Remaining

Anchorage Coast.

The sea breeze carried a fishy saltiness as waves crashed against the eroded, hole-ridden shore.

A massive shadow emerged beneath the azure ocean.

The Lantern Goldfish Monster burst from the sea with its enormous antenna-lantern held high, opening its huge mouth filled with irregularly arranged sharp teeth as air surged from deep in its throat.

It spat out a diamond-shaped black shell slightly larger than a person, which fell onto the shore.

The Lantern Goldfish Monster let out a roar at the sky, turned, and dove beneath the surface, its shadow gradually vanishing from the sea.

The diamond-shaped black shell rattled, then suddenly split in two as Ciri kicked it apart from within.

"He-El, I'm back!" Wearing a black tube top and square-cut shorts, Ciri stood up from the diamond-shaped black shell, raised both hands high, and shouted excitedly at the sky.

But unfortunately, He-El was not the first to answer her.

"Welcome back."

With a smile at the corner of her lips, Jupiter appeared in front of Ciri in a flash. She wore black glasses and a sharp, capable office-lady outfit.

Ciri froze for a moment when she saw Jupiter appear.

To be honest, although she and Jupiter both served under He-El, they had never interacted. They had only met once.

Ciri's evaluation of Jupiter was: someone who could not see herself clearly.

Jupiter's evaluation of Ciri was: a big-breasted, brainless idiot who only knew how to stay in a laboratory.

Seeing Jupiter appear first instead of He-El coming to receive her, Ciri realized that something must have happened—or that He-El still had something to do before leaving.

"Did He-El send you to pick me up?" Ciri grinned broadly, planted her hands on her hips, and laughed.

On second thought, she could not figure anything out. She could not guess what He-El wanted to do, but she only needed to go along with it.

She would leave everything to He-El.

A strange glint flashed through Jupiter's eyes behind her glasses. The smile on her lips took on a deeper meaning.

"More or less."

Jupiter placed a hand on Ciri's smooth shoulder.

The next moment, the two of them vanished and returned to He-El Palace.

The great hall was vast. The heavenly pillars were carved with magnificent sights and cultures from across the world, while the dome they supported flowed like Stars through day and night, grand beyond measure.

He-El leaned against the imperial throne, head tilted back, body slightly slanted against one armrest, calmly watching Ciri and Jupiter appear in the hall.

In an instant, the two had traveled from Anchorage Coast to He-El's great hall.

Before she could take in the hall's grandeur, He-El's figure appeared in her sight. Ciri immediately brightened and raised a hand to greet him, only to calm down the next moment and quietly stand beside Jupiter.

Jupiter's heart sank slightly.

Even though she had brought Ciri here herself, he still showed no reaction whatsoever.

Even a trace of surprise or confusion would have made Jupiter feel better, but his usual calm composure was still like that night in the sewers. It was as though everything remained under his control.

"My Emperor, you do not seem surprised by what I have done." Suppressing the faint unease in her heart, Jupiter gave He-El a gentle, elegant bow.

"Mm." He-El gave a noncommittal response through his nose, his gaze falling on Jupiter as if to see what performance she had prepared.

Receiving that one-word response from He-El, Jupiter somehow felt a surge of excitement. A confident, capable smile spread across her face.

She became once more the confident woman who had controlled seven billion people and stood at the pinnacle of power.

"Allow me to show Your Majesty a superpower concerning your life and death."

Jupiter bowed elegantly, and her body flickered.

She used Instant Transmission, appearing and disappearing continuously throughout the hall.

The transmission speed of the human visual nervous system was roughly comparable to electrical signals.

To ordinary eyes, her appearances and disappearances were too fast, producing afterimages. In that instant, a great many Jupiters appeared in the hall.

"Instant Transmission."

Jupiter spoke amid the visual afterimages she had created.

"My own superpower: Instant Transmission."

"At first, I thought it was particle reorganization. But it was not that simple."

"It is space. It is the opening of spatial wormholes."

"By establishing three-dimensional coordinates and marking every point, I can instantly move to any location."

But it was dangerous as well. If she accidentally transmitted herself to a coordinate inside a wall, she would instantly merge with the wall and die.

Naturally, there was no need to demonstrate such a bizarre weakness.

"I can instantly move myself, and through day-and-night practice, I have become skilled enough to make objects undergo Instant Transmission as well."

Jupiter stopped transmitting. A sharp confidence flashed across her face as she held a gleaming coin between her slender white fingers before it.

The light refracted through her glasses made her seem exceptionally cold and ruthless.

"No matter how hard a substance is, no matter how elastic or densely atomic it may be, if another substance is inserted into it, the particles within its composition will rupture and be utterly destroyed."

The gleaming coin held between Jupiter's fingers vanished.

The next moment, a coin silently appeared embedded within a blue diamond on the throne's armrest. It was exceedingly strange, as though the two had always been one, without any trace of alteration.

Then cracks spread through the blue diamond. The coin had ruptured the arrangement of carbon atoms inside it.

He-El lightly brushed the exposed cross-section of the coin with his hand. The cracks in the blue diamond widened, shattering it into tiny blue diamonds that fell onto the throne. The part of the coin embedded in the diamond also crumbled into iron powder.

He-El could infer the principle. Two kinds of atoms had suddenly appeared, collided, and shredded the original magnetic equilibrium, leaving neither able to maintain balance and causing each to collapse.

Space truly was worthy of being the foundation of the universe. It was remarkably wondrous.

"My Emperor, someone as intelligent as you surely understands."

"Even your body of steel and brain of steel cannot withstand a coin undergoing Instant Transmission."

Jupiter flipped her hand, another coin appearing between her slender fingers as she smiled.

Instant Transmission was invincible.

No substance, including flesh, could endure a coin existing within it. The collision of particles would instantly tear apart the original particles' continuity, coherence, and stability, bringing destruction.

With Instant Transmission, with the ability to make objects undergo Instant Transmission, she was invincible.

"My Emperor, if you do not want this coin to appear in your brain, then all you need to do is remain on Earth and continue sitting safely upon your throne as before."

Jupiter was calm and confident. The coin between her slender fingers spun once as she curled her lips with amusement.

Upon hearing Jupiter's words,

He-El rose directly from the throne, lifted his head, spread his arms, and descended the steps one by one toward Jupiter.

"Come. Try putting that coin into my brain."

He-El's bearing was domineering, as though he ruled the world. An immense pressure, towering like a planet, crashed head-on into Jupiter.

Even the projection of the starry sky across the dome became merely the backdrop behind him.

Like a divine emperor of the stars descending into the mortal world, he came bearing the universe and its Stars.

The teasing curve of Jupiter's lips instantly froze. It was as if an illusion had appeared before her: a colossal giant rising to his feet and walking toward her step by step with suffocating majesty.

Her slender fingers stiffened around the coin, and her gaze went blank.

Should she act?

No!

She could not act.

For humanity.

Yes, for humanity's peace.

He-El's prestige and invincibility among humanity had been established from the very beginning.

The figure that walked out of three nuclear bombs, the explosion he unleashed barehanded with nuclear-level force, the way he resolved the United States, Earth's strongest nation, in a single night, and the slaughter of eight million criminals—the symbol of invincibility he had established within twenty-four hours.

Then came his many policies, which benefited all humanity on Earth, and everyone supported him without exception.

He-El could not die, nor could he disappear or leave.

No human could take He-El's place and do better than him.

"Are you looking for excuses?"

He-El advanced step by step, his eyes cold and merciless, though Jupiter interpreted them as contempt for her.

He-El had never thought highly of her.

Whether it was the Humanity Self-Rescue Heroes Association she had formed to oppose him, or the great He-El Empire she had maintained for him,

or her clownish display of superpowers just now.

It was all like a clown show, ridiculous and laughable.

"Aren't you afraid of death?"

"As long as you sit on that throne, you will have everything!"

"Humanity's support and adoration, the power and resources of an entire planet—whatever you want, you can have!"

"Even women of every skin color, any woman at all, a harem of three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred million—even I could be yours! Willingly!"

"Why?!"

"Why are you leaving Earth?!"

Jupiter's slender fingers holding the coin trembled. Her face gradually twisted, and by the end, she tore out a hoarse, unwilling cry from the depths of her throat.

The coin between her slender fingers shook violently. Within her chest, her heart pounded madly with fear. Even her blood seemed to carry emotion, carrying the emotion called fear through every Blood Vessel.

Sweat seeped out from her trembling body, sticking her white inner lining and undergarments tightly to her graceful figure, yet offering none of the warmth of being wrapped up.

In the end, she did not have the courage to act.

She could only tremble.

He-El lowered his arms, passed Jupiter, and headed toward the doors of the great hall.

"Cowardly, afraid of me, clinging beneath me and living off my power—how could someone like you ever have the courage to strike at me?"

He-El was deeply disappointed in her.

She clearly possessed the ability to see through the nature of the universe.

Yet she had not, like Gaia, merged with Earth's magnetic field in order to deal with him, even to the point of forgetting her original intent to oppose him.

Nor had she, like Molecule Man, entered the microscopic world directly for humanity's survival and created a microscopic civilization.

Still less had she, like Edward, noticed the corners he had overlooked and attempted to imprison him in the Dreaming dimension and kill him.

Even Kevin, the reporter from back then, who had tried to use public morality to blackmail him, had performed better than Jupiter did now.

He-El slowly walked out of the great hall and dissolved into Light Points beneath the sunlight.

Along with him, Ciri also dissolved into Light Points.

Jupiter's legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the smooth floor. Her glasses fell away, revealing vacant, unfocused eyes.

The coin still clenched tightly between her slender fingers continued to tremble.

She sat dazed on the smooth floor like a frog. Only after a long, long time did she realize that He-El had left Earth, taking Ciri with him.

But Earth's humanity remained.

Humanity... still needed her.

"Dawn, are you still there?" Jupiter asked.

"I am."

"Did he leave?"

"Master has gone."

"Is that so? Then only we are left."

"No. The task Master left me after he departed was to continue recording superpowers, not to help humanity or become humanity's tool. I am only Master's tool. Only you are left, Jupiter Annisdora."

"Haha... hahaha..."