At the entrance to the presidential office, Lex adjusted his tie. As the door slowly opened, the crisp sound of leather shoes beca slightly hurried.
"I believe you've already seen the information, so I won't waste words. To put it simply, a monster shattered rcury with one blow, and now we don't know if it will co towards Earth."
"We need more information," the president's assistant spoke, "so that we can assess the threat and take action."
Lex's tone was impatient. He said, "Just listen to what I say—you won't be able to assess anything effectively. Because right now, there's no weapon on Earth that can deal with it. We can only rely on the Justice League."
"The Justice League is actively taking asures. They will ensure the risk to Earth is minimized, and you won't need to pay any price for this. You just need to manage yourselves."
"Let repeat. Whether I co here or soone goes to Moscow, our purpose is the sa. To make sure you can manage yourselves in such tis and not bring trouble to the Justice League. Understand?"
"We need to give the public an explanation," the president said, "It might not be the full truth, but we need to let them know why we're making such a big fuss. Otherwise, it could cause panic, which would be more troubleso."
"Are you proposing to make the information public? No, it's not necessary. Soon, they will all know."
"What do you an?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the abundant light in the presidential office slowly dimd.
Everyone turned to look out the window in horror. The bright star always suspended in the sky was being swallowed by so terrifying dark energy.
"This...this..." The president stepped back in shock, almost knocking over a chair.
"This is our doing," Lex said, "We've added a protective shield around the Sun to prevent the enemy from destroying the Solar System by detonating the Sun."
"From now until the alarm is lifted, ultraviolet intensity will decrease by 90%. Be prepared for more than two months of extre night. The exact ti depends on how difficult the opponent is to handle."
The president's mouth wouldn't close. He turned and said, trembling, "Will the Sun still shine?"
"Once the issue is resolved, it will imdiately be restored. I want you to explain this to the public. It's a protective asure. Understand?"
"We might not be able to make them fully understand..."
"Just let them know. Then deploy guards and the military to ensure they stay where they should be. Okay?"
The president swallowed and nodded.
The sa scenario also played out in the Kremlin. Oliver's voice ca from the phone:
"All you need to do is not cause trouble. Try to alleviate public panic and control them. Prepare adequate survival supplies for a period of extre night."
"Of course. If you want to know more details of the battle or need help, send soone you trust over..."
As the Sun was swallowed, humans on Earth inevitably panicked. But soon, nurous orders were issued from various national capitals.
The explanation thods varied, but the content was similar: aliens attacked rcury, and covering the Sun was to protect Earth. The Justice League is fighting the enemy, but this situation may last for months.
This was the 11th item in their ergency plan: Once a planetary disaster occurs within the Solar System, imdiately protect the Sun.
A planetary disaster ans the opponent has the power to easily destroy planets. Such level of power can also easily affect the Sun. The best way to destroy the Solar System is to destroy the Sun.
Whether causing the Sun to explode or extinguish, the Solar System would basically be dood. It's not just the Solar System, every star system operates on a similar principle. So when a star system encounters the enemy, the most important task is to protect the star.
Bruce hovered not far from the Sun. At this mont, the entire gigantic star was already enveloped by dark energy from Barbados.
This power is very peculiar; it doesn't affect heat emission but affects light. Light can't escape the energy shield, so from Earth, the Sun seems to be in an eclipse. The whole world has entered night. This is a defense asure they've rehearsed before.
Bruce obtained a lot of energy from Barbados, but dark energy is not as handy as green lantern energy. This energy is the primordial dark power of the world, essentially polluting whoever uses it. The outco can be referenced in Batman of the Dark Knights.
Bruce once wanted to use this energy to build a transportation network in Gotham. Gothamites indeed have a higher resistance, but not high enough to withstand higher energy concentration. Ordinary humans can't bear it.
So most of the energy was stored by Bruce for ergency reserves. And now it's being put to use.
Actually, even wrapping the whole Sun in a thick shield used only a small portion of the energy. Bruce still has plenty left. In the coming days, his job is to hover by the Sun, continuously charging the shield.
Hal and Barry had already penetrated the core of the explosion site. There wasn't much left here, a large amount of debris floated in the silent cosmos. Hal used detection instrunts to search for the black box signal.
"It's terrifying," Barry sighed, "It's hard to imagine what kind of existence could shatter a planet with one blow."
"Can't you do it too?"
"That was a cheap trick," Barry shook his head and said, "using speed to slice through space. Essentially, the planet wasn't destroyed, just the space was shattered."
"The result is the sa," Hal said, "if the opponent is too strong, you might have to join the fight this ti. You better be prepared."
"I've always been prepared."
"Got it." Hal pointed in a direction and then said, "This way."
The two flew over. In the debris of half a room, Hal found the black box that was continuously emitting signals.
"Ron, we found the black box and are heading back now... wait."
Hal suddenly stopped. He looked around and then said to Barry, "Do you feel anything?"
"What?"
"It feels like soone is watching us." A trace of fear flashed in Hal's eyes. He turned around but saw nothing.
Seeing that Hal's expression was genuine, Barry tried calling out in his mind, "Professor Xavier, are you there?"
"I'm here." Charles' voice appeared in his mind, "I'm helping you resist the prying of a certain presence."
Barry gasped and said, "So he's still here, he hasn't left?!"
"No, his main body might have left, but he left behind sothing like a projection. If your spiritual power isn't strong enough, you can't see him. But he can observe you."
"I suggest you leave here quickly. He could return at any mont. Based on his ntal strength, you can't possibly be his match."
Barry quickly tugged at Hal and then said, "Maybe it's your illusion, we should leave quickly."
Saying that, without waiting for Hal's agreent, Barry directly pulled him into the Divine Speed, taking him back to Earth at the fastest speed.
After returning, Barry breathed a sigh of relief but still cautiously asked in his mind, "Have we left his observation range?"
"It should be all right now."
Only then did Barry tell Hal about his conversation with Charles. After listening, Hal also shivered: having Charles cause trouble with ghosts wasn't enough, now there's an invisible projection. Nobody told him that working for the Justice League involved ghost hunting!
The two returned to the Luthor Building, placed the black box into the machine to start playback, and transmitted the video data to everyone.
The black box was filming the energy core, with a narrow field of view but very clear footage. After the intense energy interference ripples, a gray-white figure flashed past the cara. Imdiately, rcury disintegrated.
Hal controlled the machine to slow down the footage repeatedly. Finally, they saw a strong man with gray-white skin, long black hair, and a suspected inverted triangle symbol on his chest.
His upper body was bare, with his skin having a tallic gray-white sheen. He wore pants on his lower body, with a long red cloak around his waist fluttering behind him as he ran.
Zooming in closer, they could see that his facial features were quite defined and handso, except for several scars on his face. His lips were the most severely injured, looking like they'd been stitched up by sothing.
Because of his speed, he flashed through the footage, revealing no more details.
At this mont, Charles' voice appeared in Ron's mind network, "The projection I saw looks the sa."
This basically confird that the man in the footage was the culprit behind the disintegration of the rcury Base.
Hal punched the table, but his anger only erupted for a mont before he suppressed it.
Now, everyone in the mind network was asking the sa question — why did he want to destroy rcury?
He appeared suddenly, destroyed rcury, and then vanished. It seed like he appeared just to destroy rcury.
But destroying rcury, aside from causing financial loss to Earth, had no other benefits. Did he do it just to make Earth unhappy?
As an Earth Surface Civilization, Earth had little opportunity to offend aliens and hadn't made enemies with any alien civilizations.
Besides, if he could destroy rcury with one punch, it wouldn't take many punches to destroy Earth. If he chose to attack Earth directly, the Justice League would be in real trouble.
"We need to keep observing," Oliver said, "he's watching us, and we're watching him, but we have the intelligence advantage. The professor should soon figure out who he is."
In the Gotham University Office, Shiller also received the latest photos. Previously, when Harry described it, he couldn't pinpoint the exact character, but upon seeing the photos, he knew — this guy was Hai'er.
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