Zod's fingers were trembling.
He realized that as long as that man stood there, even his courage to raise a hand was slowly draining away.
"That guy..." Zod gritted his teeth, cold sweat seeping from his forehead. "What the hell is he?"
Meanwhile, at the center of the battlefield.
As Pero listened to Barry Allen's endless muttering, his brow gradually furrowed.
"Seriously... why are superheroes from every universe so fond of tormenting themselves?"
Pero sighed, a helpless expression on his face.
He knew this Barry had become trapped in a maze of time, fixating on a dead end.
The guy had no idea that the crux of the problem wasn't whether he saved his mom, but that this universe itself was already a mistake that had been broken beyond repair.
"Hey, Barry."
Barry didn't react, still standing there muttering to himself.
"Sigh... Flash!"
Pero's voice wasn't loud, but it cut clearly through the noise of the battlefield and exploded right in Barry's ears.
"You're being really noisy."
Barry abruptly froze mid-mutter, like a recording stuck on repeat that had just been paused.
He raised his head in a daze, turning his still-bewildered eyes toward Pero.
"Barry, you're panicking," Pero said evenly.
Barry paused, then asked instinctively, "Sir... you know me?"
In this scrambled timeline, no one but his other self should have known his Justice League alias. After all, this world didn't even have a Justice League.
Pero didn't answer that pointless question.
He slowly walked forward, his golden eyes looking down at the speedster on the verge of collapse.
"You've been in this universe for so long. Aside from rushing around looking for Batman and saving Superman, haven't you noticed this world's biggest flaw?"
Pero extended a finger and casually traced it through the air.
"This universe has no