Old Arthur's view on superhumans genuinely caught Joey off guard.
Kansas was a relatively conservative agricultural state, with simple folkways and a strong religious atmosphere.
To put it bluntly, the overall level of education among the populace wasn't very high. People were more superstitious, and with the constant propaganda from his peers, they tended to be more accepting of superhumans. They believed that those with superpowers were messengers of God—Messiahs sent down by the Lord.
Having lived once before, Joey did believe that gods might exist. There could well be an entity possessing supreme power even greater than Darkseid's—but it was definitely not the kind of "God" people on Earth imagined.
Such a being wouldn't care in the slightest about what happened on Earth, just as Joey himself wouldn't care whether a cluster of single-celled organisms swimming in the liquid methane might evolve into multicellular life over the next forty thousand years.
Joey strolled unhurriedly along the dirt path between the fields, heading home.
By the time the sun dipped below the western horizon, he had finally reached the edge of his family's land. The primary crop grown on a large scale in Kansas wasn't corn, but wheat—like the wheat Laurie's family planted.
His own father, Jonathan Kent, a stubborn man who had remained that way his entire life, had chosen the more difficult crop to grow and maintain: corn.
It was nearly wheat harvest season, while the corn had just passed the seedling stage and begun to grow. When Joey saw the natural boundary formed by golden wheat heads on one side and deep green cornfields on the other, he knew he wasn't far from home.
The corn hadn't tasseled yet, but it had already grown to an impressive height—taller than Joey himself. Without relying on his intermittently refreshing super vision to maintain his sense of direction, he might have gotten lost in this jungle of corn.
But now, all he needed to do was look toward home—and saw fire.
He began to run without hesitation. Each footfall slammed into the earth with tremendous force, blasting deep craters and tearing corn stalks up by the roots. Then came the shockwave of breaking the sound barrier, flattening vast swathes of corn in its wake.
Joey leapt into the air. The roaring wind whipped his clothes violently—if one didn't count those earlier attempts at hovering with both feet barely off the ground, this might well have been his first true flight in this world.
The sonic boom thundered across the sky, but Joey had no time to care. He wouldn't even need a second—he could reach his home immediately—if it could still be called his home.
Joey's house had been reduced to rubble. Across several thousand square meters, there was nothing left but burning, dark-red flames. The familiar wooden house, barn, and cattle shed were all gone. Activating his super vision, Joey scanned the area and found no sign of his parents.
But it wasn't a total loss. Amid the sea of fire, he saw a pitch-black silhouette floating in the air.
Its entire body was shrouded in a black-and-purple cloak. The edges of the cloak stirred without wind, pushing away the surrounding flames, blooming like a black lotus amid the red inferno. Even Joey's super vision couldn't penetrate the cloak to see the figure's true form.
But there was no need to.
Joey dove downward, his fist and heat vision already primed. As the saying went—
Punch first. Ask questions while punching.
If there were a ranking for "Least Livable Cities in the United States," Gotham would undoubtedly claim the top spot.
"Crime shatters the stillness of the night. Sudden gunshots jolt children awake from their dreams. Wails echo through the darkness as police cars chase desperate men and women through narrow streets, accompanied by screeching brakes and screaming sirens."
That was how Daily Planet investigative reporter Lois Lane described the nights of this city of sin.
If that still wasn't enough to dissuade you from living in Gotham, then aside from urban legends of a bat demon lurking in the shadows, the giggles of a clown occasionally drifting from dark alleyways, the city was also home to what might be the most dangerous demon-worshiping cult in the universe: the Church of Blood.
This is where the story truly begins.
The demon worshipers of the Church of Blood deceived a naive young woman named Angela Roth and offered her as a sacrifice to their master, a powerful demon known as Trigon.
Trigon manifested in an almost perfect human form and accepted the offering. After a blasphemous union, the woman gave birth to a half-blood girl named Raven.
That is how Raven was born. As for how her mother later escaped from Trigon's side, raised Raven, and how Raven herself was eventually dragged back into the hell dimension by her overly controlling father—that was another long story entirely.
The more urgent problem now was this:
In order to escape the hell dimension and the pursuit of Trigon's minions, Raven had been forced to open a passage from Hell into the material universe.
When this hasty teleportation began, to avoid blindly plunging into deep space or some planet even more fragile than herself, Raven chose the most solid and reliable anchor point in the material universe—
Superman.
Raven's very purpose of existence was to serve as a key for Trigon's invasion of the material universe, which made her innate cross-dimensional teleportation abilities extraordinarily powerful. For her, crossing worlds and dimensions was no more difficult than hopping down two or three steps.
Like a drop of dew falling from a leaf into the ocean, with a single flicker she should have arrived near the strongest of the Justice League's seven members—but interference from her pursuers turned this teleportation into a catastrophic failure.
In an instant, Raven tore open a hell gate large enough for powerful demons to pass through, projecting a portion of Hell itself into the material universe. Her pursuers followed her through—
Although she tried to limit the scope, destruction was inevitable. Hellfire raged, and one of her brothers—another son of Trigon, known as Wrath—burned an entire tract of land to ash as he forced his way through the portal.
Cut off from the support of the hell dimension, Wrath was no match for Raven. Her essence far surpassed that of her brothers. After only a few brief exchanges, Wrath was suppressed and sealed.
But demons were notoriously difficult to truly seal or kill. As long as Wrath could draw sustenance from emotion, he still had a chance to break free—
And what fury could burn brighter on this planet than that of a Kryptonian?
Raven raised her hand and conjured a violet magical barrier, deflecting the incoming heat vision. The already charred ground instantly liquefied into seething magma.
Then Raven blinked away. The land she had stood on was gouged into a crater over ten meters deep by the massive impact, and the shockwave flattened the entire surface, even extinguishing the hellfire.
Before she could stabilize herself after the teleport, the Kryptonian's second attack was already upon her. Raven barely had time to cast a temporary protective spell.
The spell worked—but not completely.
The Kryptonian's fist shattered the shield and smashed into her face.
He then grabbed the edge of her cloak, trying to drag her back and continue the assault. Left with no choice, Raven tore the cloak free and released a magical shockwave to force distance between them.
Raven was an extremely well-rounded spellcaster—so well-rounded that it bordered on excess. For example, she could sense another person's thoughts and emotions through a single touch.
Under other circumstances, this might have been a useful surprise.
But right now, Raven had only one thought:
I'm finished.
The Kryptonian's fury surged into Raven through that moment of contact. Such overwhelming rage made even her own dark essence recoil in fear—and was immediately absorbed by the being she had just sealed away: Wrath.
Raven's mind became a battlefield. The searing, tearing pain in her head left her unable to stand. She collapsed to the ground and was forced to release the demon within her—
Wrath broke free.
With a piercing scream from Raven, dark red smoke poured from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, gradually coalescing into a massive silhouette. The surrounding hellfire reignited.
Amid the rolling flames, the towering demon revealed its true form. Two horns crowned its head, wings spread from its back, six eyes glared from its face. Vein-like demonic markings connected its eyes to its torso, pulsing and flickering across its dark red skin.
This was Wrath, one of Trigon's offspring.
Now free, it was ready to unleash its fury upon this world—
—Except not.
Wrath formed two flaming spears and plunged them into Raven's shoulders, pinning his sister helplessly to the ground. Then he spread his wings and leapt into the sky.
During his clash with Raven in her mind, the strongest emotion he had sensed wasn't rage—
It was fear.
Through that fear, Wrath understood why he had been able to absorb enough fury to break free so instantly.
Because their conflict had apparently claimed the lives of Superman's parents.
The fury he had brought from the hell dimension was annihilation incarnate to mortals—contact meant total obliteration of body and soul.
Unlike Raven, Wrath didn't need physical contact to feel the raging emotions of others.
And now, behind him—
No, not a single blaze, but an entire inferno of wrath was roaring.
All he needed to do was escape—
Escape as far as possible, before that fire went out.
Escape to a place without a yellow sun.