DC Universe
In the Justice League's roundtable conference room, the atmosphere was even more solemn than on the eve of Darkseid's invasion.
The illusion of the Golden Throne had vanished, but that cold, lingering aura still refused to dissipate.
"...I cannot accept this."
Clark Kent, the great Superman, was the first to speak.
His voice held none of its usual warmth and hope, only a sense of exhaustion and bewilderment after being deeply stung.
In his deep blue eyes, the sunlight of the Kansas farm was nowhere to be seen, replaced only by the eternal night of Nostramo.
"This isn't a 'difficult choice,' Bruce. This isn't a trade-off in war."
He looked at Batman, attempting to find a trace of resonance, but it seemed more like he was questioning the moral standards of the entire Universe.
"This is a 'design'... made by a 'father' for his 'son'."
"From the very beginning, he wove pain into Konrad's genes."
"He created a soul that could bleed, then told him that his blood was a lubricant designed to prevent him, the blade, from becoming too sharp."
Superman stood up and paced the conference room, his cape trailing on the floor like a broken wing.
"He could have been hope! Even in a hell like Nostramo."
"If only someone had been willing to give him proper guidance, to teach him how to control his power, and how to distinguish between warnings and curses in his prophecies."
"He could have been that Planet's Sun!"
"But he never had the chance."
Clark's fist tightened silently.
"His father, the one who should have given him light, personally crafted an eternal hell for him called 'humanity'."
"This is more cruel than destroying a Planet. Destruction is an end, but this is an unending torment."
"Your idealism doesn't apply here, Clark," Batman's voice came from the shadows, low and raspy as always.
But listening closely, one could detect a trace of extremely suppressed tremors.
"Analyzed from a tactical level, the Emperor's logic is flawless."
He pulled up a data panel showing a complex logic tree analysis.
"An uncontrollable apex predator capable of foreseeing the future has an infinite threat coefficient. Humanity, here, is used as a 'behavioral limiter'."
"A biological, irremovable 'Arkham'. Its purpose is to make the user feel the intense pain of recoil every time they pull the trigger, thereby inducing hesitation."
"It's a... cruel but efficient safety mechanism."
The Joker's wild laughter rang out abruptly. Strapped to a specialized energy chair, he laughed until he was doubled over.
"Safety! Hahahaha! Did you hear that, Batsy? Safety!"
"You fly around Gotham every night; aren't you just putting a 'don't mess with me or I'll break your legs' safety on this city?"
"But you're too weak! You only dare to break legs, but that golden daddy, he welded the fuse shut directly at the soul level!"
"And it's a fuse that alarms and wails on its own! Oh, genius! That's the best joke I've ever heard!"
Batman ignored him and simply continued:
"But he failed. This design was flawed from the start. He underestimated the destructive power of the variable known as 'pain'."
"Pain doesn't always lead to 'hesitation'. Constant, unsolvable pain only brings two things: numbness, or total madness. Konrad Curze clearly went for the latter."
He closed the data board, interlaced his fingers in front of him, his gaze as deep as an abyss.
"I use fear to open a window in the hearts of criminals, giving the light of justice a chance to shine in."
"But the Emperor used pain to build a windowless labyrinth in Curze's heart."
"He wasn't preventing Curze from becoming a monster; he was ensuring that Curze could only ever be 'the monster he designed,' rather than 'the monster Chaos designed'."
"There is... a fundamental difference. This isn't salvation; it's a struggle for ownership."
"In the name of Hera, what arrogance!"
Diana Prince stood up, the Lasso of Truth emitting an angry golden light in her hands.
"How is this any different from those gods on Mount Olympus who view mortals as chess pieces?"
"No, it's even worse! Zeus may sow his bloodline, but at least he lets it grow freely."
"But this 'Emperor,' he not only set the material and shape of the chess piece, but even calculated how it would wear down with every step and what kind of screams it would emit!"
Fire burned in the eyes of the Princess of Paradise Island:
"He stripped Konrad of the most basic rights of a living being—the right to grow, the right to make mistakes, and... the right to be redeemed!"
"He turned his own son completely into an object, a cold, weeping tool. His 'burden' is the most hypocritical embellishment of his boundless arrogance!"
"Hey, calm down, sweetheart."
From the corner, John Constantine stubbed out his cigarette and spoke lazily.
"You spandex-wearing superheroes always love to elevate things to a philosophical level. Arrogance? Divinity? It's all bollocks."
He walked to the holographic projection and poked the blurry golden figure of the Emperor with a finger yellowed by Nicotine.
"Let a professional translate this for you. This old bastard isn't a god; he's a lousy magician."
"The kind who thinks he can control a devil, only to end up chaining it in his own basement."
Constantine blew a smoke ring, a mocking look of insight on his face.
"He saw those Chaos scumbags in the Warp, and he got scared."
"He knew his sons, these 'half-finished products,' would be easily seduced by those things."
"Especially a poor sod like Curze who was born with a 'psychic antenna'. So what did he do?"
"He didn't have the skill to block the signal directly, nor the skill to teach his son how to set up a firewall."
"So he came up with the worst idea possible—making this 'computer' constantly blue-screen and reboot itself."
"'Humanity' is that virus—the one that keeps the system from ever running stably, but also ensures it can never be fully taken over by hackers."
"As for the computer's own pain? Who the hell cares?"
He smiled mockingly and lit another cigarette.
---
Marvel Universe - Avengers Tower
Tony Stark stood before a massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the bustling New York.
Before him was a complex stream of data analyzed by j.a.r.v.i.s. regarding the logical relationship between Curze and the Emperor.
"A perfect... paradox."
Tony muttered to himself, taking off his glasses and rubbing his brow. "j.a.r.v.i.s., archive this case and name it the 'Prometheus Trap'."
"Sir, is there a special meaning to that name?" j.a.r.v.i.s.'s gentle voice sounded.
"Prometheus stole fire for mankind and suffered the pain of having his liver pecked out by a giant eagle."
"And this Emperor, he personally ignited the fire of his son's soul, only to equip him with an 'eagle of humanity' that would forever peck at that soul."
"Then he claimed it was to prevent the fire from burning too brightly."
Tony's tone was filled with the cold deconstruction of an engineer and immense sarcasm.
"From a product design perspective, this is a disaster."
"You can't take a high-precision sniper rifle, install a recoil system that breaks the user's arm with every shot, and call it a 'safety lock'."
"That's not a safety; it's a defect—a fatal flaw that will eventually lead the user to discard or destroy the gun."
"The Emperor wasn't designing a weapon; he was designing a self-destructing work of art."
He turned to Steve Rogers, who was clenching his fists, his face ashen.
"Don't look at me like that, Captain. I'm just stating facts."
"This 'father's' solution is like introducing a lower-level bug that causes the entire hardware to overheat, lag, or even melt, just to fix a software bug."
"His logic is: 'As long as it doesn't crash because of that specific bug, then its collapse due to overheating is an acceptable loss'."
"In Stark Industries, this would be grounds for immediate termination."
"This isn't design, Tony! This is abuse!"
Steve's voice was low with suppressed rage.
"I've been on the battlefield. I've seen the cruelest Orders. I understand 'necessary sacrifice'."
"But no war should ever require a person's soul to be pre-designated as the battlefield!"
"This goes beyond war ethics; it's a fundamental desecration of 'life' itself!"
In Captain America's eyes, an unshakable determination flickered.
"When the Emperor found Curze on Nostramo, he was facing a lost, tortured soul."
"A true leader, a true 'father,' should have guided him, healed him, taught him to distinguish between good and evil, and helped him master the power he couldn't understand."
"Instead of..."
Steve's voice choked up for a moment.
"Instead of looking at this wounded piece of unpolished jade and coldly deciding, 'Good, this crack can be used as a safety pin'."
"He asked Curze why he had given him humanity... the Emperor has already shown the answer to that question, yet he remains completely oblivious."
"He gave him humanity not to make Curze a better person, but to make him a more useful, uncontrollable 'tool'."
"In the Emperor's eyes, Konrad Curze's pain was a cost in his grand blueprint that could be quantified, calculated, and exploited."
"This is everything I cannot agree with."
Dr. Bruce Banner sat to the side, adjusting his glasses, his face pale.
"He... he weaponized the Hulk."
Banner's voice trembled slightly.
"My entire career has been spent trying to reconcile with the Hulk, trying to control that anger, or at least understand and guide it."
"Because I know that pure rage only brings destruction."
"But this Emperor did the opposite."
"He didn't just fail to 'heal' the Beast inside Curze; he gave that Beast a mirror that clearly reflects its own hideousness, then locked the mirror and the Beast in a cage together, letting them tear at each other eternally."
"This kind of internal, eternal war... the energy it generates is more destructive than any gamma rays."
"It doesn't smash buildings like the Hulk; it corrodes the entire soul from within until it becomes a puddle of resentful sludge that even Chaos wouldn't bother to pick up."
"The Emperor didn't save his son; he just chose a slower, more painful, and more 'controllable' way to kill him."
"The emotions of Midgardians are truly tiresomely complex."
Thor held mjolnir, his brow furrowed.
"In Asgard, the threads of fate are woven by the Norns, and even Odin cannot defy them."
"But we revere fate rather than toy with it. This Emperor likens himself to a weaver of fate, yet he has tied a Gordian knot using mortal logic."
"Trying to bind a soul cursed by prophecy with pain is no different from trying to extinguish a magically ignited fire with seawater."
"In the end, it only makes everything worse, saltier, and more bitter."
---
Super God Universe - Giant Gorge Ship and Various Factions
"Fuck! What the hell is this!"
In the command center of the Giant Gorge Ship, Liu Chuang slammed the table, making the water glasses rattle.
"Back when I was a thug, even I knew brothers were meant to have your back, not to have a fucking safety installed in their ribs! That golden-armored guy's heart is way too dark!"
Ge Xiaolun's face flushed as he stood up excitedly:
"Right! This is PUA! Universe-level PUA! First, he beats you half to death, then tells you, 'I'm doing this for your own good, to stop you from becoming worse'."
"How is this different from those domestic abusers? They beat someone and then say, 'I love you, I just couldn't control myself'? Pui! Disgusting!"
In the Demon Wings, Morgana sat with her legs crossed, filing her nails while watching the screen, letting out a sneer.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at this. That bitch Kaisha screams about the Order of Justice every day, but compared to this guy, she's practically the girl next door."
"This guy is the one who truly understands 'Order'. What is Order?"
"Order is making the best use of things and letting people do what they are best at."
"In that shiny golden brain of his, his son's greatest 'talent' is his 'pain'. Using pain as a resource—this guy is a fucking genius!"
She put away the nail clippers, her gaze turning playful.
"But then again, this game is something I, the Queen, got bored of a million years ago."
"Forced fruits aren't sweet, and a forcibly installed 'pain' system will only lead to the most spectacular crash."
"He thinks he's the system administrator, but in reality, he's just a stupid user who keeps getting error pop-ups before the system crashes, all while thinking he's in control."
In the City of Angels, Hexi pushed up her glasses. The data stream before her had already constructed a complete mental model of Curze.
"The design has a fundamental logical conflict," she made her final diagnosis in a scholarly tone.
"'Prophetic ability' acts as the input, continuously providing a high-intensity stream of data pointing toward a negative future."
"Humanity acts as the CPU, programmed to generate intense negative emotional feedback in response to this data."
"And the identity of the Judge acts as the output, requiring high-intensity physical intervention based on that data."
"This constitutes a perfect 'negative feedback self-destruction loop'."
"Simply put, the more he sees, the more he suffers; the more he suffers, the more he wants to 'correct' the future through slaughter;"
"The more he kills, the stronger the negative feedback from the humanity processor, and thus the more he suffers. It is a system designed to eternally torment itself."
"The Emperor claims this is a 'safety', but from a system stability perspective, it's more like a 'chronic self-destruction program', just with the speed of self-destruction controlled to be very slow."
"A... cruel and stupid design."
And in the Styx Galaxy, in the eyes of Karl the God of Death, a light akin to obsession flickered.
"A masterpiece... this is simply the most perfect experimental model under the theory of Ultimate Fear..."
He whispered, his voice filled with the wild joy of discovering a new continent.
"He isn't using pain to fight Chaos; he's using a known, controllable fear to fight an 'unknown, uncontrollable fear'. It's a hedging of fear, a gamble conducted in the depths of the soul concerning 'existence' and 'nothingness'."
"The Emperor attempted to define a boundary for nothingness, and Curze's pain is that boundary itself. He used his son's soul to draw a trembling, blood-colored line of defense on the map of Ultimate Fear. How... magnificent... how... worthy of study..."
Karl's voice echoed in the empty hall, filled with a non-human appreciation for that abyss-like pain.
Among all the observers, only he truly understood and praised this bone-chilling coldness from the Emperor.