Supreme Superboy intended to put an end to this farce. He fired a heat-vision beam at First Lantern in the distance, trying to stop him from rushing into the light gate again and beginning his endless journey of torment.
But Batman Dragon stopped him once again.
He turned his head and saw the other man gripping his arm, so he revealed a dangerous smile:
"Let go. First Lantern is consuming the energy within the Cosmic Tuning Fork. That's all my energy."
"No. Don't let your anger cloud your judgment, Supreme Superboy. Take another careful look."
Chen Tao said, "The energy hasn't decreased at all. Did you notice?"
Supreme Superboy calmed down as well.
At last, he discovered that this fact... was true.
First Lantern had gone back once just now, and Old Huo Rong, refusing to believe it, had gone back once too.
By common logic, they should have both appeared at the appropriate points in time and swung their swords down. Even if it ultimately produced no result, the energy should still have been depleted.
But it hadn't. Nothing had disappeared. Everything still existed.
"What is this..."
"The people of Earth-15 are already dead," Chen Tao said. "They have returned to the embrace of death. Do you understand? Eternal annihilation. They will never return."
He said, "I only realized it now. Before this, when I interfered with Earth-15's history, I always thought my existence might have caused Earth-15 to be saved, thereby triggering a paradox.
"But in fact, what triggered the paradox wasn't [being saved], but [Huo Rong of that era dying before he could escape Earth-15]."
"Earth-15's death has already become an established fact. No matter how much energy we use to cut it, it's impossible to slice this section of history off the Over-Time Stream, because this