"What an incredible twist of fate."
Not long ago, Lex Luthor had been exiled by his own father to manage an obscure chemical factory owned by the company. Lionel Luthor had seemed utterly disappointed in the son who was widely known among the upper class as nothing more than a reckless playboy.
Yet in the blink of an eye, everything had changed.
Lionel Luthor died in a sudden car accident, and Lex became the new leader of the Luthor Group.
On the surface, Lionel had only one legitimate son. Naturally, the business empire should pass to Lex. But Lex understood his father far better than most people ever could.
Lionel Luthor was a cunning and ruthless man.
And he had prepared contingencies.
Lex knew that somewhere out there existed another son—an illegitimate child Lionel had carefully hidden away and raised quietly with the boy's mother. His father believed the secret had been perfectly concealed.
But Lex Luthor was not the simple-minded rich kid that society believed him to be.
When he was young, he had deliberately behaved badly to attract the attention of his distant father. The constant scandals, the wild reputation, the endless rumors about being a spoiled playboy—they had all been part of that act.
"If the hyenas smelled blood," Lex murmured quietly behind his desk, "they would come running to tear apart the empire that belongs to me."
His eyes were cold as ancient ice.
"So I had to act first."
Lex's expression remained calm, though a complicated emotion flickered briefly across his face.
"If you want to achieve something, you must abandon sentiment. That's what you always taught me, Father."
He paused.
"You shouldn't blame me."
The illegitimate son had been conceived when Lionel betrayed Lex's mother during her pregnancy.
Once Lex confirmed that his father had truly died in the hospital, he calmly made a phone call right there in the ward.
That same night, the hidden mother and son disappeared forever.
The glow of the computer screen cast long shadows across Lex's face.
He remembered something the school psychiatrist had once told him years ago.
At the time, Lex had been involved in numerous incidents at school—fights, scandals, and troubling behavior. The school hired an expensive specialist whose yearly consulting fee alone could bankrupt an average family.
The gray-haired psychiatrist wore reading glasses and had once treated Nobel Prize winners and even the first man to walk on the moon.
That afternoon, the man studied Lex carefully and spoke with a troubled frown.
"Well, Lex Luthor," the doctor said slowly, "you skip classes every day. Yet despite that, your grades remain perfect—even when cheating is suspected. It's obvious you're extremely intelligent."
"But you're also showing several concerning symptoms."
The man adjusted his glasses.
"Compulsive behavioral patterns. Difficulty with communication and emotional recognition. And a clear lack of moral restraint."
He leaned forward slightly.
"In your early childhood, your authoritarian parents frequently criticized, abandoned, and rejected you. This damaged your self-esteem severely. Combined with an extreme lack of affection, it has resulted in what appears to be severe malignant narcissism."
The doctor's tone turned grave.
"If these patterns continue, then from a professional standpoint, you are likely to become a sociopath."
"A mentally unstable megalomaniac."
"A cold-blooded individual incapable of empathy."
He paused before delivering his final warning.
"The most frightening possibility is that your extraordinary intelligence combined with your family's immense wealth could one day make you one of the most dangerous people in the world."
Bang!
Before the famous psychologist could finish delivering his diagnosis, the young Lex had leapt from his chair and punched the old man square in the face.
"Sir," the teenage Lex said coldly, "you claim to understand human psychology."
"How many times have you predicted the direction of someone's life?"
Then he smiled mockingly.
"I suppose you didn't predict that punch."
The elderly doctor had been knocked to the ground.
After that incident, the man needed dentures for the rest of his life.
The scandal required an enormous compensation payment. Lionel Luthor himself had been forced to come to the school, apologize personally, and use his influence to bury the matter.
"How immature," Lex murmured softly.
He shook his head as he remembered his younger self.
People always laughed at the foolishness of their past selves.
"If I heard those words today," he said quietly, "they wouldn't shake me at all."
His eyes hardened with ambition.
"Great figures throughout history never cared about the opinions of ordinary people."
A ruthless light appeared in his gaze.
"Some people are born to be ruled."
"And others are born to rule."
There was no hesitation in his eyes.
The eyes of a lion never carried the cries of a lamb.
"I don't know whether I will become the most dangerous person on Earth," Lex said calmly.
"But I will certainly become the most powerful."
Click.
He pressed a button on the desk.
The video paused instantly.
The screen displayed an ultra-high-definition image slowed down one thousand times.
On the screen, a man was falling from a skyscraper dozens of meters high. Just before hitting the ground, a young man's hand grabbed his clothing and stopped the fall instantly.
The enormous force should have torn the fabric apart.
But it hadn't.
"That contradicts basic physics," Lex murmured thoughtfully.
He replayed the scene again while opening several other research files.
"What kind of material could withstand that level of force?"
He leaned closer to the screen.
"A supernatural ability?"
"Or perhaps the power extends beyond his body and forms some type of protective field?"
He opened another high-resolution image captured from a different camera angle.
In the picture, the young man wearing a blue shirt stood confidently before reporters. He pointed at the camera with an expression of passionate conviction.
"The emotional response is genuine," Lex muttered.
"The warning gesture is strong and confident."
But then his gaze narrowed.
After zooming in on the young man's eyes, something unusual appeared.
"They look… slightly unfocused."
Lex pulled up additional footage from previous sightings.
"If his parents didn't teach him basic manners like making eye contact while speaking," he murmured, "then there must be another explanation."
"There's something wrong with his vision."
Lex folded his fingers together beneath his chin.
"So you possess abilities beyond human imagination," he said softly while staring at the screen. "You rescue people and fight criminals throughout the city."
"Do you believe that makes you a hero?"
A cold smile appeared on his lips.
Inside his brilliant mind, a plan was already forming.
A plan to capture the creature known as Superman.
"Whether you are the product of a meteorite… or something else entirely," Lex whispered, "I will find out soon enough."
The meteorite storm that once struck the small town of Smallville had produced countless strange phenomena.
After losing the Wish Stone, Lex discovered that his memories of certain events had vanished. However, he still knew that he had once wished for exceptional scientific talent.
Following that instinct, he had tried to continue investigating the meteorites connected to Smallville.
But something strange had happened.
"All of them disappeared," Lex said quietly.
Not only the meteorites in the town itself, but every sample that had been collected and transported to laboratories around the world vanished overnight.
He had lost both his memory and the Wish Stone in Smallville.
Later, someone had apparently used the Wish Stone to erase every meteorite from existence.
Why?
Did someone fear that another person like Lex might appear?
His eyes gleamed.
The meteorites themselves were gone, but the people affected by them still existed.
Under the pretense of offering medical treatment, Lex established a biological research laboratory to study individuals whose genetics had been altered by meteorite exposure.
"But none of them compare to him."
He stared again at the paused image of Superman.
"Stronger than a locomotive. Faster than sound. And completely invulnerable."
A perfect specimen.
Perhaps the meteorites had produced their most violent reaction in him.
"Unless…" Lex murmured slowly.
He leaned back in his chair.
There was another possibility.
Years ago, during the meteor shower that struck Smallville, a farmer had been flying a crop-dusting plane over his employer's fields.
When the meteor storm began, the terrified pilot climbed rapidly to escape the falling debris.
During that desperate moment, he had glimpsed something else inside the storm.
According to the man's sworn statement—
"It was a spaceship."
....
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