was filled with confusion and panic.
"This is divine power, and it is also magic."
In reality, the scene appeared somewhat comical. Based on the brief collision he had with Amazo earlier, David understood that even if Amazo were hit by divine lightning that wasn't amplified by the Phoenix Force, he wouldn't sustain any damage.
However, because he couldn't comprehend the power of divine power and magic, he dared not make any contact with it.
Divine power is a type of magical energy, and magic contains infinite mysteries. Some magic appears without any fanfare, but a simple ray of light can turn someone into a stone statue.
Amazo did not understand the divine power that David 'contained infinite mysteries' within. Fearing that David's divine power might have 'mysterious abilities' it didn't understand, and coupled with its lack of understanding of David himself, it decided to subdue or even kill him, so it kept dodging.
"The rigid nature of robots lacks the concept of adventure."
This was Amazo's weakness. David attacked, and his immense power forced Amazo to retreat in the air. Every time Amazo tried to counterattack.
He would unleash a bolt of divine power lightning, and Amazo would dodge it.
Its eyes flashed rapidly, attempting to analyze this energy. However, as a creation of technology, its attempt to decipher the principles of magic, which held infinite mysteries and could overturn everything, in such a short time was akin to wishful thinking.
David seemed to have found a bug in Amazo, forcing it to constantly dodge.
"What's going on? Has that robot lost its ability to attack?"
"It looks like the machine is malfunctioning!"
Clark and the others below the city were extremely surprised.
"It's magic!"
A flash of insight struck Batman. Combining what had happened before, he had guessed part of the truth.
"Before, it copied Hawkgirl's warhammer, it copied Green Lantern's Lantern Ring, it copied my mech's functions. It wouldn't let go of anything it could copy.
But it never copied Diana's Lasso of Truth!"
He recalled a blind spot he had previously overlooked.
"It's a shame I haven't studied magic, otherwise I could have gone to help," Diana frowned.
If two of them targeted the robot's weakness together, they could surely make the robot fall earlier.
"No, it's not just magic."
Looking at the battle in the sky, Batman shook his head in confusion again.
"Diana attacked it with the Lasso of Truth more than once, but it never just dodged like this. I don't know what method the Transcendent used to make it like this."
It was indeed not just magic. Even if others knew Amazo's weakness and tried to repeat the same tactic, they wouldn't achieve the same effect as David.
Amazo's 'fear' reached such a mechanically rigid state because David, who contained the Phoenix Force within him, possessed an unfathomable depth, like the universe itself, that it could not comprehend.
This limitlessness increased Amazo's 'caution weighting' during its battle with him, thus creating this effect.
David made it unable to understand, and when it faced attacks from David that it couldn't understand, it would become that much more cautious, resulting in a level of caution that was incomprehensible.
"The abilities you've copied are truly dazzling, but unfortunately, they're mostly useless now."
A blinding flash of light erupted before his eyes, causing David to raise his hand slightly to shield his eyes.
Amazo had copied the superpowers of the entire hemisphere, but the strength of a million ants put together couldn't match an elephant. Even with so many enhancements, its physical strength still had a significant gap compared to David, who was amplified by the Phoenix Force.
It had only managed to stall David for a while with its peculiar abilities like teleportation, phasing, and shapeshifting, along with its powerful regenerative immortality.
"The copied abilities don't include infinite energy, do they?
Your body's capabilities have clearly declined!"
David unleashed a gravity field and telekinesis, instantly freezing the slowing Amazo, rendering every particle that composed its body immobile.
In just a moment, Amazo used the ability it had employed most against David – phasing.
David's eyes narrowed. Dense bolts of divine power lightning extended from his body, shooting out to cover Amazo. Simultaneously, an orange light that seemed to freeze time shot out alongside them, leaving an almost solitary straight line that did not contain divine power lightning.
"The probability of dodging all of the Transcendent's attacks is less than one percent.
The probability of avoiding the incomprehensible attack by withstanding the orange light with its bodily defense is 84.6%."
Amazo, through precise calculation, determined that taking the full force of David's Living Hellfire was its only 'path to survival'.
David had used this ability before him more than once. First, it had frozen Lex Luthor, then attacked parts of his body, only displaying an amber-like solidification effect.
But this time was different.
The Living Hellfire struck Amazo, engulfing its entire form.
The next second, the Ultimate Lifeform, now nearly omnipotent and closer to God than anyone on Earth, ceased to think. Its time, as if belonging to it, was put on pause, and it fell into a bizarre state of neither living nor dead.
"Fate is sometimes fair. Because you are a robot, you easily acquired the abilities of countless individuals like copying data. Unfortunately, it is also because you are a robot that you have fallen."
Standing before the orange, semi-transparent cube floating in mid-air, David looked at the robot whose movements and thoughts were frozen within. He reached out and tapped the amber-like crystal surface, saying slowly.
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