With a "whoosh," Barry shrank directly to Thomas's broad back.
He poked half his head out, his finger trembling as he pointed at Thor and Death Tetiyu not far away.
" Thomas! Where did you even meet this devilish couple?!"
Barry's voice was hoarse, filled with barely suppressed terror.
"This is absolutely inhuman! I died ten times! Ten times! Even Arkham Asylum Gotham n't do this! That woman didn't even try to resuscitate me, she just treated my Soul Stone like a tennis racket!"
Thomas brushed the electric chair debris off his trench coat, pulled a flattened cigar from his pocket, and put it in his mouth. "I don't know them either."
Barry was about to continue his accusations when his mouth stopped. "What??!"
He suddenly sprang out from behind Thomas, circled around to the front of the Old Batman, and waved his hands wildly.
"Are you serious, Thomas? You don't even know them, and you dared to let them into the Wayne Manor? And let them strike me with lightning? Do you know that if anything had gone wrong just now, I would have been a roasted meat, charred on the outside and tender on the inside!"
Thomas struck a match, tilted his head to light his cigar, and exhaled a thick cloud of white smoke.
He glanced at Barry through the smoke. "If you encountered an enemy that even a small nuclear bomb couldn't kill, you'd do the same thing as me."
Thomas, cigar in hand, pointed in Thor's direction. "Besides, I just died two hours ago. They pulled me up again, just like you were treated."
Barry followed Thomas's finger and looked in that direction, then quickly turned his head back.
With the Speed Force boosting his brain, he worked like a maniac, quickly grasping the most outrageous point in the passage.
A flash of golden light, Barry stumbled backward, falling five or six meters away from Thomas. "Wait a minute!"
Barry clutched his head, his voice rising an octave, "You planted a miniature nuclear bomb under your own house?!"
Thomas ignored him and continued smoking, a word that was never in the Old Batman's dictionary.
Barry was completely bewildered.
He always thought that Bruce's Batman was already paranoid and crazy enough, wearing a bodysuit every night on the Dripping Beast to feel the cold wind, and hiding Kryptonite and weakness-based gadgets in his belt to deal with everyone in the Justice League.
And what happened? This Batman Papa was even more ruthless!
Planting nuclear bombs directly under their own land! This father and son definitely have some kind of destructive tendency etched into their genes!
What kind of insane place have I wandered into?!
On the other side of the rooftop, Death Tetiyu took a step forward.
Barefoot, I stepped on the broken charcoal, making a crisp clicking sound.
She turned her head and stared straight at Thor. " Thor— "
She drew out the last syllable, adding a touch of resentment, her pale fingers gently twirling a strand of black hair by her ear. "Look," she said, "I was called a devil by others for trying to help you. Don't you feel sorry for me?"
Thor rolled his eyes dramatically.
Feeling sorry for you? Feeling sorry for you my ass.
This woman definitely did it on purpose.
The idea of the gentlest god of death in the entire universe, or that he is kind and compassionate in guiding all beings, is utter nonsense.
When I was stuffing Barry's Soul Stone back into his charred body, I couldn't hide my excitement!
She definitely came here to let loose because she saw he had received a special permission from the DC God.
Taking advantage of not having to worry about life and death or the order of things, they play the game more extravagantly than anyone else.
You can't completely trust the settings in comics. This guy's so-called good temper is only relative to other gods who would wipe out the universe at the drop of a hat.
Essentially, these higher-dimensional beings are all just people who enjoy themselves.
"Stop pretending." Thor gave her a disapproving look. "When you were messing with him, you laughed even louder than me. Your wicked sense of humor was written all over your face."
Death Tetiyu covered his mouth and chuckled softly, his shoulders twitching slightly, offering no rebuttal whatsoever.
She even winked at Barry, which startled the Flash, causing him to take two steps back.
Barry stood on the edge of the rooftop, the cold wind making his newly grown skin tingle with goosebumps.
He glanced at Thomas, who was calmly smoking, and then at the two people chatting as if no one else was around.
The sight of these three people standing together is so bizarre it's suffocating.
"Although I don't know who you are or which dimension you come from."
Barry, forcing himself to speak, waved his hands forcefully twice, trying to bring their attention back on track.
"But this is clearly not the time for you two to flirt! The world is about to end! Aquaman and Wonder Woman's armies are blowing Europe to rubble, and hundreds of millions of people are about to die! We don't have time to joke around here!"
"That's what you caused yourself," Thor retorted coldly.
Barry opened his mouth, but it felt like his throat was stuffed with cotton, and he couldn't utter a single word.
That man was right.
It was he who went back in time to save his mother, altering the timeline and thus pushing the world towards its end.
All the deaths, all the wars, all started because of him.
The heavy burden of guilt was suffocating him; he dared not even think about how he would face the thousands of wronged souls if he had failed to reverse the timeline.
Barry slumped his shoulders, golden arcs of electricity throbbing uneasily at his ankles.
"Besides," Thor mercilessly ripped through Barry's mental block, "Even Superman can't keep up with your full speed. If you increase your speed, you can even reverse time. So why do you think you can't handle Diana and Arthur?"
These words hit the rooftop like a bombshell, instantly stunning Barry.
He stood there, stunned, countless images of fighting alongside the Justice League flashing through his mind.
In the past, he had always habitually relied on Clark's strength and Bruce's intellect.
When facing strong enemies, he is always responsible for evacuating the crowd or providing support.
Subconsciously, he always felt that he was just a fast forensic doctor, a logistics staff member with little combat capability.
yes!
Barry slapped his thigh hard, the crisp sound echoing across the rooftop.
He doesn't kill anyone, that's true, but who says fighting has to involve killing?
He could easily disarm Diana before she could draw her sword, thanks to his superior speed!
Throw Arthur into the desert before he summons the tsunami!
Or we could just storm into Themyscira's armory, steal the Lasso of Truth, and tie them both up like dumplings!
As long as he's fast enough, those god-level powers simply can't hit him!
Against the Speed Force, the delay in power and magic is a fatal weakness!
"You're right!" Barry's eyes lit up, and he quickly stomped his feet, creating a gust of wind that whipped up the puddles on the ground.
"I can disarm them! I can exile them to opposite ends of the earth! As long as I run fast enough, this war won't even start! I can tie them all up by myself!"
He excitedly spun around twice, then suddenly stopped.
"No, that's still not enough." Barry bit his fingernails, quickly analyzing the situation.
" Diana and Arthur in this timeline are far more ruthless than I know them, and they command a massive army. If they have any magical barriers or weapons of mass destruction, I might not be able to handle them alone. We need heavy firepower to suppress them; we need Superman!"
Barry turned to Thomas, " Thomas, you must have a clue, right? Bruce... I mean, Batman always has files on all the Superhuman. Even if the world goes crazy, you must have left a trace!"
Thomas threw his half-smoked cigar on the ground, stomped it out, turned around and went back downstairs. After a while, he took out a yellowed manila envelope and threw it directly to Barry.
Barry caught the file, his hands moving in a blur as he flipped through all the top-secret documents in a second.
The sound of pages turning blended into a piercing buzz.
As Barry continued reading, the excitement on his face gradually faded, and anger and sorrow quickly filled his entire face.
"That alien you guys were talking about." Thomas put his hands in his trench coat pockets.
"She should be in Russia, in an underground military base. The military calls her ' Subject One.' According to intercepted satellite data, she is being held in a red Sun simulation chamber, where she has never seen the real Sun in decades. They are drawing her blood every day and conducting all sorts of inhumane experiments on her."
" Russia! Siberia!" Barry immediately stuffed the file back into the bag, a wave of guilt washing over him again.
That sunny and cheerful Clark was imprisoned like a guinea pig in this world for decades! It's all his fault!
"What are we waiting for? Let's go now! If we're too late, the world will truly be gone!"
His body was wrapped in dazzling golden lightning, his legs slightly bent, ready to break the sound barrier at any moment.
Thomas didn't move. He stood there, looking past the agitated Barry, straight at Thor and Death Tetiyu.
The storm had stopped, and a crack appeared in the dark clouds, letting the pale moonlight spill onto the dilapidated rooftop of the Wayne Manor, illuminating the mess on the ground.
Thomas pulled his hand out of his pocket and tugged at the collar of his trench coat. He knew very well that the two people in front of him were the real variables.
One can crush a nuclear bomb with his bare hands and restore it; the other can resurrect the Deadman like toys.
If they don't intend to intervene, relying solely on a fast-moving forensic pathologist and an old man to stop a world war would be suicide.
"So," Thomas uttered, his voice hoarse with the unique huskiness of Gotham's night, "What should I call you, you two? Should I call you gods, or...?"