*Life’s A Struggle*
“Ugh—”
Jonathan’s pupils contracted sharply, his mouth snapping wide open.
He looked as if he wanted to say something, but before his vocal cords could vibrate, his chest spasmed violently.
Immediately after, his body arched backward like he’d been hit by an electric shock, the back of his head striking the concrete floor with a dull thud.
Then came a second time, a third, a fourth…
Continuous, violent, full-body convulsions.
His limbs thrashed uncontrollably against the concrete, his fingers curling into claws that dug straight into his palms.
“Jon!”
Martha lunged forward, trying to pin down Jonathan’s shoulders, but she was nearly struck in the face by Jonathan’s reflexively flailing arm.
In the end, it was John who used his arm to pin Jonathan down with crushing force, finally bringing his thrashing body under some semblance of control.
Jonathan’s warm, brown eyes, which always held a hint of a smile in the dim light, had rolled back.
His pupils had disappeared beneath his upper eyelids, leaving only two bloodshot slits of white.
“John, quickly, look at what’s happening to Jon…”
John pulled the sobbing Martha behind him, using his body to shield her from Jonathan, and his pupils constricted sharply.
*Damn it…
what the hell is going on?*
He had X-ray vision.
He could gauge a person’s physical state by looking at their dynamic internal organs.
He had once analyzed A-Train’s swollen, failing heart, and he knew that son of a bitch Butcher had a brain tumor.
But right now, he had to diagnose Jonathan’s condition as fast as humanly possible.
*Damn it…
there’s absolutely no room for error!*
In an instant, he narrowed his pupil diameter from normal to the size of a pinhead, then split, reorganized, and refocused his gaze.
His X-ray vision pierced brutally through skin, fat, intercostal muscles, and ribs, driving all the way in.
Past the intricate texture of the bone trabeculae, past the translucent membrane of the pericardium, and finally stopping at the weakly beating heart.
And then, John witnessed an incredibly bizarre sight.
It was unmistakably a mass of black mist composed of some unknown substance, coiling and biting at Jonathan’s heart like a viper.
*What the fuck is that?*
*When did it get there?*
For over a decade, John had used his X-ray vision to monitor the health of Jonathan and Martha more than once.
Over all these years, he could have drawn the bifurcation angle of Jonathan’s coronary arteries with his eyes closed.
He knew the location of his myocardial bridge better than the latch on his own barn door.
Of course, checking these things regularly wasn’t just for peace of mind.
It was to keep them bound to him.
To ensure these two didn’t develop any physical issues when he wasn’t looking.
To John, that was absolutely unacceptable.
This “love” was something he had to possess completely, holding it in a vice grip, refusing to let any external factor threaten it.
But this black mist didn’t look like thrombosis or calcification.
It was completely unlike any pathological image he had ever seen in the Vought medical database.
It was squirming.
Squirming in a purely physical sense.
It was even shifting in a slow, creeping manner, like a glob of ancient soot peeling off the inner wall of a chimney.
*What?*
*This damn thing is alive!*
Just as John reached this shocking conclusion, the black mist began to coalesce with conscious intent.
It gathered and tightened above the heart, squeezing two arcs out of the chaos, stretching and curving them.
Finally, it formed the shape of human eyes.
As if sensing John’s gaze, a single eye eerily materialized within those contours and slowly opened.
The pupil was a vertical slit, as black as an abyss, staring straight back at John.
“Sigh…”
With a sigh that seemed to echo from ancient times, everything within John’s sensory range suddenly ground to a halt.
Yes, frozen.
Raindrops outside the window hung suspended in mid-air.
The wheat on the ridges remained bent over, frozen in mid-sway.
A corn leaf, torn off by the wind, was locked in place mid-flight.
The droplets of water on the tip of the leaf stopped at the very instant they were about to fall, reflecting the light like drops of liquid amber.
The entire world seemed to have been paused.
Only John could move.
*Who is it?*
John’s first reaction was rage.
Not fear.
*What the fuck is this useless world—*
This useless world, which he had convinced himself had “absolutely zero supes,” actually harbored a supe capable of freezing time?
Then what the hell was the point of him keeping his promise to Jonathan, playing the ordinary kid and holding back for eighteen fucking years?
What was he even protecting himself against?
The air?
The corn?
Against Smallville, where the fat-ass sheriff couldn’t even hold his service pistol steady?
Don’t give me that bullshit…
His anger suddenly cooled.
He had lived two lifetimes.
In his previous life, he was the strongest Homelander in the world.
He had fought Queen Maeve high above New York Harbor, and he had clashed with his biological father, Soldier Boy, the strongest of the first generation.
But there had never been an anomaly this far off the charts.
Not even in the archives Vought had kept over the decades.
This was far beyond what any supe could achieve.
Even in extreme speed, that traitorous bastard A-Train could only enter a “pseudo-state” approaching stillness.
When A-Train rescued the Boys from the concentration camp, John had actually been able to sense it.
“My, my…
what an extraordinary counterpart~”
The voice came from behind without any warning.
John spun around instantly.
Without him realizing when, a man in a white suit had seated himself at the kitchen dining table.
It was more like he had been sitting there all along after time paused, only choosing to reveal himself now.
The man’s skin was paler than a corpse’s, his facial features looking as though they had been carved with a scalpel by an overly fastidious creator.
He was a fraction handsomer than John.
He wore a deep red velvet jacket over black trousers.
He had three buttons undone at the collar, revealing a tattoo of an inverted pentagram on his collarbone.
A wine glass was held between his long, slender fingers as he leaned against the old wooden chair in John’s kitchen.
His posture was lazy, one leg crossed over the other, the tip of his shoe polished to a high gleam.
His entire aesthetic was utterly out of place in this kitchen, which smelled of animal feed and motor oil.
“Who the fuck are you…
a local supe?”
“Why did you hurt Jonathan?”
John narrowed his eyes, gritting his teeth, every muscle in his body tensing as a chill raced up his spine.
He instinctively recognized this feeling.
Right before he died in his past life, when his powers were stripped by the chest blast, leaving him like a helpless mortal.
A complex mix of awe, irresistible force, despair, and unwilling resignation…
But this was by no means a matter of an irresistible force.
Since this person had appeared here.
And since he had dragged Jonathan into danger, he had crossed John’s ultimate red line.
Every dragon has a reverse scale; touch it, and you die.
He didn’t move, but the depths of his eyes began to heat up.
A faint, dark red glow flickered around the edges of his irises, his heat vision on the verge of semi-activation.
He stared at the man’s temples, calculating rapidly in his head.
It took only 0.3 seconds for his heat vision to charge from zero to full power.
Currently, the man was sitting in the chair, relaxed, his center of gravity leaning back, entirely devoid of a defensive stance.
If he struck now, the first burst of heat vision would target the forehead, the second would cut off his escape route to the left, and the third—
“Hahaha, I know you’re calculating how to kill me in your head, but don’t be in such a rush.
In fact…
I bear no ill will.”
“Allow me to introduce myself.
Lucifer Morningstar.”
Sensing the suffocating, concentrated killing intent emanating from John, the man remained completely unfazed.
Instead, he casually swirled the glass in his hand.
“The former boss of Hell, currently retired.
I do part-time work handling…
cross-dimensional complications.”
He set the glass on the table and stood up.
The moment he stood up, John noticed that Lucifer’s feet didn’t touch the floor.
A wafer-thin, dark gray halo separated the soles of his shoes from the floorboards.
He was hovering, supported by something, using a principle completely different from how John flew.
*Lucifer…*
*Could this bastard actually be the Satan from that damn mythology?*
“I can sense you thinking rather impolite thoughts…”
“Where did you come from…
I know.
What you are…
I can guess that too.”
“The Will of this universe told me that a little thief who shouldn’t exist fell into its domain.”
“Usurping a nest, taking a spot that should have belonged to someone else.”
“Though, when you came, you actually tore up his script and sat in his seat yourself…
Quite ballsy.”
Lucifer smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth curving upward.
“But before I finish, there’s a more pressing matter you haven’t noticed…”
“Your adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, right?”
John’s body stiffened for a moment, and he gritted his teeth, asking:
“So what does it have to do with him!
He’s just a mortal.
By your logic, shouldn’t I be the one getting purged?”
“Hold on, hold on…”
“Do you know the Jonathan Kent of this timeline?”
Lucifer slipped his hands into his pockets and walked to the window.
With his back to John, he stared at the corn leaves frozen in mid-air.
“He was supposed to die at 5:30 this afternoon.
A hurricane broke out, and in trying to save a shepherd dog trapped in a car, he was swept away by the storm.
A very decent death.
The local paper in Kansas even wrote an obituary for him, with the headline ‘Local Farmer Sacrifices Life to Save Dog.’ Martha Kent moved to Metropolis three years later.”
With that, Lucifer turned around and looked John in the eye.
“So, you changed his death.”
“Yes, you did what any son would do.
But the timeline is an incredibly rigid judge.
It doesn’t like being modified.”
“It snaps back.”
“No matter what, Jonathan Kent is going to die in an accident—maybe a car crash, or maybe a sudden heart attack like right now.”
“You can’t stop it, because it’s not an accident.
It’s the Force of Correction.
The rules of this universe are bending the derailed track back into place.”
Lucifer took a step forward, and the temperature in John’s eyes flared again.
But he chose to suppress it, staring at Lucifer with narrowed eyes.
Because he was utterly bewildered right now, and he wanted to figure out what the hell was going on.
“It wasn’t your doing…
What the fuck are you trying to say?”
“Remember when I said you took a spot that should have belonged to someone else?” Lucifer said.
“That was a guy named Clark.”
“Who the hell is Clark?
What kind of idiot has such a lame name?”
“To be precise, Clark Kent.”
“Who?”
The corner of Lucifer’s mouth twitched upward.
But it wasn’t a smile.
It was a mocking smirk, like a shark catching the scent of blood.
“Oh, interesting…
You actually don’t know him?”
“Why the fuck should I?”
John’s tone was filled with impatience.
“Who is Clark?
What backwater idiot…
Right now, I only want to know how to save my Jonathan.”
“Oh, he is far from insignificant.”
Lucifer set his wine glass on the table, laced his fingers together, and leaned forward slightly.
“His is the name written on the very first page of this universe’s script.
A baby from Krypton who fell into a cornfield, was picked up by the Kent couple, and basked in the sun for over twenty years.
In the end, he became the most perfect hero on this fucking planet.
A blue suit, a red cape, flying faster than you, punching through mountain ranges.
Later, humanity gave him a name…
Superman.”
He paused, observing John’s expression, then nodded with satisfaction.
“And you, my dear counterpart, fell into the very same cornfield, were picked up by the very same couple, and grew up under the very same sun.
But you aren’t him.
You crowded him out.
The timeline’s writer had Clark Kent’s script ready, but the lead actor didn’t show up.
Instead, you did.
A variant who slipped in through an unknown dimensional rift.
The Will of the World sneezed, lost its protagonist, and stuffed a double in without even realizing it.
Until today…
until you saved the old man who was supposed to draw his last breath today.”
John fell silent for a few seconds.
“So what is this…
the world writing a script just for him?
Is he some kind of goddamn golden child?”
“The eighteen years I’ve spent here, everything I’ve experienced, they’re real.
Jonathan, Martha, they are real.
They’re fucking real!”
“If you’re here to represent your goddamn Will of the World, let me tell you this…
bring it on.
I’ll fight you to the bitter end.”
Recalling how the Kents had cared for him unconditionally over the past eighteen years, even shaping his worldview, John viewed them as his private, untouchable domain—even if they weren’t his biological parents.
He didn’t even realize that this was the most resolute, defiant statement he had made across two lifetimes.
“No, I don’t really have much to say to that old man anyway.”
Lucifer leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and tapped his fingers lightly on his knee.
“Do you want to hear something even more disgusting?” he said.
“Clark Kent, Superman—I’ve seen his script.
Do you know what he is?
He is this universe’s definition of ‘good.’ On a cosmic scale, he will do the right thing at the right time, sacrifice himself for the right people, and shed the right tears before the right tombstones.
Perfect as a saint.
His very existence is a straight line, from point A to point B, with absolutely no deviation in between.
Boring as hell.
I’ve spent billions of years in Hell, witnessing every form of torture and depravity…
but nothing makes me sleepier than a perfect hero.”
He stood up and walked toward John.
This time, his feet stepped flat onto the floor, without the halo supporting his soles.
He had lowered himself deliberately.
He stopped in front of John, half a head taller, looking down at him.
Those nebulous eyes spun slowly, the fragments of light deep within no longer dark red, but turning a colder shade.
“So you ask me who Clark Kent is?
He is the man whose path is pre-written.
What are you?
You are a fucking bug, an error…
a cosmic-level accident.
But do you know what the funniest part of this whole thing is?”
He leaned down, his lips almost brushing John’s ear, his voice dropping to a whisper meant only for the two of them.
“Errors can be corrected.
Accidents can be magnified.
And the fake—can lock the real one out of the script forever.
You’re not Clark Kent?
You should fall to your knees and thank whatever god you believe in.
Because Clark Kent is a fucking slave.
His goodness is a chain, and his justice is a cage.
Once absolute order collapses, it mutates into an even more extreme form of annihilation.”
At this point, a fragment flashed through Lucifer’s mind—of a figure hovering in mid-air with glowing red eyes, holding the Bat’s severed head in his left hand.
“And you—
You are nothing.
You are nothing, which means you can be everything.”
He straightened up, patted John’s shoulder with his left hand, and reached out with his right, grabbing a roll of parchment out of thin air.
“So~ shall we make a deal?”