For Whom the Bell Tolls

"Today's Clark's game. Jonathan and I are going to watch. Eric, are you coming?"

Martha, scarf wrapped and ready to head out, stood at the door and asked Eric.

"No."

Eric, who was leafing through the information he had gotten from the reporter Chris, shook his head in refusal.

"Sorry, I'm not interested in football right now."

"Mm-hmm."

Jonathan slipped on his coat and said to Eric, "Sometimes we have to make changes. Like me—I've changed my position and have to go watch the game with Martha now, even though I've always opposed Clark joining the football team."

"You can't always be this stubborn, Jonathan. Just as we support Eric's writing, you need to support Clark's interest in football too," Martha said to her husband.

Jonathan sighed. "That's not the same thing at all, Martha."

"It is the same thing, at least in Clark's eyes."

Martha adjusted her husband's scarf. "It represents whether a father trusts his son, and trust is sometimes incredibly important."

"I know."

Jonathan flashed the watch on his wrist at his wife and smiled faintly. "If we don't hurry, we're going to be late."

After his parents left, Eric turned his attention back to the laptop before him.

Most of the contents were news interview drafts, videos, and photo materials.

After searching through all the system drives, he finally found a suspicious file in a hidden folder.

On the first page of the document was a nursery rhyme:

We killed it, Who will be its priest? Who will be its chief mourner? Who will carry its coffin? Who will sing its requiem? The raven writes a prayer for death in its little book. The dove sheds tears for its beloved, mourning the future. The kite walks the barren night road, carrying the heavy coffin. The thrush stands amid the bushes, singing the requiem. All the birds sigh and weep When they hear the funeral bell. It tolls for them.

Notice

To all concerned parties:

This notice announces that At the next Owl Council, All birds will be judged.

--

Below the eerie nursery rhyme was a long list of names.

Eric skimmed through it and found only a few vaguely familiar names.

Lex Luthor was among them.

"A funeral bell for the birds, huh? The Court of Owls. This is getting more and more interesting."

Closing the laptop, Eric rose in a good mood and stretched.

As he relaxed, his super vision activated, casting his gaze toward the distant football field.

In the editor-in-chief's office of the Torch, Chloe, typing at her keyboard, glanced at the clock on the wall.

There were still twenty minutes before Clark's game began. She had to finish entering the proofread copy before then, or she would not make it to Clark's game.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

In the silent room, there was only the sound of fingers striking the keyboard.

Completely absorbed, Chloe failed to notice a dark shadow silently moving toward her.

Whoosh!

Flames suddenly appeared on the computer in front of her, making a terrifying sound.

Before Chloe could react, the burning, heat-radiating flames quickly engulfed the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and typewriter.

The equipment seemed to have been doused in gasoline as it was swiftly covered by fire, the flames shooting toward the ceiling.

"God!"

Startled, Chloe stumbled backward in panic.

But the flames seemed alive, cutting off her retreat.

The newspapers and documents on the desk were all ignited and consumed by the fire.

Thick smoke immediately spread from the center of the room, joining the flames to surround her.

"Cough, cough...!"

Covering her mouth, Chloe tried to back away, but she was trapped by the flames and unable to move.

"Help! Help!"

Overwhelmed by despair and helplessness, she coughed violently while crying out for help.

But her voice was swallowed by the roaring flames and quickly vanished into the air.

Having finished controlling the flames, Coach Watt stood outside the editor-in-chief's office. Seeing Chloe trapped in the fire, a cold smile appeared at the corner of his mouth as he turned and headed for the locker room.

Today was the two-hundredth game of his coaching career. He hoped this victory would not be delayed by such a "trivial matter."

His pursuit of honor had become almost pathological. He could not tolerate even the slightest flaw.

In the locker room, the door was shoved open with a bang, and Clark walked in wearing his oversized football uniform. With an odd expression on his face, he stopped before Coach Watt.

"Clark?"

Coach Watt was somewhat surprised by Clark's arrival.

"You should be in the locker room changing. The game is about to begin."

"I talked to Trevor."

Clark approached the coach with a dark expression. "He told me you'd been abusing him, and helping him cheat."

"Hmph."

Coach Watt, now dressed in his coaching clothes, snorted coldly. "So that kid was the one who tattled to Guan. That means my punishment was still too light. Snitches and traitors like him will burn in hell if they don't shut their filthy mouths!"

"Clark, I'm your coach, your mentor. You have no right to question me! Now go to the locker room and change!"

He ground out the final words through clenched teeth.

"No!"

Clark shook his head. "I'm not going onto the field, and neither are you."

"You look like you're going to defy me the way you defied your father, Clark. Don't provoke me, or you'll end up just like your little newspaper sidekick!"

A vicious expression surfaced on Coach Watt's face.

"Chloe?!"

The moment Coach Watt mentioned his "little newspaper sidekick," Clark's expression abruptly changed.

Bang!

The next second, Coach Watt's fist slammed hard into his stomach.

Clark, who normally possessed incredible durability, had not taken the attack seriously.

But to his surprise, Coach Watt's punch doubled him over in pain.

An unbearable stabbing pain tore through his internal organs!

How could this be...?

Clutching his stomach as he lay on the floor, Clark could not understand how the other man had broken through his defenses.

Was it the hazy heat circulating through the room?!

Breathing heavily, he suddenly remembered that the coach loved taking saunas.

In rooms shrouded in steamy heat, the coach could soak for an entire day and never allowed anyone near.

Could the source of this heat have something to do with those green meteor fragments that weakened him?

Bang!

Coach Watt lashed out with a kick, striking Clark hard and sending him rolling twice across the floor.

"You look very uncomfortable, Clark."

Coach Watt sneered as he moved closer.

"I know you're unusual, just like Eric. You're both gifted beyond ordinary people—so unusual that I even wondered whether, like me, you were turned into monsters by those strange stones."

"Ah, it really does feel wonderful. Grind those green stones into powder and add them to the steaming air. Your mouth, your nose, your skin... they all absorb it. It's more addictive than anything in the world."

Watt wore an intoxicated expression. "It gave me extraordinary abilities and endless energy, letting me pour all my passion into the game."

"Cough, cough."

Ignoring Coach Watt's words, Clark struggled to focus. He used his super vision to search for Chloe, only to find that she was trapped in a sea of flames, hanging by a thread.