Chapter Summaries

Shane traveled to Hong Kong with Rachel and Cassandra while pursuing Constantine, after revealing to Batman that he had returned in a body made from mental power. He left Batman’s concerns about the Lazarus Pit unresolved and set a trap to draw Constantine to Zhou Zhanxie.

• Batman admitted that he had not yet found Damian because his many responsibilities had kept him from investigating the League of Assassins’ disappearance.
• Batman warned Shane that the Lazarus Pit could have dangerous side effects, but Shane dismissed his concerns and promised to discuss them after retrieving Constantine.
• Shane revealed that he was already in Hong Kong and that his body speaking with Batman was fabricated from mental power.
• Shane sat with Rachel, Cassandra, and Zhou Zhanxie in a Hong Kong café, where he accompanied Cassandra on her family visit and introduced Rachel to local culture.
• Zhou Zhanxie used her Amazon account to insult Constantine, provoking him into challenging her online so that Shane could draw him out.

Shane and Rachel split up to stay with Cassandra and Zhou Zhanxie during their Hong Kong visit. As Shane climbed to Zhou’s public housing apartment, their teasing conversation turned to his disguise and her gender.

• Cassandra and Zhou Zhanxie argued over who would pay for the meal, and Cassandra paid after showing her account balance.
• Shane arranged for Rachel to stay with Cassandra while he went with Zhou Zhanxie, and Rachel agreed.
• Rachel arrived by taxi at Cassandra’s manor and sent Shane a photo while he climbed the stairs to Zhou’s apartment.
• A neighbor mistook Shane for Zhou Zhanxie’s date, and Zhou said she was only bringing a friend over.
• Shane questioned Zhou about being a girl, and Zhou warned him before accusing him of fooling Batman despite understanding Cantonese.

Shane spent the night at Zhou Zhanxie's apartment, where their banter and shared food and beer gave him a brief sense of familiarity in an unfamiliar world. Zhou revealed that she could travel between the living world and the underworld, and the chapter ended with the two drinking together.

• Shane settled into Zhou Zhanxie's cluttered apartment and felt the distance between this world and home as he looked at the moon.
• Cassandra asked to sleep with Rachel, leaving Shane alone in the guest room.
• Zhou insisted Shane shower before they drank beer and watched television together.
• Shane sent Zhou money for food, and she traveled to the underworld to buy late-night snacks.
• Zhou told Shane she had been able to travel between the living world and the dead since childhood, then challenged him to drink without using powers to sober up.

Shane accompanied Zhou Zhanxie to her late master's funeral supply shop, where she revealed how her master had taught her before becoming a threat in the Underworld. Shane cut off her account and asked what they would do next.

• After drinking through the night, Zhou Zhanxie woke beside the toilet and confronted Shane, who explained why he had left her there.
• Zhou Zhanxie took Shane to an inherited funeral supply shop and used a talisman from it to ease her aching back.
• Zhou Zhanxie explained that she had traveled from childhood to seek teachers and had learned genuine skills from her master in Hong Kong.
• Zhou Zhanxie told Shane that her master later went mad in the Underworld and killed people in an attempt to seize her body.
• Shane stopped Zhou Zhanxie's account and abruptly asked what they were doing next.

Zhou Zhanxie took Shane to a neglected cemetery to set up her talisman stall, while Constantine spotted her in Hong Kong and decided to pursue revenge despite Boss Ruan's warning. The chapter left Zhou Zhanxie joking with Shane at the stall as she worried he had seen her naked while she was drunk.

• Zhou Zhanxie collected the remaining stock from her late master's shop, greeted Uncle Ruan, and walked away with Shane.
• Constantine recognized Zhou Zhanxie as the mage he had tracked with spirit money and planned ways to take revenge on her.
• Boss Ruan confronted Constantine and warned him not to harm Zhou Zhanxie, but Constantine denied targeting her and claimed he wanted to make friends.
• Zhou Zhanxie brought Shane to a neglected cemetery where she had once stopped an eight-month corpse uprising and regularly sold Talisman Paper.
• Zhou Zhanxie used folded paper to conjure a fortune-teller's stall and posed theatrically, then learned Shane remembered her drunkenly vomiting with her towel fallen off.

Shane learned that Zhou Zhanxie sold talismans to wealthy families who had lost loved ones in the cemetery, using most of the money to care for forgotten wandering souls. She explained that the cemetery’s accumulated resentment had caused the zombie uprising and hinted that Buddhist practice had helped her deal with it.

• An elderly couple recognized Zhou Zhanxie as Master Zhou and bought her talismans for over fifty thousand Hong Kong dollars.
• Zhou Zhanxie explained the different effects of her talismans, including one that let people speak with deceased loved ones in dreams.
• Shane telepathically followed Cassandra as she showed Rachel around Hong Kong and revealed how her parents’ brutal training had shaped her childhood.
• Zhou Zhanxie served fourteen groups of wealthy customers and collected over three million Hong Kong dollars without lowering her prices.
• Zhou Zhanxie told Shane that resentment from generations of people buried in the former mass graveyard had caused the zombie uprising.
• Zhou Zhanxie said she would donate ninety percent of the money and use the rest to provide for forgotten souls, then revealed that her prayer beads were part of her Buddhist practice.

Shane, Zhou Zhanxie, and Constantine faced a widening breach into Hell after Shane’s Lazarus Pit water drew out the spirits of wrongfully dead war victims. As a huge entity began climbing from the vortex, Zhou Zhanxie explained that the spirits sought reincarnation, leaving Shane to consider whether he could stop the breach without destroying them.

• Zhou Zhanxie offered incense and paper at graves and mass burial sites before bringing Shane to the place where the corpse outbreak had begun.
• Constantine appeared and activated a magic circle, but the seals between yin and yang shattered, and a skeletal arm rose from the ground.
• Shane bound Constantine and revealed that Lazarus Pit water had become part of him, which Zhou Zhanxie identified as reincarnation water.
• A vortex opened and threatened to pull all three into Hell, but Shane used his mental power to hold them aloft.
• Zhou Zhanxie explained that the emerging spirits were wrongfully dead victims seeking reincarnation, while Constantine urged Shane to destroy them.
• Shane punched Constantine and asked Zhou Zhanxie if there was another way.

Shane, Zhou Zhanxie, and Constantine faced the expanding Hell vortex as Zhou offered to soothe the resentment within it. The Jade Pavilion masters arrived, learned the disturbance was an accident, and worried that the resentment would be harder to calm without a guilty party.

• Zhou Zhanxie asked Shane to let her try absorbing and soothing the resentment, but Shane challenged her account and questioned Constantine about a solution.
• Shane healed Constantine’s shattered face, and Constantine warned that Zhou’s method could possess her or destroy her mind, especially against the resentment of tens of thousands of unjustly dead people.
• The Hell vortex surged, spewing bones and shattered souls as its pull began dragging Shane downward.
• Seven people from the Jade Pavilion arrived from the Underworld, led by a short girl carrying a dragon-headed staff, and demanded to know who had opened the Yin-Yang Barrier.
• Zhou Zhanxie explained that the disaster had been an accident, and the girl said that without a guilty party it would be harder to soothe the resentment.

Shane entered the Hell vortex and absorbed the resentment of the countless souls trapped within, calming the breach without being physically harmed. He returned mentally exhausted, while the Jade Pavilion prepared to repair the barrier and Constantine remained captured.

• Shane stopped Zhou Zhanxie from sacrificing herself, restrained the Jade Pavilion Girl, and entered the Hell vortex.
• The vortex calmed as Shane went inside, and the Jade Pavilion Girl immobilized Constantine and held him responsible for the damaged Yin-Yang Barrier.
• Zhou Zhanxie prepared to defend against whatever emerged, but Shane returned unharmed and signaled the Jade Pavilion to repair the breach.
• Rachel witnessed Shane soothe the amalgamation of resentment and absorb the pain and memories of more than ten thousand slaughtered souls.
• Shane sat down to rest and drove the Red of Rage and Blue of Compassion away when they tried to approach.

After helping seal the breach into Hell, Shane refused the Jade Pavilion’s invitation and left with Constantine, shaken by the possibility that his former home and family might exist in this world. He stopped the resentful spirits from influencing him, promised to finish cleansing them when he found a way home, and continued flying as Neron appeared behind him.

• Zhou Zhanxie invited Shane to the Jade Pavilion, but Shane declined and flew away with Constantine.
• Shane realized that this world might share the history, hometown, and family of his previous life, and feared discovering whether they existed here.
• Shane blocked the amalgamation’s emotions from affecting him and told the spirits he would cleanse their resentment after finding a way home.
• Shane created a town in his mental world for the spirits and left them there under his protection.
• Constantine saw Neron coalesce behind Shane and asked whether Shane had really dissolved the spirits’ resentment.

Shane brought Constantine back to the Justice League after Constantine warned that Shane’s demonic nature would lead to disaster, but refused to explain further. Shane handed Constantine over to Batman, set strict limits on his future work, and learned that capturing Constantine earned him a year’s access to the Earth Bench Press Machine.

• Constantine warned Shane that imprisoning innocent souls could turn him into a true demon, but Shane doubted his motives and dismissed the danger.
• Shane confronted Constantine about keeping the Secret Place and the Place of Exile, and Constantine vowed to stay silent until a preventable disaster happened.
• Shane brought Constantine to the Justice League and told Batman about Constantine’s warning and his own uneasy intuition.
• Batman restrained Constantine with magic-suppressing shackles, while Constantine continued to refuse to explain what he knew.
• Shane rejected rebuilding the Green Lantern Corps, volunteered to have the defense core checked, and said he would return Cassandra after her family visit.
• Batman told Shane the Earth Bench Press Machine would be ready in two days, and Shane learned his mission had earned him a year’s membership.

After the mages repaired the Multidimensional Defense Network, Shane accepted Mental Entity Jay’s invitation to exchange ideas about psychic power the next day. The House of Secrets returned to Shane, and Jay began preparing for their meeting.

• Mental Entity confirmed that the Psychic Dimension had been reinspected, and Ragman declared the Multidimensional Defense Network repaired.
• Shane ended his contract with Constantine and left the old lock core in the mages’ care.
• Jay asked Shane to exchange ideas about mental energy, and Shane agreed to meet him the next day.
• Shane realized the House of Secrets had returned because Constantine could no longer sense it, and he took it back in.
• After Shane left, the mages crowded around Jay, who hurried off to prepare professional topics for their meeting.

Shane and Shazam arrived at the Super-Strength Center to try the Earth Bench Press Machine, where Superman asked to test first before traveling to China for a body scan. Shane’s joke about Superman being a lifetime VIP exposed that Batman had charged Superman and Shazam for admission, leaving Shane to condemn Batman.

• Shane flew from the Teen Titans’ base toward the Super-Strength Center, and Shazam caught up with him carrying breakfast burritos.
• Shane and Shazam passed the authentication corridor and entered the Canadian Shield base, where Cyborg and Batman were already on duty.
• Superman arrived, took a burrito from Shazam, and asked Shane to let him test first because he needed to travel to China for a body scan.
• Shane agreed and joked that Superman was a lifetime free VIP member of the Earth Bench Press Machine.
• Superman revealed that Batman had charged him two hundred dollars for admission, and Shazam said Batman had charged him three hundred dollars.
• Shane dodged the question of how much Batman had charged him and declared that Batman had gone too far.

Batman began testing the Earth Bench Press Machine on Superman, which imposed an immense load and revealed how metahumans controlled their strength. Superman adapted to moving under 1.137 × 10^21 short tons, and Batman prepared to increase the power.

• Shane explained to Shazam that Black Adam ruled Kahndaq and had been accepted by much of its population.
• Batman and his equipment crew secured Superman inside the machine while the assembled heroes watched.
• Batman activated the machine, and Superman struggled to move his right arm under its load.
• Shane explained that powerful metahumans kept their strength restrained in daily life and differed in how quickly they could reach maximum output.
• Superman adapted to moving freely under 1.137 × 10^21 short tons, and Batman announced that he would increase the power.

Shane watched Superman test his strength and endurance on Batman’s Earth Bench Press Machine, then began his own test and kept going for seven hours. The others waited in astonishment as he continued counting repetitions.

• Shane marveled at the Earth Bench Press Machine as Superman warmed up and lifted a load equivalent to the Earth's weight.
• Superman completed 6,000 repetitions, then Wonder Woman went ahead of Shane and tested her strength, bench-pressing roughly one-third of the Earth's weight a hundred times.
• Captain Atom approached Shane, admitted his interest in him was personal as well as tied to his military allegiance, and was rebuffed.
• Shane told Batman he could skip the warm-up, then began exercising once the machine reached full output.
• After seven hours, Shane had completed 23,118 repetitions while Black Adam and Shazam waited nearby.

Batman completed the strength tests and discovered that Shazam’s second transformation let him lift Earth-weight sets, surpassing Superman’s measured result. Batman realized Shane’s blessing had made Shazam’s ability to grant his power to others far more dangerous, while Shane left the Mental Entity’s home without getting the answer he wanted.

• Batman measured the strength of the participants and found that Superman and Shane far exceeded the others, while Black Adam, Captain Atom, and Shazam’s first transformation could only barely move Earth-weight loads.
• Cyborg thanked the participants and announced that the upgraded Earth Bench Press Machine would eventually be available to Justice League members; most people left, but Shazam stayed behind.
• Black Adam waited for Shazam, then left after Shazam continued to dawdle, while Batman called Shazam in for a second test.
• Shazam transformed again and, after an hour and a half of testing, produced a result that edged out Superman’s; Black Adam watched before silently flying away.
• Batman recognized that Shane’s blessing had greatly increased the danger of Shazam’s ability to bestow his power on others, while Shane left the Mental Entity’s home without receiving the answer he sought.

Shane visited the Magic World and left to investigate Hell and demons, while Diana unexpectedly reunited with Vanessa after more than two years apart. The chapter ended with Vanessa trying to reconnect with Shane, who barely recognized her and flew off before she could finish greeting him.

• Shane entered the Magic World through a tavern in Orlando, and the mages spread rumors that he might be an incarnation of Zeus.
• Diana investigated the report, recognized Shane, and left the tavern exhausted before running into Vanessa.
• Diana realized she had missed Vanessa's college news and learned that Vanessa still remembered Shane and had never dated anyone.
• Diana mentioned that Shane had a mage girlfriend, then accepted Vanessa's invitation to rest at her rented home.
• The next day, Vanessa waited outside the tavern to greet Shane, but Shane barely recognized her and flew off to seek help from demons.

Shane traveled to Los Angeles to meet Lucifer, the immensely powerful being he feared might be able to read his mind. Lucifer revealed that Shane had prevented the New 52 reboot and thanked him for sparing him from it.

• Shane searched three Los Angeles locations called Lux, found the piano bar near Venice Beach, and entered to meet Lucifer.
• Lucifer read Shane's thoughts, and Shane's thoughts about killing him and disrespecting him caused blood to pour from Shane's mouth and nose.
• Lucifer explained that Shane had not truly been injured and that his body had reacted to his subconscious fear of offending him.
• Lucifer recognized that Shane knew his full story and served him a fruit-flavored drink suited to his tastes.
• Lucifer thanked Shane for preventing the New 52 reboot that would have erased his former existence.

Shane questioned Lucifer about Constantine’s hidden threat and discovered that he could become a new Lord of Hell. The chapter left Shane facing the possibility that his transformation would turn the mortal world into Hell, while Rachel trusted that he would not let Earth’s people perish.

• Shane told Lucifer that he feared losing control of his life, and Lucifer said his arrogance made him prefer facing unknowable powers to letting Constantine lord it over him.
• Lucifer refused to reveal Constantine’s secret directly but allowed Shane to ask questions, explaining that the outcome would delight him and depend on who Shane considered close to him.
• Shane connected Constantine’s threat to magic, Hell, Neron’s silver coin, and the Omnidimensional Magic Defense Network, then asked what it took to become a Lord of Hell.
• Lucifer said Shane now possessed the identities of deity, demon, and human, and could become a trinity under the right conditions.
• Shane realized that becoming Lord of Hell in the mortal world could swap Hell and Earth, endanger Earth’s population, and fulfill Neron’s desire for freedom.
• Rachel caught Shane’s glass, touched his cheek, and said he would not let an entire Earth’s worth of people die because of him.

Shane learned from Lucifer that the Lords of Hell had secretly passed the role among themselves to escape its burdens, and that Lucifer had been seeking a successor. Shane realized Lucifer expected him to take the position, though he had not yet agreed.

• Lucifer explained that he had shaped Hell into a prison and had manipulated powerful beings into taking turns ruling it.
• Lucifer revealed that Neron had taken over after changing his trading ritual, then sought a successor within ten years.
• Lucifer told Shane that becoming Lord of Hell would offer useful powers and freedom to leave whenever he wished.
• Shane considered the benefits of becoming Satan, including confronting Viltrum and protecting Rachel from Trigon.
• Shane realized Lucifer had already decided he would become the next Lord of Hell, and Lucifer replied that Shane had insisted on asking.