Shane just raised his hand, wanting to explain that he was not a minion of that so-called Trigon, but after observing Shane for a few more moments, Raven decisively dismissed her previous thought.
"No, although your soul is reeking of blood, you don't know even the slightest bit of magic."
"Uh... your powers of observation are quite sharp."
Seeing that Raven seemed willing to talk to him, Shane put his hand back down.
The girl's brows furrowed slightly, and purple light abruptly flared beneath her feet once more.
Shane sighed and shook his head.
"If your escape magic only has this one trick, then you should know you can't shake me off."
Raven stared coldly at Shane, a hint of annoyance washing over her gaze.
After thinking carefully for two seconds, the girl somewhat reluctantly cancelled the magic beneath her feet.
She had to admit that the other was right. Against that inhuman speed and the baffling ability to track her, if this guy was determined to pester her...
She really didn't have any good way to slip away.
Raven's expression turned vexed.
"How did you find me? What on earth do you want?"
"I got help from someone, and now, I need your help."
"Mmhmm?"
Seeing that the girl finally stopped trying to teleport away, Shane quickly pulled the Golden Apple from his pocket.
"It's a bit complicated to explain. A few days ago, I was inexplicably targeted by a god from the Greek pantheon. After that, I had some conflicts with her, destroyed her divine body, and got this golden apple."
Raven glanced over the golden apple, furrowing her brow in thought for a few seconds.
"This thing carries divine power, and its magical composition is very complex. Sorry, my level is probably not enough to deal with that so-called deity."
Originally, Raven expected this strange boy to become dejected after hearing her confession, but she didn't expect Shane's expression to remain unchanged.
He simply shoved the golden apple back into his pocket.
"I didn't mean to make such an excessive request. Actually, I mainly wanted to find a reliable magician to consult."
Shane scratched his arm as he spoke. Over the past three days, the abnormal itching inside his body had gradually faded, but he still had some mild residual discomfort.
"Is there something special about my soul? Those gods, master magicians, and the like—including those reactions you had just now."
Shane spent a second thinking of how to phrase it.
"It's as if in your eyes, I'm extremely conspicuous?"
Raven's previously icy expression slowly underwent subtle changes after listening to Shane's question.
She sized Shane up once more, her eyes holding a hint of mockery, yet mixed with a trace of confusion.
"You don't know your own situation?"
Shane opened his mouth. This question stumped him a bit.
Of course he knew why. These days, any magic user could tell that his soul was saturated with bloodshed. A past he had never intended to mention to anyone seemed transparent in the eyes of certain specific groups.
Yet how was he supposed to describe this to the girl before him?
Compared to this Earth, Viltrum was an entirely different environment.
You had to know that even while in the middle of a civil war, Viltrum had already conquered hundreds of planets within a certain light-year radius around them.
Yet no righteous magicians ever jumped out to bark at Viltrumites.
No calling them human demons, or shouting about how their sins of slaughter were too heavy.
Shane even had a vague guess.
That was, during his period of drifting through space, he must have encountered another incident and gotten pulled into the DC Universe.
Although such a conjecture allowed Shane to temporarily shove aside his most deeply worried concerns.
Magicians were everywhere here, and the looks they gave him were filled with vigilance and rejection.
Doctor Fate had even nearly launched a fierce attack on him.
It was foreseeable that if he couldn't find a way to resolve this issue, all sorts of freaks and weirdos would likely keep popping up in the future because of the peculiarity of his soul, disrupting his life.
"I was born in a place without magic."
Shane carefully began to speak. The girl still looked somewhat impatient, her slender, fair fingers tightly clutching the stolen bread and milk as she listened coldly.
"Where I'm from, or rather my people, they are all just like me. Our culture is like this, full of slaughter and bloodshed."
Raven's gaze visibly grew even colder.
If Shane hadn't shown the slightest bit of hostility from start to finish, she probably would have already used more dangerous offensive magic on him.
Yet Shane's next sentence caused a change in Raven's eyes.
"That's why I ran away. I want to live a peaceful, normal life on this planet."
"But as you can see, and as I just explained, in this place called Earth, my past still makes me stand out from the perspective of the magical side."
Shane's narration came to an abrupt halt.
As for Raven, she no longer had that keep-people-at-a-distance vibe from earlier.
Even her gaze seemed to carry a certain...
Sense of empathy.
She carefully tucked the bread and milk deeper into her arms, then bit her lip while staring at Shane, who stood with his hands at his sides.
"You want to shield your soul?"
A surge of hope stirred in Shane's heart, and he couldn't help but look forward to it.
"If this can solve my problem, I suppose so."
"Why on earth should I help you? You and I have nothing to do with each other."
Ah, well. Whether it was Shane's imagination or not, he noticed the corners of Raven's mouth curl into a cunning smile as she spoke those words.
Shane's brain spun rapidly. He wondered if he could propose some kind of fair exchange terms.
Or perhaps, pull out the golden apple again, describe the dangerous nature of this divine artifact, and subject the girl to a spot of moral blackmail?
Since the girl would eventually become a member of the superhero team, even if she was currently homeless and relied on theft for food, she would still feel compassion for a beggar.
By the same logic, her empathy should be pretty strong.
He couldn't just keep latching onto her like this, sticking to her like a piece of glue until she grew utterly annoyed with him.
So much so that she would want to chase him away, and then reluctantly offer her help?
"Do you know Superman?"
Shane asked cautiously.
Raven was stunned, seemingly failing to grasp the implication of Shane's question.
"Of course I do. Newspapers, televisions set up in roadside shops—Superman is the topic everywhere."
Certainty filled Shane's heart. He rolled up his sleeve and struck a pose to show off.
"My race is called Viltrum. My superpower is very similar to Superman's, and in the future, I might even become like him—or perhaps even stronger than Superman."
"I don't need a bodyguard."
Raven ruthlessly cut off Shane's words and the intent behind them.
Shane lowered his arm awkwardly. At this rate, it seemed moral blackmail was his only option...
"I am interested in your soul and your memories."
"What?"
The words Raven suddenly blurted out made Shane tense up, his heart instinctively wanting to refuse.
His superpowers could currently only handle purely physical situations, and the soul truly was a glaring weakness in this world full of all sorts of magic and sorcery.
As a result, Raven's attitude had taken a slightly abnormal turn.
"Putting aside my personal reasons, I must first tell you that there is currently a problem with your soul. Without a deeper understanding, I still can't help you."
Shane blinked. For some reason, he always felt that once the topic turned to souls, Raven seemed to become a lot more talkative.
"What if we don't put it aside?"
"...My personal hobby."
Raven's voice became very soft, seemingly because she was somewhat too embarrassed to say it out of shame.
Immediately afterward, the girl raised her hand to make a promise.
"Rest assured, I won't pry into your secrets. This magic is not a one-way malicious spell; whenever there is a part you don't want to show, you can use your will to refuse me, and you can also skip those places where secrets are hidden. I'm just curious about your soul."
"You look like you're only around my age, but your soul has a fragrance—a thickness of decades. If you'd let me use soul magic just slightly, just touch it a little bit..."
Raven gestured with a very small hand sign, her eyes even carrying undisguised anticipation.
"Then I'd be willing to help you solve your problem."
Shane always felt that the way this girl was looking at him right now was just like those sickly addicts in the corners of Gotham seeing a little white pill.
What on earth kind of bizarre hobby was this?
Before you continue