The long-sealed gates slowly opened once more.
Jessica gradually opened her eyes, and the first person she saw was Bruce, standing right in front of her.
"Bruce?"
"It's me." The Bat made no effort to deny it. Instead, he helped Jessica up from the ground.
"What happened?" Jessica examined Bruce, who now carried an air of weariness and fatigue, as though he had just journeyed a great distance to reach them.
But given Bruce's capabilities, that shouldn't have been possible.
Just then, the others around them also began to awaken.
"Did we succeed?" Captain America, upon waking, asked the moment he saw Bruce.
Bruce simply shook his head. "No. I only managed to save you."
Captain America's eyes flickered with a trace of disappointment at Bruce's words, but he quickly composed himself.
He looked at Bruce.
"Do we still have a chance to win?"
"We do."
Bruce gave a terse but firm reply.
"Then that's good enough." Captain America smiled at Bruce's response.
For someone like him, setbacks on the battlefield were nothing new.
A temporary victory or defeat could never determine the final outcome of a war.
"So, tell me—what's the situation now?" Captain America spoke as he helped up those beside him, addressing Bruce directly.
He wanted to know what had transpired while they had been unconscious.
"I found the mastermind behind it all," Bruce said, causing Captain America to pause for a moment.
But he soon accepted the explanation—there was no other way to account for everything that had happened.
"So, did you take them down?"
"Not by myself."
"There were others."
Bruce shook his head and began recounting the events that had taken place.
Time rewound to the moment they launched their assault on the Beyonders.
Inside the massive cube they deployed was a force Bruce had retrieved from countless parallel universes—variants of the Molecule Man.
A single Molecule Man possessed the power to destroy a universe. No one could predict what would happen when countless versions were gathered together.
Even Molecule Man himself could only make a rough guess. Doctor Doom hadn't done the calculations either.
All they needed to know was that this could deal a massive blow to the Beyonders.
But they had still underestimated their enemy.
When the Molecule Man fusion bomb rushed toward the Beyonders' constructs, the Beyonders seemed to immediately realize that their machines could not withstand such an attack.
In an instant, they reacted—dragging over the very universes Bruce had saved.
They tried to use these universes as a buffer against the Molecule Man bomb.
Bruce and the others had underestimated the Beyonders, but the Beyonders, too, had underestimated the power of the bomb. Its destructive force was beyond even their expectations.
Even with numerous universes used to absorb the impact...
It still wasn't enough.
They fell.
The immense energy within the Beyonders' bodies tore through space and surged toward Bruce and the others.
Molecule Man absorbed a massive amount of this energy in an instant.
But even he couldn't absorb it all.
The Beyonders' power was simply too vast. Just storing it alone was already too much for Molecule Man to handle.
He needed others to help bear the load.
Among the four of them, Doctor Strange—being the Sorcerer Supreme—was the best candidate. But he refused.
He was unwilling to accept that power.
Molecule Man couldn't wait any longer.
He forcibly channeled the excess energy into Bruce and Doctor Doom.
In that moment, Bruce and Doom witnessed the collision of endless universes—those final two universes clashing together.
At the same time, the two of them acted, fusing the shattered pieces of the multiverse into a newly formed, relatively complete world.
This was the so-called Battleworld.
During that process, Doctor Doom saw Sue Storm—the Invisible Woman—and others, who had been lost in the void after the Ark was damaged.
He reached out and pulled them back, rescuing them from what would have been certain death.
That act gave Doom a new idea.
Standing on this new planet, he and Bruce reached a disagreement.
Bruce believed that everyone had a right to know the truth—to understand what had happened.
That their original universes were completely gone.
But Doom refused.
After hearing Bruce's words, he immediately launched a torrent of immense energy at him.
But even with the power of the Beyonders, he couldn't touch Bruce under the protection of the Speed Force.
Not to mention, Bruce himself now also possessed Beyonder-level power.
"What are you trying to do?" Bruce stared at Doom, whose eyes were now filled with a ferocious gleam.
"I will be the true god who creates all."
Doom's words confirmed Bruce's suspicions.
"You've merely stolen someone else's power—you're nothing but a false god."
Bruce responded without hesitation.
The Speed Force surged around him, and in the blink of an eye, Bruce entered an all-out state of irrational speed.
Unmatched velocity meant unmatched power.
In an instant, he was in front of Doom, blasting energy directly at his face.
With the Speed Force on his side, Doom had no way of dodging.
But Doom had something Bruce did not—magic.
Using his newfound energy, Doom erected a magical barrier to block Bruce's attacks.
Even so, the barrier couldn't hold everything back.
Bruce's attack frequency was too intense. Each layer of magical defense was shattered almost as quickly as it formed. All Doom could do was continuously patch layer after layer on himself...
While trying to counterattack.
On the other side, Doctor Strange watched the two clash, visibly anxious.
He was also stunned by the terrifying power of the Beyonders.
He turned to Molecule Man beside him.
As the vessel for the Beyonders' divine power, he was the one most qualified to stop this war.
But now, the Molecule Man merely observed Bruce, who was relentlessly attacking Doom.
He did nothing.
Doctor Doom, irritated by Bruce's constant assault, spread his hands wide. A massive surge of energy erupted from him, forcibly pushing Bruce back.
"What I'm doing is what's right," Doom declared, his hands glowing with a brilliant white light.
With a thrust of his arms, energy surged toward Bruce.
This time, Doom wasn't aiming for a precise strike. Instead, he expanded his attack to cover every possible angle Bruce could use to evade.
Although Doom's attack accounted for every possibility—
Speed Force doesn't play by any rules.
Bruce, who had access to frequencies beyond the divine, instantly found the same frequency and used it to dodge Doom's attack.
He activated resonance in an instant. The energy smoothly passed through Bruce's body—
Without causing him any harm.
As the light faded, Doom saw Bruce, completely unscathed.
Bruce gave him no time to react. In a flash, he was in front of Doom, landing a heavy punch straight to his face.
It was like a small asteroid colliding with Earth.
But even that had no real effect on Doom.
How could a god be killed by such an attack?
Even if Doom was only a false god empowered by someone else's strength, he couldn't be defeated by something like that.
Before Doom could recover, Bruce's fists, now overflowing with divine power surpassing even that of the gods, rained down upon him.
But within that pure white divine power, there was a trace of black.
The black energy floated faintly on the surface of the white, nearly invisible unless examined closely.
And now, that black glow began to slowly corrode the white divine energy.
With each punch Bruce threw, the black energy seeped deeper.
Still, the black energy remained cautious, spreading slowly and methodically.
The Molecule Man had already sensed something unusual about Bruce's divine power, but he didn't immediately extract it. He wanted to determine whether the anomaly came from Bruce himself or something else.
Now, he could conclude—there was something inside Bruce that they didn't understand.
Even though Molecule Man possessed power beyond the gods, he couldn't see through it.
But at this point, he acted.
The divine power granted to Bruce was directly extracted by the Molecule Man.
Bruce, who had been dominating Doom, instantly lost the divine energy in his fists.
This gave Doom the chance to strike back.
Doom withstood Bruce's blow and retaliated with a blast of energy to Bruce's chest.
At that moment, Bruce once again activated Speed Force to dodge.
But that's exactly what Doom wanted—to force Bruce to dodge.
He followed the energy blast and closed the distance to Bruce in a flash.
Though the Speed Force was powerful, it still required Bruce to rematerialize.
Doom struck at just that moment.
His fist connected with Bruce's face, followed by an explosion of energy that sent Bruce flying.
But this wasn't what Doom had expected.
In his mind, that blow should've shattered Bruce's skull.
Why did it only send him flying?
Something wasn't right.
In the distance, Bruce slowly stood up.
Half his face was gone—but shockingly, it began regenerating.
The rapidly growing flesh was unsettling to witness.
Doom wasn't wrong—his attack had indeed inflicted massive damage. But Bruce had already replaced Barry with another version of himself at that time.
The Ravager had taken Bruce's place.
Looking at the Molecule Man, Bruce couldn't understand why he had suddenly withdrawn his power.
This was entirely different from before.
The Molecule Man calmly observed Bruce, whose appearance had changed dramatically.
"You shouldn't possess that power," he said, but offered no explanation or further comment.
At that moment, Doom launched another attack.
His energy poured out without restraint, knowing that Molecule Man, after reclaiming Bruce's power, had infused it into Doom himself.
This gave Doom the freedom to unleash his divine power recklessly.
Even the Ravager couldn't withstand the force of it.
Bruce's body was completely destroyed by Doom's energy.
Seeing Bruce reduced to a skeleton, Doom still wasn't reassured—he hurled the remains even farther away.
He established a secluded zone there, isolated from all others, hoping Bruce would never return.
Afterward, he rebuilt the Battleworld, nearly recreating all the named heroes and assigning them to various regions to govern.
He altered their memories, making everyone believe that Battleworld had been created by the God-King Doom in alliance with a dark god.
According to Doom's narrative, that dark god had perished deep in the cosmos after completing his task.
However, Doom didn't conceal the truth from the Thor Corps, his personal army. He told them part of the truth and ordered them to always remain vigilant in case Bruce returned.
Even the Molecule Man couldn't be certain whether Bruce was truly dead.
This unease constantly lingered in Doom's heart.
And rightly so—Bruce wasn't dead. Doomsday couldn't possibly die so easily.
However, Doom's attack had drastically slowed Bruce's regeneration.
It took him nearly seven years to come back to life and claw his way out from beneath the earth.
He erased all traces of himself.
Then spent another year and more traveling from his burial site to the present location.
During that time, Bruce gradually pieced together why the Molecule Man had withdrawn his divine power—
After all, the changes in the mental prison couldn't be faked.
Now back in the present, Bruce had explained everything to the members of the Batcave.
Listening to Bruce's experience, they were at a loss for words.
Jessica immediately embraced him.
Her last memory was of golden lightning flooding the Batcave. She had no idea what had happened. It felt like she'd gone to sleep, and the entire world had changed overnight.
"So, what do we do now?"
Captain America looked at Bruce.
"Doom isn't a god. He has no right to alter anyone's memories. We have to bring him down," Bruce said firmly. "We need to prepare."
(End of Chapter)
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