Who Are You Protecting?

The system's voice faded.

Chu Men cursed inwardly. I thought this lousy system would give me something like heat immunity or energy absorption. Instead, it went and flipped the whole damn table.

Silver Age Superman Physique Fragment, ten percent.

Chu Men knew exactly what those words meant.

Kryptonians of that era could sneeze out stars and drag dozens of planets across the universe.

Even a tenth of that power would put him in a league of his own in this world.

Space warped around him. Light bent as it passed his body.

In the distance, amid the ruined foundations of the fourth building,

a load-bearing wall weighing over ten tons was shoved aside. Clark staggered to his feet.

His suit was in tatters.

Clark opened his mouth and coughed up a mouthful of blood. He steadied himself, breathing like a bellows.

But he did not look at Chu Men in the air. His gaze passed him and settled on the bay to the left.

Chu Men turned to follow his gaze.

Three kilometers away, a white three-deck passenger ferry sat on the water.

Its engines had died. The sea had just taken an energy shock like a tsunami, pushing the ferry far off course. Now it bobbed on the lingering swells.

Chu Men's ears twitched twice.

He heard the ferry's steel plates creaking as they bent, and the jumbled heartbeats of hundreds of people.

Some pressed their hands together in prayer. Some covered their children's mouths to keep them from crying. Some chattered their teeth.

Chu Men looked back at the battered Clark below.

"You were still distracted by that lousy boat?"

Clark wiped the blood from his mouth and bent his knees, ready to take off again.

"You dragged them into this," Clark said hoarsely.

"Wrong." Chu Men raised a finger and wagged it. "You dragged them into this. If you hadn't come here to stick your nose where it didn't belong, they'd be partying on that boat right now."

Deep in the Batcave,

Bruce stared at the holographic screen.

The energy readings in the upper-right corner had dissolved into gibberish. A red warning box filled half the display.

"Sir, Superman's vital signs have dropped by forty percent." Alfred's voice was tight. "That man's energy reading... The computer can't calculate it. It exceeds the highest threshold."

Bruce braced both hands on the console. The cast on his left arm dug painfully into him.

He watched the bare-chested man on the screen.

"What happened to him just now? How could his energy change so drastically?"

For the first time, Bruce hated how powerless he was.

He had always prepared for Superman to lose control. He had never considered what to do if someone crushed Superman with sheer force.

In a secret room beneath the Iceberg Lounge,

Penguin slumped in his chair. In just half an hour, his fortunes had soared and crashed.

Superman had been sent flying with a single blow.

Not only had that tyrant survived, he had erupted with even more terrifying power.

Penguin snatched the satellite phone from the desk and punched in a number with trembling fingers.

"Get my private plane ready! Now! I'm leaving Gotham!" he roared into the phone.

He rushed out of the room. The bodyguards in the corridor stared at him.

"What are you looking at? Move!" Penguin kicked aside the guard blocking his way.

He raced toward the helipad.

He could not stay in the East End. He could not stay in Gotham.

If that demon won, no one on the entire East Coast could stop him.

Above the docks,

Chu Men watched Clark's muscles tense.

"You really think your no-killing rule can change anything?" A smile tugged at Chu Men's lips.

"The law will punish wrongdoing," Clark said, staring at him.

"Bullshit." Chu Men laughed. "The law only punishes the weak."

Chu Men raised his right hand and pointed at the ferry three kilometers away.

"How many of the hundreds on that boat do you think are innocent? How many have dodged taxes? Abused their families? Stabbed a coworker in the back?"

Clark frowned deeply. "They're civilians."

"To me, they don't even count as ants." Chu Men's smile vanished.

Light flared in his eyes again.

"What are you doing?" Clark shouted, stamping two deep craters into the ground.

"Testing your limits."

Without another word, Chu Men fixed his eyes on the ferry three kilometers away.

Two dark-red beams erupted from them. Air, rain, and space itself vanished in their path.

A straight black corridor of vacuum split the sea, hurtling toward the ferry.

"No!"

Clark's eyes widened in horror.

He became a blur and shot sideways into the beams' path.

Aboard the ferry,

hundreds of civilians crowded the decks and cabins.

They saw the distant night sky torn open by dark red light.

The shadow of death fell over them all.

A man in clothes knelt on the deck, clutching his head in both hands.

A woman curled over her child, shielding the child with her body.

The beams swelled rapidly in their vision.

A tenth of a second before they struck the ferry's outer hull,

a blue-and-red figure plunged down.

Clark intercepted the beams in front of the ferry.

He crossed his arms over his chest and arched his back.

Heat Vision struck him squarely in the back.

The scarlet cape behind him did not last a millisecond. It turned to ash.

His blue suit, made of polymer material, began melting from the back.

The terrible heat pierced the Kryptonian's steel-hard body and drove toward his organs.

A muffled cry of pain escaped Clark's throat.

Blood poured from his nose. The drops vaporized the instant they hit the sea below.

The immense force drove him backward.

His heels pressed against the steel bow of the ferry.

Creak.

Clark clenched his teeth so hard they bit through his lip. Blood and sweat streamed down his face.

He could not give ground.

Large patches of skin on his back charred. Exposed muscle fibers were torn apart and burned again and again beneath the dark-red beams.

His pain receptors sent the highest possible alarm to his brain.

Images of Metropolis's streets and Martha's smiling face flashed through Clark's mind.

He had always told himself that power was a responsibility.

Now that responsibility had become a mountain on his back.

The searing pain robbed him of thought. Only instinct kept him in place.

Chu Men hovered three kilometers away.

He watched the insect struggling within the beams.

Chu Men sneered inwardly. This trick works beautifully.

The moment you show you care about something, someone else can use it to kill you.

I care about nothing. That makes me invincible.

An intoxicating sense of control surged through him.

He did not need to smash his opponent's bones with his fists.

He only had to seize what mattered most to his opponent, and his opponent would put his own neck into the meat grinder.

"Who are you protecting?"

Chu Men's voice carried down the vacuum corridor.

"Strangers who don't even know your name? Idiots who'll curse you in tomorrow's papers for wrecking the docks?"

The dark-red glow in Chu Men's eyes intensified.

As the power rose, Clark's knees buckled.

One knee slammed into the ferry's deck.

It punched a great hole through the steel plating.

He gripped the rails on either side and held fast against the blast striking his back.

"Aaagh—"

Clark's roar was thick with agony.

His vision began to blur. His organs gave off the smell of burning flesh.

The people aboard the ferry finally saw the figure shielding them.

Superman.

The guardian of Metropolis they had only seen in the news.

A few meters away, Superman's back was a bloody ruin. The dark-red beams poured entirely into him. Not a trace reached the ship.

The woman shielding her child raised her head and stared blankly at his blue-clad back.

The deck fell silent.

Only the hiss of energy burning flesh remained.

Chu Men watched the distant horror without a shred of pity.

In his old life as a wage slave, the bosses above him had lectured him about sacrifice and seeing the bigger picture.

Now this man in tights had come to lecture him about morality and limits.

Fuck limits.

"See?" Chu Men laughed, his voice echoing across the sea. "Your morality is the rope you're using to strangle yourself!"

He did not need to risk his life fighting Superman.

He only had to stand there and watch Superman's kindness wear him down to death.

The red light in Chu Men's eyes showed no sign of fading.

The Silver Age physique supplied an endless stream of energy.

"Keep holding on," Chu Men called across the distance. "The moment you fall, that boat behind you turns into a pool of molten metal. There won't even be ashes left of the people aboard."

Clark's arms began to shake violently.

His extensive burns had pushed his healing ability to its limit.

He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Chu Men three kilometers away.

Sadistic delight filled that pale face.

Clark's consciousness began to drift.

He heard the civilians sobbing behind him.

He could not give ground.

But the solar energy inside him was rapidly running dry.