Abyss of Superpowers

The President Wilson Hotel stood on the beautiful shores of Lake Geneva, close to Geneva's most scenic lakeside boulevard and backed by prime commercial real estate, offering tranquility amid the bustle.

From the reception room of the presidential suite, one could see the elegant lake view and Mount Blanc.

The conference suite was decorated with a blend of fine marble and carefully selected wood, exuding a modern artistic style.

He-El's indifference made the Humanity Self-Rescue Heroes Association understand that there was no need for them to hide in sewers to hold meetings. Whether underground or in the sky, that person could detect their presence, hear their voices, and brazenly allow them to challenge him.

They instead moved to the luxurious, magnificently opulent President Wilson Hotel.

Sky and underground were two complete extremes.

Jupiter and seven Humanity Self-Rescue Heroes Association members checked for and removed surveillance devices here, communicating in a coded language they had developed.

"The Beijing Electron-Positron Collider, the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the Lanzhou Heavy Ion Accelerator, CERN's Large Electron-Positron Collider, the Stanford Linear Collider, Fermilab's proton-antiproton collider, DESY's electron-proton collider, Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, KEK's high-intensity proton accelerator... every major particle accelerator and collider on Earth has been lifted from underground by him and transported to Mount Jura, where Earth's largest particle accelerator currently stands."

"Before I came here, Dawn had already provided detailed blueprints and issued orders to mobilize every scientist and engineer in the world to build the Crystal Core Energy Aggregation Accelerator from those blueprints."

"Everyone, we don't have much time."

"The Association's scientific team has given us an end-of-the-world deadline: only three years. In three years, the Crystal Core Energy Aggregation Accelerator, built by scientists from across the globe, will be complete."

"Every activation of the Crystal Core Energy Aggregation Accelerator will consume 40% of humanity's resources."

"Humanity cannot withstand that kind of consumption."

Jupiter's sharp, piercing gaze swept over the members present. Her slender hand clenched into a fist and struck the round redwood table with a dull thud.

"To stop or delay the completion of the Crystal Core Energy Aggregation Accelerator, we still do not possess the power to contend with him."

"It's useless. More than three hundred Association members disguised themselves as construction workers and attempted to bomb and sabotage the accelerator's construction. They instantly turned into bloody mist."

"He allows us to attack him, but he does not allow us to interfere with his affairs."

"Three years..."

"With the power we currently possess, can we hurt him?"

"Should we activate Gaia early?"

"Gaia is no longer viable. I went to see it two days ago. It has merged with Australia's geomagnetic field and no longer has human emotions or thoughts. It has 'died,' truly becoming 'Gaia.' It said it would not attack him. The value of him alone is greater than all life on Earth combined. We have lost a member who could manipulate the Four Fundamental Forces. I only hope that, in the end, it does not destroy humanity for the sake of Earth."

"That is truly the worst possible news. Thank you for letting me know that Gaia, humanity's strongest controller of magnetic fields, has become our potential enemy. I'm already starting to feel despair."

"Edward once made him fall from the sky."

"But only for an instant. Now he looks as though he has Parkinson's disease, trembling from time to time. He is only lucid for two hours each day. He is finished."

"What about Kinetic Kid? In three years, could the kinetic energy he accumulates kill him?"

"It's useless. Lazarus has gone off course. In about three months, he will run around Earth and into outer space. In three years, he will probably reach Venus and crash into it. Before we can kill him, we will be hit by the meteor dust and drastic environmental changes caused by Venus exploding. Right now, I only hope he doesn't blow up Venus."

This was too terrible. Everyone fell silent.

The use of superpowers was not as simple as they had imagined.

They might have represented the pinnacle of human IQ. They learned any knowledge hundreds of times faster than ordinary people, and even became familiar with superpowers hundreds of times faster.

But that speed of understanding brought unrestricted experimentation, a greedy desire to gain greater power and control, and to delve ever deeper into the abyss.

Those who stared into the abyss were also stared at by the abyss.

Gaia wanted to control the entire Earth's magnetic field, yet merely the geomagnetism of the Australian Plate had already turned it into a god. It no longer possessed human emotions or thoughts, no longer thought as a human.

No one could stop Lazarus anymore. No one could stop him from accumulating kinetic energy, running out of Earth and toward the universe.

Nothing had developed as they had imagined.

A shadow of sorrow flashed through Jupiter's eyes. Before Lazarus began running, he had still held onto hope—hope that Jupiter would adjust his direction at the end and send him crashing into He-El.

Yet before that time even came, Lazarus had run out of Earth...

"What about Molecule Man? He can enter through the gaps between his cells and destroy his neural synapses and brain cells."

"Molecule Man has merged himself and his team of one hundred and thirty scientists into the microscopic realm, becoming part of it. He also took the global species gene bank from Longyearbyen, Svalbard, intending to create a microscopic human civilization."

"Did he succeed?"

"Who knows? His final message said he intended to understand Dawn from the microscopic level, then flatten a proton, inscribe circuits onto it, and create a proton computer. Through countless replicated proton computers, he would simulate life transformed into atoms, positrons, electrons, and even photons."

"He intends to arrange the universe through microscopic particle transformation."

Someone who understood the implications sucked in a breath. Molecule Man was fucking insane.

If Molecule Man succeeded, none of them could imagine what kind of civilization it would be—a universe's matter arranged by civilization itself. Every civilization and every substance would be laid bare before the microscopic civilization.

The microscopic civilization would become the beginning of the universe, witnessing the rise and fall of civilizations, freely manipulating the Four Fundamental Forces, existing alongside the universe, and watching it fade into desolation.

Compared to that, they all felt that they, still on Earth fighting a god, were as insignificant as dust.

"Damn it. If he hadn't forcibly recruited my scientific team, I could have researched something even more powerful—powerful enough to destroy him."

"He has locked us into biological individuals, restricted our use of equipment, and constantly forced us to research the evolution of superpowered organisms, endlessly drawing nourishment from us."

"Even if you still had your scientific team, so what? Your superpower is nothing more than invisibility."

"Heh, looking down on invisibility? I can..."