Just a moment ago, Darian had accidentally cranked his taunt range to the maximum, directly drawing the aggro of all the nearby Kryptonian warriors, who had come before him with bloodshot eyes.
Darian couldn't stand their scorching gaze and decisively turned to flee.
However, the effect of the Taunt Fruit was still ongoing.
This group of Kryptonian warriors jumped onto their respective ships, floored the throttle, and pursued Darian relentlessly, casting aside even the heavy responsibility of guarding the world engine.
Darian executed all kinds of serpentine maneuvers in the air, nimbly dodging the dense energy attacks behind him.
But he knew very well that blindly dodging was not a long-term solution; he had to find a way to deal with this bunch of Kryptonian warriors behind him.
At this moment, he happened to catch a glimpse of a message Bruce had just sent in the chat group, and a plan instantly formed in his mind.
Darian accelerated with all his might, temporarily shaking off the pursuers behind him. He dove and landed on the ground, hoisted the Kryptonian ship from beside Bruce, and turned to speed off in the direction of the world engine.
As he took off, he turned on the external loudspeaker of his ultron armor.
"Everyone, look at me! I have an announcement to make: everyone here is trash!"
As soon as these words were spoken, the Kryptonian warriors behind him instantly exploded with rage.
"Kill him!"
"Tear this Earthling scum to pieces!"
The Kryptonian warriors didn't even think; they chased after Darian at top speed, regardless of everything else.
The Kryptonian scientist who had been knocked away by Barry also crawled out of the ruins and rushed over.
Bruce immediately tensed his nerves and struck a combat pose, while Barry stood stunned in place, looking bewildered.
Just when both of them thought a fierce battle was inevitable, the Kryptonian scientist didn't even glance at them, running straight past them while pressing a device on his wrist to summon a ship.
"Damn Earthling, how dare you call me trash! Stop right there!"
The Kryptonian scientist cursed in a string of Kryptonian slang, leaped onto the ship, and with the engines roaring, followed the main force to pursue Darian.
Bruce: "..."
Barry: "..."
On the other side of the battlefield, Faora was locked in a life-and-death struggle with Diana.
After the continuous amplification from Earth's Sun, Faora's physical strength had reached an astonishing level.
Diana's demigod body was equally formidable, but in terms of pure physical confrontation, she was still slightly inferior to the Kryptonian.
However, she had the advantage of having plenty of equipment; everything on her body was an artifact. Relying on the advantage of her equipment, Diana and Faora fought back and forth, with neither able to gain the upper hand.
Faora seized the gap when Diana retracted her sword and punched Diana in the face, knocking her several meters away.
Diana dug her feet hard into the ground, carving two deep furrows into the asphalt, forcing herself to steady her figure. She spat out a mouthful of blood, her eyes becoming increasingly sharp.
A look of contempt curled the corners of Faora's mouth: "It's not too late to run away now. If we keep fighting, I can't guarantee your face will remain intact."
Diana gripped the Godkiller sword tightly, its tip pointing diagonally at the ground: "A true warrior doesn't care about her appearance."
Before the words even faded, she exerted force, and her figure shot out like an arrow.
She first thrust her sword directly at Faora's heart, forcing Faora to raise her hand to block, then suddenly twisted her wrist. The blade carved a tricky arc, grazing past Faora's cheek.
A slender bloodstain instantly appeared on Faora's fair face, and blood slowly seeped out.
This was clearly deliberate retaliation.
Diana taunted: "But you really should be careful. My sword doesn't have eyes; it wouldn't be good if it left hundreds of scars on your face."
Faora: "...."
The two women's eyes collided, sparking fierce flames.
The next moment, their fighting styles became exceptionally fierce, exchanging blows with fists and swords, all aimed at each other's faces.
Just as they were about to collide again, Faora's movements suddenly paused, and she abruptly looked up at the sky.
High above, Darian was flying at full speed while carrying the entire Kryptonian ship, aiming directly at the world engine hovering over the city.
Seeing this scene, a rare trace of panic appeared on Faora's cold, stern face.
"Stop him quickly!"
Faora no longer cared about fighting Diana. She exploded with all her power, forced Diana back with a punch, and her figure turned into a high-speed streak of light, rushing towards Darian.
Her speed was extreme, tearing through the air along the way, and the continuous sonic booms shattered the glass curtain walls of countless buildings in the city.
But it was all too late.
Darian had already arrived directly in front of the world engine, his hands firmly supporting the bottom of the ship, his palms emitting a blinding White light.
Power up · Throw!
The heavy Kryptonian ship was violently hurled by him, smashing heavily into the world engine.
Boom!
After a deafening roar, a terrifying energy fluctuation erupted from the center of the impact.
The surrounding space twisted and tore violently, and a miniature black hole suddenly formed in the void.
While it was called a black hole, it was more accurately a sub-space portal leading to the Phantom Zone.
That was the Kryptonian's exclusive prison dimension, unrestricted by conventional physical laws, where time and space operated in completely different ways.
General Zod and his rebels had been exiled to this place back then.
The characteristics of this portal were similar to a black hole, but it would only absorb matter and energy that had previously entered or come into contact with the Phantom Zone.
Clark's ship was equipped with a phantom drive system, and the world engine itself was equipped with a phantom projector; both were products of Phantom Zone technology.
Once the portal was opened, they turned into countless fragments under the terrifying suction and were greedily swallowed into the sub-space.
Those Kryptonians who had chased after Darian after being taunted were not spared either.
As soon as they flew near the world engine, they felt an irresistible force grab their bodies, and they were swallowed by the portal along with their ships.
Screams rose one after another, only to quickly disappear into the vortex.
Only Darian was safe and sound.
He had never been to the Phantom Zone and was not on the portal's invitation list, so naturally, he was not affected in any way.
"No—!"
A shrill roar echoed through the sky.
Faora rushed over with a ferocious expression, glaring at Darian, her voice filled with despair and rage.
"You destroyed Kryptonian! You destroyed all our hope!"
Darian chuckled: "I'm just stopping you from destroying Earth. I am a Superheroes guarding Earth."
Faora couldn't listen to anything.
The world engine was destroyed, the last hope for Kryptonian reconstruction was completely shattered. Under extreme despair, unprecedented terrifying power was birthed.
She lunged forward, grabbing Darian tightly, and rushed recklessly towards the not-yet-closed portal.
"I will make you pay the price!"
The light and shadow before her eyes suddenly dissipated, and a strong sense of weightlessness swept over her entire body.
After a bout of dizziness, his vision gradually cleared, and Darian slammed heavily onto a hard surface.
He stood up and looked around, seeing an endless, desolate Gobi desert.
A dark purple sky shrouded the surroundings. There was no Sun and no moon; only fragmented Nebula emitted a faint, cold light. The ground was covered with dark red sand and soil, dotted with craggy rocks. The entire space was dead and desolate, with not a trace of life to be seen.
Bang!
With a muffled sound, Faora landed, kicking up a sky full of dust.
She stared fixedly at Darian, her tone cold and insane: "This is the Phantom Zone. In this dimension, time does not pass. Those who enter here will not age, will not hunger, and will not die. They are forever frozen in the state they were in when they entered. Without an exclusive phantom projector, no one can escape this place."
Darian's eyes lit up, and he couldn't help but exclaim: "Then isn't this a holy land for workhorses? No need to rest or eat; you can work 24/7."
Faora: "..." Is that the point?
She took a deep breath, her tone becoming increasingly cold: "It seems you still don't understand the consequences. In other words, you will be trapped here forever just like me, enduring endless loneliness and mental torture. This is the price for destroying Kryptonian!"
Immortality in the Phantom Zone was never a gift, but the cruelest of curses.
There was no entertainment here, no change, no life. Even the toughest will would eventually collapse in the endless dead silence, turning into a walking corpse.
However, Darian was completely unconcerned.
He said cheerfully: "You Kryptonians are really rigid. Why must you transform Earth and do some kind of genetic engineering? Can't you just reproduce naturally like Clark's birth parents?"
"It just so happens that it's just the two of us now. As a righteous Superheroes, I am willing to contribute my body and genes to rebuild Kryptonian civilization."
Darian straightened his back, putting on a grand appearance of self-sacrifice for the sake of the greater good.
Faora was trembling with rage, gritting her teeth: "I won't let you have it easy. I will cripple your limbs, make you unable to move, and throw you into the uninhabited area of this wasteland, letting you suffer endlessly in the eternal dead silence."
As her words fell, several figures descended beside her.
They were all the Kryptonian warriors who had been swept into the portal earlier. Everyone stared fixedly at Darian, their eyes filled with deep-seated hatred.
This time, it wasn't because of the taunt potion.
The Kryptonians had the thought imprint of protecting Kryptonian engraved into their genes. Kryptonian was their lifelong faith and obsession, and the only meaning for their existence.
Darian destroying the world engine was equivalent to personally extinguishing all their hope; this enmity was irreconcilable.
Facing the crowd of tiger-eyed Kryptonian warriors, Darian said awkwardly: "Turns out there are so many brothers here; it seems you don't need me. Uh, I forgot to turn off the clothes dryer at home. I need to go back and air out the gas. Bye everyone."
After saying this, he turned abruptly and ran for his life.
"Catch him!"
Faora gave the order and was the first to pursue him.
The rest of the Kryptonian warriors also immediately followed, and several figures launched an intense chase across the desolate Gobi.
Darian sprinted forward at full speed, with the thrusters of the ultron armor turned to the maximum.
But the Kryptonian warriors' speed was also extremely fast, especially Faora's. She was getting closer and closer to him, harassing him with heat rays from time to time.
Darian quickly glanced at the game map and found that he was still in a combat state, making it impossible to teleport remotely.
Suddenly, two heat rays shot from diagonally above. Darian couldn't dodge in time and was grazed on the thigh. His center of gravity shifted, and he slammed heavily into the black rock wall beside him.
Just as Darian propped himself up against the rock wall, the Kryptonian warriors had already surrounded him, but they all kept a certain distance to prevent him from using Kryptonite to counterattack.
"You can't escape."
Faora stood in the center of the encirclement, looking at Darian with a cold expression.
Darian was not panicked at all and raised an international friendly gesture to this group of Kryptonians.
"Idiots—you all just enjoy yourselves here slowly. I'm taking my leave. Bye-bye."
Without waiting for anyone to react, Darian immediately took out an ancient-looking scroll from his game inventory and tore it open directly.
[Item: Random Teleportation Scroll (Immediately teleports to a random location; can also be used in combat state)]
The moment the scroll shattered, a mysterious glimmer enveloped Darian's entire body.
The next second, Darian's figure vanished into thin air from the spot, leaving no trace behind.
Faora froze in place, the madness and ferocity on her face instantly frozen, then completely erupted.
"No—!"
Darian certainly wouldn't stay behind to risk his life with these Kryptonians.
With so many Kryptonians, even if he could win, he would waste a large amount of items in vain, which would be totally not worth the gain.
Running away decisively was the wisest choice.
The only pity was that this hasty escape failed to activate the map teleportation point for the Phantom Zone.
However, he was not worried. In the future, as long as he obtained the core technology of the phantom projector from Clark, he could actively travel back and forth to this dimension at any time.
"That said, where have I ended up now?"
Darian looked at the surrounding environment and saw a crimson world.
Everywhere were broken architectural ruins, and strong winds howling with scorching sand and gravel blew past. The sky and Earth were filled with a rich aura of annihilation, and everything exuded a state of decay and deathly silence.
He felt a bit familiar with the scene before him, as if he had seen the aftermath of a nuclear explosion on the internet.
And in the air, there was a strong smell of sulfur, extremely pungent.
Darian had been frequently dealing with exorcism cases recently, so he was more than familiar with this scent; this was the unique aura of Hell.
In other words, this place was Hell?
"Why did I teleport to Hell? I'm not that jerk Constantine. Shouldn't a good person like me be teleported to Heaven?"
Darian was also speechless. With such a huge random teleportation range, why did it have to teleport him to this godforsaken place?
A truly godforsaken place.
But since he was already here, leaving just like that was a bit of a pity, after all, he had consumed an important escape item.
Darian looked at the game map and found that there was also an unactivated teleportation anchor point here.
He immediately made up his mind to just stroll around and explore, activating the teleportation point for this map, which wouldn't make his trip a waste.
But before Darian had walked very far, dozens of shriveled demons with long, twisted limbs crawled out from the gaps in the ruins.
Their hollow eyes stared fixedly at Darian, their mouths making ho-ho strange noises, their eyes full of greed.
"It's a living human!"
"He smells so good, he must taste great!"
"I want to eat him!"
Darian was like a durian in a sealed space; the scent of a living person was particularly conspicuous in this Hell. The demons all sensed Darian's identity as a living human and immediately roared, pouncing from all directions to kill him.
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